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Buy the best you can afford. I'd also buy them one at a time, the ones you will use. Buy natural hair brushes, sable if you can afford it. Then treat each of them like the cost $100 each. Keep them clean, a dash of mineral oil every now and then won't hurt either, clean it out before you use them. (Helps keep the natural hair supple.) The other trick to keeping brushes clean is cleaning with lacquer thinner for enamels. Buy the cheap stuff for cleaning. If you have one put them in an ultrasonic cleaner with the thinner. You'll be surprised at what comes out of the ferrule. Most of all Never Ever pull on the hair while cleaning it breaks the hair off and ruins the brush.

Nice paint work Jason, looks like you are well on your way to a really nice Gasser. Were the molds cleaned up at all on the Round II reissue of the Ohio George kit? The last one that I bought was one of the mid eighties reissue. Mold lines were bad, though not as bad as someone recently posted where there is a good 1/8 inch of flash hanging off the front clip. That's just a bit excessive, whomever is putting out that kind of junk should be forced to sit down and put like a couple hundred of them together with flawless paint! I built the original issue of the Ohio George Gasser, the mold lines were pretty much what was on the rest of the models being sold at the time. They didn't hide mold lines as much back then, that one piece front end must have been a toolmaker's nightmare figuring out where to place the mold lines in the first place.

Correct the engine points the other way in stock form, the only modification required to make this work would be to pull the axels and differential and swap the ring gear and carrier from one side of the transaxle to the other. Could also have a transaxle out of a Spyder or other factory mid-engine car, most likely ring gear swap. With the factory doing the work the price soon zooms to unobtainium!

Curt, those wheels are wide five VW Centerlines, like the chrome Speedster/Spyder wheels as well they give it a period look. Great subject, you are making good headway with it too!

Spray hood and body at same time, prime both with same primer and you should have the same base to apply the color coat to. Spraying at the same time helps to have the same paint mix sprayed onto both.

Get some newsprint paper, practice on it until you master a good spray pattern. Learn to make the adjustments with the mix jet and with the paint itself. Sounds like you may need to take a step back to go forward. I'm going to go against the advice of getting a double action airbrush until you learn to work with the brush that you've got now. Not trying to sound insulting but did you read the instructions that came with the airbrush? A single action airbrush is a pretty basic piece of equipment, get the air pressure right which your airbrush specific compressor is already doing. Adjust the mixing valve/jet and you should be spraying a pattern that you should be able to work with until you do get a good pattern. Try tightening the mix jet, then bring it back out a half turn until you get paint to spray. Then make adjustments of a quarter turn until you get a good pattern. How thick / thin is the paint you are trying to spray through the brush, should be the consistency of milk, watery but with color from the pigment. Adjust one thing at a time so that you can zero in on the issue. Finally, if you really cannot get the airbrush to work contact Badger and tell them what your issue(s) are so that they can advise you on brand and model specific fixes to correct the issues you are experiencing. Once you get it right you should be spraying noticeably better paint jobs than through aerosol spray cans. Hope this helps even a little, what you learn with a basic airbrush is going to help you with the next one. http://badgerairbrush.com/PDF/Model%20350%20Instruction%20Book.pdf

Some people I've worked with over the years in sign shops and such like to slip the rubberized pencil grips over the xacto handle. I've got triangular shaped ones on some of mine they don't roll off the table as easy. I like the xacto no.11 for the stuff that I do.

quote I see varied colors on the valve covers, can someone tell me what color they used and what color a factory Z/11 should be? I also hear that the kit interior is incorrect for a Z/11 car, is this true? I think MCW has the proper interior. would it be worth it to buy it? From what I've observed during my research for my own '62 Bel Air the valve covers shown on the "Old Reliable" in this thread are pretty close. The color is silver but it is tinted to a silvery "steel gray". Try doing a yahoo or google images search on the '62 Bel Air, you will note that there are a few differences in the silver color. There are enough that are just about the same color to suggest that the tinted gray color is close enough to the original to call it a close match. At least that's what I am going with that is if I don't use those sweet Offenhauser Aluminum Valve covers.

The hardener makes the new formula dry a little quicker as well as polish out better, new stuff seems to gum up with polish even after long curing times. Sign Writers and Pin Stripers have used lacquer thinner with One Shot and other sign painter's enamels almost as long as they've been painting signs. So the answer is yes, One Shot can be mixed with lacquer thinner and shot through your airbrush. From what I've read lacquer thinner was used almost exclusively with the old "Japan" enamels that a lot of gilders used to set off the leaf on all those old glass doors and windows. They used lacquer thinner for the same reasons we uses it with enamels today, it dried quickly and was glossy. There is a guy over at the Kustom Kulture Lounge who shoots One Shot on commercial trucks, tow trucks, delivery rigs and stuff, can't remember the name right off. I think the thread is something like "what I do with One Shot" or something similar. How long ago did you close your "Striper's Kit"? If your brushes are still in good shape guys are ailmost fighting over the "old Dominicans" Grumbachers and stuff earlier than the eighties. I've been Striping and Sign Writing on and off since the early seventies, I wear old fart glasses and can't get into some of the weird contortions needed to stripe some areas on cars like I used to but I still got it! Once you learn the art it never really departs from your fingers.

Looks great, like the color combo,the stance really makes this one stand out.

For thirty five years old those are both well preserved and well done. Like them a lot.

Yes, the coverage is about as good as the leaded variety. I liked the leaded One Shot better than the new formulation, don't think there was enough lead in it for all the hysteria! It will cover as well as any of the current model paints. You probably already know to use their reducer rather than turpentine or generic reducer like you could with the old formula, use their hardener as well.

http://www.micromark.com/printed_catalog.dlp PDF version of Micromark's catalog. For those who aren't already signed up for their newsletter. Lots of cool tools and stuff to drool over!

Ooh, now we can all get the fully accesorized posing Dr. Cranky collectible figure!! How mucho denero for the Dr.?

I'm interested in this one too, since its the current model that I have on the bench. The "other magazine" whose name shall not be uttered had a couple of good articles On the '62 Belair, October '94 and Pat Covert did a three part series in April thru June '95 Building a custom Bubble Top called Bubbles. Oops I was wrong on the Pat Covert article issues, issues 95 thru 97, February, April, June '95. (Come to think of it I might have issues myself!)

Good tutorial. One thing that a lot of people forget when woodgraining is that almost all woodgrain has a bit of orange and yellow. You really have to experiment to get the look right, once you are there it all sort of clicks. The other thing is to save those scraggly mangey looking old brushes, they are great for laying down grain patterns.

Get comfortable with the airbrush you already have before you rush out and get another one. Sure the results are going to come short of an Iwata Eclipse or any of the big buck airbrushes, you need to take baby steps before you start running. It is during the baby step stage that you learn how to set up the brush and what steps to take to correct the issues you encounter along the way. If the acrylic paint you are using has a specific reducer then try to use it if it is in your budget. Tamiya makes an excellent reducer X-20A, works well for finish work. You can use Windex or other glass cleaners or isopropyl alcohol for more practice orientated stuff. Personally, I don't think I would use it on something that I was going to show off other than weathered paint. In my opinion (like the old saying goes, everybody's got one). I make every effort to stay with the manufacturer's paint system. They've spent big bucks on research and developement why spend your own? That said I know people who regularly use "witches brew reducers" mixing isopropyl alcohol, Windex and even Future acrylic floor wax in varying amounts. The consistency of any thinned paint through an airbrush should be somewhere around that of milk, which has it's full strength color but isn't thinned to the point you can see through it.

1997 I think it was car parts off of eBay motors.

Built that one back when it first came out as "The Rod Father" which was a play on the movie that came out right around that time; "The God Father". Those two piece rear slicks and front tires were the worst! If we had only known about using vinyl glue instead of Tester's Red Tube glue on them back then. At some point nearly every Revell two piece tire I ever installed on my models split down the seam from glue failure. You did a great job on what would be by today's standards a finicky kit. Those wide rear tires are a perfect replacement for the originals, they're exactly what the Hot Rods were wearing when the Rod Father was released. Those decals are what makes this kit stand out from "Tweedy Pie". Recently picked up the latest reissue of "Tweedy Pie" brought back a whole flood of memories of building "The Rod Father" It was one of the last kits I built. Thanks for sharing your excellent build.

Wasn't the Revell Attempt I streamliner based on the Dragmaster chassis which is the backbone for your Mooneyes dragster? Have to wonder when Revell did the Attemt I if some modifications were done to the Dragmaster frame that were then passed on to the parts pack Dragmaster frame. Having never seen the original release of the Mooneyes dragster kit I'm only speculating. At one time the Mooneyes dragster was a part of a double kit wasn't it? (Fiat Topolino?) jb, as always I love your work, well thought out and executed. This one is no different, going to be a real beaut when you are finished. Now if those '57 - '60 Ford pickups weren't so stinking expensive! (I actually like that series F100 right up to the Unibodies then they lost me.)

jb, You always know how to make a silk purse out of the old sow's ear! Think I'm going to take a look inside the box of my old Forty, always sort of bypassed that nailhead. Maybe not for long.

Sorry if I didn't catch the part where it was either said or insinuated that the person was being up front with the I broke it information, which should be clearly communicated. I have heard more than one person say that they either broke or lost a part out of a Revell kit and Revell replaced it when they told them that said part was missing out of the unopened kit. That is the mentality that I was referring to in the first place. To me that is the kind of dishonest misrepresentation that could get the whole replacement part program stopped. I've had to go to Revell for replacement parts once, when the kit's clear parts were so warped it was curled. I sent a picture of the offending parts they had the entire clear sprue out within a week. They did request that I place the warped sprue back in the pre-paid return box so that they could try to figure out the "what happened". I was impressed with their customer service/support.

Correct me if I am wrong. Isn't Revell's part replacement service for their error, not the buyer's? To me that borders on really dishonest as it abuses Revell's replacement, in their own good faith effort to make the customer's purchase right.

Actually the smart thing to do with those that were stored inside would be a preservation "restoration". Where only those things required to make it start, run, steer and drive are repaired with NOS OEM parts. They are only original once, a full restoration makes it not original. The story of their survival adds value to their existence.

I could see that under the hood of a Prius or a Fiat 500, but a Willys(?) that part's kinda strange. The tongue and cheek should fit the subject closely to work to its fullest! At least they got a great Hemi for another project, hopefully ether didn't try to shoehorn it into a Prius or Fiat 500!!!