Brett Barrow

BTW, I finally got the updated schedule through August. And remember, as always, they ship at the end of the month given. May: 85-4036 Motorsports 1:25 '55 Jukebox Ford 85-4053 Trucks 1:25 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 85-4055 Muscle 1:25 '65 Chevelle™ SS™ 396 Z-16 85-4059 Street Burner 1:25 Dodge Magnum SRT8 85-4252 Special Edition 1:25 '90 Mustang LX 5.0 2n1 June: 85-1972 SnapTite® 1:25 Ford Expedition Police SSV 85-4056 Motor City 1:25 '69 Camaro® ZL-1 85-4264 Entertainment 1:24 Miami Vice Ferrari Testarossa July (tentative): 85-4024 Motorsports 1:25 "Fireball" Roberts '57 Ford 85-4027 Entertainment 1:25 Smokey and the Bandit™ '77 Pontiac® Firebird® 85-4050 Foose™ 1:25 '64 Chevy® Impala™ 85-4087 Corvette® 1:25 '67 Corvette® Convertible 85-7817 SSP 1:25 Miss Deal Funny Car August (tentative): 85-2501 SSP 1:16 Kenworth® W-900 Conventional 85-4035 California Wheels® 1:24 Original Mini Cooper 85-4051 Foose™ 1:25 '67 Dodge Charger 426 HEMI® 85-4183 Car Show 1:24 L'il Coffin® 85-6732 Ed Roth™ Rat Fink™ with 1:25 Diorama

"New" Beetle w/ new wheels. Not sure if it'll be the snapper or the glue kit, I'd lean towards the snapper, but there was supposed to have been a reissue of the glue kit as part of the "Basic Builder" line that ended up never happening, so it could be the glue kit. Since there's a newer New Beetle I guess it's not really the New Beetle anymore?!?! What will they call it now, I wonder?

It technically could show up at anytime, but normal procedure is anytime after the 20th for RPP's. We've done the RPP since it started, I don't remember ever getting anything this early in the month, but since they did get fouled up on last month's new releases making it out on time (due to the havoc that Chinese New Year causes on the Chinese labor supply) it wouldn't shock me if they bumped things up a little to make up for that.

So it is a Bantam body, I thought it was a cut and chopped Ford sedan. Wonder if we'll finally get the 1/8 Lindberg Competition Coupe now from Round 2?

You need to learn the ways of the Norbie Technique - This was posted by John K Dezan on another board, but it's the most concise summary of the Norbie Technique I've ever seen. I cut and pasted if for posterity. I should have printed out and framed it.

It's got a big ol' tunnel ram on it that's a little bit too long and as a result it has a teeny tiny distributor.

I don't know the answers to those questions since I'll be trying the stuff out for the first time myself, but from what I know about Jameson and his reputation I'd be willing to bet he'd mix up paint for you with high-temp reducer. But since this sale is for the stuff he was going to take to GSL I guess you'd have to take what you can get at the sale price.

The waterborne paint now just needs air moved across it. Lots of air. Most shops use high-volume blowers that run off compressed air instead of fans. Doesn't even need to be warm and the paint doesn't need to be baked, though it is a good idea to have a temperature-controlled booth. They do take longer to flash off and dry, but the advantage is that once the water is out, so is all the solvent, you can cut and polish them very soon after drying, usually within 24 hours or so. Plus they cover in fewer coats (less material cost) and leave a thinner paint film (less chance of stuff not fitting right during reassembly). My dad had an '88 IROC Camaro that the paint failed on around '92. GM reimbursed him for a good chunk of the cost of a new paint job (which my dad did himself in the family paint booth at granddad's shop) He ended up turning a profit!

That's what I meant, I'm not 100% sure either way, but I believe it's a case of who makes Humbrol for Humbrol. Humbrol recently moved their enamel production from China back to the UK, the general consensus within the industry is that its made by either Rustins or ColArt which both have facilities in London (we know by shipping labels it comes out of London, while Humbrol/Hornby's main facility is in Margate, Kent). I'm pretty sure Humbrol has been a brand that had its manufacturing sourced out for them for many years (since becoming part of the International Borden Group, back in the 70's, IIRC, possibly even before that).

I think the color looks spot on to me here on my computer screen. Of course, it may not look the same to your eyes! Here's Beswick's restored 61 car in the same color. http://youtu.be/efa5AWCp93E It's a beautiful build any way you slice it, I'd love for my painting "mistakes" to turn out that nice!!!

Nothing firm yet. Summer or early fall would be my guess. Yep, it'll have both versions, Grumpy's Toy I (red and white) and Grumpy's Toy II (all-white).

Sorry, I didn't take time to read through all the responses first, but I will go back and read when I get the chance. Since my day job (for the next few days at least, I'll be taking a new job soon, but I'll still in the hobby industry) is working in the sales and distribution of hobby products to chain, internet, and mom & pop shops, I'm probably in a unique position to comment on this subject. I've found that the #1 reason for the closure of the mom & pop shop is not due to declining sales, but rather to an escalation of the business getting to a point the owners cannot or do not want to sustain it to that level, or due to mom & pop having no successors, no "& sons" or "& daughters" if you will, willing to take over the business once mom & pop don't want to do it anymore. If a shop survives its first year or two, they've found their way and will grow if they choose to make that commitment to their business and give it the attention it deserves. The ones that don't give it what it takes will blame the weather, location, the internet, video games, meteor showers, North Korea, the gub'mint, Justin Beiber, and on and on, everything but their own actions and decisions, but if they're committed they will sustain and grow. Lean times will separate the wheat from the chaff, the strong will survive and come out the other side stronger, while the uncommitted will wither on the vine.

A lot of paint shops are going waterborne voluntarily just because they like the stuff once they learn to use it and switch to the proper equipment. Once they get a good waterborne sandable primer (PPG just came out with one that's getting good feedback) and a good waterborne clear, they'll make the switch completely. Stuff's come a loooooooooong way in just the last couple years.

Future (or whatever it's called now) withstands anything you can throw at it, and so does B-I-N. Both are alcohol-based and are way "cooler" than even your typical hobby paints. I think that's the key, the hot solvents have no effect on the alcohol-based stuff.

Any non-enamel paint will dry on vinyl tires, there's a chemical reaction that occurs between vinyl and enamel paint. I've typically used Tamiya XF-2 for airbrushing white walls and Vallejo for handbrushing white letters, but I've yet to try either on a tire that has to flex a lot when being installed. Vinyl upholstery dye in a spray can (from the local auto parts store) is reported to work well in that situation, I have some to try, but have yet to test it out.

Wow, "AMT/Ertl" there's a name I haven't heard in a while... And purple plastic, yeah what were they thinking? Good thing the days of AMT/Ertl and Racing Champions/RC2 are long gone. Long live Round 2!!! B-I-N sealer (available at home improvement stores) makes a good bleed-through stopper, but its spray nozzle sucks, so I decant it and thin it a little w/ Denatured Alcohol and airbrush it.

Considering Testors is $7.00+ an ounce this is a quite a deal for most hobbyists, especially those that do rep stock. Sure HOK and other paints marketed towards custom painting can be bought in quantity for cheaper, but that's a pretty good deal for factory matched paint.

Well, I don't know if it's a case of them being made by Humbrol, or made by the folks that make Humbrol for Humbrol... You can get them out of Europe, but they'll have to be shipped by a surface-only shipping method, and not a lot of places offer that to the US.

They did have the line further out on the tire than most, but I think they're still a little off, I'd say if the white line was located just inside of where it is on the AMT tire it'd be dead-on. Maybe like 1 scale inch. I have some painted up with white letters and white walls around here somewhere, I'll snap a pic when I get the chance. They're just ugly 1:1 tires, if you ask me. Somewhere I have a vintage pic of a really cool "day-two" Chevelle wearing a set of them in white red line (oops, misremembered!) and white letter that I've always wanted to replicate, I'll see if I can dig that up too, but I think it's on my work computer. found it -

The whitewall groove is a little too close to the outer edge of the tire, too. Lots of folks thought the lettering was upside-down when they first came out. These were factory tires or day-two upgrades on lots of cars from around 67/68. They should have done the more normal later RWL Wide Ovals, that would have made a better choice, IMHO.

I've touched on it before, and I know it first hand from my day job, that WE* aren't the demographic that buys the bulk of model kits. *message board posters, model club members, model show attendees, etc...

Except for the poor depiction of the tread, the AMT Firestone Super Sports Wide Ovals aren't that bad. It's just that the real deals are so ugly -

It's made for them by Humbrol, but not all of the colors are direct conversions. The formulation is pretty much the same, though. I don't know about their car kits, but Revell Germany doesn't have the best reputation for accuracy with color call-outs with their airplane models (I'm assuming you have a Revell Germany kit and want to follow their painting recommendations), so it might be best to do your own color research and use what you can get locally, and just ignore what they say in the first place.

I don't know, like I showed, I had it happen with Dupli-Color on AMT/Round 2 plastic, so I don't think it's just a Revell thing, it might just be this the way styrene is now and it's something we all have to get used to. I remember Bob Downie having etching issues with the 05/06 Mustang when that came out, and somebody (Bill Geary?) having it happen with the Dodge Magnum, those kits both pre-date the current ownership at Revell and it was a known problem within the hobby industry (the suspected link to the F1 track was reported in the trade magazines at that time, I didn't just pull that nugget out of my #$%^), so I would think if there was a solution, they would have found it by now. It could just be a matter of there still being some of that plastic turning up in the supply chain. I guess the best piece of advice is to test first on sprue or unused pieces.

Umm, track built in China, model made in China - I don't think China is halfway around the world from China, but it is a big country. It could just be that you laid it on a little heavy. I laid some Duplicolor primer on an AMT body the other day and got some crazing on the decklid where I went a little heavy and it etched through a previous coat. But I'm no SHOW QUALITY modeler, and I don't build for contests, so what do I know?