sjordan2

This, clearly, is the best way to go for this task and many others. Do you have a link to your dry transfer source? I only know of one, but I'm skeptical about them – they want to sell you a couple of hundred dollars worth of DIY equipment.

Even though Lindberg reissued some of the worn-out old Pyro kits, you've got to give them credit for doing a little upgrading to them, such as chrome plating on the Auburn Speedster (a favorite of mine, which I remember painting using my Mother's bronze nail polish and brush applicator). Thanks for the insights into some of the reasons why some of their kits aren't as could as we would like them to be. Real life facts tend to muffle rants.

Mark II JZX90: http://srihobbies.com/cart/aoshima-124-04-toyota-jzx90-mark-ii-p-2824.html This is a drift version. I don't know what it would take to make it look more stock.

That is absolutely phenomenal. Great work! Maybe I should reconsider my opinion on the euthanasia of the Edsel. In a different, somewhat less-sleek way, it seems related to Ford's show car styling going back to the Ford Futura.

Unbelievable, thanks. I hope the thermostat kept the engine temperature low

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One thing I see frequently among the photos shared on this forum and elsewhere is hoods that don't sit as properly as they should – generally, too high, and I say this primarily regarding vintage cars with radiator shells such as a Model T, Duesenberg, Mercedes 540K etc. Does anyone have a process or technique for dealing with this?

I don't care what anyone says about the molding of this kit. There is no such thing as a perfect model kit. If it's an imperfect kit, it's still a perfect build. Your talents are enviable.

Yup, but that would most likely have to be done with a custom job via someone like Fotocut. I have a long list of things I want Fred to do (if he's still around).

I had exactly the same problem with the headlight stone guards on my 1/12 Bentley, and I did the best I could with home-made rings to hold the mesh, but it never looked right – at the time, there weren't PE parts for rings, etc. to make it look right. However, the windscreen mesh came out OK because the kit had a good chrome frame for it. This is a very tough challenge. That Bentley is a wonderful kit – the best I have ever put together – and I wouldn't put it off because of this. It also requires a bit of custom mesh to the sides and bottom of the gas tank, and though not necessary, could use a mesh stone guard over the carburetors next to the supercharger. My only recent thoughts on Bentley headlight stone guards is to find a PE boombox grille, but I haven't discovered it yet.

Probably the best solution, Christian, is to take some small needle files or even a sewing needle or pin and do a little pruning, as I have done with some larger scale wire wheel thinning. But, as I said, I wish the kit makers could have done it better. Other modelers may have better solutions.

Create or find a properly shaped buck, find the correct mesh of which there are many choices, and press it into shape. I did this successfully with the mesh for many convoluted sections on a Birkin Bentley windscreen. That's not necessarily the best answer, but, as I said, I wish the kit makers had done a better job with this part.

The biggest issue with most '53 Corvettes is that no kit company has produced realistic mesh headlight stone guards. I just wish some builders would work really hard at trying to correct this from scratch.

Based on these pictures, I'd say it's a good thing they killed the Edsel when they did.

Beautiful build, outstanding paint on a groundbreaking car. I recall reading a profile of the 959, where the writer said it took a full-time staff of aircraft mechanics to keep these things running – and you couldn't even get one in the US. When Bill Gates and his Microsoft partner, Paul Allen, imported their 959s into the US, the cars were impounded in customs for nearly 13 years; this led Gates, Allen and their car club to successfully (and expensively)lobby for the passage of the "Show or Display" law, which allowed individuals to do just that, and restricted them to putting no more than 2,500 road miles per year on the odometer ( ). More details here: http://www.insideline.com/porsche/959/coming-to-america-in-the-porsche-959.html

I have those kinds of organizing boxes and a couple of tackle boxes, etc. My downfall is failing to label things.

Just outstanding. Do you have any photos of the interior before you put the body on?

Most of the spare tires I see mounted behind these early cars don't have spokes, just a tire and rim, sometimes two. I bet that made changing a tire on the road quite a fun experience.

Eons ago, I had the good fortune to have had my Alfa serviced at an Italian car dealer in Maryland. There was a brand-new Miura with cream paint and matching interior on the showroom floor, and the salesman let me sit in it and even play with the gearshift. It was like being in the womb again, except for the aroma of fine leather (unbelievable stitching and finish), and you could even turn around and look through the glass firewall at the awesome engine behind you. I can't imagine what it would be like to drive one.

As for me, I would never touch this kit because there's no way I could measure up to this build.

This is kind of a strange turn of events, which I really don't understand. If we all want to be social and moral activists (and from what I'm seeing, prohibitionists) about the origins of our subjects – implying that we should avoid subjects with dark histories – we could not build or buy a Mercedes, Toyota, or have any historic interest in armor and aircraft, etc. This politically oriented ###### has no business here. What about historic dioramas? The General Lee? These are not necessarily political statements until the creator brings them forward that way. Come on,let it go. This is crazy.

That is superb, astonishing, mind-blowing. World-class craftsmanship.

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A lot of guys around here have some excellent paintbrush techniques, which I hope they'll share here, but I'm not good enough for that. I prefer to use wood grain images I've downloaded and shrunk to scale, then print them out and cut them to fit, based on templates I make from the area to be paneled – but I generally work on simple surfaces for larger 1/16 or 1/12 vintage cars (this is VERY tricky when it comes to cutting around things like instruments, door handles and shifters, and takes quite a bit of preparation). One of the best modelers I know does it this way and prints out the wood pattern on decal paper. Maybe a better approach would be a combination of both techniques – print out the wood pattern to approximate scale, or refer to pictures of the 1:1 car you're working on, then carefully copy what you see using a paintbrush and whatever wood colors are necessary. It's like anything else. Just practice a lot. You might want to Google around for something like "faux finish wood grain" for technique pointers. Some people like to use real wood where possible and paint it or stain it, but I think that's very out of scale and hard to work with for anything but 1/8 models.

The driver's seat back looks like it's had some use, and that would be a very teeny Touring logo on the hood if this were a model (though there are large-scale modelers who could pull it off). Real.