Rich Chernosky

Another Corvette off the assembly line. This one is MPC's offering of the 1978 Corvette. Color is a Pearlescent ink call Birdswing copper. I used Krylon latex clear over this and added a little red to it to deepen the color. Don't know when this one was painted but it is at least 12yrs ago. This particular clear dries rock hard and build up to a fairly heavy coat. When cured (about a month and a half) it polishes out to a very high shine. the solvent of the water base clear doesn't eat into the finish and muddy the color up. I have used it a lot. Can't say much about the quality of this kit. Lots of cleanup and fitting. In particular the engine mounts did not have a positive glue attachment and the body had to be pinned down in four places to get the stance right. Both involved some interesting engineering and a lot of curse words. Comments below the photos. Model on its wheels and it finally looked about right. Two of the pins to locate the body to the chassis are visible in the rocker panel just below the door seam. Interior and glass didn't fit so hot and required a lot of grinding , fitting and more swear words. Interior is a very very dark black green. Rear end veiw and the camera really picked up on the color. When I bought the kit it was missing two of the red tail lights but the spares stash supplied some suitable replacements. It really pays to hoard parts. Kit came with these two removable T-tops. Anyone who has ever owned a T-top car knows that they always leak but somehow nothing quite beats a nice warm summer nights drive down a winding back road with them out. I extensively re-worked the side pipes and sprayed them with AK chrome. Better than the stock option. Gotta luv those Astro wheels. Among my favorites and only available on the Vettes....I think. Engine was halfway decent and I opted for the tuned exhaust pipes. Getting it to stay in place....that's another story. Thanks for looking and comments welcome.

Gorgeous build of a rare kit.

Very nice conversion Helmut. Your attention to detail has really paid off on this one. Very well done. The period photos were a nice bonus.

Harry...somehow overlooked this so I am a little late to the party. This is one fantastic build. I can certainly identify with your engine cover fit problems. Had it happen many times but you got over it. Great job.

Since i was a diecast dealer and owned a retail store back then I suppose i would be qualified to answer this. Exoto/s heyday was from (approx) 1997 to 2002. Most of their best models were released then and after that production ground to a halt. They still produced catalogs with future releases but those were few and far in between. Retail price for an Exoto was $130 to $160. The piece above was purchased off Ebay after I inniated a search. They alerted me by email when one would come up and eventually I took the best offer. Hope this answers your question?

The fifth in my series of 13 Corvette builds. AMT's 1962 Corvette. A fairly simple kit but this one came with lots of extra custom goodies. Since I wanted this build to be stock most of those parts went into the spares bins. More than half the kit were extras. I believe this kit was purchased very early in my building career. It was painted in 2019 and the color was Model master Champagne Metallic #2922. I used Pactra Crystal clear and this was recently all polished out. More details and modifications are in the picture captions. thanks for looking and comments welcome. Despite the simplicity of this kit I thought the body was fairly decent. Moldifications included poseable front wheels and opening trunk. Lots pof bare metal foil work too. rear veiw and the color in this shot really pops in the sun. Fit of most parts was what to be expected of an early AMT kit. Lots of flash on the parts too. Used quite a bit of Tamiya black detailer to tone down the chrome and bring out the detail. Kit came with this optional hard top that didn't fit too well. I have quite a few miles in one of these as i had a friend who owned one. Since he rarely had a drivers licence I was tasked with a lot of the driving. Too many stories to tell here but one that stands out is I discovered that this car was good for and honest 125mph but the drum brakes didn't work above 85mph. Many of these cars were destroyed because of this. The 62 Vette was the first one to get the 327 engine. It was optioned with fuel injection, two four barrel carbs or just one. This car had some serious power for its time.

Here is the fourth in my series of Corvette builds. Revell's 1/24 Corvette Z06 Commemorative Edition. Color is Testors Laquer Deja Blue with their clear coat. Graphics were sprayed and the color of choice was AK Stainless steel SM204. I used the red/gray part of the decal. Kit decals were aged and cracked and took some care to get them right. Kit was a pretty straight forward build with few problems. I opened and hinged the trunk and made the wheels steer. Liked how this one turned out. Was painted in 2010. More details in the picture captions. Mode4l sit nice and flat and the kit stance was good. I used a mixture of Tamiya LS German grey and mixing blue on the interior. The windshield came in two pieces in the kit and I had to vacuum from a new one. Rear end detail was good. The chassis and exhaust in this kit were excellent. I think it was nice of Hot Wheels to make a 1/64 minature of my model. I have many of these in my collection. The 2004 Corvette was a return to dcivility and featured many luxury items not found on previous models. It was meant to be an every day driver with an exotic flair. A nice veiw of the 5.6 litre V-8 engine. The Z06 package had 405HP so it was fast but reliable too.

Mark...this is one awesome kit and you are off to a great start. Your paint technique is spot on and you got very good results. You will really enjoy this build. Look forward to the finished product.

Bill you are in luck. I just posted this model in Under Glass. Here is the link: 1967 Corvette 427 convertible - Model Cars - Model Cars Magazine Forum To attach the windshield ( I did this last to avoid knocking it off during assembly) I used three different waterbase glues. First you have to glue the glass to the frame. It fits quite nicely BTW. I used Micro Liquitape in the corners on both the glass and frame. Its a contact cement and dries very clear but is tricky to use. When dry you can position the glass until it fits. The beauty of contact cement is that you can release it if you make a mistake. Once in position I filled the rest in with a mixture of canopy glue and craft glue. Let this dry overnight. To attach it to the car I used the Liquitape on both the body and bottom of the windshield. Do the whole area. Takes about 1/2 hour to dry clear. Then position it on the car. There are two slots that align it. Easy peazy. Liquitape can be removed with water when wet but you must use solvent when dry so make sure you get it only where you want it. On occassion you can get small amounts off by peeling but don;t count on it. This should get you there. Look forward to seeing your take on this kit.

This is the second of my 13 1/24 Corvette builds. Monograms 67 427 Corvette convertible. Coklor on thisone is a Pearlescent ink called Liqui Acrylic sky blue. Clearcoated with a latex clear around 2012. Interior is a custom mix of Tamiya LP13 IJN gray and LP81 Mixing blue. Nice kit with some good detail. The usual problems with an early kit but it all turned out good in the end. More details in the picture captions. Thanks for looking. Real good interior detail and I like the way it turned out. Engraving on the dash was good enough to paint. Used a hi shine silver then Tamiya black wash to highlight the details. Engine also had some good detail and i added some ignition wires. That big tri power 427 looks like it belongs in there. The wheels steer through the stock tie rod. Along the way I was able to lower the front slightly and that was just the trick to give this a nice stance. Side pipes attached easily after some careful planning. Rear end also had some great detail . Emblems were nice and sharp and lent themselves to my bare metal foil trick. Kit came with this soft top. Personally I like it with the top down. Tire decal on the front will have to be fixed..no biggie. This was the last year for the body style Corvette. It was best known for its 427/435hp engine option. That engine was a beast in this car. Got a ride in one and can attest to that. Thanks for looking and comments welcome.

A real looker, great job.

Don't think "pretty nice" really covers this build. Its more like fantastic. I owned one of these cars and have this kit done so I can well appreciate this model.

Vince..you did awesome job on this kit, and believe me , I know how finicky it was. My hats off to you.

Real nice Acura, Mark. Its a great kit. I see you have discovered Tamiya's LP line. I have the whole line and use them extensively. they are great.

Sweet Ferrari, nice job

Dug this one from deep out of the stash. the body had been painted with nail polish in 2018. It was a custom mix of colors I had and was clear coated with Tamiya smoke then clear. Kit is mostly stock except for poseable front wheels and I changed out the molded in seats for something better. This kit was originally produced around 1964-65. So it is a very early AMT kit. I t has be re-issued many times but I am pretty sure the molds have never been updated. So it was like going back in time and building something from the 60's. It had the usual fit and clean-up issues from kits of this era. More comments below the pictures. Thanks for looking and comments welcome. Interior will be hard to see so I took this picture. Dash had some nice engraving but it was dated and was going to be hard to paint. So decals out of the stash were needed. Color is Tamiya LS 73 Khaki. Carving out the original horrible molded in seats was fun I replaced them with buckets from a Mustang kit. Aaahh..much better. Got some nice sun to photograph. Making the wheels poseable was fun but had its problems. All the emblems were bare metal foiled before painting then the paint rubbed off before clear. They were still real sharp and came out nice and clear. Rear veiw. Forgot to add a licence plate. No biggie...got plenty of em. Some nice detail back here. Kit had lots of options but I opted for mostly stock except for the fuel injected engine (not shown) The 63 Vette was a landmark car that almost didn't see production. It was totally new design and a huge departure from previous models. Independent suspension, lots of engine options and a totally new body. This was the year GM banned racing but that didn't stop Zora Duntov. The were a great many hidden options that were only available to select dealers and racers. This was a turning point in Corvette production. This was now a viable and true American sports car. An interesting addition to this kit was the 1/64 scale box cutout. It is posed here with a Racing Champions diecast. I have to set goals for myself otherwise I would never get anything done. This model is the first of 13 that I will be doing over the next few weeks. All of these have had the bodies sprayed at some point in time. Just finish the chassis, interiors, engines and detail the bodies. Some will be slammers others will be modified but all of them will finally be finished. Only two problems, which one do I do next and where am I going to put them when finished?. Corvette shelf is currently filled.

Kaci..very nice job on both. Followed your WIP. I built this kit about 15yrs ago. Took me about the better part of a month. (was still working then, retired now) 1/12 kits take some time to do (built my fair share) but you are done in less than a week. It no rush job either, really looks good. Care to share your secret??

Outstanding Job Thomas. Really like it. How did you eventually solve your decal dilemma?

Now that's a Ferrari. The detail is over the top. Would luv to have something like this in my collection.

Doug...thanks so much for showing us all the detail you put into this. It really is great work. Been looking at mine and YOU just might be my inspiration.