Mr. Metallic

If you decide you want to remove the paint, find a can of AirCraft Stripper (either spray or liquid forms are available) Don't use it on plastic parts because it can harm them Then, get some Etching primer. That bites into the metal better for adhesion purposes, and can take just about any hot paint over it.

The OneCoat Wet Look Clear is actually pretty good. I use it on the Testors Model Master lacquer series and Tamiya lacquers as well. You should apply it within 15 minutes of your last color coat, or wait a few days and apply it.

For the sake of realism it would depend on the era of the cars you're building. I'm not a NASCAR expert, but for the last 25 years or so(experts please correct me) the sponsor logos on the vehicles have been "stickers" which have a texture to them. And even more recently than that they have switched to full body wraps, as JC shared below. So, you would want the decals to appear with a sheen to them, not be super glossy. But, if you're simply looking to seal the decals to the body, clear over.

The 1:1's always were a slick looking vehicle. The upgrades you made to yours were well worth it. Nice build

I'm glad to see the 23 T back, and I will definitely get one. It looks like it has some cool and unique parts. But, based on my experience with 70's tooled kits with their vague attachment points, that multi-piece frame could prove tricky to build

You missed my point by focusing on the wrong part of my original statement. Yes, i understand that the companies are generally making improvements to the reissues. But my point is, regardless of how they obtained the tooling, their purchase of raw materials, development costs, etc...they are still pricing themselves out of the market, and any chance of developing a market for after the builders from the golden and platinum age of this hobby have passed on. They are shooting themselves in the foot by increasing the prices to the point where whatever kids(or younger builders) would be interested in the hobby can't afford it. And an additional note on pricing, even just 20 years ago, most of us could afford a lot more "splurge" purchases of kits that we wanted but probably would never end up building. Or buying kits just for parts. Those sales have essentially dried up because of the disproportionately higher prices of kits now. Yes, the market is shrinking due to lack of interest, purchasing pool dying off and many other reasons. But they are not helping themselves at all by pricing their product higher and higher. So, back to your point, Hobby Lobby may not be good for our hobby in the long run, but what are we supposed to do as a purchasing public? If I limited my purchases to only my LHS, I would make far fewer purchases overall. Meaning fewer sales for the model companies. Meaning less money to keep the ball rolling. Meaning fewer potential items for me to purchase, meaning less money to keep the ball rolling, and so on. They see lower sales over the course of time and assume it's because whatever they are offering isn't popular, or the market is dying off. When in reality, if their prices were lower they would sell more.

When you start getting into modifying bodies, especially contours and such, you'll want to move into 2 part fillers. Gman gives a good explanation above. I use U-POL Dolphin Glaze (yes, weird name). I get it on eBay, and typically can find it for $20-22 including shipping. Sands well, dries quickly, and doesn't shrink. As far as one-part fillers, switch to Tamiya grey in the tube. Feathers well, but takes several hours to harden to a sandable state. I use it for smoothing of textured ares and final surface prep before primer. It does shrink if applied to heavily, so that's why you should avoid it for heavier work.

Disregard prices, these are from my personal collection acquired over many years.

Without getting into a big discussion on economics and Hobby Lobby in the middle of this thread, here's my thoughts If Revell and Round2 weren't charging so much for their kits (I'm only naming them because they are the two companies selling North American market kits at Hobby Lobby currently) I wouldn't have to resort to shopping at Hobby Lobby for so many of my purchases. I still support my LHS for non-Round2/Revell purchases(and even some from those two when they release brand new gotta have it releases). But over the last 10-15 years all the model kit manufacturers have priced themselves above what i can pay for "splurge" purchases, which is what i typically buy at HL. Much less try to introduce a kid into the hobby with these prices. While I understand that there are many factors that have gone into the dramatic rise of the cost of kits in the last 2 decades, just thing about the $1.49 cent kit purchased in 1965. If kit prices kept pace with inflation over that time, kits should cost less than $15. I'm not naive enough to believe that's exactly how the real world works, but should the cost of kits really be at least double that, especially for straight reissues? Unfortunately, the LHS is the one that pays the price for the excessive prices the manufacturers are charging.

This just feel weird for some reason. Surprising they would put such newly released kits on clearance already. But what is is more odd is that the 48 police coupe was put on clearance a year ago. I remember because i bought one. Also odd that other locations aren't on clearance as well. Typically large companies like this authorize clearance all at once at all locations. So, either these select stores have jumped the gun, the rest of the stores are behind, or an error has been made and the wrong kits marked down. But it is possible that each location has a managers discretion to clearance product as they see fit. But that would be atypical for how retail corporations operate these days

This build has forced me to add this kit to my want list. Your build is so subtle, but well done. But we've come to expect that from your bench JC. Well done

Hopefully this point will illustrate the answer to your question, to my own embarrassment. This is painted with Inca Gold. Notice that the hood is a darker color than the rest of the body. That is because I had to strip and repaint the hood. I forgot what color primer I used on the body (white) when I redid the hood and used grey. So, there you go.

R/M 32 Ford series has a belt driven compressor on the Ford 302 included in those kits

It works great, but the OP is asking about getting rid of ARDUN heads

Honestly, if you're using that much filler that you need to worry about shrinkage, I would switch to a two-part filler. It cures, rather than waiting for solvents to evaporate like you have to on "1 part" fillers. Search for U-Pol "Dolphin Glaze" filler on eBay or elsewhere. The right deal on eBay should cost about $20, and often you can find free shipping. Fully cures to sandable state within an hour, sands and feathers well. I use Tamiya grey "1 part" filler for minor imperfections and final surface smoothing. It does shrink if applied to heavily, so I've learned the limits of what to use it on Now, back to the dehydrator discussion

I could be wrong, but I think you may find the lindberg 53 engine slightly smaller than your average 1:25 flathead. Most versions of the R/M 50 Ford pickup came with a stock flathead as an option. If your kit doesn't have those parts, perhaps post down in the wanted section? They are some of the nicest scale flathead parts offered in a kit, so adding parts from another kit would be a downgrade in my opinion(depending on which kit you're pulling from, most of the other modern tool R/M flatheads are nice as well)

Just because it doesn't compute to you doesn't mean it's not true. And like I said in my post "others may have different experiences" , but that doesn't mean that mine are invalid.

Steve, it appears that CSC will work for Duplicolor, which is good to know. However, in my experience, it has little to no effect on Tamiya and Testors lacquers, even when sprayed over Duplicolor primer. So when I need to strip those I use 91% alcohol. I have left parts in there for a long time trying to remove some stubborn paint or primer with no ill effect. But others may have different experiences. As far as a shelf life for CSC, I would say unused stuff sitting in jug should last indefinitely. I had a partial bottle that I didn't use for about 5 years after opening it. Poured it into a container and it worked as good as new. Used CSC on the other hand, definitely weakens over time. What i believe happens, is that even though you may have removed the parts you are stripping, it continues to work on the paint that is left in the container. So, to get it to last longer you can run it through a strainer used for paint to remove the fine particulates of paint left behind, and that should help the CSC last longer.

They definitely cut some corners bringing this one to market, but that was about 35 years ago. The reason you're noting some inaccurate parts for the ZZ car is that this kit was based on this tooling from the 60's. So they updated some things to get the look, but didn't make it 100%. One of my future projects is to build and accurate version of the ZZ car.

Very nice build. Those tires really set it off. What's the source for the blue lines?

This is fun to follow along. The details you're adding are well executed.

I'll try to get some measurements of the kit parts so i know the dimensions I'm looking for

Very cool concept, and nice execution. It reminds me of those purpose built open wheel cars that have been getting popular the last decade or so. the ones with no intent of being an enclosed car, and just built to blast down curvy California canyon roads.

The 34 kits we have in 1/24 and 1/25 are decent, but each has issues. The best out of the batch is the Monogram 34(which the ZZ top can is based on), but it's 1/24 which is a turn off for many. This brings me to my point. I know I've been saying it for years, and I'm not the only one. But I wish someone would tool up an all new 33/34 kit series, along the lines of the revell 32 and Model A series. Revell was the prime candidate up until recently(with their plans for new tooling for North American-centric subjects still being unknown) I think I'm finally going to have to cut up one of the Revell snappers to quench my 1/25 34 Ford fix.

Nice build JC, Don't count out the kart by itself. I'm thinking future Parts Pack, possibly with the streamliner parts?