Dpate

Never knew that site even existed. Better places to order from imo. How much what the kit?

Cheapest place online for Tamiya paint would be scalehobbyist, Burbank house of hobbies, sprue brothers. You can get all Tamiya paints there $1.99-$2.80 for 10ml, and $7-$8 for the TS cans.

Tamiya products are pretty cheap in Japan. They’re just expensive in the states cause they making up for import fees etc. What Tamiya products are you looking for exactly? Tools? Paint?

Have you tried letting the hood sit in dawn soap for a little while? That should clean it up pretty good.

No it’s separate pieces that go into the tire. All I did to them was clean them up, primed them white, couple coats of Mr color GX cool white, and then went over them with wet 3K grit. I was gonna hit them with dull coat through the brush, but ended up liking the look after the 3K grit. Looks better in person than the pic. They’re from the 57 Chevy bel air 100 year anniversary AMT kit. Great kit with all the bells n whistles. Just little clean up here n there, and little more depending how picky you are.

Got these 5 white walls done.

Hey whenever you get a chance share how the honey clear goes. It’s suppose to be like 2K without some of the chemicals.

Mail call from James and picked up 2nd Land Rover from hobby lobby while I was at the beach.

I use Tamiya Q-tips there wounded tighter than regular Q-tips. But if you’re having trouble with regular Q-tips? Just use a cotton cloth around one finger. But some areas may require multiple pieces of BMF, and if done right you can’t even tell it was pieced. You can get away with one piece of foil around a bend, but you’ll have to lay it down right or you’ll get bad creases in the foil, and it’ll look horrible.

You have to burnish it i.e cotton bud or cotton cloth. If you burnish it you’ll notice how the cotton bud or cloth starts turning black. Keep doing that for a little, and you’ll see the shine. certainly not gonna stroke no body’s ego, but like others have said you gotta work your way up, and learn different skills, different techniques, etc. I look at models different than most as I’ll try and get it close to 1:1, but I’m not gonna try and get it 100% 1:1 hundred of wires, open doors, etc etc. It’s a plastic model that’s gonna sit, and spending 100 of hours on it is just going too far to me. I understand the satisfaction some get out of it, but I rather build 2-3 quality kits in 100 hours than just 1 to each their own. With time, practice, patience, you’ll get good at painting, clear costing, using BMF, etc etc. Just like guitarist they didn’t learn over night even though I think some are aliens lol.

The numbers are grit size. 1500 being the smallest, and 500 being the biggest or thickest of them. It’s a system you can use 500 for filling etc, and work you way up. If everything is good to go you can start out with 1500 the smoothest of them.

Have to be careful with super clean though. If it doesn’t strip it 100%(I have had chrome where superclean wouldn’t touch the varnish even 2 days of soaking) it’ll stain the varnish purple reason I stopped using it. It strips the chrome cause it has 5 or so percent lye in it. It just depends on the kit chrome, but super clean does work so not knocking it. It’s cheaper route than the method I use. Even though a pound of lye cost like $6. My method I’ll have a whole kit of chrome stripped in half a hour chrome and varnish.

Mr surfacer 1500 black all day everyday. Nicest black primer I think u can get besides hobby titans black primer in a can. I think it rivals surfacer it’s that good. Italy product VS Japan product they’re both amazing.

That is little weird must be a bleach thing. I use 100% lye takes chrome off in bout 20-30 secs. I then use a stripper to remove the under layer varnish. Method I’ve used for awhile basically fool proof.

Yeah just got to let set dry for a little, and then go for sol. Lot of times you can just skip set all together. Are you cutting the decal between the door seals or letting sol sink it down? Also be careful with Mr hobby’s decal solutions it’s strong stuff like solvaset if not stronger. I think it’s the blue bottle you need to make sure, and shake good too cause all the white stuff settles. If decals are thin I’ll use set & sol, and if they’re thick or being annoying I go for the strong stuff. I use a water brush a lot too (those brush’s that you can put solution in, and squeeze.) I don’t put solutions in them just use them to apply decal solutions while rubbing down the decals can burnish them down real good especially in door etc.

So the is stuff almost act like the adhesive we get on the back of metal transfers we get with Tamiya etc? If so I’m gonna bet a bottle to try myself even though the AK stuff I use works , but not the same as this.

Been waiting for this bad boy. Id be shocked if it isn’t already built from all the movement during shipping when you open it….lol

Replacement body for revell 65 Chevy impala Foose came in, but damaged and can’t use it. So $15 down the drain should have just got a full kit. Both sides are the same. It was packaged good just poor choice of packaging.

Mold line cleaning

You can use the back side on a xacto blade at an angle to clean up flash etc. I use a ceramic blade though as it’s safer, and can’t damage the plastic by accidentally gouging it. Seamlines and moldlines is different though. The SMS tool is pricey as is the blades, but one blade will outlast 100 pack of xacto blades far as sharpness goes.

I hear ya. I think next time if it’s a rough kit I’ll give it a swirl. But the current kit 57 Chevy bel air 100 anniversary edition by AMT that I’m dabbling in is fantastic. Even the instructions are the best I’ve seen by AMT. Only issue I found with the kit so far was when test fitting the trunk - it sat little higher than the body so had to sand it down until whole thing was flush. But besides the flash it looks like a newly tooled kit, and the chrome is the best I’ve seen so far from AMT.

Besides for base coats. Its good practice to use grey primer to see any imperfections on the model that you may of missed. Only need light coat or two of grey primer to see what u missed. Happens all the time though! You think u cleaned all the mold lines etc and it looks good, and you go to primer and BOOOOOOOM…..Small piece of flash or mold line or dent or something laughing at you.

Yeah that’ll never happen with Tamiya, but would be awesome though. Id buy with no hesitation.

That’s true, but my priorities are different than those dedicated accomplished builders. I like the car reason I asked if there were any others out there, but not enough to care that much to spend months on it. I could do it if I wanted too, but that road from start to finish wouldn’t be fun for me. It’s a decent kit, but maybe I got a lemon as I seem to get all the time with AMT - even though I do have a lot of quality AMT kits. I threw away a few though except the tires and rims, cause bodies missing trim work etc etc. I don’t mind cleaning flash and few other things, but I buy kits I like to build them not fix bad engineering or ridiculous mold issues from out dated molds that should be put to rest. It’s my own ignorance getting kits when I was new, and not knowing how old something is.

The body of kit is good, but the front end is horrible and doesn’t match the real car at all. The grill inserts fit, but with big gaps. The front trim isn’t even even or align, and the hood is ill fitting with a gap on right side. Other than that the tires are great along with the rims. I knew the responses that was gonna come, but was just curious if there was anything else out there is all. Doesn’t matter how much u polish a turd - a turd is still a turd. Thanks for the help.