OldNYJim

I too hit the zoo that was Hobby Lobby today - picked up the 27 T kit, which I haven’t seen on their shelves for a while here (still no 29s though), and some various little metal doodads and paint and some black resin dye from the clearance section. Oh, and some roughly-in-scale Mexican blankets ?

Oh man, the first attempt I was like “meh, kinda worked” and the second attempt I was like “WOW, check THAT out!!!!!!!!” Really impressive!

Thank you all!! The lacquer shrunk down a little overnight, which I was expecting it would so it’s not QUITE so shiny right now, but it’ll buff up ok I’m sure Just Rustoleum lacquer clear on this one. I like enamel clear normally, but seeing as this one’s a weekend build kinda deal I didn’t wanna wait weeks before I could polish it...this lacquer will probably be good to polish out tomorrow I would think... Little tiny bit of progress today, seeing as a lot of the major stuff is done now until I can polish the body up. Masked up the frame with some Silly Putty so I could shoot a little silver on the exhausts (and a little on those front wishbones, for a little interest) Silly Putty is GREAT for these kind of jobs - works just how you’d want it to, and is easily reusable and you can smoosh it into all the cracks and crevices with a toothpick or similar. A little silver and some light washing and detail painting later, we have a slightly more interesting frame than we did... I’ll do a little more airbrushing tomorrow to bring it out a little more, but honestly I’m never going to flip this thing over once it’s on the shelf anyway, so... Oh, and I got my first chance to see this color in daylight - it was too dark here yesterday by the time I have some clear on it ?. Little vid below...more soon! IMG_2168.MP4

The problem is Donn is that he's almost TOO good - you could give him Modge Podge to spray and he'd probably get a show winning finish So him getting a good finish with these doesn't necessarily mean I will too... My skill level is considerably lower than his, so I'm hoping the good results I just started getting with Testor's enamels (right before they discontinued the clear I like) transfer over fairly painlessly, even without Mr Yost's considerable skill and experience. I'm excited to find out though!

There's definitely an easier and cheaper way to get some realistic looking noodles on your display shelf, especially given this is the same scale as a 49 cent pot of the real ones

I’ve been excited to try some of these, once I’ve worked through my stash of Testors clear gloss enamel. Glad they’re out there on the market!

That body looks great Mike! Keep going!!!

That window truck is COOL! What is that, Silly Putty? Great start!!

Yes sir! Thinned with Createx reducer though, so I could airbrush it - and the black Createx sealer is my favorite airbrush black so I used that as a base. Small update - shot a couple of coats of clear on the body - that purple pops in gloss! Assembled these tires and got them in primer - will need to do some smoothing out tomorrow before I paint them... And shot the interior tub in some black, a nice candy blue on the rim of the kit chromed steering wheel, added a little tinted gradient to the windshield and shot the dash to match the body, just because I was looking for something else to paint in this color ?? More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Thanks fellas! Happy thanksgiving! Hope you’re all having a nice safe day doing thing you’re thankful for with people you’re thankful for! Dinner eaten, family hung out with - back to work here ? Smoothed out the body and got it in primer - used a real thin coat just to give the paint something to bite onto: Then, a base of Createx sealer: I messed with some spoons this morning and tried the paint I’m using over some different bases and it looked kinda cool over a black base, but MANNN does it look nice over a Corvette body compared to a plastic spoon ?? Front and rear shot... Those lines really set off that color! ?? Shot the underside in the same shade, although I’m definitely going to have to do plenty of detail painting on that... Got a fun idea for a paint scheme on this one...this is just the first step...more soon!

It’s a long standing tradition (that I just came up with this week) that I build a kit over thanksgiving. Like those 24 hours of Daytona builds that some people do, but with more days and more turkey sandwiches. My wife gave me this 1/32nd AMT Vette kit as a gift last month, and I’ve been wondering how to build it, so I figured this would be a good skills-challenge to see if I can make something shelf-worthy between tonight (Thanksgiving Eve) and Sunday evening. To further add to the challenge, and partially because I couldn’t decide on a color, I figured I’d let my wife pick a paint from my airbrush stash for me to use. I figure there’s not many colors you could paint a Vette where it wouldn’t look great anyway, right? Here’s what she chose: Welp, I wanted a challenge, and apparently “it reminds me of mermaids” is a valid reason to chose a paint color, so I’m gonna get thinking on some paint ideas with this color as a base. Guess we’re not calling this one factory stock (although my stash of 1/32 spares is exactly zero parts, so it can’t stray too far from what’s in the box...). This kit is REALLY low detail, as you’d expect from the scale and when it was originally issued, so I’ll be doing some fiddly detail painting over the next few days. As you can also see here, the front and rear valances are moulded into the chassis, which seems like it’ll make it tough to get the bodywork nice... So, some razor-sawing later I split those parts off the ‘frame’ and attached them to the body instead: Better! I’ll let those set up over night and then get to doing some bodywork tomorrow - and shooting some of those color over some spoons to see if I can find a base coat that makes it look decent. More soon, happy Thanksgiving to y’all!

Oh yeah!!! Definitely! I wanna do all the variations of these - probably do the tow truck version next. But, like, the most ridiculously over-painted showcar looking tow-truck ever ? Meanwhile, on my more subtle project, couple of tiny little updates. I want to smooth out the underside of this truck and get it looking really clean...not streetrod-style-all-smoothed-out, but real clean and simple anyway. So, got to a-sandin’ and got that handled - had to patch a couple of holes and then tomorrow I can do the same to the top-side and then get it puttied-up and levelled out: After a few failed attempts at getting a perfect pull of those cross-emblem Moon wheels I got one today. Wasn’t even a hard part to cast, I just kept getting some little air bubbles where I didn’t need them, even after using a toothpick to dab some in all the crevices and nooks. Shot a light coat of primer on my one good one so you can see the detail...it’s VERY subtle, but I like the idea of having a bunch of tiny details on a build where you could look 10 times and still see some new little thing: Finally, I’d like to start on the engine - I know I’m kinda all over the place with this one, but I’m trying to get some of the major mods done or in-progress so I can start some mocking-up and the weekend and start figuring out stance and whatnot. I really like the look of this chromed Thunderbird mill, and I’d love to keep the kit chrome and add detail around it...but I can’t live with the big parting line in the transmission and the fit of the block to the intake (which also forms part of the cylinder heads). So, I guess for this one I’ll be stripping the chrome and doing some clean up...there’s about a 50/50 chance of this being chromed out versus body color, haven’t totally decided yet... More soon!

Amazing how those little fender flares transform this thing compared to not having them! Tried resin casting some of my new wheels this afternoon - it’s tricky getting the resin to flow perfectly into all the tight gaps in the mould so I’m still messing with them...just waiting for the latest attempt to harden up now, in fact... In the meantime, did some reshaping of the resin 32 grill I cast yesterday so it’ll drop in between the fenders... And whilst I was starting to shape that new windshield frame I started levelling out the kit frame rails...as you can see they weren’t particularly straight so they’ll look a lot better once I get to the paint stage here...still done more fettling to go on these... Oh, and did some research on 30s cars with fender flares - found some cool stuff! More soon!

Was just re-enjoying the bubbletop Comet thread from 2017...and yup, you said that before Glad you’re not sticking to it though ?????

You know, nothing much is cheaper than it was 30 years ago... ...so if you might want to build a particular kit before 2050, best to get one now! ?

That’s exactly what I would’ve wanted to do with that body too - it looks great! What IS it anyway?

I really appreciate the feedback guys - and thank you @Aaronw for your detailed response. What a huge help!! Got some more reading and researching to do now!

Yes sir, you’re absolutely right! I’m going to try and replicate the curves you’d see on a 32 body a little I think once I get to shaping it some more here - round them off into nice little curves on the edges I think. Back from dinner (really, I was posting and dinner was ready so I had to stop ?), been cleaning up the frame a little today - need to do the usual smoothing and levelling to get those rails nice and straight: I think I’d like to go with a ‘32 grill shell so I resin cast one of those (and some other maybe-useful bits whilst I was at it) I think I’d like Baby Moons on this one - I have a set of resin ones that I’ve had forever, but I had the idea to incorporate a cross into the hubcap, as though it was stamped into the cap. So, seeing as I wanted to cast these wheels anyway because I don’t know where they came from and thus can’t buy any more, I cut a little vinyl cross (and a coffin version, for a future build) and stuck it on the wheel so it’ll hopefully have that little raised detail when I cast copies: Pouring some resin: We’ll see how that all works out tomorrow once the mould sets up - should work ok though, hopefully... And finally, started shaping some fender flares to match the rendering I did that started this whole thing...you don’t usually see flares like this on a hot rod, but I found some cool examples of where it WAS done and looks just different enough to be interesting so I’m going to run with it I think... Starting to look like the picture! More soon!

When I posted a mock-up rendering of this build, someone on my Instagram said it looked like what Farmer John would drive to church instead of his regular farm truck, and I liked it, so I guess I’m building a church truck ? I just finished a patina’d 34 truck and I wanted to do another variation but nice and clean this time - mildly hot rodded and not TOO far from the AMT/Lindberg kit, but with some cool little touches to make it a little different. Not full hot rod, not full custom, but a nice 60s inspired 34. Did a rendering of a 34 with the sunvisor removed and some simple fender flares - I think I like it! So, starting with the cab... First is making a replacement windshield frame that deletes the visor, and that I can shape into the roof to get a nice radius. Drew a frame in Illustrator and cut some styrene sheet to make the part: And a fit-check: Looks kinda awkward here, but I can glue it in place and start sanding and shaping to get a nice blend where it meets the roof now. I was going to use the kit’s optional smoothed-out firewall but I didn’t want to deal with trying to detail paint those moulded-in brake reservoirs, so I made a new one from sheet...you can see here that I’ve started blending the windshield frame to the roof a little: I’ll need scribe some lines in there once I get a little further along, but I’ll let the glue setup a little before messing with that. More soon, after dinner ?

I’m trying a new technique to ‘photoetch’ metal parts, but by using a vinyl resist rather than the ‘photo’ bit of the process. I can make a vinyl mask pretty easily, and I have the materials and chemicals required here, but it’s still taking some figuring out to get it to work right. Im trying to make a windshield frame for a 34 truck - which would look like this, loosely: Vinyl resist applied to some aluminum sheet: And some chemistry starting to happen: I over-reduced the etching solution to slow the process down some seeing as this is my first time messing with this, and I think it’s going to take a bunch of experimenting to learn how to do this stuff successfully and repeatably, but I’m hopeful! My brass version of the same part is starting to etch down to the right shape on the outer edge - not sure how much of that I’ll lose by the time the opening in the center has gone though... Guess we’ll see what kind of mess we have by morning!

Next level stuff, Eric!!! Such a joy to see it come together!!

Thank you! It’s funny, blue is my go-to color for any 1:1 I’ve ever bought...but I don’t like the blue Miatas as much as the red ones. They look cool in red! Thank you sir! Eventually anyway... ? Yes sir! It comes with a clear plastic hardtop so you can mask the window and paint the rest. The fit looked a little hokey on the one in my kit though, so I’m going to go with the top-down option this time around I think... Tiny bit of progress - got all the underside stuff done - used some washes and watercolor pencils to add a little interest to the exhaust but nothing too major... And this weekend’s project is the interior. Just shot all the plastic bits (as in, what would be plastic in the 1:1 - I realize the whole kit’s plastic ?) in Tamiya NATO Black this evening: This grey is actually a little light compared to the 1:1 (although some semigloss clear darkened it up some after this photo was taken)...but I’d like to be able to pick out some of that nice detail on the dash with a black wash and make it stand out a little better. Did the opposite on the door panels - the detail is a little flat so I shot those with a darker shade to kinda hide them...trying to use some tricks to draw the eye to the interesting and well-detailed parts more, and away from the less well done stuff in the kit. We’ll see how it works when it goes together...more soon!

I’ve just been messing with one of these and didn’t spot any issue, although I’m not ready to glue it together here yet either...do you remember what the issue was, roughly?

I did a search but there wasn't a bunch on here about them... I've been tossing up between this...: https://taigtools.com/product/10171-starter-set-1/ ...and a Sherline, and while I like the Sherline I don't think the extra money you pay to buy one will gain me much compared to this Taig, which seems like it has great reviews. At just over $450 the starter set seems like it would have everything you'd need to get going on making some little aluminum 'hop ups'...but I'd love to hear any advice from anyone more knowledgeable about these. And given my lathe experience is almost zero it'll all help...

The Rod Shop!