Greasefinger

The Mercedes-Benz model range R129 SL was produced from 1988 until 2001. The 500 SL was produced from 1988 to 1995, after which the model name changed to SL 500. This kit is no. 99 of Tamiya´s Sports Car Series and was released in 1990. The Mercedes 500 SEC I posted earlier was no. 29 of that series. I finished buiding this kit just last month. The kit was quite good quality, but not perfect. Fit of the hard-top was not accurate, and for some reason Tamiya had decided to use clear plastic for the whole hardtop (instead of just the windows). That meant leaks from masking tape woud be catastrophic..fortunatelu they didn´t happen. Paint is Mercedes Almandine Red Metallic + Tamiya gloss clear. Lower part of the body is the same paint but without clear. Interior is Ammo´s Cobra Motor Paint. Embossing powder was used for the carpets. Wheels are Tamiya TS-17.

Very nice, well built and rare model that has required a lot of work. Superb.

Have you uset their gloss clear (5620 I guess)? If yes, how was it, will it dry hard enough for wet sanding?

Car manufactures and car paint companies have started to use water based colors instead of solvent based. Any experience of those in model building?

I usually start foiling after clear coating. The clear coat protects the painted surface from the blade and makes it easier to clean off possible foil adhesive residue from the plastic. Then after foiling I sand, buff and wax. Before foiling, make sure the surface is perfectly shiny and clean of wax.

Thanks! Looking at it now in pictures, if I would be building it now, would try to make the interior a little bit more colorful, the cream leather is ok but some weathering would have made it more realistic.

This great kit has just recently been re-released by Tamiya so I thought I'd post the one I built a few years ago of the original release from 1982 (Tamiya 7429). The kit presents Mercedes-Benz 500 SEC model year 1981. Exterior paint is Mercedes Smoke Silver. I painted interior cream colour. Quality of the kit is typical Tamiya, very detailed and very good fit. In every Mercedes kit i have built the front grill has presented the biggest challenges, here I think the result was acceptable. For some unknown reason small scratches has appeared on the laquer now four years after, fortunately they can be seen only i certain light.

Thanks, and yes I of course meant airbrushing 🙂

May I ask about the Proscale paints (assuming you mean the UK based company). Do they brush easily, how strong is the smell (compared to say Tamiya LP or other solvent base paints). I am about to order some but user experience would be good to hear first. Thanks!

Seems like parenthesis or other special symbols with numbers sometimes cause the problem, but not always. In my text I had (64 1/2) and when deleted it worked fine. But here the same text is accepted.

Testing.

I tried posting one paragraph / sentence at a time and left out the part that caused the problem. Will investigate more.

Ford Mustang was introduced on April 17, 1964 at the New York World Fair. Body styles available included a two-door hardtop and convertible, with a fastback added to the line in September 1964. The number of different versions of Mustangs ever produced is enormous, and probably dozens have been a subject of scale model kits over the years. My aim was to build each body style version of the first model year of the first generation: the convertible, the hardtop and the fastback. The fastback from 1965 was the easiest to find. The convertible 1964 is an old Monogram kit found from ebay. Revell now has the convertible in production but at the time I built mine the Monogram was the only one I could find. Hardest to find was the hardtop in 1:24 or 1:25 scale, I could actually only find a model year 1966 kit. All three are out of the box builds. I did make the headlights more realistic in the fastback and the hardtop by drilling holes and placing headlight elements from other kits behind the headlight lenses to give some depth to the lights. I also had some photo etch emblems from Model Car Garage. The convertible exterior color is an original factory shade from Gravity Colors, Fastback has a custom blue metallic paint and the Hardtop was painted with Tamiya spray paint. And of course a lot of wet sanding, compounds and waxing for each. ****

I am now getting this message whe trying to post in the Under Glass section. Oops! That page can’t be found. It looks like nothing was found at this location. Maybe try a search?

Thank you, the color combo was one of many two-tone combinations available in -55. Here is a good source for the tri-five colours: https://news.classicindustries.com/1955-1956-1957-chevy-colors-paint-codes The -56 is actually Revell´s kit from 2019 (Revell 07663). It´s not an old kit but already hard to find. It might well be the same as Monogram´s kit.

Very good modelling and photography also. Great color scheme.

Thanks! For a second one could think this is real car...but it is a model, isn´t it..I would say a die-cast from maybe Emberton..? Anyway, nice paint-job! 🙂

Thanks! The chrome in the bumpers in the Chevys are all Alclad. I have tried different water based clear coats (for example Alclad Aqua Gloss, Vallejo Polyurethan Gloss Varnish and DeLuxe Looks Like Glass) to protect the clear from handling, unfortunately the clear coat (and handling) has dulled the chrome more than expected. I will most probably re-chrome the bumpers some day because shiny chrome is of course essential in the 50´s cars.

Thanks! I had some photo-etch Bel Air emblems from Model Car Garage. The 57 kit had photo etches included.

Thanks, just realised where 😄

Very well used can of TS-59! Would be show quality as 1:1 car.

Model year 1955 was the first of the three years of second generation Chevy Bel Airs, which are commonly referred to as The Tri Fives among with Chevy 150, 210 and Nomad models from 1955-1957. I wanted to build the model to look as 50´s as possible so went for original factory colour scheme with regal turquoise and ivory (which looks almost white in photos) Shown in pictures also Bel Air -56 and -57.

Mercedes 300 SL was produced from 1954 to 1957 as a two door coupe (called "Gullwing" for obvious reasons) and from 1957 to 1963 as a roadster. A total of 1200 coupes and 1858 roadsters were ever built. The roadster came originally with a soft top, in later years an optional hard top was also available. I built these almost back to back a few years ago. The Tamiya kit is still in production whereas the Italeri kit was harder to find. Both kits are quite accurate in detail, but the Italeri kit from 1988 had some frustrating fitting issues (warped bonnet, windshield fit not quite accurate). The Tamiya kit was one of the best, if not the best quality kits I have built so it was really a joy to just paint and put together. The exterior colour of the roadster is Tamiya TS-8 Italian red and the Gullwing is Tamiya TS-42 Light Gun Metal. Kit chrome in the roadster, Alclad and BMF in the Gullwing.

That´s as good as it gets! Tolerances are small in these good quality kits so the small misfits could be anywhere. The kit chrome in this kit is exceptionally realistic, not at all toyish. What did you use for the window trims?

Agreed what everyone said! Did you paint the interior red/black?