OldNYJim

Only if I don’t value an hour of my time very highly ?? The fun of the hunt makes it worth it though, I guess - the Goodwill by me is a place I check for kits fairly regularly and the only thing I found so far was some styrene sheet this week...but it’s fun to keep checking! ?

I get it! I’ve been there! I’m kinda joking but kinda not...if you’re trying to match the stance of a 1:1 with similar size wheels and tires, just in scale, you may well run into difficulties if the body is a scale inch and a half thick around the arches and above the tops of the tires...they obviously can’t make styrene a scale metal thickness so sometimes a little ‘cheat’ is necessary

Man, I get twitchy when I see kits for $30 ?

That’s a nice score Mike, especially if you didn’t pay a lot for it! I’ve been watching for one of those myself, but they usually go for fairly decent amounts of money

Interesting - definitely take my ‘helpful’ idea with a grain of salt then, in this case ??

That is a good deal! I know you guys often get stiffed on the price of kits compared to what we pay here so that’s a good resource to have! Of course, I’m lucky enough to have a decent LHS here that I just discovered so I’m going to try my best to put a lot of business his way rather than giving it all to Michael* or whoever, but for general supplies and things they don’t carry I’ll happily play the coupon game and let the ‘big two’ get as little of my money as possible. *somewhat related story - was in a Michael’s in Brooklyn earlier this year, waiting on line behind a couple of teenage girls buying whatever teenage girls buy at Michael’s. The line was moving unusually slowly and one girl turned to the other and said “oh my gawddddd, this line is taking like FOREVERRER. When I get to the front I’m going to ask to speak to Michaellll about this” ??

I’ve been thinking about a quote I read from a motorcycle builder recently who reflected that he had been “building the same bike for 30 years but finding more and more complex ways to build it” for his own satisfaction. Having a basic formula for what you like in a project, but constantly pushing yourself to make it a little bit harder to build each time. This got me thinking to what I’d pick, if I had to, as the one kit I’d pick to keep building over and over if that’s all that was available. A few years ago I probably would have picked the Revell Deuce kit - maybe the 3 window, although now I might pick the 5 window version. Now, having built a couple and starting to come up with ideas for a third and fourth that I’d like to try, I think I’d have to pick the Revell 29 kit. Like the Deuce, i’ll likely never run out of ways to put one of those together - channel it, don’t channel it, Z the frame, swap the engine, built it traditionally, make a modern street rod out of it...I can see myself enjoying multiple builds of this kit for years to come. Now, luckily, we don’t HAVE to make this choice - there’s probably a dozen or more variations of a Model A kit I can choose from without having to circle back around to the same one again, but I’d be interested to hear what you all might choose as your all time favorite

I’ve had some great luck with Michael’s coupons in the past - they sent me a ‘60% off any item’ one late last year, which they let me use multiple times on the same shopping trip, thanks to a friendly cashier who said “my register will let you use this a couple more times today if you’re fast”. Got three kits for about $10 each before I left that day. That said, recently their standard 40% off coupon has been replaced with a 20% off one, and the Michael’s by me has stopped accepting Hobby Lobby coupons as a price match. Now I have the luxury of having a HL nearby I prefer them anyway, but with the lesser-discount coupon that Michael’s has now my wife (a professional watercolor artist) and I have both been habitually heading to the Lobby instead knowing that their range is a little better and the price will be better too...

I believe so, yeah! Edsel Ranger Pretty sure there’s part of a 70s Vette on top on this trailer too...not 100% sure - I’d like to have a walk around there and see what I find!

My wife and I moved from New York to Indiana just over a month ago, and I got a nice new workshop set-up and have been dying to get into some projects. I’ve got a couple of builds in-progress that are ALMOST ready for assembly but both needed some touch ups on the paint (one from a little damage incurred when we moved and the other through me using some paint I wasn’t familiar with and not doing as nice of a job as I was happy with). So, almost reluctantly, rather than sit at the bench wondering waiting for paint to dry, I pulled out this AMT T kit that I’ve been thinking about building for a few weeks now: I got really inspired by a build by @tim boyd that I think I saw in one of the mags, and then rediscovered on his Fotki page recently - I won’t post his picture without permission, but you can see it here: https://public.fotki.com/funman1712/tim-boyds-124th--12/boyd-street-rods-ra/boyd-phaetontouring/dsc0089.html As Tim notes in his comments about this build, it represents an early 60s style hotrod with the stock T engine augmented with some fancy bolt-on speed parts - and I really like how the kit looks right as he’s built it there. Now, this issue of the kit doesn’t contain the cool front end setup that he’s used, those motorcycle front wheels or those quad headlamps, but I’ll still be able to make something inspired by his build a little at least without straying too far from what’s in the box. I’ve also been checking out a lot of Indian Larry motorcycle builds lately, having seen one of his bikes in Brooklyn in the summer, and I really like this trick that he would do to have a flamed paintjob with the flames moving vertically instead of horizontally...kinda different and cool, so I might try and incorporate a little of that style into the paintjob here: Nothing quite as wild as this particular bike, but maybe something a little different anyway. I usually like to do a quick mock-up before I start getting into a new build, but right away I can tell you I won’t be using these tires: A quick look through the parts box for something nicer that I can use without too much fuss - these are a nicer option I think; Not sure where the fronts came from, but I guess the rears are from one of the Round 2 reissues (50 Ford maybe?) And, that issue resolved, a quick mock-up: I made a conscious decision lately to try and build some of these kits that interest me box stock, or close to it, as best I can before starting to mess with every little thing too much, so I’m going to kind of go with what AMT intended for the most part with this one (although I’ve already got plans for a couple more)...as usual though, I can’t leave well enough alone so we’ll see how that goes Just starting to prep some parts and start digging into this a little - excited to start laying some paint on this thing! More soon!

I wouldn’t feel bad...if the body had been scale thickness there, it wouldn’t have rubbed ?‍♂️? Looking great!!!

Saw these FROM the road, technically...but always cool to find an interesting junkyard! It was closed, so pics are as good as I could get from the fence...

Although I haven’t tried it personally, I read once that some of the Hot Wheels guys use a whiteboard marker to remove tampos - they just draw the marker over the part they want to remove, then wipe it off and the tampo comes with it (apparently)

Speaking of resin casting - just having some fun experimenting today... Just curious if Play-Doh could be used as a simple mold for a part where you want a copy but don’t want to make a ‘real’ mold. Just poured some resin in there - I’ll check back tomorrow and see what kind of mess it has made ?

Ok, here’s the more interesting update ?. Got the body in primer, then silver base then candy lemon: Then, a little candy orange: Then some color-flip red, just because I had a new color to try out here: Then some candy red highlights over that to add some more red and stop it looking too soft and peachy: Then, some flames - this is the fun part ?: Next up, into the outdoor spray booth for some chrome silver Then some Wicked Colors pearl white And finally, peel those masks off....tada! I wanted to go for some real bold, wild looking flames on this one, have them kinda freeform and asymmetrical and interesting looking - I think I like it! Soon as the white pearl setups up a little I’ll do some little touch ups that it needs and shoot some clear - but I’m pleased with how it came out so far! More soon! ?

Oh yeah, it TOTALLY would help...didn’t have room at our old apartment in New York for any MORE tools and toys, but a dehydrator is totally on the list now we moved somewhere bigger ?

They were really nice guys too - I’ll definitely be supporting them as best I can!

Thanks buddy! I used this same technique before on this one... ...but I’ve got some other ideas to try to develop this technique a little further...we’ll see if it works out!

This thread has you covered:

Nice cleanup job on that 36! I agree, it would be nice if the roof wasn’t a separate part, but you got it handled, it looks like! I shot a bunch of pearls and candies today - getting a Deuce body ready for one of my reverse-masked flame jobs - love how the layering of the metallics, candies and pearls accumulated up on this one: IMG_8909.MP4

Great job Mark - really nicely built, and super clean! I started one of these a while back and even though it was the newest issue the decals cracked and split like crazy so it got returned to the box from whence it came until I get another set (or bought another kit to kitbash with - as you rightly point out this kit looks like a GREAT basis for something else) Nice job!

You got me curious so I did the math, because apparently I have nothing better to do ? A stock Mustang with this engine would hit about 18 to the gallon driven sensibly and the fuel cell I’m using is meant to represent a 16 gallon tank. So, not taking into account weight differences you should have a range of maybe 280 miles, a quarter of which is 70...should be enough left in there to get to the gas station. Of course, this is based on a car being driven SENSIBLY...so yeah, that tank probably needs filling ? Thank you sir! Back in the “waiting for paint to dry” holding pattern for this one...I really need a dehydrator...

Shifter boots are a good idea too! Thanks Mark! Ruh roh ??. That does make sense - I’ve got a few extra little parts that I sprayed with this stuff to practise on...if it’s tricky to polish like you say I’ll figure out a plan B. Luckily, I managed to get a fairly nice gloss out of the can, so it won’t need a tonne of work hopefully anyway...guess we’ll see! I usually leave enamels three weeks before polishing, which normally works ok for me...and three weeks is this Friday, so we’ll see in a few days I guess!

I’m pretty sure this one got finished too - I seem to remember seeing it on the Coffin Corner but I couldn’t find it just now when I searched the forum...

That’s GREAT info, thank you Mike! Wasn’t aware that the new(er) reissue didn’t include that stuff! Considering the older version is still available at decent prices on eBay (this one was $10 or so, I think) that doesn’t give a lot of incentive to pick up the newer police version...unless you want to build the police version of course... Thanks for the tip!