Dave G.

I went quick connects, one hose between multi brand airbrushes. The adapters I use are iwata ( 1/8 actually) . The other end of the hose is Iwata ( 1/8) to 1/4. I do still have a 50 yo line with Badger to 1/4 nipple that plugs into my portable compressor. All adapters have since been bought from Amazon. My airbrushes are Ganzton Iwata knock off, my original 50 yo Badger 200, two Paasche airbrushes, the H and suction feed dual action. The quick connects make swapping out simple. My airbrushes all have a connector nipple, in fact that Paasche dual action came with one. The compressor has a 1/4 female quick connect on it for feeding air hoses for air tools. So my airbrush hose is adapted to that and has the 1/4 male end on it.. On the other end, the airbrush end is Iwata 1/8 quick connect. I like on that Ganzton airbrush, the Mac valve. This way you can just set 30 or 35 psi psi, and adjust down for your proper spray pattern on board the airbrush. All airbrushes should have a Mac valve, just my opinion. Anyway, Point Zero makes a nice water trap regulator if you're looking for one of those for say the side of your work station. Very accurate. Set your compressor output for 50 psi then line pressure after your work station water trap for whatever you need for flowing air. With that 350 airbrush, Id guess start at 25 psi working pressure ( in other words with the air flowing through the brush, not static pressure). Back in the day, so to speak, I had the Badger starter brush and the Badger 200. The best thing I ever ran into for spraying Testors enamels was the setting of 35 psi. Ya it cause some extra over spray but the paint stomization and flow out was phenomenal. Big difference from enamel and the then popular Floquil paints, in terms of pressure.

Me too !

Honestly, when I was doing contests, I found the worst critics to be outside the arena, so called friends. The judges at least had a kind word on how to improve, if asked. Same for top winners in many cases. Outside the arena, you got mocked for placing third with a ribbon, though they never entered a contest themselves. I like in the bible, where it says " a kind word turns away wrath but a harsh word stirs up anger". Proverbs 15:1

With step side beds, I do the fenders and tailgate separate from the bed, personally. But all in the same session . If you assemble the bed and fenders first, you will get blow back up under the rail. It's more difficult, at least for me, to get all the paint to lay down the same. Not to mention polishing later on. It's just my way. Can't help with the primer selection, the Duplicolor advocates will have to answer that part. I don't use Duplicolor.

An awesome point you make is that you build to a level you determined is satisfying to you.

As I said, something good to aspire to.

I learned a lot actually from entering a contest. It may have been 1960, I would have been 10 or 11, and I placed last in my class.The biggest blooper was the paint. But I got to see details others put into their entries. I went back the next year and won a ribbon with an AMT 49 Ford, simply by applying what I had learned and subscribing to a car modelers magazine. I still didn't win the contest and get the trophy, but I placed at least. I didn't go into modeling already a winner for sure. None of us do.

Good for a beginner to aspire to, or anyone. There are good practices at use. Then again, I know when I began, it took time to acquire, not just skill but tools. And you don't have the keen eye yet, where you might see the finished product of HPI guy results as "good enough for me", scenario. Considering the beginner knows nothing at all, perhaps. I like this guys parts tree nippers ! But there is no word spoken as to what brand etc.

Not for long.

I use a bit of everything, from craft paints in Createx transparent base and 4030 for base coating, to actual Createx, Rustoleum 2x decanted, Testors enamels, Tamiya LP thinned with MLT, Tamiya acrylics with the same thinner, and once every four years even some MCW. Vallejo is great for interiors and convertible tops. All airbrushed. The last time I spray bombed a model was somewhere in the 1970's. I've been building models since 1958.

I decant into airbrush mixing jars, basically universal airbrush jars. The tops have seals inside same as a Testors bottle may have. Or clean out and save your Tamiya jars, those things seal awesome. I had been tossing them but now save them when empty. Mason jars I keep solvents in for oil painting. And I have one I keep ipa in for stripping paint. They don't seem to evaporate. These are the ones with metal ring cap that has the thread and the seal cap is a metal disk with neoprene gasket that sits on the jar, you screw the ring down onto it.. Those seal well, the plastic caps not so much. Edit: either Mason or Ball brands are both good, just get the metal caps

Right now Harbor Freight according to the online add anyway, has the Fortress 1 gal and 2 gal listed at the same price, $159.95. These compressors review well. Just sayin.

I've never used one in over 60 years of model building, personally. But Amazon lists several brands and models of them. I wouldn't know a good pick from a bad one though. As far as the $ amount goes, everything has gone up. I mean let's face it, once upon a time in my life we paid $1.25 for AMT car kits etc.

That hasn't been my experience at all. With Createx, I flash off each coat with a hair dryer out in the middle of the kitchen, hand held. Low to medium heat, you don't need it real hot or real close to the body, but heat seems to make a difference.. You can watch it flash off and level out, ready for the next coat. And in so doing, my opinion is I get a smoother , more level finish for top coat ( clear). Then the whole thing goes into the dehydrator at 105-110f for 30 min to an hour. Createx likes heat anyway. The opaque colors, when not using 4030 balancing clear, but used for it's original intent for graphic or airbrush art work on fabric, you put in a heat press to set it into the cloth @ 350F for 10-12 seconds. So it likes a heat set, it's made for it. 4030 converts the paint for use on hard surfaces, effectively turning the paint from acrylic fabric paint to to poly acrylic hard surface paint. And in small % of 4030, 10-20%. 4030 takes out the rubber feel people have complained about with Createx, and it's scuffable. My dehydrator is a combo air fryer, dehydrator, front load. It effectively is more like a cabinet style paint dryer. When my former wife of 47 years passed on, I inherited it so to speak. It will easily fit a 1/16 body, and dry it shot in enamel, accurately at what ever temp I want. But I'm really getting to like the Createx and their auxiliary additive line of paints.Even craft paints with 4030 work great, and bone dry in 30 min. I got more dirt in my paint jobs using a 28" wide spray booth than any other way in my 60 years of painting models (and 1/1), including spraying outdoors. It's like a funnel chamber drawing dirt to it/ through it to collect on the paint. I actually like a room for paint, a shrouded exhaust fan in a window ( not even the fan for createx, I just shoot into a trash can with liner in it). The shrouded exhaust fan started back in the days of using Floquil paints for model trains.

That's a well executed build and nice looking car !! I realized I've never built the 62 T Bird. I try to cut my vintage off by 1960, but there are a few up to 63 worth considering.

Looks great ! Reminds me of some of the sleeper type builds I might have done myself a few decades ago. Very nice, clean look.

I use Purple Power on suspicious plastics. Otherwise I use a full submerge in 91 IPA. The 91% get's all model paint's I've ever used off very quickly. And craft paints, as well as Createx..Many just dissolve in the bath, or just light brushing with an old toothbrush. Then rinse with plain water. But for you guys using Super Clean, I was wondering if you use it straight from the bottle, or diluted a bit ? I'm from an era where brake fluid ate about anything plastic, so never even considered it's use for stripping plastic model cars.

Same here.

Colgate original, or the baking soda peroxide one. Yes it works. I have no reason to change from tooth paste and my follow up bees/canuba wax, wax formulation. Always be sure your paints are well cured, whatever you use.

You might run into a couple of threads around here where I mention Colgate toothpaste even today. I use it in buffing Createx 4050 clear coat.

Somewhere in the 1960's, maybe 65 I did slot cars. There was a slot car track business in town, where you rented a speed controller and time to run your car on the track. I convered the Monogram Orange Crate Body to fit a slot car chassis. I altered the chassis to fit the big motor the road racers were using. Well the track was over under in design. After the big long straight, it whent into a broad U turn, then dove down under the overpass. You Ace, being a slot car guy, I'm sure already know what happened ! Ya, after that broad turn I nailed the throttle, the car went air born right into the side of that overpass . And that was the end of the Orange Crate. But speaking of bass wood. At around 14 I designed and built a camper for the bed of an AMT pickup. I don't recall which kit. I used a combo balsa and bass wood. I recall how much harder the bass wood was in comparison. It came OK, nothing to write home about. But a year later I built the Big Duece, put in working lights. Painted Testers Black, it was awesome. After that I discovered girls in a bigger way than ever before, I should have stuck with the model cars, IMO.

Same here. Plus the real Cars and Hot Rod magazines.

Ya and actually these days, thread is just fine for me once again. Just take the reading glasses off and there is no stranding making thread up lol ! But back in the day it's just how you did it. And that's assuming it wasn't a curb side build. Quite a few AMT kits were in the late 50's and into maybe 61 or so. I also built 1/32.

In my case, fortune ( in kid terms) came young, in the form of a 108 customer paper route. In a time when layman's wages were all of $85- $100 or $125 a week, I was doing nearly half of that. I always had money, enough for models, supplies, a Fribble at Friendly's Ice cream whenever I wanted. And a new bike. I did OK as a kid, but worked for it too. Once I got that paper route I was out from under the pennies a week allowance for chores category. So happens I made a friend through church, a fellow modeller who had that route. I used to go on the route with him, ride the paper truck from the corner market to where the route was. I just helped out, got to know everybody, from the one kid, to truck drivers, even a visit or two from the paper manager guy. So when the kid's family decided to move out of town, I was already in position to take that route over, no charge ( in those days, they used to sell the routes). Well, lets face it, in those days kids were allowed to do the work ! Not today.

Much of what I use for tools today, is what I did back in the 60's. Actually I started building in 58. I won a ribbon in a model contest with an AMT 49 Ford, with felt interior, thread for plug wires and gold spray paint from the hardware store I could ride my bike to.. That was 1961 or 62, immediately before I discovered Testors and Pactra candy coats, which might have gotten me a notch higher in my placement. I always built with a combo of razor saw, same handle I put the blades in. Really I liked and still do, the industrial grade single edge razor blades for box cutters and such, no handle just the back of the blade to grip, it's very tactile lol. And some form of pin vice.. You can buy a 100 of the blades in a pack at Amazon. And for the pin vice I only bought the size bits I needed. A short bundle of left over phone workers telephone wire was a gold mine for decades. Finally lost it as the kids started growing up. It's solid core fine wire in a bundle that sometimes a strand with insulation is perfect but more often stripped to the bare core is the better option. You could always find scraps of this stuff in new neighborhoods/new construction, which was prevalent in the 50's and 60's.. The corduroy I used in a 32 Ford build. A fenderless coupe, that I cut the doors out to make opening doors, and then opened up the soft top. Upholstered the seat and door panels . I had discovered Testors metallic paint, so it got metallic burgundy paint. As I recall, I painted gold accents. But something about the build, it didn't seem substantial enough real estate wise, in my young mind to enter that one in a contest. So the next year, I made about the same plan layout in a 39 Ford sedan. Same paint, really nice paint too, surely a winner I thought. That was until my 3 yo cousin visited, who as soon as I turned my back decided to help me out by glue bombing it with the cap from a Testors orange tube smack in the middle of that long roof. So that was reduced to pieces in the original box one week before the contest, and when I recovered, long after the contest was over, I built that into a circle track racer with dents all over it. The most notable being a sunken roof dent !. So you want to build 60's style. Testors paints, bottle and spray. A trip to the fabric store. Testors glue ( by the way I still like the square bottle fwiw). A couple spools of different thickness thread. Bug the telephone guys for some scraps. Get to rely on making things work, by kit bashing and what may seem a bit unorthodox today. Oh and don't forget some flocking, common pins to work with and a sewing needle or two. Tooth picks, balsa sheets ( you never know). And sanding sealer for anything wood, say in a pickup bed or where ever. I don't recall the brand putty I used, except that it was grey and I wasn't too nuts about it. But later on in decades it was a product called Nitrostan.