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mrm

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Everything posted by mrm

  1. This is an old Fujimi kit from their deal with Koenig Specials. They made quite few of his cars, but this is by far my favorite. I saw the real car at the Geneva Auto Salon in 1990 and it left me speechless. The one I saw was red with blue interior. I flipped the color combo, as one like this actually exist and it is in Japan I believe. The model is not very detailed and some of the pieces are pain to make fit seamlessly, but I think it turned out nice. The model is box stock other than the aftermarket belts and flocking on the floor.
  2. mrm

    Alumacoupe

    Well, you are absolutely right. If you shoot lacquer over enamel it can wrinkle. Never seen it happen the other way around. The wrinkling happens when one coat eats into the other or dries faster than the coat underneath. Lacquers are "hotter" and faster drying than enamels, therefore there is no issues with them as long as they are under the enamels. At least this is my experience. Anyway. I sprayed the color about 3am last night. First I went with the Tamiya Chrome Yellow. Let it set for about an hour, at which time it was dry to the touch. Then I sprayed few coats of Aluma Coupe Yellow. Both paints I shot pretty "dry" on. This way they dry faster and there is less of a chance to cause any problems. As of right now the parts are still slightly tacky, but it has been only 12 hours, so it is to be expected.No wrinkles or any issues at all. Honestly, looking at the color, I should have just shot it with Giallo Tristratti, which would have been better looking and already cleared. Oh, well, I wanted to go with the original paint.
  3. Amazing work. Always a pleasure to follow your builds.
  4. Looking really good. Love the color on it.
  5. I love it!
  6. mrm

    Alumacoupe

    Everything getting ready for color. The suspension is dechromed and primered in black. The Body panels are in Tamiya fine primer straight from the spray can. The rear of the second body (closed panels) needed some filling, as there were gaps on the bottom of the hood. Everything will be first airbrushed with decanted Tamiya yellow, followed by the Boyd color. I have no idea how long I've had this can, so I hope it will not cause me any problems. The plan is to wrap everything in urethane clear.
  7. The wood looks great. I'll have to practice wood grain, as I have three woodies in the works.
  8. mrm

    Alumacoupe

    Both bodies glued together, sanded and washed, drying and waiting for primer. Getting their bottoms perfectly flat and smooth took some elbow grease, but overall it's nothing some body filler and sandpaper can't fix.
  9. mrm

    Alumacoupe

    Darn it.... I just stripped all the chrome with oven cleaner, washed everything and sprayed it with black automotive primer and Comcast pooped the sheets, so I can't upload pictures. Oh, yeah, I started two more projects by the way.
  10. So simple, yet so cool.
  11. Ohhh, you don't wanna know. I have probably a dozen models that have been started about 15 years ago. Moved through three states and still, they get taken out worked on a little and then get forgotten for a while. One day I'll get them all done.
  12. mrm

    Alumacoupe

    Thank you Ken. These are going to be copies of the real deal, so the colors are just as the real car. It is still going to be BOYDS Alumacoupe yellow met on the outside. The car actually has a Mitsubishi Eclipse motor. Actually the whole vehicle was commissioned by Mitsubishi. I haven't even looked for one of these kits in the last few years, but I got my stash at about $5 a pop. I never found them hard to get or expensive. And it is a such a cool kit.
  13. I love how crisp the engine looks after it's painted.
  14. mrm

    Alumacoupe

    Thank you. I'll start prepping them for paint tonight. It's a shame all that nice crisp chrome has to be stripped.
  15. Very nice! A lot of detail in there.
  16. mrm

    Alumacoupe

    After I haven't build models for over a year I had the itch several times, but it never got serious. However the last two days I have been trying to fix the mess at home and unbox various piles. Well, yesterday I opened two big boxes full of kits. And boom! It bit me! So I left everything and played with models until 5am. I had two Alumacoupes. Here's the deal….I want them box stock, just like the real car. I love the way the car looks, but I want everything open. The way the model is made, you can fix the hood in either open or closed position. So I decided to build two of them to display next to each other. One with the panels open to show the details and one closed to show the lines of the car. I basically got everything done, but the bodies. I felt like a zombie when my alarm clock buzzed at 7:30 am, but it was well worth it.
  17. So we are one step away from finishing the model, which we'll do either tomorrow or Friday (no school). However he has his new project ready. He is extremely curious learning about the showcars of yesteryear and their builders. Right now his big thing is Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. So he wanted to build the Mysterion and I finally talked him out of it, because it is not a kit for him even with my help. So we settled on a Big Daddy car and I thought that the easiest for him would be the Beatnik Bandit II.
  18. For pinstripes on a model like this, where the surface would not allow for decals, I would take a look at a well stocked nail polish section in one of the big stores. They make these nailpolish "pens", that have different thicknes tips on each side. They do miracles for that type of work.
  19. Thank you for the suggestion Charlie. This is actually a pretty cool idea. And his birthday is in less than a month. He amazes me with some of the things he makes. He has kind of a 3D line of thought, where he sees things in his head and how they are constructed before he makes them. He made an entire skateboarding park with bunch of ramps and somewhat complicated 3D shapes out of old boxes and masking tape. At first I was mad because he waisted my tape and did not ask to have it, but then I took a closer look at what he made and I was stunt. He makes crazy Hot rods out of legos too. And I am with you on the parent-kid class. And if it was up to me I would not even require documentation. You take a good look at how the kid behaves at the show and you can see right away what the deal is. In some cases I wouldn't even care if the kid did only 5% of the work, as long as I see that that little trophy makes the kid really happy and it inspires and motivates him. I always looked at shows and trophies, not as much as what they are giving, but rather what they are taking away. By giving the trophy (undeservingly) to one of "the club members" (and this happens absolutely everywhere) you are not giving him anything. But you are taking the spark away from someone. You are robbing them from motivation and inspiration to continue with the hobby and to expand their abilities. Having said this, I am absolutely against participation trophies, which IMO do nothing for the participants, but lower their standards. Life is a tough school, but that's a lesson that needs to be learned early in life. Or so I was taught. Anyway…..let's not turn this political. The idea of this thread was to share my excitement from building a model with my kid and flex my pride a little. A pleasant side effect is that this is having a very positive effect on him.
  20. Fantastic paint!…….and reflections…LOL
  21. OMG! I just showed this to my kid and he went BANANAS. Very cool.
  22. This is so awesome. I usually prefer the shiny stuff, but this build really wins me over. Great subject and execution.
  23. Very "DISCO", but I like it. It is definitely different and in a good way. I think the wheels are perfect for it. Who makes the body?
  24. Thank you guys. I want to tell you what an amazing effect this forum is having on him. He is over the moon having "his own page". After school I make him read the comments and he is just glowing reading about people liking his work. It is highly motivational to him. Today we had a BMF lesson. Started with the small straight lines on the sides of the big windows, then the long straight ones and then the curved bottoms at the end. He picked it up pretty quick. He of course made a couple of mistakes, I yelled at him, he cried and then I almost cried for making him cry. We are both learning from this joint project. So we redid some of the lines and all is well now. I showed him how to measure and cut the pieces. It was pretty amazing to him pulling them from the sheet. He got a kick out of using his Q-tips and smoothing the wrinkles. It is great seeing the amazement on his face discovering how things work. It is hard teaching him about angles of the blade and to move smoothly…..them I pull myself back and tell myself that he is just an 8 year old kid and I can't expect this from him. This is what his work looks like. I had to retouch a little bit here and there, but not bad at all, me thinks. He is very proud of his handy work. Now about the show circuit and the Junior class…..it has always been a pep peeve with me. I used to be very active on the show scene back at the end of the '90s in the Chicago area. There was this guy that was a regular at the shows in the area. Don't remember his name, but he had a black Oldsmobile Cutlas (the last one/modern) and two kids, a boy and a girl. He used to enter models in the junior class under his kids. Like mentioned above, they were all photoetched, flawless paint, fully wired and plumbed………And the saddest part was that his kids didn't even care about the models or the shows. Yet this "great modeler" was soooo proud of the wall of trophies he had. He was always the first to question the authorship of other people's builds. Everybody knew and yet nobody ever did anything. I never really got over that PC attitude and the whole ordeal left such a bad taste in my mouth that I quit building plastic kits for over 10 years. I would never do something like that with my kid. In my opinion, I wouldn't be doing my kid any favors if I did. This is why this is a joint project. He needs to see something cool becoming out of his own labor, but he does not have the experience. This is where I come in. He has literally done more than 50% of the work on the model. I just help him with showing him exactly how to do different things and with the little details and finishes. You know what they say….Devil is in the details.
  25. Hi this is Ryan. Thank you everyone. I love building models and spending time with my dad. I will love to build more models. I want to build a Ed big daddy car with two engines.
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