OldNYJim

Our local store, back when COVID was starting to hit the area badly, had a big display with one of those yellow signs reading “COVID CURES!” It was boxes of facial tissues, Allegra cold medicine and face masks. ??

Slim pickin’s at the Merilleville Indiana store: A few Star Wars ‘modals’: And this weird set that has been floating around the store for a few months:

Added this to my Boyd Coddington collection - $8 on eBay!

What they said…thanks to everyone who keeps this place running! I hope it’s around for a long long time!

Speaking of Volkswagens (kinda…) - five dollar eBay find. It was apparently missing the decals and instructions, but they didn’t look very hard because they were in the box ?

Thanks everybody! Awesome! I KNOW you’ll do something cool with it!! I had never heard about that before - had a fun half hour reading about wartime primer shortages and the superiority of American paint at the time versus Japanese paint! I haven’t watched that movie in forever - those Herbies look even worse than mine! ? Tiny bit of progress tonight, but not a very interesting process - masked up the stripes and painted the remaining gumball on the hood: And finally, started adding watercolor washes to the white bits to make them less white and more like a yellowed enamel or something: Excited for the paint to dry fully on these bits so I can ruin them some more! ?. More soon!

Like that drag car! My buddy in England told me about a Ferrari that got oval-raced over there, but I haven't been able to find a pic so far. I'd be confident it would be a kitcar body on a regular modified-type oval frame if anything, but I'd still like to see it... Jalopnik has a good article on "Ferrari's 10 Weirdest" that I saw today: https://jalopnik.com/lets-explore-ferraris-weirdest-most-wonderful-one-off-1847081182/slides/7

Awesome to see you back at the bench @John Teresi! I'm a big West Coast Choppers fan so I'll be excited to see this one come together! BTW: your pics are really small - not sure if you're doing something differently to post them than before, or if it's the site... Can't wait to see more progress!

I’m working on the interior of my 57 Chevy build so I can get it in primer…gonna need to do some head-scratching on how to get this steering wheel usable tho… I’ve got a bunch of other (later) Chevy steering wheels here but they all scale out to be an inch or so larger and they start getting too close to the seat to where the driver wouldn’t be able to get his legs under them. I can see some scratchbuilding in this project’s future…

Thank you sir! Like most complex stuff it’s all just little easier-steps! Nothin’ to it! A set of watercolor pencils and brown and orange pastels help a lot tho, I’ve found! Hey Bob! The stuff I’m using is called Decoart One Step Crackle - but it might be discontinued seeing as I got it from the Hobby Lobby Clearance rack. So…I grabbed a jar of this (currently available) stuff too - works just as well and you get a big ol’ pot for $5 or so… I actually brush a little water on there with a paintbrush so I can control easily where I want it, and then sprinkle the salt on top. I’ve seen people do it with spray bottles before too and just randomly throw the salt on there - depends if you’re trying to get a general rusty look or hit particular spots (which I was in this case…) Thanks to everyone who didn’t have a question too - nice to log in and see all the kind comments! Just a little progress tonight, but another fun evening at the bench. Sprayed Createx white through circle masks for the gumballs: Then applied crackle mask over the paint before it fully set up: Gave it half an hour to dry before painting the next layer - if I was doing a shiny paintjob I would leave it longer to avoid accidentally damaging any of the paint, but damaged paint is ok for this one…masks applied: Shot black my favorite black Createx sealer over top…dabbed on some more cracking agent and peeled back the masks: Not done weathering these (and they’re too flat right now so I’ll do a little something to fix that) but it’s starting to look like a Lovebug! Thanks for looking - more soon!

Funny thing with that pearl blue color - every time I see someone paint something that shade I'm like "wow, I love that color!" and it's ALWAYS that Createx blue. I've got probably 5 bottles of it here, and every time I see something painted with it it catches my eye! Nice choice!

Ohh, so that’s what they’re for! I was messing with my build of this kit this afternoon and couldn’t immediately figure out why there were so many handles ? Did you pick a steering wheel yet? The kit part in mine isn’t a very good representation of any steering wheel ever used on a real car…

Cool old (Ford made?) Willy’s Jeep

Oh wow, you’re always raising the bar with cool little “why didn’t I think of that?!” ideas Steve. Way cool!

My bench has been a real mix today…spent hours ruining a Herbie kit, then cleaned up all the salt and pastels and plastic shavings to lay down some super-glossy clear. Should’ve done the ‘clean’ paintjob first ?

Thanks fellas! Not sure what I’m going to do with the interior yet…guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there! Fun with salt and crackle medium today. First up, season the body ?: Then light gray, followed by a little more salt: Then tan: And whilst the tan color was still wet, I brushed on some crackle medium do create some chipping and cracking paint - like this: Next up, brush the salt off (being careful not to rip off the crackled paint): And then finally for today add some black and rust color washes to bring it to life a little more: I’ll keep tweaking and adding to the weathering no doubt until I’m happy with it, but I’m far enough along that I can get started on painting those distinctive ‘53’ gumballs and stripes to make it look more Herbie-ish! More soon, thanks for looking!

I’ve been wanting to do a patina’d VW bug for a while - there’s nothing new or clever about the concept but they look cool and I want one for my shelf! I also came across this crazy extremely rotten Beetle showcar on a blog a few months back and kept thinking what I could do to make a ‘zombie’ Beetle of my own: http://www.speedhunters.com/2017/04/resurrecting-the-dead-bugly-the-zombie-beetle/ Then I got to thinking that ‘Herbie’ kinda sounds close to ‘Zombie’, and thus a dumb idea was born ? Starting with the Polar Lights Herbie kit, which is fairly basic but nicely done of a semi-snap kit: Marked out a sunroof with Dymo tape (which works great for plotting out straight lines for scribing: Then got to scribing: Tada! Next up, using ‘Bugly’ as a loose reference, ruined that nice body and got it into primer: Next, various dark brown shades as a base for the weathering and rust effects I’ll be adding later: And then I used watercolors and pastels to add some more depth and variety to these browns: Plenty more weathering fun to do, but this is the ‘blank canvas’ for all the rest of the paintjob…tomorrow’s progress will mostly involve salt, crackle medium and more abuse of a perfectly good Beetle kit. More soon!

Got the Gofer Racing (Revell) dragster frame…excited to build an old slingshot!

I bet Round 2 is DELIGHTED that Ollies has this same kit for $9.99 again right now, just as they're releasing theirs... That said, theirs has the cool tin and art...

Given that a lot of contests require you to display the instruction manual with your build to make sure you didn't deviate from it, I'm going to say no would probably be the answer for most contests...but I'd check with the organizer of whatever contest it was. Sure would open a can of worms if they allowed you to use anything in the BOX as opposed to building the kit 'box stock'.

Thanks fellas! Pretty much done with this one - I’m planning at least a couple more of these, but wanted to do a simple box-stock-ish version just to see how they go together. Fun quickie build!

My cat has a Wacky Willy!

Their sign is confusing - are the kits $19.99 or $9.99? (I know the answer…just saying)

Way cool Bill! I never saw one of these built up before! Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

https://www.motortrendondemand.com/show/steve-magnantes-super-models-motortrend/17083/ I'm excited to check this out! "Steve Magnante is a car guy of epic proportions and a car builder of miniature scale -- 1:25 scale, to be exact. He'll toss the instructions aside to custom-build some of his favorite cars. Drawing from his encyclopedic mind, his vault of vintage magazines, and a near junkyard worth of spare parts, Steve hot rods ordinary kits to become extraordinary glimpses into automotive history."