bluestringer

The 68 Chevelle didn't turn out very good, but I got a couple more kits to try. I already had the 65 Chevy Stepside PU, and I just picked up an AMT Nova SS Pro Stocker "Old Pro" from Hobby Lobby with their 40% off sale. I think I will try the AMT next, it seems to be a less complicated kit, less parts and may be an easier build to start with. I think it's a reboot of an old kit from the 70's maybe. Looking at the parts it looks like there will be a lot of cleanup to do before I can get started though. I will post some pictures later.

I've been using Testors liquid glue in the triangle shaped bottle, and I have a bottle of Mr. CementS. I bought a tube of Gorilla super glue gel today to see if that will help. I really like the Mr. Cement, it seems to work good for a lot parts, but for others not so good. The Testors is heck trying to get it out of the bottle.

Almost finished with this kit and it looks like BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH. I could not get anything to fit correctly on this thing. Could not get any glue to hold anything, as soon as I would try to glue on another part something would fall off. I even had to cut down the firewall to get the body to fit over it. I don't know if it's just me being out of practice since this is my first one in 20 years, or if it's a bad kit. I don't remember having this much trouble with kits I did in the past. Maybe my wife was right and I'm just too old to do this anymore. Not going to give up yet, I got the Revell 65 Chevy stepside pickup I'm going to try.

Great tips, thanks all. I think I have a better understanding now of how I need to do my building and painting. I'm not going into the fine detail you guys are doing, those are some great looking engines. I do want to try putting on spark plug wires, but that's as far as I will go.

Ok, I see what you are saying, a lot of stuff can be assembled then painted as long as it's going to be the same color. What if you are assembling say the engine, a chevy engine's block, heads, pan, etc. will be chevy red/orange, so you can assemble those and paint the assembly, but the exhaust manifolds will be steel. Do you go ahead and assemble them onto the heads, paint it all, then go back and hand paint over the manifolds and the other small parts that are a different color?

I painted a lot of stuff on the sprue trees, now I'm having problems getting parts to stay glued, and the glue is making a mess of the paint. I've tried scaping off paint but it's hard to do in some of the tight spots that need the glue. I've tried different glues. all seem to have the same effect. What is your sequence, do you put parts together then paint, do you follow the instruction sequence? How do you build your kits?

Thanks. I'm learning some new stuff on here and hope my next build will be better. Have not finished this one yet, still working out some stuff on the engine. I'll be trying to add a pre-wired distributor.

I picked up one of the cheap deals at Harbor Freight today. I think it will help me a lot, at least until I can get something better. It's just some magnifying lenses in a headband with a light on each side, which should help a lot.

I picked up the cheap harbor freight thing today. I think it will help me until I can get something better. It's just some magnifying glass in a head band. The lights on both sides are useful.

I used the Rustoleum 2x grey primer. I need to rig up something like that, I have a couple of magnifiers.

My first kit in 20 years. My eyes are not as good now, so detailing is giving me a fit, but planning on getting some type of magnifying device to help me. Anyway doing it in Rustoleum Spa Blue and flat black.

Posted before I looked. Just found the sticky on this subject, getting some ideas from it. I may try the harbor freight cheapo just to see how I like it, it's less than 10 bucks.

Anyone here use a optivisor. Recommendations? Not too expensive, I live on SS.

Great tips, thanks. I had even thought about a toothpick.

What is best to use for fine detailing? I've seen where people are using paint pens and sharpies. Is that better than a fine tip brush? I'm working on my first kit in 20 years and I've already made a mess of it trying to do some detailing. Back in the day I didn't take much time with detailing just threw my kits together, but now I want to make them look better. My old eyes and shaking hands ain't helping.

Working on my first kit in 20 years. Revell 68 Chevelle SS 396. Kits are much different now than 20 years ago, more detail and more difficult for an old guy like me. I've already made a mess of it. I'm trying to get more into detailing than I use to do. Maybe I should have started back with a level 2 or 3 kit instead of this level 5.

Hi everyone, I am a 69 year old male who just recently got back into car modeling. I started when I was very young, and went through years of off and on putting together kits. It has now been over 20 years since I done any. My wife says I'm too old, and yea my eyesight is worse now than back then, but I've always enjoyed it. I have noticed there are a lot of changes in the modeling world since I done any. The last ones I was doing were NASCAR models, but I want to get back into the muscle cars of the 60's and 70's since that was my era. My first real car was a 1966 Impala SS 396. Anyway I hope to pick up lots of tips and tricks here.