Radretireddad

All I had to go by were pictures of actual trucks. I searched but couldn’t find any front or rear axle width specs.

This is Createx 5310 Pearl white and 5604 clear thinned with only Tamiya thinner. I’ve found the Createx to be more opaque and requires several more thin coats to build up the color.

I’ve gotten excellent results using Tamiya, Createx, and various craft store acrylics exclusively. They’re all locally available, priced very economically, can be thinned and cleaned up using Dollar store isopropyl alcohol. Although Tamiya’s pallet is somewhat limited, I’ve had no problem custom mixing what’s available to get any factory color not available in a premix. Createx’s color pallet is very comprehensive. Enamels, lacquers and the required primers and sealers are more expensive, require more steps to get right, and are way too toxic to use without a respirator.

Between coats, I clear my airbrush with a shot of isopropyl alcohol that I keep a small cup of in my spray booth. I also use it to thin out the paint that’s been standing out for a while.

My main objective is fantastic results with a minimum of work and expense. This is two coats of Tamiya white primer sprayed from the can, and three coats of Tamiya X-5 orange 50% thinned and sprayed using my ancient Badger 200 followed by a little Megiuars plastix polishing compound. That’s it. No multiple coats of toxic automotive primer, No multiple coats of toxic automotive lacquers and clears, followed by additional cutting and buffing. No toxic lacquer thinners or reducers needed for cleanup. I do hope you’ve been using a respirator. You say “without a lot of rigmarole” and then you describe a process involving multiple stages of primer, color, and clear followed by cutting and buffing. That doesn’t sound like a minimum of rigmarole to me. In my experience, lacquer is far from being the only choice.

Thanks for the input guys. I’m thinking about a blue and white paint scheme similar to the box art with decals from the round2 Stars and Stripes sheets MRU sells.

The front wheels do stick out a little further than the rears which from what I can see in pictures of real F250 4X4s is accurate.

In case anyone missed this in the WIP section, Here’s a pic of the kit with a set of old American Satco super swampers I had.

When pictures of this version surfaced, I, like many of you, thought the tires were undersized and the lift too exaggerated. To me, these were big enough flaws to make me ignore the kit. When the reviews came out and I saw what was included, I knew I really wanted the winch and the bed bar for my stock F250 4x4 but couldn’t justify shelling out almost $40.00 for a couple of accessories. Then I reasoned the ‘71 grille, sport custom interior and NP 435 trans were just what my planned F250 2WD needed to stand out. Getting enough parts to personalize two other builds was enough to justify the cost so I bought one. When I got it home, I remembered I had a set of aftermarket jumbo mudders I bought back in the ‘90’s that ended up being too large for anything I had in my stash at the time so I decided to dig them out and mock them up to see how they looked on this kit before cannibalizing it. I’m really not a fan of extreme lifted 4X4s but I think this thing looks so over the top that I’ve decided it should be built though probably not as a ‘71 sport custom trim. What do you guys think?

The first model kits I had were the ones my father bought and built for me. The oldest one I remember him getting for me was an original AMT 1965 Impala SS convertible in 1965 because our family car at the time was a 65 Impala hardtop. The other kits I can remember him buying and building for me was a ‘64 vette and an AMT ‘67 Mustang that he ruined by spraying it with Rustoleum. When it was taking too long to dry, he stuck it in the oven and I don’t think I need to tell you how that worked out. I came home from school one day to find him frantically working on a second gen Hurst Hemi Under glass he bought to replace it when the LHS didn’t have another Mustang. I didn’t start building kits myself until we moved in 1972. The oldest kit I remember building and painting myself was the MPC Grumpy’s Toy Vega. Back then I could buy two kits for $5.00 at the LHS in my town. My dad is still with us and we just celebrated his 93rd birthday. When I call he asks me what I’m working on and always enjoys pictures I send him of my completed builds.

If you thought I would like a tri-power ‘67 convertible vette, you thought 100% wrong. I would love a tri-power ‘67 convertible vette.😍

I’ve airbrushed and hand brushed Tamiya acrylic paints on to pieces of BMF and applied them as usual burnishing with a cotton swab. I used Tamiya semi gloss black on the Honda and rubber black on the F100. I did this after making the mistake of buying a sheet of BMF black chrome which, for some reason, has practically nonexistent adhesive and the color rubs off.

I started a kitbash of AMT’s ‘65 Nova AWB and ‘66 Nova years ago. These kits are going to save me a lot of work.

I’m not disparaging either MCW or SF products. Who wouldn’t love having access to the factory matched color pallets these suppliers offer? Nor am I suggesting anyone here should abandon what works for them and try something else on my recommendation. I’m simply saying, I don’t need to use anything else to achieve the results the technique I’ve worked out has been giving me.

No doubt you’re correct but at this stage I’ve found there isn’t any color I can’t closely match with readily, locally available and far more economical acrylic paints. For me, all the benefits acrylics offer have rendered enamels and lacquers unnecessary.

I bought one bottle about a year and a half ago and wasn’t happy about the $12 price and the fact that the proprietor recommended using only his primer which I also bought. The primer went on fine but the color finish was full of all manner of foreign material. Since I was still relatively new at airbrushing I decided to strip the body and try again later after gaining some experience. The second attempt yielded the exact same results on a scrap body so that was enough for me. I managed to get a perfect color match and a beautiful smooth, even coat from my own acrylic blend. It’s rather frustrating that someone has made the effort to manufacture and market a broad line of factory color matched hobby paints that I can’t use.

Try wrapping a narrow strip of cellophane tape once around the axle stub. I’ve also glued a piece of small diameter evergreen tubing on the ends to act like a retaining cap.

My wife of 36 years last month makes no effort to appreciate the value of anything that isn’t absolutely practical, so I do get the predictable eye roll whenever I mention that I’m in need of something hobby related. She does know she can incentivize me to do things for her family by bribing me with a trip to the hobby shop. Before I retired and still had some spending money, my stash grew by two to three kits a month with her okay. These days I’m quite content to build what I have on hand (around 150 or so kits) and have only bought one or two kits since the first of the year. Radretiredmom’s only nonnegotiable is no stinking up the house with paint or chemicals so it’s strictly acrylics for me which I’ve actually come to prefer. She usually has no problem with my occasional requests for paint and supplies.

Excellent job on that Europa. What a gorgeous black finish. That’s my favorite Lotus.

I’ve been using this Flex Shaft accessory on my variable speed Moto Tool for years. It allows much better control for delicate operations and I can keep the powered end hung up out of the way.

Great! I’ve been wondering if there is anything else that works better than Elmers for the mock-up stages so I’m definitely going to try this stuff. Thanks for sharing this.

Sorry, I must have missed the blown spec.

Check out the Revell ‘32 Ford 5-window kit.

The shelving I actually got for free.

You heard right. This is the one that initially came with bad chrome. Trumpeter sent a replacement chrome tree out to their customers. Yep. Like so much of my stash I bought both when they were available and still affordable, knowing at the time it would be years before they would be completed. Not sorry I did.