Chillyb1

Great minds think alike, Austin. I'm currently working on that awesome van as a tag target:

Oh, please! Don't let these guys mislead you in their rush to claim it is all a subjective matter. The three best companies with the best overall quality in injection-molded plastic car kits are, in no particular order: Tamiya, Tamiya, and Tamiya.

Well, Tim, you've already offended me. When someone arrives here and claims to be an "old guy" I expect that person to be older than I am. So, you whippersnapper, you'd better break out the apologies and pronto. I mean, I'm only halfway to one hundred! Anyway, I'll forgive you in advance. And I'll graciously welcome you to the forum. There really is an invaluable wealth of modeling information here and most of us are pretty helpful when we want to be.

Which just goes to confirm what we already knew: Sweden is full of insanely talented modelers!

I live in western Illinois on the Mississippi River and this area is a winter nesting ground for Bald Eagles. They are just now leaving for the year, but they are pretty thick in the sky for most of the winter. This year there were so many and the weather so mild that they spent a lot of time in the skies and fields a little distance from the river, which is to say right above my house. One day while looking out of an upstairs window an eagle flew past not more than eight feet away as it drifted on the wind. Awesome! Anyway, yes, they are really cool to see up close and in large numbers.

That is just stunningly beautiful. I am going to have to build this kind of thing one of these days. I love looking at them. Your attention to the little details is really compelling; I'm thinking especially of the peeling paint on the stone lintel, which peels differently that the other kinds of painted surfaces, and the little bends, dents, and dings in the bottom of the metal doors. Fantastic work.

You don't want to know what I think. Oh, all right: I think you are nuts. But I mean that in an encouraging way.

No, I don't like it. But I really appreciate the weirdness. This is such a zany automotive trendlet. You certainly capture it in your build.

I'm dying to see the new photoetch set. Oh, and the completion of your build!

I'm not a doctor (well, not the medical kind), but I have found that airbrushing Tamiya acrylics using their thinner is just about the safest thing available to modelers. I also use lacquer thinner, but I do so in a well ventilated painting space with a fan going. If you are prone to headaches or have some sort of reaction to common modeling painting supplies, then anything is possible. I have never gotten a headache or had any reaction from airbrushing with lacquers, enamels, or acrylics.

Holy Cats, man, color me impressed. I haven't yet been able to enjoy the pictures thoroughly because I've been temporarily blinded by that finish (and some jealousy). I really like that car and that kit and will have to try my hand at it again sometime. I may have to come back to this message to add more effusive praise after going back over the photographs.

I can't even describe how excited I am to see this build. I love the car and have several of the 1/24 Tamiya Enzos, but only recently completed one for the first time. Your build is starting out spectacularly. More, more, more!

Thanks, guys, for your responses. Casey, that is indeed the source. I've got no idea how this thing came to be in my possession. I don't recall finding anything other than the head. I'll have to check with my brother to see if he recalls having this bear kit.

I found this today while looking for something else. I vaguely recall finding the plastic parts for the bear's head in a model that my brother had given me. I remember painting and assembling it and mounting it on this wooden plaque, envisioning some sort of diorama of maybe a natural history museum or a hunter's den. Not really sure what I was going for. Any idea where this came from? Is there a series of plastic models of wild animals?

It has its uses, I think, but it is not a replacement for BMF. I've been using a different brand (Intertape Polymer Group) but it doesn't appear to be vastly different from the 3M product you've pictured. The tape has a duller finish than BMF and it won't polish to much of a shine; so, if you want that sort of finish, then this tape is great for that. The tape is significantly thicker than BMF, which can have its applications (like the rear window and windshield wipers on the Riviera pictured below or the rocker panels on lots of cars) but it will look out of scale in a lot of places on a model car. The thickness will also inhibit your trimming of the tape; it is actually kind of hard work to trim this stuff and it will eat into your hobby knife blade budget. This tape also will dent (if that's the term I'm looking for) and will hold that dent; that is, if you accidentally run a burnishing tool across it or otherwise cause an indentation, you won't be able to burnish it out or ameliorate the damage. You have to remove the tape and then reapply it. I haven't found the adhesive to be too strong or to cause damage to paint, but you'd have to be very conscious of that possibility. And speaking of adhesive...it does add to the overall thickness of the tape, which can make the tape appear out of scale depending on the location. A couple of pictures:

Welcome back to the hobby and good luck with the Bugatti project. (And when you get to the picking brains part, be prepared to endure several rounds of one-man's-correct-is-another-man's-you're-way-off.)

Okay, all of your questions have been answered and I agree with what the others have said. I'd like to add to what Force mentions about the gravity feed versus suction feed: If you don't have a color cup that you can use with your airbrush, then you should get one. I've found that Alclad chrome and polished aluminum work better when drawing from a cup than from a bottle in my Paasche VL.

I'm afraid you are hunting a unicorn. Nothing comes even close to what you get with decals, and the decals come in so many varieties, that it appears that modelers have given up trying to find an alternative. I'll be interested to see if anyone chimes in with a new, different, and viable technique.

What a delightful subject. You never see these things. I'm really looking forward to the build.

Well, since no one else has mentioned it, I'll just come right out with it: nice antenna!

Clearing over Alclad chrome usually ruins the effect and just makes it look like shiny silver. If it were my project, I'd paint everything else and save the bumpers for last. I'm assuming the bumpers are molded integrally due to the subject.

I lived in New York for 15 years or so and came to realize that the strong accents of yesteryear are now very localized and becoming less and less pronounced (no pun intended). I lived and spent most of my time in Manhattan so I know that I missed out on a lot linguistically that occurs in the other four boroughs, though I did occasionally run across local peculiarities. I worked with woman who was raised in Queens and lived in Broad Channel, which she pronounced as "Bird Channel." I had to ask her a couple of times before I figured it out. I also lived in both Essex and Hudson counties in New Jersey and encountered there more than a few local and localized accents.

Then here are three more that you'll find little use for in conversation but will enjoy adding to your capacious vocabulary: 1) Apotropaic 2) Pedipulate 3) Floccinaucinihilipilification Oh, what the heck here's a couple more: 4) Pifometric 5) Absquatulate

Here are Bella (the little one on top) and Xerxes. Xerxes is seven and I kept him from a litter of six that a neighbor's cat raised in my garage. It was a blast having all six of those kittens around until they were weaned, and the mother too, for that matter. The mother, Scratchy, died about a year later and is buried in my backyard cat cemetery (That last bit is not as weird as it sounds at first: a bunch of neighbor cats have ended up killed on the road nearby and several strays have had kittens that didn't make it, so I've interred them in the yard). Xerxes led a very peaceful life until two years ago when I rescued Bella from the road. Just happened to be closing curtains one evening during an unseasonably warm February day and spotted an injured animal on the road. I went out planning just to get whatever it was off the road. Well, it was a cute but injured kitten. I'll spare you the whole story of her recovery, which was remarkably fast, and add only that one thing led to another and she became a permanent member of the household, much to the consternation of Xerxes who is almost constantly under attack from Bella.

I use Testors' clear parts cement for this sort of thing. But I'm not sure that any adhesive that a modeler might normally use for clear parts would ruin the BMF.