Don Sikora II

I've had great results airbrushing Testors enamel and always have thinned with the Testors/Model Master airbrush thinner.

At someone's suggestion here, I shopped around and bought a couple 100-count boxes of vintage US-made X-Acto #11 blades on eBay a couple years ago. No one is collecting stuff like that, so they were cheaper than the new ones and I'm probably set for life.

Testors sells some enamel paint pens. They can be found near the craft items in the paint department at Menard's.

You can get lucky at antique malls, but it's very hit or miss. Plus, if you don't look you won't find anything. And if you look, have cash in your pocket that you're ready to spend on a good deal. A few years ago on a Saturday morning I stopped at an antique mall and scored a very rare 1956-issue Revell gift set for something like 25% of what I'd expect to pay for that kit on eBay or at a show. Other semi-recent antique mall finds include a very nice Jo-Han '61 Rambler wagon promo for $20 and a started Monogram Little Deuce for $25. A few months ago I bought a lot of 14 Eighties and Nineties-era kits for $12 each. There were some kits in there that are $50-$75 kits on eBay. There are also a couple that are probably worth $15 each, but as group it was a good deal.

I think you just have to keep your eyes open and take advantage when a good deal comes along. if you're looking for one kit in particular, that's going to be more difficult to find than looking for vintage kits in general. Sometimes it helps to look in related areas, but one where not many people will want old car kits. For example, at a model train show. You never know what you will find! But often you will find nothing, and have to accept that. Deals do come along on eBay, but patience is definitely a virtue when shopping there. And in my experience, you are much more lucky to find a kit on Ebay at a good, or at least fair, price if it;s listed in an auction rather than as a buy it now.

Ollie's is taking over the Big Lots location in Racine, Wisconsin. It was part of a group of stores sold to Ollie's earlier in the Big Lots bankruptcy process. Heard yesterday that Big Lots found a buyer for the remaining 900+ stores, but I have not heard the name of the buyer.

I have a second-generation iPhone SE which is no where close to top of the line, even when it was new. And even that camera is better than expected for taking pictures of models. I just point and shoot and let the iPhone do its thing. The in-phone editing capability in the Photos app seems to have taken a step back with the latest iOS update though.

I received my kit a few days ago direct from Tamiya USA.

My favorite is the Revell Black Silk Mat. The Revell #34302 spray is easily the best satin black I've found, with less shine than Tamiya semi-gloss black. The Revell enamel and acrylic brush colors are excellent as well. Another surprise is the Testors #1139 semi-gloss black enamel in the old-school square glass 1/4-ounce bottle. It looks fantastic and works well if you use enamel. Plus it's easy to find at Menard's or Hobby Lobby, which is a huge plus.

Very cool! That Little Deuce seat looks great in there too. I didn't know the Untouchables issue was all in black!

I believe the AMT 1977 Camaro was converted to the so-so 1970 1/2 Z28 back in the late Eighties or early Nineties. The currently available 1970 1/2 Camaro kits are based on completely different tooling and not related to the earlier backdating effort.

It's been a long time, but I think it was an actual race car. I almost certainly would have taken some snapshots of it, but I'm pretty sure that's before I had an iPhone and I have no idea if they are still on a memory card around here someplace.

Ok, now you have my attention! I saw the RX-792P run at Road America back in 1992, and I will NEVER forget the sound of that car at full tilt! About ten years ago, I participated in a Mazda drive event for the original CX-5 intro at Laguna Seca and they had one there on static display. It was an unexpected treat to see it up close, but unfortunately it wasn't fired up the day I was there.

This kit is not Fujimi based, it's a conversion of Revell's 1/25-scale 911S kit first released in 1970 or thereabouts. This is the German-market box, the US box is shown earlier in this thread with a red builtup on the box top.

I mostly use brushes from Tamiya and Revell-Germany—in particular the blue-handled Revell Painta Luxus brushes are relatively inexpensive in the US. Heller brushes are excellent and inexpensive if you can source them easily, but I last saw them from Squadron ten or more years ago. Most of my Tamiya brushes are probably 25-30 years old....many were purchased at Pony Toy Go Round if anyone remembers that crazy toy shop!