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MrObsessive

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Everything posted by MrObsessive

  1. If money is tight, I'd go with the ROG Jaguar XKSS as they do build up quite nice but with a couple caveats. I mentioned this before in an earlier comment you have to make sure you absolutely check the height of the engine in relation to the height of the cowl during assembly. Failing to do this will leave the hood sticking up in the air, as Revell didn't quite engineer this correctly in this area. It wouldn't hurt to shave the engine mounts down a bit to lower the engine as this will keep it lowered as much as possible while building it up. I believe the engine in the 1:1 was canted a bit to the side..........I believe that may be where the problem lies as ROG might have not got that detail correct. Yes, I had to do some modifying of the the ROG head in the kit as it was not "deep" enough to suit my tasted for a proper Jaguar straight six. It was just too shallow, and I hated the way it looked. The other kits you mentioned do have better engines but for those on a budget........get ready to do some modifying/scratchbuilding if you want it to be right.
  2. Ok, I'm gonna be the contrary one and HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you learn to barrier coat ALL of the newest kits BEFORE you put on any color coats. Reason is this: The plastic they're using these days is NOT the same as it was 10-15 years ago. Today's plastic is "softer" and doesn't take to even some automotive primers as well as they did years ago, and I'm going to include the latest iteration of Plastikote (my favorite) in that mix. Paint manufacturers are forever changing formulations without notice, and you can end up with that hotter can of paint which will have you gnashing your teeth in frustration, as all the prep work you did in getting the model ready for paint, is now one crazed mess. What do I use for a barrier?...............this. This is basically a shellac, and it's my go to solution for putting a barrier coat on any plastic I suspect will give me trouble which is 'bout anything new these days. You'll need an airbrush to apply this (an old one is best) and it will thin with alcohol. This does come in a spray can, but I don't like it as it comes out REALLY heavy and just makes a mess. Kits cost too dang much these days to leave painting woes up to chance, and if you take a look at the pic below, this Viper was painted with some mighty hot automotive paint, and was barrier coated with the above. As you can see there's nary a crazed body panel on 'er, and while it's more work, trust me it'll save you a LOT of grief. And yes, many years ago I tried the silver paint barrier method using Testor's spray can silver and like you said, I too had lifting problems with the color coats. Never again. Just my 2¢ worth agree or disagree.........your mileage may vary.
  3. Ok, I've seen that resin that you're talking about on eBay and yes, it does have some issues. My hats off to you for being able to fix a resin so well!
  4. The first thing I notice when any new design comes out is the placement of the wheels in relation to the dash. If the dash is practically hovering over the front wheels GUARANTEED it’s FWD. There are some exceptions, but that’s been a long standing pet peeve of mine for years when it comes to modern design. I can’t stand the “too close to the front door” wheel positioning on many cars I see. IMO, just makes it look kinda goofy, and I’m tired now of the constipated dog stance I see a number of cars have. ?
  5. Hmmm...........pics not showing on my end.
  6. In the late '70's in high school, the parking lot was LITTERED with the likes of Dodge Chargers, Chevelles, Olds Cutlasses, late '60's Fairlanes, and the oddball Corvairs, and (cough, cough) Pintos. Not long ago I went past my old school and since the parking lot kinda sits along the main road, I was able to see what cars are parked there now. Nissans, Hyundai, Honda, Kia........names mostly unheard of 40 years ago. It was a bit sad, but then the kids that are driving those cars now might say the same thing 40 years hence as something totally different will be on the roads then.
  7. Why thanks Steve! On that note, the Shelby has been kicking my rear on the interior. Some things I'll have to fudge..........just a little, but the rear seat in particular I had to very heavily modify from the fastback as they're completely different between it and the coupe. I'm off this week (vacation) so hopefully I can squeeze some time in and get the rest of the interior done. Before I go back to work, I'll try to post an update with pics. I wouldn't mind that at all! A bit better looking than the later ones with their battering ram bumpers!
  8. I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I ran across this pic in my hard disc and it immediately took me back to 1979, and the second fuel crisis that hit. Looking at some of the cars lined up, I have to assume this was '79...........I see a couple cars there that would have been new then. Man I sure wish a couple of those were model kits!
  9. In order to achieve that length, it looked like Ford stretched the wheelbase from the trailing edge of the front doors on back. Naturally the length of the front doors were shorter, but I'm not sure simply adding extra doors onto a two door wheelbase won't make the car appear too "truncated" and "short". It's up to you, but if it were me building it-----I'd do some sort of "Z" cut somewhere behind the front doors, then across the beltline a bit and then across the roof, in front of the C pillar, and move the whole works back. It appears that the roof was a bit longer on the four doors as opposed to the two door. IMO four scale inches is LOT to me that I'd notice------but then I'm a bit compulsive about things like that!
  10. This has been one of my very long term someday projects-------to build some kind of gas station (Gulf)/apartment house. I'll definitely be watching this one and that gas pump is looking great! Looks just as I remember it from back then as I was putting gas in my first car from that time ('69 Dodge Dart). Sinclair is one of those long lost gas stations as we had a couple in our area. And yes, I can remember 1979 very well as that's when we were hit with a SECOND nasty fuel crisis. I don't know about the rest of the country, but here in PA they implemented the God awful odd/even BS for license plates to dictate which days you were to get gas. Just the same, keep up the good work and it'll be interesting to see down the road which cars you'll put in your diorama! Not too many cars left on the road these days that would have been running the streets in '79.
  11. WOW! Very nice and clean! One of my favorite colors for this era Charger! Interior color is spot on as it's not overly shiny--------just the proper amount of sheen for the vinyl.
  12. Interesting! Would that happen to be an Australian '59 Ford (actually could be up to a '62)? I also see another Aussie Ford.........the Coral and off white '55 the third car in. That would be a show stopper on the contest tables..........a right hand drive '59 Ford or Chevy!
  13. Ok..............I've always liked the Tempest, and someday I'd like to find a restorable '63 preferably a convertible. A couple observations about that car though. I've seen a number of '62 models with tiny chrome fins on the rear fenders and others without. Was this a trim level option? Or am I seeing just restored cars as of late that the owner didn't like the fins and took them off?
  14. As far as an American mass produced car with a front engine/IRS, they were the first. Preceded the Corvette by a couple model years. The Corvair was kinda out there first, but it's rear engined and was more for competing with Volkswagen, Renault, etc. If you remember the movie "My Cousin Vinny", the '63 model was the subject of the comical court scene where Vinny's girlfriend fired off a series of (very correct) facts about that car. That scene was one of my favorites in the movie!
  15. Very nice! One of my favorite cars of the ‘70’s! ?? Which car did you start with as a base?
  16. WOW! I'm not much into Gassers but I LIKE that! I gotta ask though...............WHERE did you get the steelies for the rear?? I'd like to have at least one or two to use as a spare in a possible 1/12 project.
  17. I built the convertible many years ago, and I can remember someone saying back then that the front fenders weren't quite right. Not having seen this model in some time (sadly mine is now trashed in a box somewhere), is it that the front fenders are TOO well defined and not as subtle as the coupe? I have the '67 coupe as well, and I'd like to build that sometime............probably if I build another convertible I'd just kitbash the two. Edit: Oh yes! I do agree about Revell's 1968-69 Corvette kits! One of their best and a MUST HAVE for anyone into Corvette models! Just goes to show that Revell can get things right on the money if they want if they don't try to compromise.
  18. Looking at Joe's pic of this car and his comment, I didn't take it as us going back to the '40's as far as style. I'm seeing the bigger picture of how the car is styled "architecturally" as far as its height, and bulk of presence. I do believe though that the car companies are making a big mistake as far as sticking all their eggs in one basket in the whole Truck/SUV/CUV thing. This is only my opinion, but I stand by what I've thought about for the last several years in regards to the industry as a whole. The young folks coming up (13-17 year olds) I can best believe will NOT want those kind of vehicles come the mid to late '20's when they're well into car buying age. Why? It's generational. They won't want to drive what their parents and Grandparents are driving. They'll want something different to "buck the trend" and I don't see it as big lumbering CUV/SUV's. What's to follow who knows, but if past history is any indicator whoever's first in determining what will be the next best thing, they'll be sitting pretty in the years to come. Bill, you make a good point regarding today's vehicles and the electronic nightmare they can become. I look no further than the electronically controlled air suspension of the early to late '90's Lincoln Mark VIII's for instance. One reason you don't see many of them on the road today is because a number of those electronic components have failed and it's woefully expensive to replace if not impossible depending on what it is. I've already seen a few on the road that you can tell the suspension is mighty wonky as the front end is so high in the air, and the rear is dragging! I look no further than my own Dodge Challenger, and I wonder will any of them (like you mentioned) still be on the road in nearly 50 years, as long as the previous 1970-'71 versions can still be seen on the roads today (some as daily drivers). Hard to say as technology is ever changing, but that's a very good question to think about. Just my 2¢ worth..........................
  19. Wow, thanks for the link! It's weird to see something I used to see all the time in a cartoon, driving around in 3D on the streets! If it were mine, of course I'd make some changes to the appearance (slightly) but that's just me. As a kid, I used to hurry home from school to see Speed Racer on our local channel (sometimes there was competition with Dark Shadows), and it's hard to believe out of all the people that did the voices for the characters, only Corrine Orr (Trixie) is still alive-----albeit she's got to be in her 80's now.
  20. I've used PODS when I moved into my current house, and my things arrived (two weeks after I moved in) with no trouble whatsoever. However I did as Steve suggested.........moved all my built stuff in the car as I had a Saturn Quadcoupe at the time, and was able to fit quite a lot of stuff in that with the rear seats and front passenger seat folded down. As Tim mentioned though........some careful planning on how stuff is packed is key. HEAVY stuff on the bottom------light fragile stuff on top. I and a friend did all of my packing int the container that PODS gives you and as I mentioned, everything arrived without a hitch.
  21. A little off subject, but I complained LOUDLY about that ignition switch issue when I had my Saturn six months after I bought it in 2006. One morning (a very cold morning), I'm getting off work and I tried starting the car. It ran for about 15 seconds and then shut off as if someone turned the key and shut it off. Everything else was working in the car----radio, lights, horn, etc. But the car wouldn't even as much as turn over. After 15 minutes the car started up as if nothing was wrong. This happened several times in a period of three weeks and to make a long story short, after a couple of "fixes" including having a new battery put in, the problem persisted which had me looking online to see if anyone else was having the same problem. Well wouldn't you know I ran across a whole slew of people that were having the exact same problem with their Saturns and all models (I had the Quadcoupe). Seems as though wherever this switch was manufactured, there was too heavy an oil used in the tumbler, and whenever you had bitter cold temps and tried to start the car, the switch was not making full contact. This dropped an error code on the BCM which triggered the system to shut the fuel pump down making the car impossible to start. That was GM's "anti theft" device kicking in, and after 15 minutes the system would reset itself and the car would start with no trouble. Well, I found out from the dealer that there was a TSB on the switches and they were replacing them (remember this was 2006), but there was no official recall of the cars with that defect. I had asked why not as it IS a safety issue when it's 10° in the middle of nowhere and the car won't start! I had also mentioned that the faulty switch could lead to other troubles (not knowing about the airbag issue at the time). Well, fast forward a bunch of years and wouldn't you know.............people are getting killed due to "faulty" switches and the airbags not going off. Real competent huh??
  22. Yeah, that along with other working features was originally in the works. A lot of things had happened in life along the way though that had me simply burned out from building anything or being involved with the hobby (death of my Dad, job loss, etc). When I came back to the project sometime in 2015 (I originally started this in 2012), I simply wanted to get the car done so I let all the working stuff go such as working windows, suspension, latching trunk and all of that. The monkey wrench of the bad glass nearly sidelined the project AGAIN, but thankfully I was able to clear that hurdle and get it done. I'm at a point in the hobby now and especially with my eyesight the way it is............I'll do some working things, but the all-out-everything-working on the model days are over.
  23. To add a bit more to your build up of the trunk area.............I did something similar, but yours came out a bit better as I had to go by some somewhat obscure pics (at the time) of how that trunk structure appeared. And yes, that PE part for the emblem comes in reaaaal handy in replicating that!
  24. Yeah Joe, that's what I would do to straighten that out. In looking very closely at pics I have of 1:1 Impalas, there is a subtle taper in that area, not as severe as they depicted on that '60 Pontiac. Not sure how Trumpeter missed that, but OTOH how did they get the roof so short to begin with?? I had two of those kits, but when I saw those glaring faults with the hardtop roof, I sold one of them on the 'Bay. The other kit as I mentioned another time, I'd like to turn into a Vista four door hardtop "flattop". That was one of the things I was able to get from the Modelhaus before they called it quits. Funny story about the Catholic Nuns! I never went to that type of school, but I've heard crazy stories and some from those that "got even" later on!
  25. That Blazer is actually not a bad looking vehicle considering the type of vehicle it is. While I'd not rush out and buy one, I think it looks rather aggressive and probably more so in public. I truly hated when they brought back the Impala name in 2000 and stuck it something that was really milquetoast at best! A once proud name stuck on a rather bland and anonymous car. At least they could have put six taillights on the car.............it had only four. Wouldn't that make it a Bel Air or Biscayne??
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