Hawk312

After 30+ years of building, I tend not to read instructions too much any more. Yeah, I know, probably foolish. Honestly though, I`ve been using these paints back since the green Camaro almost a decade ago, and this is the first time I had problems. I`d be interested in your results once you get the clear on. Maybe I will try spraying the hood with clear and see what happens.

Thanks for all the input guys....lots of good points. I dont think the problem is the lack of clear coat. I`ve never had trouble with this line before (and I`ve used *lots* of them), and I have two Corvettes in Classic White and Daytona Yellow right next to it which are plenty dry and polishable. I am using a mix of warm water and dish detergent for cleaning. But Kenny gave me a thought....so a food dehydrator dries paint 2x faster for every 10º above ambient temperature correct? Does this work in reverse? For the past week and a half, temps have been around 100º-105º around here because of the heat wave. I always bring my cars inside to dry, where it`s been 30º-35º cooler than outside temps. Could it be slowing down the drying times that much?

This is the first time I tried this, spraying this stuff over bare plastic. This is on the Revell `66 GTO kit. I lightly sanded and washed the body, and then sprayed with 4 coats of the Phoenician Yellow. I have let it dry for about 2 weeks now, and I still cant use any compound on the body without it smearing. Has anyone had trouble with this?

Thanks Monty! On the black vettes, I used Duplicolor black base, either Tamiya or Testors Custom Laquer Series for the stripes, and Duplicolor clear (lots of it). For the Red one I used Testors Custom Laquer Series for both the red base and the white stripe, and Duplicolor clear.

A few more:

Sooooo many nice builds in this thread!! I thought I posted some in here, but I guess not. Here are some of mine:

Here is the two part urethane mentioned above on my 1:1. It sprays on beautifully, but the pattern is *very* large...so large in fact, that it is similar to my 1:1 spray gun! The pics are after sanding and buffing of course. And as someone else mentioned,it is very durable. Also, I`ve used duplicolor clear for years on my models with great results! The Big Scale Beauty was sprayed with it, color and clear.

Thanks guys! I have been busy with my 1:1. Hopefully, I`ll be able to get some time here to start building again. I have a bunch of 1/8th`s sitting around waiting to be built.

I can`t wait to see that Firebird on the shelves!! Hopefully we will see more Foose inspired stuff.

Nice work! And nice color choice! B)

I`ll throw my $.02 in here because I recently had concerns about what spraying hundreds of models in the past couple decades might be doing to my health. I`ve been using duplicolor for a loooonnnnggg time now....hundreds of cans. Rarely a respirator used. I`ve even sprayed entire cars with this stuff. I am definitely not condoning this though. If I had it to do over, I would definitely have wore a respirator more often. Anyway, I recently had a chest x-ray for something unrelated. I explained my history to the doctor because I was concerned about what my spray painting habits may be doing to my lungs, and he really didn`t care too much about how many time I had been exposed to chemicals or spray paints. He was much more concerned about whether or not I was a regular smoker. He also said our bodies have ways of renewing and cleaning out "bad" stuff from our system over time. I`m not saying we shouldn`t take precautions. I definitely wear my respirator more often now. But like GrandpaMcGurk said, I think there are much more immediate concerns we need to worry about. What soda, candy, and what they hand us at McDonalds does to our health should be much more concerning than our periodic use of duplicolor (or any other brand) spray paints, IMO. My $.02, for what it is worth.

Thanks again everyone! In most of my reference pictures, the tires were about twice as wide as the ones on this build. I am assuming that they had the original size tires? The buyer sent me about 50 pictures and he was really exact on what he wanted. He actually restores 1:1 cars, so I am guessing the pics he sent me were of accurate restorations. I think the kits tires were *really* wide, even wider than the slicks from the Camaro/Corvette/`57 Chevy kits, and just looked blocky and out of scale.

Have you guys ever tried Zep Purple Industrial Cleaner? I think that is what this guy is using, and he claims it strips the paint off plastic in a matter of minutes:

Yep! Here it is:

Thanks for the kind words everyone. Yeah this kit was definitely very difficult. I actually had to fill and block sand this one pretty aggressively to get all the bumps and ridges out. The buyer also asked for hood pins, so I fabricated something quick:

I can officially call this finished now, and finally. I started this back last July, starting from the Road and Track Revell kits from the `80`s. The kit took alot, and I mean ALOT, of work to get it to this point. I made alot of modifications to the body to try to get it to a convincing shape. If I had more time, I would`ve done even more with the roof line and A pillars. The suspension was lowered probably about 4-5 scale inches in the front, and about 2 or 3 in the back. The tires are the "skinnies" from the Corvette/Camaro Revell kit. I also needed to add alot of details that you wouldn`t expect. For instance, there was no radiator hose connecting the radiator to the engine. :confused: Let me know what you think.

Thanks for the comments guys. Finally got the replacement decals on. They aren't quite the right size, but they are better than no stripes. Just have to paint on the emblems now.

Oh wow. I am sorry to hear about that Darin. My prayers are with you and your family as well.

Thanks Krazy!

This is a really old one, and I think this is the only picture I have of this one. It was built from the Lindberg kit back when you could still find it on the shelves. I have about 5 more of these kits lying around, and hope to get to them sometime. I have owned 5 real 1:1 Firehawks in my lifetime, and currently own a 2001, which should give everyone a little insight into my user name.

Here is a `91 Formula I built. For some reason, this is one of my favorite models in my display. I think it is a very convincing replica when built up nicely:

Here is an `86 I built based on a car I almost bought 15 years ago or so:

I used Duplicolor on a bunch of my big vettes, including the one in the Big Scale Beauty article in my sig. I`ve always had great results. I`ll concur with everyone else about the primer. Lately, I have actually been using cheap Krylon primer, like you would find in Wal Mart, underneath the Duplicolor. I have had some issues with some two tone paint jobs, but that is only if the colors are two different brands (ex. my Mustang with Model Master Wimbeldon White and Duplicolor Metallic Blue stripes). If the brands dont match, I noticed they can pull away from any masked separation lines once you have several coats of clear on top.

Any chance that the re-release of the `78 Trans Am contains both bird decals as in the original issue?

Ahhh...that would explain why ctrl-f and "mustang" only returned 1 result. :D Thanks!