David G.

Wow! You have a crazy amount of work going on with this project, it's fascinating to watch it all come together. Keep up the great work. David G.

Hello Everybody! Welcome to Day Four of my own personal Seven Day Challenge. I managed to get a decent coat of paint on the body. Though it will likely need a little more work, I'm satisfied with it. The interior detail work has begun. I've applied some BMF and Molotow paint to highlight the door panel trim. I painted most of the chrome trim on the dashboard with Molotow paint. There are a number of decals provided for the wood trim and gauges. Though it's hard to see them, I've applied the first two gauge decals. I finished filling the ejection marks on the radiator support and gave it a coat of paint along with the upper radiator hose. Work continues on filling the gaps in the rear axle casting and the first coat of black wash has been applied to the grille. This represents about 2.5 Hours work. This close-up of the dashboard shows the first two decals on the gauges over the steering wheel bump. In addition to two more gauges, there are a couple of decals that simulate the wood-grain trim on the dash. The paint went on smoothly with just a bit of orange-peel. I should be able to smooth this out with a light color sanding. As always, thanks for taking the time to look and please feel free to comment. David G.

Thanks Big. I usually spend most of my cleaning prep on the body and interior, the other parts I wash as needed. David G.

It looks like you're going to be throwing some crazy detail at this one. It should be a grand adventure. David G.

Hello Everybody! Welcome to Day Three of my personal Seven Day Challenge. Much of this build session was spent color sanding the body. It looks much better and I have high hopes for the upcoming second coat of paint. The engine is now complete, decaled, detailed and ready to install. I also started filling the ejector pin marks on the radiator support. I'm not sure why as I don't think they'll be easily visible after assembly but, there ya go. The exhaust system has been painted but I do plan on adding a little more detail to it in the form of weathering. I painted the rear shock absorbers, drive shaft, wheel backs and front suspension piece. I also assembled the rear axle and hit it with some primer, it's going to need some seam filling and clean-up before it gets painted. All of this is the result of about 2 1/2 hours of work. Here is a close-up of the results of my color sanding. The gray speckles are the high spots on the roughness that are hopefully now low enough not to cause any problems with the next coat of paint. I also sanded through the paint on a few of the high spots but I expected that this would happen. That's all for now. As always, thanks for taking the time to stop by and please feel free to comment. David G.

Thanks Chaz, I'm hoping that a little color sanding and a second coat will get it smoothed out. David G.

Everything looks great so far! Nice detail on the dash. David G.

Great looking Chevelle, excellent engine bay detailing. Nicely done. David G.

Because new wheels are the first step in any restoration project. At least it was when I was in high school. Convincing rust and paint effects, looks great. David G.

Beautiful color, great paintwork! David G.

Well worth the effort! Paint, fit & finish, everything looks great. David G.

Spectacular work on this! The paint looks fabulous. David G.

Excellent work! The tires make it look ready for a weekend on the beach. David G.

Great looking T-Bird! The paint came out nicely and the interior looks fantastic. Is there something going on with the headlights or did I miss something? David G.

Great mash-up of parts so far. David G.

That was Dupli-Color Cardinal Red. Sometimes their paint is too hot, sometimes not. Dupli-Color tends to run hot but as you mentioned, I think it depends as much on the styrene as it does the paint. At least for Dupli-Color. The primer is Tamiya Fine Surface Primer. David G.

Wow! Excellent progress on this. It'll be fun to see how you work the eye lights into the whole thing. David G.

Looks great, love the colors. David G.

Absolutely Beautiful! Fabulous color and detail work, looks great from every angle. David G.

Nice work on that! Brings back a lot of memories. David G.

Nailed it! I always enjoy seeing your trucks, thanks for posting it. David G.

It's nice to knock together a "box shaker" from time to time. Looks like you're off to a solid start. David G.

Hello Everybody! Day Two: The engine is about 90% completed, I still have to paint the power steering pump and paint and decal the oil filter (yes, there's a decal for the oil filter) then stick them all together and do some detailing. The interior has its base colors, mat black and flat black, painted. I may spray some gloss and/or semi-gloss on the dashboard before detailing it. The body manifested its problem potential as I thought it would. It looks like there's a combination of ghosting and crazing going on here. I'm hoping that some color sanding and a second coat will correct this. I finished masking and painting the chassis with oxide red on the floor and Tamiya TS-17 Gloss Aluminium on the the fuel tank. Three more hours on the pile for this session. This is a closeup of the paint imperfections. To me this looks like a combination of ghosting and crazing. Ghosting occurs when the paint reacts to different textures in the plastic. The textures are most often caused by temperature variations that occur during the casting process. These variations cause the plastic to cool at different rates causing occlusion lines or texture variations. Crazing happens when the paint attacks the plastic and/or the coat of paint beneath it. This happens when the paint being applied is too "hot". In other words, has a strong chemical base solvent, usually lacquer. But I'm sure that many of you already know all that. My hope is that color sanding the paint will smooth out the current coat enough that the next coat will go on smoothly. The current coat should also act as a barrier between the new coat abd the plastic thus preventing any additional crazing. As always, thanks for taking the time to look and please feel free to comment. David G.

Hello Patrick, thanks for taking the time to comment. Most of my car builds take me between 40 and 50 hours spread over sessions that last from one to three hours each. This is one of the more simple kits I've worked on so I figured on 25 to 30 hours start to finish; between seven and ten days at a push. That may be ambitious but there it is. Thank you Luke. So far, so good. David G.

Hello Everybody! The Seven Day Challenge. This is a challenge that I came up with for myself. The idea is to completely build a model from start to finish in seven days. They don't need to be consecutive days but there must be only seven of them. The reason for coming up with the challenge is my desire to finish a build. I have several build projects that have stalled for various reasons and I feel the need to complete something... anything. The idea is to select a fairly simple kit that I could stand a reasonable chance of completing within the prescribed time. How does it work? Each day that I work on the model, I take a photo of what I completed for that day. An over-all view. If there are any special issues concerns or circumstances, I may call them out individually but other than that, this will be a top-down, high-level build project. Focusing, literally, on the big picture. "Model Cars, Mostly" is my Facebook model building page where I've been posting my current and historic builds. If you're interested in following me there, please feel free to do so. The name of the page comes from the answer I give when people ask me what kind of models I build, "Model cars, mostly." The subject is the Starsky and Hutch Ford Torino by Revell. I received this kit a while back as a birthday gift from my wife. She selected it because she thought a cool looking car. Which is as far as I'm concerned, one of the best reasons for buying a model kit. This isn't a kit that I would have ever picked out for myself. I have nothing against Ford Torinos or Starsky and Hutch, it's just that even "back in the day" neither the TV show or the car were really on my radar. It is a cool looking car, it's a piece of television and automotive history and a good model kit that looks like it should be fun to build. That's the cool thing about gifts, sometimes you end up getting something you didn't know you wanted until it's given to you. Since this kit is molded in color, my first thought was to see if I could get away without painting the body thereby saving some time. Unfortunately, my initial inspection found some casting issues with the body. Sometimes casting scars like this cover well, sometimes they don't. Either way, it looks like I'm going to be painting. Day One: The body has been primed and inspected and the few casting artifacts have been smoothed out. The primer looks smooth but I may still end up with paint problems. I sprayed the base flat black on the interior platform and began fixing the joint seams on the front seat. I also got about 75% of the engine complete. I also began masking the chassis plate (molded in black) so I can paint the floor pan with red oxide primer and leave the frame rails in their molded color. This is about 3 1/2 hour's work. That's all for now. As always, thanks for taking the time to look and please feel free to comment. David G.