Lunajammer

At the risk of being contrary to my previous post, Donn Yost certainly figured out how to get a great finish right out of the gate. However I've not seen his videos to see what's involved, how steep the learning curve is or what tools and/or environment are required. I got a great glassy airbrush finish once, but I don't know what I did and have not been able to replicate it.

That looks like a pretty typical finish I usually get from spray cans, regardless of how wet it gets applied. Sort of a given that follow up sanding and polishing is part of the process. Not my favorite aspect of model building but I accept it as part of the affair. Pic is not a great paint can job (the green), but it's a reasonable starting point for surface finishing, as is yours.

Thought about it. I've done it before for personal, passionate projects. This one's just for fun, so the game plan is cheap, easy, don't sweat the small stuff (like the curly lint strand buried deep into the color coat. I'll let you guys find it ?).

Here's where I'm at on the '74 GTX. Only two Duplicolor spray greens are on the shelf at any local auto store and both are very dark. I grabbed Forest Green Pearl (hey, it's an actual Mopar color). Darker than I want and darker than it seems to appear in the pic. I color coated last weekend and tonight I clear coated. I'll let it stink off for awhile then address how I'll do the black vinyl roof. Doing a lot of satin blackout with slivers of chrome and stainless. The beige interior will help lighten the oppressive darkness. Good night runner I guess, eh?

Wired my GTX engine tonight. My all time least favorite part of modeling. If I can get past that then everything gets easier. Pic updates coming soon.

Alas, how I long for the return of the two door station wagon (shooting brake?). This is a smooooth smoothy. A pleasure to appreciate another of your master mash-ups.

Stunning. The level of commitment is exemplary. I'll bet there's a flaw in there somewhere but only you would ever know where it is, and even that probably wouldn't even qualify as a flaw to most people. Great work.

Wow, I didn't realize it came with so much detail. This is about as nice as I've seen.

Both. Primary intent is builder of the stash, but I do have several that I have no intention of building. I enjoy them for what they are and consider myself a caretaker until they get passed on to the next person.

That's an interesting explanation and I appreciate the insider info. My whole rant pretty much comes down to whether a person believes demand drives the supply or supply drives the demand. Your answer that it's both, while unsatisfactory, is probably correct.

How ironic that those are exactly the colors you get to choose from on the car lot. "Hi, I have these options I'd like on my new car. Can I have that in teal? Oh. How about powder blue? No? Well, then what do you have? Silver huh? Ugh, fine, I guess I'll take silver."

Sort of. There were only two greens, both very dark. I could live with Emerald Green Metallic and will probably go back for. Just gotta come to terms with spending the price of the kit on a paint can.

FWIW, I only counted metallics and nothing darker than charcoal gray (a medium dark silver). If I included grays, which I considered solids, you can expand that list by several more skews.

Which brings us to... ----------------- Actually Dan, I almost went there myself and started googling Kia Sol for some of their two-tones, but why confuse my own rant? ?

Looking for a nice Duplicolor green at the auto store, I was confronted with a fairly broad selection of paints... if you love silver, black white and three reds. Eight slots just for silver alone, and these are just spray touchup paints, not engine, wheels or caliper paints. Universal Silver Radiant Silver Bright Silver Ingot Silver Pewter Metallic Silver Galaxy Silver Metallic Ultra Silver Fine Silver Edit: Just returned from another auto store with a better appointment of Duplicolor so we'll need to add.. Classic Silver Mica Gunmetal Metallice Fine Silver Birch Magnetic Metallic Silver Silver Charcoal Metallic Charcoal Gray Metallic Satin Silver Metallic Silver Mica Alabaster Silver Metallic Lunar Mist (it's silver) How did automakers ever survive the 50's??

Clearly, you're a very accomplished builder. It's unbelievable that you chose this kit to put that kind of time and talent into. I've never seen this old dinosaur done better.

Superb work. Precious results.

Thank you much. If I try it again, I'd like to explore using a Model A. So many interesting possibilities.

Yup.

Not anymore I'm sorry to say. Just chains; Hobby Lobby, Michaels, art supply stores.

I start with these tools almost exclusively. The dental tool (especially the rounded tip) I use for two part QuikAluminum because I can press firmly into grooves and sculpt shapes. The stir stick I use for Bondo. I'll sand it to the shape I want before spreading, then break off that piece when I'm done to get more uses from the stick. The sides let you do broad spreading and the shaped tip for spot spreading. For skim coating I dilute Bondo one part glazing putty with lacquer thinner and paint it on like a heavy primer with a brush, then clean the brush in lacquer thinner. This is the stuff I use for sculpting. It shapes like clay and sands easily as Bondo when firm.

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Great ideas here, thanks for sharing. I have one of these... Which leads to this...

I used 1/8-inch tape to set my margins for the halo roof, but that might've been a little generous. My thinking is that our Cannonball is basically a photo contest and since I'm not the most mechanically astute I'll need all the visual impact I can get, so I'm doing the more interesting vinyl pattern.