DaveM

A couple that I have posted in the covers thread, but they belong here too. Hound Dog by Elvis was actually recorded first by Big Mama Thornton. And Janis Joplin's big hit was first done by Erma Franklin (Aretha's big Sister) Erma wasn't as well known as Aretha, or Janis for that ,matter, but she sang a smoking version of Piece Of My Heart. Okay. I won't recycle any more, but Hound Dog really deserved to be in this thread, and I could listen to Erma Franklin's rendition of Piece Of My Heart all day.

Wow! I was looking at that kit when it was available. Now, I wish I'd bought it. Great build and perfect color selection.

Nice looking model and welcome. We act like adults around new members I just read your thread tutorial and I will be trying that on a couple of replica stock builds soon. I might use fly tying silk to slightly reduce the texture, but I love the idea. I hope to see many more of you models and tips here. Again, Welcome! Dave

Modelhaus used to make a rear bumper and taillight set for this car. Now, I think Missing Link makes one. You will need it! The taillights are the weak spot. If you can find an older Modelhaus conversion set to make a '68 out of it, you actually have the makings of a decent '68. You can either build it as is, or you can do a bunch of surgery and transplant a chassis under it. Some people try using the Revell '67 chassis, but I have seen contest winners built with the '69 Olds chassis. The real cars were quite similar, as they shared a platform and a generation. It takes a bit of work to build, but it's the only Chevelle of this body style available. This would be a good car for Moebius to kit. Several stock variants, including hardtops and convertibles for both 1968 and 1969 with several trim and power levels. They were used in drag racing and oval tracks. The basic chassis could them be used to kit G.T.O.s from both years and the Buicks from both years. (Not available in 1/25 scale) There were a lot of drag cars done from these platforms and they aere also used in oval tracking. They would need different motors, though, as each division had its own blocks back in those days.

I just found some pics on the 'net. I remember these. Looking at an expired auction on eBay, I think it was a plastic bottle with a removable bottom. I remember the 7-UP one, but I couldn't find a Dr. Pepper one.

Wasn't the bottle in two halves in those kits? I have always wanted to do an actual ship in a bottle model someday, just because it looks really challenging.

I like the vintage style Chevy better than the obvious "Crate Motor" 5.0 Ford in the '32s. At least this is a genuine hot rod motor, even if is has been overdone. With the '32s you either had to build it with a closed hood, or put some decent looking parts on the motor. (Or just swap the thing out,) While it may not be the holy grail motor we all wanted, there is always a place for a good, well done, vintage mouse in a hot rod or race car. I can see some of these being used in gassers. (Not every gasser was an "A" class car with a Hemi.) I have been looking at doing a chopped "T" from the AMT kit as a drag rod (Kind of inspired by some Gunther Bros. pics, but not a replica of their car.) The more I look at the pics, the more I think the blown Chevy would be a slick choice for that build. I am sure that the tri carb intake will end up on another car someday. (Maybe on an AMT 327 from a '66 Nova kit that I am stuffing into a Deuce.) I would be more excited to see the firewall and roof fixed up than to see the motor changed at this point. Hopefully more versions of the kit will give us more motors! Someday, I want to see a nice "W" head 348 or 409 with 3 carbs, and a similar period perfect Olds Rocket motor. Either way, I am excited for this kit if they work the bugs out.

Cathie decided we weren't watching the Superbowl at our house this year. We are trying to teach a lesson about fair play. She didn't want the kids to watch and cheer for somebody who clearly wasn't playing by the rules. I have watched every Superbowl. (Although, I am sure that the first two or three were interrupted by nap times) I thought I would sneak out and watch it somewhere by myself, but the truth was, I was as jaded as she was. Goodell is so concerned about the reputation of the game that he is suspending players left and Right for every little off field offense, but he is just pandering to media and social pressures. He has done nothing to protect the integrity of the game itself. I took the young'uns in the basement and we played with slot cars while watching a VHS tape of the 1991 Daytona 500 a buddy found in the trunk of a used car he bought. I never regretted skipping the game. I spent decades in racing at different levels. One common thread from the Saturday night shorttrack to the NHRA was technical inspection. I was responsible for presenting a legal car at the end of the race. If I didn't, they didn't launch an investigation to see whose fault it was. They just congratulated the guy behind me in the line and took the trophy out of my hands. If my car wasn't legal during the race, I got the heave ho. One of the frustrating Patriot's arguments was that it was such a blowout that it wouldn't matter. I never saw a racer get a DQ overturned by claiming, "I beat him by so much more than I cheated by, I should still win." Deflating footballs during a Championship game for the first time would not be an advantage. You want to practice and play with the same balls for consistency. Playing the AFC Championship game with a completely different ball than you played the rest of the season would not make sense. That, and the deliberate stonewalling and withholding of information during the investigation makes it look as if this was an ongoing thing. Baltimore should be livid, as they lost a very close game to New England the week before. They should have either tossed out the win against Indy, or suspended Brady and the coaching staff for the Superbowl. Anything they do now is just for show. They will probably fine them a few hundred thousand of the millions they gain from a Superbowl. The penalty won't even matter. The real lesson for the kids should be this, "You live in the real world. Cheat, Cheat, Cheat! You will surpass the people who don't cheat, and any consequences will just be part of the price of success. Somehow, I don't think Cathie will approve of that lecture. I don't either. If you can't play by the rules, don't play. At the very least, if you get caught cheating, it should negate the outcome of the contest.

The roof is an easy fix. Just cut new lines and putty in the front seam. The firewall is going to be a real beast to fix. This is a case where is would be much easier for Revell to fix the mold once than for everybody who builds the kit to fix it individually. (Or have to live with it) The pics of the '29 roadster model don't look too bad, but they really lost it on this last one. Hopefully it's just a test shot and they straighten it out. Otherwise, somebody will make one in resin. While I would really like a stock roof (That orange car with the "W" motor is speaking to me) the chop looks mild enough to build some nice street rods with. I was afraid that they might be tempted to make a really deep chop that would only work on a slammed rat rod type of cars. (What our local guru calls a "Cartoon Chop") All in all, this will make a nice successor to the roadster kit. I like the three carb setup and the air cleaners. The '32 front end looks fantastic. Will this kit still have both frame options? Hopefully future versions will give us plain and louvered hoods for both early and late cars, and a couple more wheels tires and engines to choose from. (And maybe a set of fenders eventually) All I can say is let the kitbashing begin!

I like what I am seeing. Hopefully this is the first of many revamps of the "A". The more different parts they keep putting in these kits, the better. Hopefully a couple of new sets of wheels and tires will come out that we can use on other rods. With Modelhaus out of production, I am scrambling for another source for a variety of wheels and tires. The motor looks okay to me. I have some wishes for more esoteric motors too, but the Small Block was pretty much the hot new setup back in the early '60s. (Someday I want to see an early Olds with a real street rod setup and a really good "W" head 348 or 409 with good headers and a 3x2bbl or six carb manifold) The blower looks nice and it has some nice headers. I am tickled to see the '32 grille. but still hope for a hood. I will order a bunch of these when they are released. This one should have something to offer to both the rat rod crowd and the shiny people. Love the headlights too! I can't wait to see the next version.

Build cars from the '50s and '60s! Bare Metal Foil can work, but it really takes a steady X-acto to keep it from looking like a Grandkid's finger painting project. Bare Metal Foil also makes a black foil. This can be used to replicate the black window trims. I have also seen one model at a contest where the builder applied black decal material to the INSIDE of the windshield. (It had to be black painted on CLEAR paper, of course) It really looked sharp when viewed through the glass. Might not work on realy thick kit glass, but he was building a Japanese kit of something and it really looked nice.

For tools you will want lots of sandpaper, some fine files and more sandpaper. I use Emery boards for fingernails to do a lot of touch ups. I also glue fine sandpapers to various sticks and even pencils to reach into tight places. Your paint job will only turn out as well as the surface prep underneath it. Some other tips that I have picked up. Smooth out all of the parting lines, mold marks, seams and imperfections before starting to paint. It makes a huge difference in the final look of the model. Do this on all of the parts. I see models at contests with big seams running along the radiator hoses, along the seat backs, down the exhaust pipes and along the top of the radiator. those are some of the places these marks really stand out. It's a simple thing, but kind of time consuming. It will also make people think you are a better builder than you really are Test fit everything. Test fit the individual parts before gluing. It is a lot easier to smooth out a seam before you have stuck glue all over the parts and discovered that you have a burr keeping them from fitting tightly. After the main parts of the model have been assembled, make sure that the chassis, glass, interior and motor all fit together before painting everything. It is a lot easier to fix things before they are painted than to have to file something down to make it fit and then repair the paint. (This whole paragraph was learned the hard way by me) Don't use big gobs of tube glue. Use small, controlled amounts of liquid cement for neat seams. I use a fine round paintbrush (Maybe a 00 or 000) to apply cement. Let things dry before you handle them. Don't leave fingerprints in the glue or paint. It helps to wash the model in a bit of Dawn dish soap before priming and painting. After washing it, I try to handle it with gloves to keep from leaving a fisheye mark in the paint. I usually don't paint parts on the sprues. (Except for a few parts where the attachment points can be sanded off without harm) Also, it is very important to sand or scrape the paint where you are gluing the parts together. Glues don't stick to paint very well. I'm sure other people will toss out some other helpful tips. The most important tip is take time, enjoy the building process and have fun! Welcome to the most addictive hobby I know!

Years back, I built a 1/72 Iskra in Polish Navy colors that had a texture like that on the whole kit (Except for the canopy) It didn't show after it was primed, and the paint ended up looking just fine. I can't remember who made it, but it might have been KoPro. It looked like heck in the box, but I never had to do any extra sanding. The primer just leveled over it. The pebbling was really fine, more like dust than sand texture. I am still looking forward to getting this kit. It looks really nice.

Revell '32 Ford Sedan.

Thanks, everybody. I had read the Tamiya description on the 350z. Tamiya loves to tell the history and timeline of the car, but it never really pegged the model year. I was comparing pics of the model to pics of real cars. I had pretty much figured that the Z was early ('03-'05) but the Efini was proving a bit harder to nail down. I figured it was in the early half of the 3rd generation probably from the first half of the '90s, but it was getting hard to pin down a year. I'll go with '91 as the model year, since the kit being tooled in '91 precludes it being much later. (Unless they updated it) And, yes, Google is my friend, but even so, 45 minutes of googling pictures left me less sure then when I started! (Just like my "real" friends, Google can confuse me sometimes) I got on the Tamiya USA site, and read the 350z description, but the Efini would only give me a fuzzy blown up picture of the box top. Thanks for the links. I had kind of hesitated to post this, because I was sure it should have been easy to confirm the information, but the little details of some of these Japanese cars are not as obvious to me as the differences between a '69 and '70 Cougar. I found a couple of sites that I'm sure would have cleared it up if I could had read Japanese. I even tried using translator on one, but it just turned it into word soup! I grabbed both kits BTW! Now I am going to order some paint for the 350z. The RX-7 will probably end up black. (Nothing else will cover up that red plastic.) Thanks again for all of the help. Dave

Nice save, and great color. Models are just like food. Free tastes better!

I was going to grab these two kits, but I also need to get paint for them. The RX 7 is Japan only RHD, but the 350z has both dash setups. It looks like the 350z is around 2003, but it is so hard to tell with these. Even Googling by year is tricky as there are more modded cars than stock. The RX7 looks like a 1991 - 1993 car, but I really can't tell. I thought the shallower front fascia with the narrower slits under the parking lamps was an earlier style nose, but I googled 1991 and saw both shallow and deep ones. Thinking owners like to upgrade to newer body parts, (How many '86 Mustangs got the '88 grilles when they came out?) I googled 2002 and saw about the same mix of deep and shallow noses! They must have been a couple of different options, or maybe one was for Japan, and the other was to meet the specs of another country? I hate to admit this, but I can only be sure that it is a third gen (1991, 2002) car. I am guessing earlier because of the parking lamps and the foglights in the center opening. They sure didn't make many huge changes during the 12 year run! The 350z is also a bit tricky. The hood looks early (Pre 2006) and I am inclined to go with 2003 as the kit seems to have been introduced earlier, but the little slats in the grille look later. Again, when I google by year, I see some earlier and later looking fascias. I kind of need to decide whether I am going to grab these kits. With the 350z, it seems as if all of the good colors were for one year only. I need to know what year the model is to match a color to it. (I'm hoping it's an '03, as there are two really cool colors that were '03 only. ) Any thoughts on these kits? they both look like nice kits. I really like the looks of the 350z. The Efini, i am a little more ambivalent on. It isn't a U.S. model. It's Right hand drive. It's not as awesome as the 350z...I also hate the idea of trying to cover the red plastic with any color other than red. I love Tamiya kits, but their colors can really bleed through a paint job quickly! Also on the Tamiya pictures of the 350z, they show a big section of the chassis in Silver. This is on a model of a silver car. Is that supposed to be body color, or was it silver or metal on all colors of cars? Thanks, Dave

I have the Anthem, and I really like it. It took a bit of getting used to as the trigger had a very different feel than the Aztecs I had been using for a Year or so before I bought the Anthem. It offers a lot of trigger control. You can shoot really thin Wicked colors at low P.S.I. or you can pull the needle all the way back and run acrylics through as if it were a firehose! The first time I used it, I shot a test batch onto a chunk of foamboard, and after about three passes, I had used up the whole jar of paint! Once you get used to finessing it, it is a great airbrush. I shoot most of my model car parts with it. I get nice coats on my bodies with it and I can also make some camo lines on aircraft with it. It is easy to clean, but it can get some acrylics built up on the nozzle. (Gunze Sangyo paints seem to be the worst offenders here.) The neat thing is that I don't have to worry about choosing the right needle for the right job. I just have to resist pulling the trigger all the way back when I am working with fine details and thin paints. (I can be a bit ham fisted when airbrushing. Normal people should have no problems with it.)

I don't remember any Halibrands, but keep an eye on Revell's California Wheels series as many of the earlier ones had tires with similar proportions to what you are looking for. There were two different sizes of pro touring type tires that I have seen in the series. One has all four wheels the same size, and is really low profile and kind of narrow. The others are big and littles with a touch more sidewall and wider rears. (I know the '66 Chevelle Wagon has the big and little ones) There were a lot of different rim styles for both tire types. Make friends with a replica stock builder (or a vintage race car guy) and you could probably trade for several sets.

The shelf full of kits is a lot larger than the shelf full of food. That means you have your priorities right Most of the big hoards of kits end up being tossed or sold at a garage sale when the owner dies. The lucky ones get auctioned off. Mine probably will, but I am going to thin it out quite a bit over the next year or two. I honestly had a plan or idea for pretty much every kit I have bought. Problem is that I'm better at coming up with ideas than I am completing models! I am clearing out a whole bunch of models, both at shows and on the bay this year. I will be making some space for the new kits coming out ! I hope some of them go to builders. I think they were made to build too, but the collectors probably do almost as much to keep the hobby afloat as the builders do. Hopefully I will sell three or four for every kit I buy this year. Gotta clear bench space for my hobby store haul today!

Egg sistential... no, wait... that was the Del Rio thread right before we flew off into Latin

Yup. Just like the "Inertia" starters on aircraft. Pretty nifty little mechanical system, but still takes someone who has eaten their wheaties to get it going. Sorry, this was a slightly delayed response to the post about the tank starting system using a geared up flywheel...

More hand cranking. Not for the meek!

The Grille is a pretty important "Signature" part on that car. They really need to get it right, or it blows the whole look. With that said, I'm not sure if it is wrong. The other side looks about right, but the side facing the camera looks rounded. Like a lot of parts, you can't tell for sure until you have the part in your hands. (Or at least a perfect, straight on photo) I think the camera shot may be playing tricks on our eyes. (I hope it is) If the inside part of the shell is correct, then a curve on the outer can be sanded out in just a couple of minutes. That, of course leaves the builder with the option of rechroming or Alclad. I am a bit surprised that Revell didn't mold the shell separate from the radiator on this kit. I am going to back off on my pre orders until I see the kit in person. I have eight ordered, plus I live near a Revell preferred retailer, so I was going to grab one the day the are released. I am sure the kit will end up being very nice, but I am a bit wary about blowing a few Month's modeling budget on unseen Revell products. I will just grab one on release day and see if I should order the rest later. I will hold off on the eight until I have seen the kit. That's the best way to deal with new releases these days.

Entex made several bikes. I know they made a Honda 750 Four, plus Suzuki, Kawasaki and Yamaha 750s. They also made a BMW and a Harley Sportster. I had models of a Harley Sportster and a Norton Commando back in the day. I still have the remains somewhere, but I butchered them as a kid. They might have also been Entex. I have seen one mention of the Harley, but even extensive Googling (Binging?) couldn't find the Norton. I would love to go back in time, walk up to my middle school self and say, "Put those back in the box and leave them alone until you're 50!" There is a Kawasaki on the 'bay right now, and a lot of three (Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha) at a pretty steep Buy it now price. These are pics I Googled. If anybody has a pic of the Commando, I would really like to see it, just to prove that I am not hallucinating and it really did exist.