Erik Smith

Duplicolor comes in white. Duplicolor is kind of "hot", so if you have any joints or removed mold lines, they may show up when you paint. The duplicolor primer sealer seems to be hotter than the sandable primers. The remedy is to paint a few layers of Future over joint lines or mold lines and then paint. Future is Pledge with Future Shine, available at most large home improvement stores. Plastikote, as mentioned above, is not as hot, in my experience.

Guy across the street has a 67 Camaro convertible and 68 Firebird. He has them out and about now.

Even if you painted it with the exact same paint as the full size truck the model would appear darker. As stated above, it is a scale thing. Aircraft modelers are well aware of this and I even saw a chart somewhere showing what color grays you should use for scale correctness. So, you really have to adjust the white to look brighter than the actual truck.

I like the car - it was designed as a "bad " guy car. It's over the top but it's supposed to be. I like cars that look cool - I don't care what country they originated from or what era. If you do care where and when it was designed or made you are being fairly closed minded.

Looking good. You should be able to slide the wheels off and sand that mold line on the tire. I like the tape idea on the interior.

On my HP printer, I select highest DPI - which is 1200. I have tested the "normal" (300) and "best" (600) and the 1200 is sharper and blacks are more solid black - no small pixelations of color. 300 and 600 look fine, but if I can go 1200, why not? It does print slower, but I'm not in a hurry. I can also adjust ink levels from low to high and have found I adjust as needed on the decals depending on color, size, etc. For resizing, I just use Microsoft Publisher. I can insert image and adjust size as needed.

Put a fan in the window to draw fumes out and keep cool air from coming in - wasteful as far as heating goes but... Also, try a big cardboard box with two or three lamps. Place it close to or in the window. The lamps will provide light and heat (incandescent bulbs). It's always 68 and dry where I live, except when it isn't.

Weird turn of events.

Hey Rich - I think if you are more specific about what type of aftermarket parts you are after, people could steer you in the right direction. There are a lot of suppliers and they all offer something a little different.

Most people use a variety of paints - enamels, acrylics, and lacquers. For brush painting, I prefer Tamiya acrylics. As stated above, wet your brush with thinner and allow time to dry between coats - one hour or so for Tamiya. I pour a little Tamiya thinner into a painting try and dip in before getting paint. Enamels work too, they take longer to dry - sometimes (with thick coats) they can still be soft days after painting.

Nice work - looks like you put a lot of time into this build. I really like the storage shelves and parts in back.

Great work John. Thanks for posting as you build - really helps to see everything on a build like this come together.

I did a quick google on "Andy's Decals" and on another forum (guitar) he states using an Alps printer - could be a different Andy, but I think it had the same logo. I am not sure if this tutorial was more for the creation of the artwork and less for the printed product. I don't know, but I am curious if there is some way to print white with a regular, inexpensive ink-jet printer. Didn't one of the posts disappear too?

Nice. A friend of mine had a truck really similar to that in high school. Brings back some memories. Great build.

Thanks for the update and for the continued hard work.

Nozzle could be plugged. Soak it in lacquer thinner. Also check to make sure all parts of nozzle are tight - I am not familiar with the HF airbrush, but I spent an hour cleaning and re-cleaning my nozzle and needle only to find one part wasn't tight and it couldn't get suction.

I agree - not my favorite body but you turned it into something I like. Nice work.

Very nice. I really like the second photo - the glass looks perfect, like, well, real.

I emailed R2 and let them know I would buy this parts pack - we all should let them know that, yes, this is a good idea.

Don't leave us hanging Andy! I am very interested. I print my decals out with an HP but have to use white or clear film. The Epson printer (your model is "obsolete" and Epson lists another printer as the replacement) also is a color printer without white printing - unless there is something we don't know about. Any tutorials on basic photoshop for creating images would be popular too.

Looks nice and easy! Let us all know if you try it.

Ya, things are acting funky.

Oh, I'm sure there will be a few who find it interesting - myself included. This is one of those kits I have eyeballed a hundred times but never purchased. I'll like seeing it built up. There is nothing wrong with OOB - exotic or extra detailed doesn't always equate to a better build. Solid, clean construction is worth a lot.

...and this is also a good way of increasing general interest in model cars. Someone might not build plastic models but might collect diecasts. That person could pick up a copy of MCM, read the other articles, thus becoming interested in expanding their scope of involvement in the model car hobby. I know I have a couple airplane models after looking at Finescale and other ariplane builds - even though my main interest is still unassembled, styrene model kits of wheeled transportation vehicles.

I used to see a guy in Hamilton, MT, ride his cart (on the side of Highway 93) pulled by an ox to the bar. So, an oxcart could be in MCM. Hmm...that's a good idea...