OldNYJim

Ask and ye shall receive - according to my fancy new humidity measurer it was super low humidity today so I shot some clear - only got a quick snap but the clear laid down nice and smooth and should settle down nicely in my improvised drying booth (a box): Working on the engine too - the chrome is about perfect on my kit except on the blower scoop which had a bunch of roughness and patchyness, so that’s sitting in the Purple Pond until it learns it’s lesson. Shot a little Alclad aluminum on the block whilst I was looking at engine stuff - I haven’t used Alclad for a while but I always like how it lays down and it’s nice to mix up some metal shades to add some variety and visual interest: More soon!

My wife surprised me with a little gift today - a hygrometer! Being so close to ocean where we are, the humidity always seems high and I use weather forecasts to get an idea of when a good time to paint is - now I don’t have to guess! Not super interesting, but a really useful tool for me! Low humidity = smooth paint! Soon as I opened it and let it acclimatise a little I noticed it was a super low humidity day so I shot some clear - came out pretty nice!

Not that I’ve tried! Unless you mean to literally clear coat over it, in which case Testor’s high gloss enamel ?.

Thank you! A little of both...the Candy2o is my favorite, but there’s some of both on there. I’ve heard that some of the Createx lines are meant for fabrics too, but it seems that the paint doesn’t know what I’m spraying it on as I’ve never had any troubles using any of them for anything I’ve wanted to do with them. Their weakest product, for me, is the black which doesn’t like to dry without some heat in my experience, but the others are good quality products that are easy to work with in my opinion (for what that’s worth ?) Their purple over a chrome would look great I’d think!

I forgot that I posted this...but I did spend most of yesterday trying to make a low-tech pair of coil-overs for my Deuce that I’m working on. I guess some of that advice above actually sank in! The ‘wrapping around a screw’ method worked best for me...I tried a few different materials and settled on a thin-gauge solder. It needed to be handed carefully but was easier to work with than any of the craft wires I had here for sure

It’s red and black now ? Should look cool with my semi-matching Deuce build: Waiting for a low-humidity day here so I can shoot some clear over it...got lucky with a couple of nice days over the weekend but it’s been 75-85% humidity here ever since and that’s not conducive to a nice smooth paint job...no rush though, I’m not exactly short of things to work on ?

That frame looks GREAT! I love it! The budget answer to your problem is the one STYRENE-SURFER suggested, I think - tape ‘em together and separate when done. The less labor-intensive version is to use a scrapbook cutter - I think of mine as a baby waterjet machine or something. Of course, it also requires a computer and a scrapbook cutter, which is a lot more expensive than tape ?

Translucent paint over a reflective base color is basically what a candy paint job is; Tamiya’s clear colors work great and I really like them but there’s only a handful of colors. You can mix them, obviously, but the Createx line is a lot more varied. Harder to spray in my experience, they’re very thin and need to be mixed with a carrier for best results but a lot of colors to choose from and a good quality product. Used a mix of Tamiya clears and Createx solids and candies on this one:

Still waiting until I dare polish the body some more...but got some work done on the frame this past couple of days. Made some simple coilovers to replace the kit‘s plastic parts: These aren’t as nice as a set made on a lathe...but I don’t have a lathe ?‍♂️?. They look cool on there though, definitely an improvement over the kit pieces I think: Plumbed the front and rear brakes: And had to shorten the driveshaft a few scale inches to account for the longer trans on the new engine...this one wasn’t going to work: And everything else was a case of sticking everything together until I ended up with this: And we got a roller! It’s gonna look cool I think! Racecar-y! I can’t decide if I want a chrome insert for the grille or if I should shoot it black...any opinions anyone? More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Beautiful! I like that white color - way cool!

Really nice build Tim - paint looks great! Where in the city are you?

This looks outstanding Dennis - it has that “can’t put my finger on it” factor that makes it look REAL even though I know it isn’t. Probably a combination of things, but it’s a really good looking build! Always appreciate you sharing your work!

Looks really good Randy!! I like the color!

Absolutely right! Why rush...when it’s finished you don’t get to build it anymore anyway ??‍♂️ I’m fairly new to the Testors enamels but I’m really pleased with them...I’m finally getting closer to the results I’ve always wanted but never managed to achieve with lacquer and acrylic clears. Other people get amazing results with them, but I never quite got them as nice as I do wanted - I’ve always wished I could get that miles-deep shine! The previous two builds I’ve done I let sit for 3 weeks before polishing and I think that’s going to be about the magic number for me...but I figured I’d try doing one sooner and see what happened! That layer of paint under the top layer is definitely not quite ready for a final buff yet, so lesson learned...but it came out pretty shiny anyway! Very forgiving - can’t wait to try buffing it some more in a couple or three weeks!

Thanks fellas! He also likes stealing tires off my bench, which is less endearing.... Made a start on this - I figured I’d get going on the body first so it can sit and dry a while whilst I work on the other stuff. It’s ALMOST ready to paint out of the box, very faint mould lines...the main thing I needed to fix was a big sink mark on both sides of the cowl: Kinda hard to see here, but definitely becomes more evident as you start to sand it out: Got it all smoothed out though without needing to use any filler...I’m also fairly certain that the raised lines either side of the trunk aren’t both the same diameter but I’ll leave addressing that for another build when I’m NOT trying to actually build something box stock without redoing every little thing: Went with a white primer seeing as I’m going for a bright color on this one: Before I painted the body I needed to prep the interior panels (the outside of which are the rear inner arches) and the firewall: Went with a bright Rustoleum red for this one - I want to do something 2-tone like the Deuce I’m also working on, but in red and black this time: It was meant to rain all day today but woke up and it’s like a beautiful summer’s day with really low humidity so I got to put color on this sooner than I expected - I like that color! Nice and bright! Whilst that dries for a couple of days I need to start work on the frame - there’s a rough jagged edge to the passenger side frame rail just under the reveal which really stands out if you don’t fix it (judging by the builds I’ve seen where people haven’t fixed it)... And they’re hard to photograph, but those reveals also have some decent sized sink marks that will be pretty obvious what with this being a highboy...more on that soon as the filler dries!

Not made a bunch of progress on this - got distracted by a 29 kit...but started polishing out the body a little: I think the clear’s still a little soft, even my softest polishing cloths are putting micro scratches in it as I’m trying to put the final sheen on it - guess this Testor’s enamel needs more than a week to really be ready to polish but it’s shinier than it was this morning anyway!

I’ve been casually considering a lathe - what kind is that and what kind of budget does one need to get going?

Interesting - I'm glad it's not just me I figure I just need to get some thin-walled tube of the right diameter and that'll solve my problem, but I was trying to make them all styrene sheet and not use anything I didn't have kicking around here already, because I'm stubborn I did think that a little vacuum former with some machined masters of the right size would also allow me to make what I need...but then I need to make or buy a vacuum former

These cars still look amazing today! Great job on this one Dann!

Very smart idea on the hinges - clever design and they LOOK great too!

Way behind everyone else here, but finally got myself one of these...and then after looking it over immediately ordered a couple more! Looks like it’ll be a blast to put together!

(Of course, these are real simple and don’t look too good...but if I can get them right I can make some pretty fancy designs on my cutter here and really do some wild stuff)

I figure if I have to buy a part I want online it might be a week or two for it to arrive...and I can learn a lot about fabrication in a week or two! Styrene is cheap, relatively so I do a fair amount of trying this and that to try out different techniques and see what will work and what won’t. This week I’ve been making some simple wheels, seeing if I can get anything perfectly round using only styrene sheet: I haven’t quite figured out the perfect trick yet - the middle part is easy enough but getting the rim to be perfect is trickier. The sheet needs to be thick enough to not be easily damaged, but thin enough that it will conform to the rim. Bill/Ace recommended using heat to preform the sheet around something with a tighter diameter to make it conform and that got me closer, but not as close as I’d like just yet - getting them perfectly round and being able to join the ends is a real challenge.

Well, Heinz has 57 varieties and this is way more interesting to me than baked beans ?‍♂️? My favorite semi gloss black is Tamiya, but I’ll pickup whatever’s cheap on Amazon that week when I need some and usually find a good use for it - I try and keep a few different brands ‘in stock’...can never have too many blacks shades to work with!

Dugly-er