Harry P.

Nice!

Very nice! Your color matches look to be just about perfect.

All you need is a little practice!

What about them?

The car is a 2008 Volga Siber. If it looks familiar, that's because it used to be sold here under a different name! Who got it right: Badluck13 The Creative Explorer mark taylor Joe Handley trogdor MrObsessive

Stoneguards: The kit pieces are on the clear parts tree. I left them attached to the sprues and removed the "mesh" part with my Dremel and a small diameter grinding bit. I freehanded it and kept away from the outer edge. Once I had most of the material removed I switched to a larger diameter grinding wheel and smoothed out the "holes" I had created. Finally I wrapped some sandpaper around a tapered wooden dowel and finished off the final rounding by hand, going until I had a realistically thin outer rim. What I had left now was just an open ring and the four small mounting tabs on each guard. As you know, clear styrene is very brittle... it doesn't bend, it breaks. When I went to try and remove the first one with sprue cutters, the ring broke in three places. So I removed the other one by using a cutoff disc in the Dremel and going very slowly, with no pressure... and cutting through the sprue attachment points instead of snipping them. Once I put the broken ring back together, I cut circles of window screen mesh and glued the mesh circles to the back of the rings. The scale of the mesh is a bit off; it should be a little finer... but this fiberglass window screen is so easy to work with that I used it anyway. In my reference photos these guards are sometimes plated, sometimes painted.

None of the metalizer colors comes close to chrome, and that's not what they are for. They are supposed to represent various bare metal surfaces, either raw or polished (depending on whether or not you buff it out after it dries)... but they're not intended to simulate chrome. In fact, there is no spray in a can that looks like chrome plating, even if they have the word "chrome" in the name. About the closest to a chrome look you'll get is a polished aluminum look... like polished aluminum wheels. But that doesn't look like chrome plating, which has a mirror finish.

Future is not polish. Future is clear liquid acrylic, period. There is no polish of any kind in it.

I guess you totally missed the whole long thread about this exact same thing: http://www.modelcars...=1

I'm staying with the plastic fender rods because A, I already glued them to the fenders, and B, I don't plan on dropping this model again! The headlight mounting brackets are incredibly fragile. This whole model is like that... all spindly and fragile. I wonder how long the real cars lasted before they just started falling apart??? I made stone guards for the headlights by using the kit pieces, removing the "mesh" part and just leaving the rim, and then gluing on more of that window screen mesh. I used the kit parts because they have those four mounting tabs that fit onto the headlight bezels molded on them... scratchbuilding the guards and those four mounting tabs would have been a nightmare. My "semi-scratchbuilt" guards look pretty good, I think. I'll have to post photos.

That's mostly exactly what happened... the mounting pin stayed in the hole but the part broke away from the pin. I didn't have the fenders installed yet, so at least I don't have to fix those, too! If I had to reinstall the fenders, what I would do is first, drill out the mounting holes on the chassis rails if there's plastic stuck in them. Then I'd use the plastic fender stays as templates and make new ones out of K&S brass rod. Try to get the bends and the shapes as close to the plastic part as possible... epoxy or CA the new brass pieces to the fenders, repaint the fenders, and CA the new fender mounting rods into the opened up holes in the chassis. You can always make minor adjustments before you glue them back on by slightly bending the new brass rods as needed. It's not easy getting the mounting rods attached to the fenders in the exact correct orientation, there are no positive locator pins... you'll have to eyeball it a bit.

No, the usual stuff I always use... CA and liquid cement. But that floor is hard. And the problem is, almost all the glue joints are tiny little fragile pins and things like that... no large surfaces to glue together. That's probably why the engine held together–larger glue surfaces between the block, the manifold, etc. But the tiny little spring shackle mounts and the shock mounting pins and things like that didn't survive the fall. Same with the gas tank, it's only connected to the frame by four tiny pins, so it broke loose... The model is really fragile. Every time I pick it up to turn it over or on its side or whatever to give me access to what I want to do, I think something's going to break off!

Also, if anyone can find that thread on how to make a perpetual motion machine, I'd like to see that one back. I have an idea on how to make a few $$$...

Sadly, no... the model is still, uh... "disassembled"... But I have managed to fix the front axle, fix the broken rear spring and reattach the front axle assembly, the rear axle assembly and reglued the body back into position on the chassis. After the fixes, no visible evidence that anything ever happened. Now I have to try and fix the gas tank and remake a few of those PE mounting straps. Then after that, reattach the two small windshields and the front brake rods and remake the exhaust hanger and reinstall the exhaust system and the belly pan... and I'll be back to the place I was before the fall!

I hate when that happens...

Great detective work there, Skip!

Let's just hope that nobody had anything important to say yesterday!

Looks like some of the posts made within the past 2-3 days are all gone...

As usual... amazing! You really do want to make the rest of us throw in the towel and maybe try scrapbooking instead...

Copy the image code from Photobucket, and paste it here in your post. Doesn't get much easier.

Very nice! And very nice photos! But I think you may know which one I prefer...

Ok, I admit I'm totally not up on this car, whether the real one or the model (if there is a real one...) but how is the engine getting air???

Nope, in this case the Bunker Hill we're talking about is a suburb of St. Louis...

You don't have to prime and then rough up the primer... you can just rough up the bare plastic. Same idea... give the filler something to lock on to.