Scale-Master

Original issue Revell kit from 1976. Been meaning to build it someday, and that day was about two weeks ago when I found the decals I had filed away needed to replace the water damaged originals. Tamiya TS-16 Yellow for the body color. Built straight out-of-the-box. The only real change was to make decals for the tire side wall lettering. WIP thread: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=100387 What better setting than a real California sunset?

Thanks guys! The side pipes have a different color of metal in the main center sections. Since the mold lines were heavy and the chrome was clunky I did a little clean up and shot those areas a light pearl gray. It’s not like the parts really match the real ones… Hopefully the next pictures of it will be in the finished section...

It's so old the can says Medium Acrylic Reducer, I got it when I was painting my (real) Vista Cruiser with Dupont Centari. So yes, it is for acrylic enamel.

Yellow is what it is supposed to be, so... it is. I am finding the final chrome parts are not only poorly chromed, but some are very delicately molded; and worse, all have heavy mold lines. Still the overall fit is much better than I recalled from the last ones from this series I built.

Yes I did. But it is automotive reducer, not what you'd use for say Tamiya or Testors acrylics.

The chassis fits into the body very well. About all that is left to add are the chrome exterior trim parts.

They did work very well, and needed some decal solvent. I had to touch up some of the dark yellow in the hood decal and some of the green on one of the sides. The only complaint I have is the printed door lines not lining up with the molded door lines. Except for the windshield, the body is ready to install onto the chassis. The kit provides two license plates, but both are for the rear. I painted out the rear only registration tags on the front plate. The tail lights looked kind of blah on the sprue, (being molded in smoke tinted clear didn’t help), but once painted look pretty decent.

Oh, I just realized you asked about the wheels Carl, not the tires. The silver is Alclad. I thinned it with medium acrylic reducer and shot at as low a pressure I could and still get the paint to come out of the airbrush.

Thanks Richard! I painted the black window trim (Tamiya Semi-Gloss Black) and installed the interior side panels. I also painted the interior wood grain panels molded into the upper sides of the body.

I keep a bottle of oil in the trunk of my real car so I copied it. Machined from aluminum and I made decals for the labels. The one in my car is a little dirty…

I added the recessed areas for the labels and the ribbing on the side of the bottle.

As if I need any encouragement to keep making trinkets... (Pete!) I always keep a quart in the trunk of my Camaro… It was in the back of my mind to make this, but I'm blaming Pete J. for fast tracking it.

I like the funnel idea Pete. I already have a dirty red rag stuffed into the spare wheel. Not an Armor All fan, but a quart of oil in a modern plastic bottle ought to be fun...

Thanks guys. No errant fries in this one, or any of my real cars. Maybe some brake fluid though...?

I'm actually going to glue the back doors on and depending on how the roof fits (there is a little warpage...) I might cement it in place too. I tried to paint the tire lettering, (trying to build it the way kit came), but acrylic paint would not even stick to the vinyl, and I know from experience that enamels never cure on the material. So I sanded the letters off and used resized art I made for my Vega tires.

The chrome on the wheels didn’t look too bad at first… Then I noticed each one had a goober in the chrome. And while trimming the sprue off them the chrome began to flake off as well so I stripped them and shot them chrome silver.

It has those not so popular two piece vinyl tires. But by using a contact cement I was able to glue them together strongly enough to be able to sand the tread without the halves slipping around and they trued up nicely.

I was a little apprehensive about the decals being so old. I sun bleached them and all the yellowing went away as expected. But I was more concerned with them being brittle. I was pleased when they not only released from the paper quickly and even more so when they all slid off without cracking. They responded well to a little decal solvent too. The door lines are printed on the decals, not a big problem for the driver’s side… But on the passenger side they don’t line up and are overall too long. I cut the decal at the front door line and moved the section on the front fender back to line it up with the molded in door line. But the other lines will have to be as they are since the design doesn’t allow for any adjustment without it looking worse.

Thanks guys. That is very kind of you to say Harry.

The car is finished. But I've been getting these ideas for extra goodies to add to it. Maybe I'm suffering from some sort of withdrawal and that's why I keep tinkering with the goodies?

Thanks guys. The tread was shot with the cheap 99 cent Wal-Mart house brand flat black. It's so flat it almost looks gray. The side walls were shot with Semi Gloss Black before decaling and then Dullcoted. Once dry I just rubbed them to knock the flat "up" to look like they were Armor All'd.

“Period correct” bedding colors… Refrigerator and T.V.; I hand painted the wood grain and used a wet coat of smoke for the T.V. screen.

It's listed as 1/25.

I painted the rear rims, (just loosely set in the tires).