Harry P.

The dash has a machine-turned pattern molded in, which looks good... and it has a sort of satin finish plating, which looks pretty close to the real thing... BUT... The gauge bezels and toggle switch bases are all molded in place, which means they have to be brush-painted black. It's almost impossible to get a sharp, clean edge all the way around each bezel; my hands just aren't that steady. I got it pretty good, but not perfect. (The alternative would have been to drill out each bezel and make new ones from slices of appropriate-diameter aluminum tubing. Way too much trouble! ) There are several details missing on the kit dash. I made "toggle switches" from lengths of copper wire, and I added the missing fuel pressure pump knob, which is a round-headed map pin with the head painted "wood." The kit-supplied gauge "glass" pieces were unusable. There was a giant sink mark right in the center of each gauge face, so I threw them out and made new "glass" from a piece of clear acetate. The gauge faces themselves are decals from the kit. They are actually done very cleverly: they're printed face down on the decal sheet, and are meant to be applied to the back side of the glass. Nice touch!

I agree. In fact, based on several of the comments made on this thread, I'd say a couple of people owe John an apology. I'm just sayin'...

Wow... that's a lot less than I thought. I was figuring a couple hundred bucks, easy. But like you say, you buy some of the aftermarket stuff in bulk and spread the cost among several models. Whatever the cost, it looks good. I'm amazed at how cleanly you can build, even the tiniest details are spotless. I won't comment on accuracy, because A: you already said this is sort of a "phantom," and B: What I know about NASCAR you can easily fit on the head of a pin and have room left over for several Lord's Prayers! But clean building, you have down pat. You must have really steady hands!

John, I have a question... and this is in no way meant as a criticism, I'm just curious. You use a lot of aftermarket stuff on your models, and I'm wondering if you have a ballpark figure on how much was spent on aftermarket parts on this model? I think it would be a way for people to get a better idea of the kind of dollar investment involved in a model like this.

Actually I'm slacking off on this one. All of the missing oil lines, distributor linkages, etc. that are on the real car... fuggetaboutit! I'm not going to bother... the engine as you see it here is pretty much as detailed as I'm going to go with it. If this was a 1/8 Pocher I would definitely "go the extra mile," but on this one I think I'll cut a few corners. Besides, once it's finished and sitting on the shelf, the hood will rarely, if ever, be raised...

I'm just getting started with this kit... it's the MPC release of the old Airfix kit, 1/12 scale. The model is very simplified; a lot of detail is missing, and what is there is in many instances flat-out wrong. I'm not going to go crazy with this one... I'll fix a few things, add some missing details, but it won't be a full-blown superdetail job. Anyway... I have most of the engine pretty much done and installed in the chassis. The biggest problem with the kit engine is that much of what should have been separate pieces, like the intake manifold, for instance, are molded in place, making detail painting a nightmare. Here on the right side you can see how the supercharger is mounted way up front, it actually sits out in front of the radiator. The carbs are mounted on the left side of the supercharger, so where the carbs on the non-blown engine would normally mount, there are a pair of supercharger relief valves instead (thanks to Skip for that info...)... Over on the other side, the ignition wires are routed through a metal loom to keep them protected from the exhaust manifold. That loom is completely missing in the kit, so I scratchbuilt it from aluminum tube and wire insulation, then painted it copper per reference photos. The loom's mounting brackets are made of strips of sheet aluminum (cut from a pie pan!) and the "bolts" are pinheads: On the real car the leaf springs are wound with cord (to keep road grit from getting between the spring leaves, I suppose). The kit springs have this detail molded in place, but there are two problems: the cord detail is very shallow and indistinct, and there is a prominent mold seam line running along the springs lengthwise. Obviously if I removed that seam line I'd wind up ruining the molded-in cord detail... so I decided to actually wrap the springs. I used plain old white cotton sewing thread, and once the wrappings were done I painted the thread with a thinned mix of acrylic craft paints (green and black): The gas tank is a real problem. On the real car the tank is covered by wire mesh, probably to protect the tank from rocks and stuff. The external fuel lines running from the tank are very obvious on the real car, too. On the kit, the wire mesh and fuel lines are all molded in place. Not good, especially the fuel lines, which in real life are actually away from the tank's surface by several inches. So I assembled the tank, then used a razor saw to cut off the molded-in fuel lines and sandpaper to remove all the molded-in wire mesh detail. Once I had the tank completely smoothed out, I started the process of recreating the external details. I'm just getting started... I installed new "wire mesh," which is actually fiberglass window screen, and the metal "edges" of the mesh is aluminum wire. The raised straps around the left and right side walls of the tank are strip styrene, the flange around the filler neck is sheet styrene and the filler neck itself is a piece cut from the body of a Bic pen! I still need to add a few more straps that wrap around the tank over the mesh panels, and recreate the tank mounting straps on the left and right side walls of the tank (they were also molded in place and were lost when I sanded the tank smooth). Once finished this whole assembly will be painted green, as on the real car: More photos as they become available...

Mmmmmmm... Spam ice cream.........

Yeah... finially!

What are you doing wasting your time on "other" boards?

50% Class 2, 50% class 3.

Bionic paint, apparently!

Sorta.

Very nice chassis and engine detail... the carbon fiber on the intake scoop looks cool...

There's no photo here.

That's all it ever was! An online flea market. It's just gotten bigger over the years, but the basic operating model is exactly what it always has been. And to make an analogy... if you go to an actual neighborhood flea market and you buy something from a seller and you get the item home, look it up online and find out that you paid way more than it's worth... is that the fault of the flea market? Of course not. They didn't set the price, and they didn't force you to buy. All they did was provide the forum where you and the sellers could interact. And even if the flea market organizers charge either a seller's fee, or an entrance fee for the buyers, or both, that's their right–because they are the ones offering the service, and they have the right to cover their costs (and even make a profit). Why would they organize and stage the flea market for free? Why should ebay provide their service for free?

The fact is that many of the "evilbay" and "feebay" rants are completely misplaced. Ebay is providing a service... a place where buyer and seller can interact. In return for providing that service, ebay charges certain fees, for two reasons: One, it costs money to host, maintain and constantly update a website/business, and two, ebay is a business, and their goal, like every business, is to make money. Considering the huge exposure of products that ebay provides, and all the various other services they provide, I think the fees they charge are completely reasonable. And ebay has all sorts of procedures and practices in place to try and resolve buyer/seller disputes, weed out the bad guys, and keep the place operating smoothly. There are literally millions of ebay members. Imagine the job involved in trying to keep all of those people behaving themselves. Sure, every once in a while a buyer or seller will try and pull a fast one. That's human nature, unfortunately... and ebay does a whole lot to try and keep that from happening. The rest–a measure of simple common sense–is up to each individual buyer and seller.

If that model is red, then there is a huge color shift going on in the photos.

If you see that car as red, you either have some serious color perception issues, or your monitor's color settings are way off. This is red: This is pink:

So why is it pink?

Well, ultimately ebay can't make the seller send you the kits. About all they can do is ban him from the site, but he can always come back by signing on with a different computer/IP. Maybe in this case the best thing to do is accept the refund before this guy gets even more unreasonable and even refuses to give you that, and stay away from his listings in the future. Call it a lesson learned. I'm sure the same kits will pop up again, from different sellers. Whenever you deal with the general public, whether it's through ebay or craigslist or anything else, there's always the chance you'll run into a crook or scammer. It's just part of the risk you take.

It's also not ebay's fault. The seller is the guy trying to pull a fast one here, not ebay.

Isn't that car supposed to be bright red?

Simple answer: Use a background that contrasts with your subject. Dark model-light background, light model-dark background.

Did you get my PM? Full name in signature is the rule here. Normally I would send you another PM, but the PM function isn't working. This is your second notice. Three strikes and you're out...

A big "ditto" to what everyone else has said. That's a real beauty! Hopefully your health issues are in the past and you can concentrate on building now...