mrmike

It's best to get the clot taken care of first! The modeling projects can wait until you are doing better. Get well soon!

That is a sharp looking cruiser! You did a super job on this Charger! I just got a Lindberg Charger to make a New Hampshire State Police cruiser, I just have to order the paint!

I have finished the engine save for a few touchups and a decal on the oil fill tube. As I was building this engine, I noticed the extra valve covers and intake manifold on the parts sprue. Did Revell originally intend this to be a 2 In 1 kit or a different version altogether? I have started on the chassis by adding cross members, spring hangers, and the exhaust system. More to come.....

Great job on the Olds 442, Brian! I like it!

Well, I made another offering to the carpet gremlins that reside in my model cave! I realized that the shaft on the distributor was not long enough for mounting the distributor nor is there really a spot for the distributor anywhere on the front of the engine. I removed the wires from the cap and drilled out the bottom for a longer shaft made from a piece of 1/8 styrene rod. I placed the rod on my bench to cut a piece off and the distributor went flying off the bench and onto the carpet. I searched for it, but it was gone. A trip into my parts box produced a distributor from a Revell kit that is better detailed and has a longer shaft. The carpet gremlins can have the other distributor! The doghouse is together. I forgot to add the subframe to the chassis pan, so this will be getting some overspray. More to come.....

I started working on the engine by adding a fuel line to the carbs. I also added heater hoses, the alternator, fan belt, and fan assmbly, transmission, and exhaust manifolds. I drilled out the distributor and added plugs wires. I need to make a coil and coil wire. More to come.....

So Steve, are you telling me that I should rip out all the styrene I put into the score? I think that would make quite the mess of the hood and in my mind, not worth the effort. I do thank you for the suggestion, but I think it is a little too late for it now. So far, I have about one hour invested in this hood and I am going to forge ahead with my repairs to it. If the hood curls a couple of months down the road, then I'll replace it with the other hood I have in my parts box. Again, I do thank you for the suggestion.

Well, my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to play a hunch. I filled one of the scores with Testors Liquid Cement. Then I took a piece of sheet styrene and placed it inside the score. After a couple of minutes, the glue softened the styrene and I pushed it into the score level with the surface and allowed it to harden. This should take care of the thin plastic and block some of the heat from the paint from getting through. More to come.....

The way that I understand it, when you start with the coarse grit, you are, in a way, damaging the paint. Using the next grit in a different direction, you are removing that damage. So, to me, it would be best to alternate directions on every grit used. Try it out both ways and see for yourself which one works the best for you.

The bed cover sits on top of the bed rails. I was going to make the cover fit flush with the top of the bed rails, but I took the easy way and made it a little bigger than the opening.

My fix for the lack of trim around the rear window seemed to be a rather easy fix. Just something for the foil to grab onto. Right now I am thinking about prepping the second hood for paint by filling in the score line under the hood and sanding smooth the top of the hood since the score line shows on top as well.

My wife is experiencing the same with her tennis elbow. The doc deadened the nerve to block the pain and after 48 hours, the pain is coming back. BTW, cake is for eating, not walking!

Here's the hard tonneau that I made from sheet styrene. I used a medium sanding stick to bevel the edges and make the rounded corners with. Paint was flowing today! More to come.....

That's exactly what it is!

Looks great, but I see one thing wrong with it...the shifter is backwards. It's probably be more trouble than it's worth to correct it, but I thought you should know. Other than that, it looks great!

Thanks Rodney! I did take Mr. Zinns advice to heart and after an one hours time, I had the side skirts on and hopefully, properly aligned. The truck needed a hood scoop and even though it willl not be functional, it give the truck a racier look. I have been working on a hard tonneau cover and it is coming along rather well. I measured the bed for the correct measurements and cut it out of a piece of sheet styrene. I should have pictures of it later.

Thanks guys! I have seen this score on other AMT kits over the years and I have largely ignored it and just built the model. Now, I have used a chemically hot paint and must deal with the outcome that has been handed to me. I have the other hood and I may fill the score on that and paint it. We shall see... Thanks George! That is the paint treatment that I was going for until my issue with the hood arose. Right now, my enthusiasm for this project has gotten up and left me, so I'll come back to it later. It's still on the bench, I'm just not working on it right now.

Scale Equipment Limited has a set of trim rings available. http://www.seltd.net/ez-catalog/X344897/24/24610P

Thanks for the support and suggestions, guys! This was a tough part of this kit...adding the ground effects skirts! I added the front clip and the hood scoop. This was the worst part of all...the tailgate! The opening was pinched at the bottom and flared out at the top. I had to place the tailgate into position and glue it from the inside of the fenders and from inside the box and clamp it with a rubber band. I'll be cleaning this one up! This kit definitely could have been better engineered in regards to the body, side skirts, and tailgate. I wonder what other surprises are in store for me. More to come.....

I haven't done a truck in a little while and I thought that it was time to build this one. I got this when the kit first came out as evident by the one-piece box design and the thick looking plastic. And, there will be a few changes made. A set of Pegasus 19" Chrome T's and disc brakes, a resin K&N air filter from Scale Dreams, a hood scoop from the AMT '87 Mustang kit, stripe decals from three '06 Mustang GT kits, and a hard cover for the pick up bed. My paint will be Tamiya TS-8 Italian Red with a gray interior. More to come.....

Rob, this is true, but I want to do the Performance Hood Treatment and part of the hood has the body color on it. Give me a day or two so I can restart with a fresh approach.

As my parts box grows in size and capacity, I am starting to forget where certain parts came from. I guess I can just give up and be happy with the fact that what I need might be in there. :)

Thank you guys for the support and the suggestions. I really appreciate it. I think I need to push this on aside for a day or two to consider my options on how I want to proceed. This is where a second project comes in handy and I can keep my hands busy until I am ready to resume this project. To have the paint on the hood go south on me like this has taken my enthusiasm away for this project, so I'll come back to it later. Thanks again!

I sat down yesterday afternoon and started sanding the hood as sort of an exploratory surgery to see how smooth I could get the hood and to see just how deep the paint burned it's way into the plastic. I got the hood quite smooth and judging by the outline, the paint pretty much went through the thin plastic. I held up the hood in front of my shop light to see just how thin this plastic is. This hood came in a '69 GTX kit I bought years ago for the chassis on my '69 Charger 500 project. You can see just how much of the score line shows on top of the hood. This was how my hood for the RR was before I sanded and added primer. I am contemplating carefully filling in the score line underneath the hood. I am also thinking of putting this one aside and moving on to another project until I feel like continuing working on the RR. We shall see... More to come.....maybe.

The best thing you can do is to read your owners manual on all the various settings and decide which ones you'll need. For closeups, you definitely need a macro setting. This setting and allows you to be able to get close to your subject and take a clear picture.