Tom Geiger

Because you have a rear view mirror! Rich- Another one hit right outta the park! Great work as usual. I'm happy to watch and follow along!

Adam - You've come to the right place. Nobody here will think you are spamming. Ask all the questions you want, the folks here are more than happy to help you with your project. A few things. You can spray everything with spray cans. As others have said, Tamiya sprays are great as are automotive sprays like Duplicolor. Personally I use the Duplicolor gray primer you mentioned on everything. Do not use any automotive paint on plastic parts without this primer under it. Otherwise it will react with the plastic and wrinkle it! Yes, spray everything you can. Carefully remove all the parts off the trees and clean them up as best you can. You will notice imperfections, mold lines and ejector pin marks (appear as round disks) that need to be removed. I mount parts onto tooth picks and stick those into Styrofoam blocks to paint. The Styrofoam can be the stuff you get with electronics like VCRs. Good luck and start a build post on your kit. Take pictures with your cell camera and post them. Everyone here would love to help!

This sounds like a lotta fun! Good for you Kevin and good luck with the event!

the 24 hr build was just fun to do. Take a kit that is surplus, not a complex one, that you always wanted to build. And go at it like a sixth grader. I built the Revell Miss Deal Studebaker funny car kit, that for some reason, Fotki won't let me access the photos of. The irony is that I did finish it in the allotted time and the quality isn't much worse than my painfully long builds. What I did learn was to build more systematically. With this build I was forced to prep and prime the entire set of parts at one time. Then parts were organized by color and sprayed. I didn't deviate from the plan, nor did I stop to rethink anything or scratch build little parts. I didn't hesitate to do steps I usually would procrastinate on. I just plowed forward. It actually went pretty quick. In my normal life, I'm not that efficient. I tend to start with one assembly, prep, prime, paint and assemble. Then I go on and do the same with the next area. Not that effective. So while I still will pause for artistic license and change my plan as I go along, I am a bit more systematic as I build. And that's pragmatic and a good thing. Another learned skill!

I've come to the conclusion that we all have the same kits! Note that the size of your stash isn't important as long as you have the space and your family bills are all paid before you indulge!

You win! That is the coolest build of the Surfite I've seen! And it is my favorite Roth car!

My buddy had a green Torino with that stripe. He mashed his passenger side door and I was able to find him one in the same color. He had a spare stripe that came with the car. It became my job to put it on the door. We were 18 and not that experienced, I didn't know about the soapy solution method, so we measured and slowly rolled out the stripe onto the door. It came out pretty good. Only I could see the wave in it!

Gary Kulchock and a group on Facebook do a 24 hour build every February. Some groups get together and do it as a party. Others like me, are solo at home. It runs from noon on a Saturday until noon on Sunday. I learned an awful lot during the build this year! And it's helped me be a better, quicker builder. Try it!

Amen. If you have no money at all in your accounts, the first thing you buy when you get paid shouldn't be a model kit.

That should look great Rich! Back when I was a kid I painted all my models yellow and black, an effect of seeing the movie "The Yellow Rolls Royce". That lasted a few years with me. As an adult, I bought a bootleg copy of the movie on DVD (it never went to tape or DVD) and watched it again. It wasn't that great a movie, just the cars!

Be careful of baking soda. It contains salt and will sweat with humidity. Ask me how I know! I've never tried baby powder, I've heard of folks using it as a thickener with glue to use as putty. For seats, Scale Motorsports makes a Faux Fabrix spray in several colors that leaves a texture. It could also be painted over if you wanted another color. I've used their medium brown and it worked well on a pickup seat. Also, I've used masking tape to give texture to seats, just as others have used it to make vinyl roofs. Check for the different brands, which also differ in the surface texture. I found the cheap brands at the dollar store have the roughest patterns, which translate well to seats. This is great when you have seat inserts, which you can either leave the kit's detail of the border, or use scale ignition wire or thread for the border. You can also cover the entire seat, just like you would be making a seat cover. Scale Motorsports Faux Fabrix on the seat insert. Looks good, I don't know if you can see the texture in this photo.

That looks great! Is that the old Airfix kit?

I don't have a Hobby Lobby near me but I use the Michaels 40 and 50% coupons all the time. Anytime I'm going near there, I print one out and take it with me. I always check the model aisle first, but seldom find anything I want at even that discount. So once that's done, I'll use the coupon to buy paint or glue. They only have Testors so I'll buy flat black or my favorite color, Dullcote. They also sell Zap-A-Gap so I always grab an extra. I've never been questioned.

My buddy used to have the rear so high on his '66 Tempest pseudo GTO that you had to buckle your seat belt to keep from sliding off the seat. You are right, it severely ruined the handling of the car. All show. I had HiJackers on the back of my '65 Barracuda that I only used to get the rear back to near even when I was towing my little tear drop trailer. It was a home built that didn't have a good center of gravity and weighed heavy on the hitch. Of course I couldn't resist a slight rake when not dragging the trailer

What's irking me? VISTA PRINT ads stalking me all over the Internet... on every site I go to! Seems that I clicked on their FREE business card ad and upon trying it, found that it was going to cost me near $40 to get decent cards delivered to me within a week! So I cancelled and went over to Staples and had them within an hour for much less! And now they're stalking me!

A fellow on the udder board, Ray Gallant has a similar setup that he built into a room. You slide closets out of the way to get there. A very cool solution. As far as room, folks have to work with what they have. I'm fortunate to have a big model room and an extra basement room for the stash (aka- the model warehouse). Back when I started as an adult, I was working on my kitchen table. I had a board (that once was a shelf) that I was working on and a clamp on light. Every evening I'd work on my model and the last few minutes were spent packing up everything and putting the board, with the model still on it, on top of my refrigerator. I had small kids at the time. And ya know, I built some pretty good models that way!

Very nice build! My family had a VW of that era back when we lived in Germany. Ours was red and I'm going to have to build it from that Tamiya kit. It really looks like a nice kit!

Very nice build Carl! And in my favorite blue too. Is that the old Monogram kit? If so I have one and I see it builds up nice.

Same here, I never find anything good. Best I've done in a few years was to find an airplane kit for 50 cents. I don't build aircraft, but who could pass up 50 cents? Even if I give it to someone, it was worth it. I did go to Good Will last week and have never found anything good there. In the past I have found a few diecast but never model cars. This time I could see the AMT boxes from across the store. I eagerly approached and saw that there were two kits, priced at $4.99 each. They were a Ferrari and a Corvettte, not my material at all, but I opened the boxes to find half built brush painted beauties, no doubt missing parts. I put them back on the shelf. I did find a brand new Rock and Roll Museum t-shirt for $3.50 though! My problem is that we seldom use our front door. So a package left there can stay for a week! Our mailbox is at the curb so it takes motivation for the mail man to actually get out of the truck and walk the 200 or more feet up the driveway to the house. So he tries to stuff things into the box. Still, I'm glad he doesn't leave them on the ground next to the box like some folks complain about. The guy I'm mad at is with my local water company. I was home and nobody rang the bell or knocked. I couldn't have missed it because the dog barks. I go outside and there's a door hanger, saying they need to get inside to inspect my inside water meter split (my house has regular water and a sprinkler system). It threatens that if they don't get inside within 10 days, they will turn off my water. So I call them and get a nasty woman who gives me a few weekdays (all day, not a specific time). I'm not available so she again threatens me that they'll turn off my water. So I hang up and try again. This time I got a nice lady who understands that the guy did the hit and run. She asks if I'll be there the rest of the day, yes I will. A nice guy shows up within the hour, who tells me he has to replace the meter and that the first guy is known for doing doing the hit and run to get out of work. Argh!

Interior looks great! On the exterior, are you painting just the fins black? I think the roof would look good in black or white.

Wow Jim! That orange just does it for me! Great color scheme and build!

You are one mean, building machine Al! Looks great. See you Saturday.

Ha! Just reminded of an old story by Kevin's! Back in the dark ages, I was coming home in the early evening in Manalapan, NJ. I had just turned off Route 33 onto the local road and was waiting at a traffic light. There was a big delivery truck behind me. A lady in a new Mercedes pulled up next to me (in the left turn lane), and when the light changed, she took off straight and cut me off to get ahead of me and the truck. Oh well. She didn't half a mile when a huge buck came crashing over a hedge and landed square on her hood! Karma in motion! Loads of damage including a broken windshield. Deer was dead on arrival. Both the truck and I pulled over and this lady was hysterical. The first words were spoke by the truck driver, "Hey lady, do you want the deer?" I figured that was my ticket out of there. I told them I'd go and find a payphone to call it in, so I left him with her since he was going to retrieve the meat!

Cool. You have the eye Blair!

Welcome from Exton, PA!