LDO

Thanks for the advice, guys. Lots of knowledge and experience out there. I'd love to try solid blocks of Renshape, but money is tight and I had the styrene on hand.

Hmmm. I'll try that for the next one. Thank you.

This one? From my Fotki album of Street Rods by internet message board builders. http://public.fotki.com/TunnelRammedBigBlo...eet_rod_models/

Pretty much any paint used on styrene models will work on resin. A resin model would not really be suitable for making a lexan body. It is meant to be displayed as-is (after paint and assembly) not used as a vacu-form master. If you have your heart set on a r/c Koenig TR, try the Fujimi kit in 1/24, or look for a Lexan TR body that you can modify in 1/24 or larger.

You're right. My Mercedes was not grey-market. The Porsche in the OP is not, either. Both are Euro-spec cars. One was brought to the US, one stayed home. I would avoid that Porsche like the plague.

I can't help you out on Porsches, but I was a soldier in Germany and looked into bringing back my Mercedes-Benz 190E. It would have been a nightmare. All kinds of parts to replace Euro-spec with US-spec, then a costly DOT inspection...which it might fail after all that work. This was 1999. The car was an '86. For the price of all the parts, labor, and inspection, I could save money buying a US-spec car when I got home. I would steer clear of grey-market cars. Edit: I just looked at the pics again. That photo in front of a barracks is fairly recent. I can not imagine a car with that much depreciation being worth bringing back. Something is fishy here.

Resin kits are made of a 2-part epoxy, so they're a type of plastic. They are not durable at all. They are meant to be built and displayed. Some resins are fairly soft, some are hard and brittle. They will typically be thicker than injection-molded plastic, so you may have trouble making one fit on your 1/43 r/c chassis. They are not at all suitable for what you have in mind.

It's been almost 48 hours now. I think I need to let this cure for a bit longer. I had to brush a lot of it on so it would remain tacky while laying up 7 layers (plus a .040" template). It still has "boogers" that squished out between the layers. They're getting harder but still softer than the base plastic. I did a bit of sanding on the edge, but what I'm really concerned about is putting some serious taper on one end (Imagine a teardrop shape with longitudinal lines running through it). I don't want to have soft, gooey plastic in waves on this part.

I laminated 7 layers of Evergreen .125" using Testors liquid cement. It was in a vise for 24 hours. It's out of the vise now, but how long before I can do some serious carving/shaping?

Some B&N stores have a better selection than others. The nearest to me does not carry it. If you have to drive any distance at all, call first.

If you're in the Austin area, Barnes & Noble in the Arboretum has it. http://storelocator.barnesandnoble.com/sto...l.do?store=2536 (183 & Great Hills Trail)

Who builds a model of a subject they don't like? That's just weird.

As far as model companies go, you ***typically*** get what you pay for. I say typically because sometimes old kits get reissued in new boxes. An example of this is the 1948 Lincoln and Auburn Boattail Speedster from Lindberg. The molds are 1950s technology. The kits are real dogs. I don't know what type of subjects you're into but of course you won't have to worry about 1950s tech on a model of a Ferrari 599GTB. Sometimes 2 or more companies offer a model of the same subject. Tamiya and Revell both offer Enzo Ferraris. The Revell kit is much simpler than the Tamiya, and the price reflects that. In a case like that, it just comes down to how much detail you want to pay for. I'm not knocking Revell by any means. They make some beautiful kits. Check out the box art. It often includes a shot of the undercarriage and engine. If the detail looks kind of soft, it may be an old kit reissued. WRT Airbrush VS Spray cans, you can absolutely get a beautiful paint job out of a can. You don't need a spray booth, either. I painted several cars with Tamiya cans while deployed to Afghanistan. I did have to rub out a dust particle or two, but I still got great results. You will need a polishing kit. Check out Micro-Mark for that. While you're there, get some Novus polishing compound to use after you finish with the polishing kit. A previous posted mentioned getting a Dremel. I agree 100%, but get the battery-powered one. The 110AC version spins too fast. It will melt plastic.

Kalmbach just can't get it right. SA and FSM are dinosaurs. Pick up a British hobby magazine. Tons of industry news, new releases, reviews, how-tos, etc. Kalmbach seems to be stuck in the pre-internet days, when a little bit of information was all people needed. I haven't bought either of them in ages. I thumb through them at the LHS, but they just don't have much to offer. If only Model Cars could lure away Mark Gustavson...

Thanks, Lee

20 years ago in Houston, there was a guy in a run-down neighborhood who had 2 Plymouth Superbirds in his back yard. Man I love that car.

Mine is Cole Cutler's '34 Ford 5-window. I remember reading about in high school. It had a 429 that had been stroked to 535. It was a street car that ran deep 9s, and it had a license plate that said You'd Lose (but I don't remember the exact letter combo he had. I found a small photo from a 1993 issue of Hot Rod: http://www.colecutler.com/photoalbum/main....++++7++6-07.jpg The original article was around 1985.

Hey I built the coupe version of that while I was deployed. When I was working on it, a buddy picked up the body and said "Hey- you should make a street rod out of this". I got to thinkin'...that was a pretty cool idea. The top of the coupe already looks chopped. Make it look like something a couple of GIs would have built while serving in Germany in 1946. That's not as outrageous as it sounds. In a German museum, I saw a pre-war Maybach that had the back half of its body removed to make room for a huge radial saw blade. It was driven off the axle. The car was owned by a wealthy German whose money became worthless when the war ended. He still had his material possessions, so he turned his luxury car into a mobile firewood cutter in order to put food on his table. So it's plausible that a couple of GIs could have bought a pre-war Mercedes for pretty cheap. Anyway- my idea was for a rod that's pretty much like rods built in the USA after the war. Strip it down and make it go as fast as possible. Maybe put a track nose on it from Revell's '29 Ford pickup. Get rid of the fenders. Think Pierson Brothers Coupe (well, if you were starting with the Coupe)

Make a 1/20 version of the "ZR-32" from a Car Modeler magazine how-to article back around 1991.

There's also an article in a 1994 issue of Motor Racing Replica News. I'll dig it out and see if it has any more info you could use.

Hey Art- Your rear end looks nice.

Use Evercoat brand Eurosoft putty. It's very fine-grained. It sands and feathers beautifully. If you want to read about customizing techniques for model cars, get some old copies of Car Modeler magazine with Custom Clinic articles by Mark Gustavson. That guy is a guru. He did a lot of cool articles like how to chop tops, sectioning, shaving trim, etc. You can also visit his website; www.customclinic.com

Bob Dudek has a cnc.

For headers, you might try solder that is the right size. It bends easily. For aluminum tubs, try sheet styrene and paint it with Testors Metalizer paints. If you want rivets, they are available from hobby shops that sell trains. I have a bunch of different sizes made by Tichy. Grandt Line also make scale rivets. I don't know where to get braided lines and anodized fitting. Try ebay.

I was looking for a photo of the real thing and ran across a website for a guy who copies the LAPD part in resin: http://www.jnsresin.com/misc.htm You can check 'em out there. IMHO, the real kit part is better. I built one years ago with a brushed aluminum finish on top and candy red on the sides and in the recessed area. It really did look very nice.