Terry Sumner

LOVE it! Absolutely love it!

Oh MAN do I like this!!!!

Very nice...very VERY nice!

The only way to get a glossy surface is to have that surface perfectly flat. Paint that is full of orange peel is nothing but hills and valleys on the surface. You can polish those hills and valleys and make them shiny, but the hills and valleys are still there...just now they are shiny hills and valleys. To get that glass smooth gloss you must level out those hills and valleys by sanding them flat. And it's best to use some kind of flat sanding block to do so as simply sanding with your fingers will not work as well. Your fingers are soft and they will follow the hills and valleys to a degree. Sand the paint with some fine grit sandpaper wrapped around your block. It's best to do this under running water to wash away the sludge and broken off tiny pieces of grit from the sandpaper. Once you have the surface nice and flat, then you can go ahead with polishing the paint to a nice gloss. I like to use one of the polishing kits available that come with the block, cloth sanding "papers" in grits 3200 through 12,000, and the polishing compunds. Micromark has them as well as other suppliers. Here's a photo of a Willys that has been painted but not sanded and polished yet. You can see the reflection of the light fixture on the roof of the model and you can see all the squiggly lines in the reflection that indicate the hills and valleys. Hosted on Fotki Here are 2 photos of the same Willys after I sanded and then polished it. The surface is so smooth you can read the writing on the inside of the reflector of the light fixture in the reflection. Hosted on Fotki Hosted on Fotki Hope this helps!

I have that particular kit but it's partially built and for some reason, the air cleaner is missing. But the best I can do for you is a photo of the photo of the built engine with the air cleaner that's on the side of the box. Hope this helps you! Hosted on Fotki

Mine came about 5 days ago!

Just gorgeous!

Scott...beautiful job! Hey..I'm interested in how you lowered the suspension...got any photos of the chassis you can post? Or in lieu of that...a description of what you did to accomplish the lowering? Thanks! Terry

Roland's right...just cut that plastic off. And then if you still can't open it, put the bottle upside down and put some drops of lacquer thinner into the lid. Sometimes the lacquer thinner will get in there and melt enough of the dried up stuff so you can get it open. Real hot water helps also.

Very very nice. It's hard to get me to say a model is well done and yours is. The paint looks great!

I wish all the tires came in plastic. Even resin is ok. I realize some think they don't look relistic but I gotta say that vinyl tires look like toy tires to me. The whole object of modeling is to make your model parts look like the real thing and that is extremely hard to do with vinyl. If you stop and think about it, the paint is what everyone sees. No one sees the bodywork you do...it's only the top layers of paint that everyone is actually seeing. With the proper paint techniques, one can make a plastic or resin tire look a helluva lot closer to the real thing than you can do with vinyl or rubber. Subtle color variations from the tread to the sidewall can be applied unlike on vinylor rubber. This is why the airplanes all have plastic tires. The level of detail in a well painted aircraft tire far outweighs our vinyl tires. Plus you can mold in a slight bulge in the sidewall and a flat spot to show some weight on the tire. And you can mold in much better wrinkles if wrinkle walled slicks are your preference. Some guys have said they vote for round tires. Well that's okay for most of the tire, but model cars look just wrong with 4 perfectly round tires all sitting on the surface at one tiny point in the tangent line. There needs to be a flat spot to make it more realistic. You can sand that flat spot in on the vinyl tire but many modelers fail to do this small item. Another thing that bothers me in vinyl or rubber tires is what one other fellow mentioned...tires not precisely staying with the rim of the wheel. It always bugs me when I see gaps between the tire sidewall and the edge of the rim. Plastic tires can be molded to fit precisely to the wheel and they won't peel away. All ya gotta do is paint them right and they will look a lot better than vinyl tires. That's my 5 cents! (inflation taken into account)

Good! Now that I know that answer at least I know I'm not crazy! LOL

Very nice Felix...very nice indeed!

Love Bradleys. Wouldn't it be cool to own one and drive it around? Yeah!

Nice Phantom. But may I ask a question? Was the vertical tail designation FP on the decal sheet? Because I know of no base with FP as their designation so I was just curious...

Looks cool but just in case you didn't know...the Marines never flew the E model F-4. 451 flew the J and S model F-4's. No big deal..just one of those picky little things aircraft modelers notice.

Yeah, that S-10 was relly nice. So nice in fact it won 1st place in it's catagory!

Among my favorites are the Etrade baby commercials. The new one where he's in the crib in time out is great! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0GsNhLt9Ds

Link to the album... http://public.fotki.com/tsumner/baycon-2010/ And a couple of samples... Hosted on Fotki This old Corvette kit is a bear to build...especially this nice! Hosted on Fotki

I LIKE it! Yeah..that's an understatement!

Once again I will agree with Dave...the 67 Chevelle kit he spoke of is probably the best pro street type of kit to start out with. I guess great minds think alike eh Dave? LOL Hosted on Fotki

I gotta ask.... Is that engine actually in scale? It's freakin' HUGE! Almost looks like you've got a 1/16th scale engine in a 1/25th scale body. Wow!

I've been fortunate enough to be on the starting line many times in the early 70's. During those years, 1971, 1972 and 1973 I was one of the 3 announcers at Connecticut Dragway. Being the "rookie" of the 3, I never got to do the announcing while the Pros were racing...that was always done by the main guy. I was always relegated to the doorslammers catagories. But hey...I was 19 - 21 years old and I was the envy of all my friends because I I had a job at the drag strip and got to hobnob with all the pros! Many times I was sent to gather info for the announcing so I would talk to the Pros in the pits and bring back whatever little background tidbits I could for the main guy to use in his announcing. And it meant that while the fuel cars were running, sometimes I would go and stand in the little cabin we had on the starting line to provide a little shade for the starter. Something that always amazed me was how quickly the cars got smaller and smaller as they left the starting line. It was kind of like watching an old Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoon. You know...where the Road Runner takes off like a shot and he gets smaller and smaller as he goes away to a pinpoint in a second. And from the stands it usually looks like those fuel cars were going pretty straight down the track. But in reality, they were all over the lane! Ahhh...memories! That track is long gone now. It's used by Consumer Reports magazine as a test track for the articles they publish on cars. What a waste!

Wow...never saw the carbs mounted backwards like that! Usually the carb linkage is on the driver side and the chokes and vacuum secondaries are on the passenger side. I see the linkage originates on the driver's side but then links between the carbs over to the passenger side. Wonder what the reason for that was?