Zoom Zoom

Wow, that color is awesome on that! I have a 308 painted in a similar color. I believe Ismael does as well. Wait 'til he sees this too! Looks almost like "Grigio Alloy" that debuted on the 360 Modena. That's the old Italeri kit, not bad at all for a start, just adjust the wheel location/ride height and it's a nice model, as we can certainly see. The Fujimi kit is a labor of love, it's got about 3,876,592.25 parts, 80% of which need lots of TLC like mold line removal and filling of sink marks on parts you'll never see once assembled

Hey Yankee! Welcome aboard. This board isn't subdivided; post in-progress stuff there, and finished models in "under glass". One of these days when I go up to G'ville I'm going to sneak over to Mauldin (if I don't get caught in a speed trap...uh, at least that's what Mauldin used to be known worldwide for ) to say "hey!"

Here's the kicker: Paints that are intended to be glossy have a lot of clear carrier in them; so the color pigment will be less dense, you'll need to apply more coats simply to cover and get the color to one solid shade. Testors MM lacquers are nice because they cover so well and you let the final clearcoat bring up your gloss. I don't find them more time consuming in the least, in fact a quick-covering base coat w/gloss overcoats generally gives a thinner overall paint layer and saves time overall. I'm hoping these new colors are just like the MM lacquers; fast coverage, fast drying. I prefer to airbrush them, and I wish they'd be available in bottles. Hopefully the pearls/metallics are finely ground. Some of the MM lacquers have awfully large, almost "metalflake" sized metallic particles that are terribly out of scale.

My recent experience shooting Cobra Colors paint over one coat of Tamiya white primer on my '49 Merc resulted in some mild crazing in a few areas. Other areas where I did more bodywork (removing mold lines which were much worse than the average Japanese kit ) and treated to Plastikote primer didn't show any signs of crazing when shooting the Cobra Colors paint. I used BIN sealer as a spot-sealer over the heavily-sanded styrene where I removed the mold lines, sanded/reshot the Plastikote primer. I honestly can't say that Plastikote itself blocks etching better than Tamiya, or if it was because the body itself got a lot more primer in general. The areas I sanded did ghost slightly w/ the reapplication of Plastikote over those areas before I used the sealer. There was no sanding on the underhood/chassis parts that I only shot w/Tamiya primer before shooting Cobra Colors paint. I always cut my Black Gold paint w/Gunze Mr. Thinner and have no problems there, but I spray Cobra Colors straight from the bottle as they flow well through my airbrush w/o thinning. Therefore my results really don't say a whole lot other than a single coat of Tamiya primer wasn't enough to block Cobra Colors from mildly etching the plastic. I've had the same happen using MCW over a light coat of Tamiya primer on a Fujimi GT40. Had I not sanded those body areas on the Merc, or had I used Plastikote instead of Tamiya on the chassis/underhood areas, I don't know if I would have had the same crazing appear. Needless to say, it was easy enough to fix and avoid.

Go for it! I think it's fun.

Great model Has anyone attempted a convertible from this kit? Seems like a natural, whether by Revell or by a builder's own modifications.

Yes, the '70 is and always has been a promo-style kit with an engine plate, as were all of the "Motor City Stockers" kits from that year. The '69 Wildcat was full-detail. I'm getting my Wildcat and the Torino stock car today

That's absolutely stunning, Harry! Looks like it just came off the winning platform at Pebble Beach. The average builder has no idea the amount of re-engineering to make a Pocher kit look as intended. The majority of them that are ever finished end up looking a little rough around the edges of it because they're so complicated and imperfect. Most people give up the dream long before finishing the model. Seeing a model like this is a treat; this is the first one I've ever seen of this particular kit built to such a lofty standard. I'd love to see it in person! Can we convince you to come join the party here in November at our NNL? We'd love to have you. I'd need oxygen if you and Mark both attended and parked your Alfas next to each other

Yowza! Can I hop on it for a daytrip to the mountains? I've got my helmet, gloves, boots ready to go...that thing looks real! Nice work on a subject I haven't seen built!

I'm a member of ACME the host club. Thanks for the comments. Please carefully read the list of 2006 winners below, and where they came from: TOP TEN: Randy Derr Foyt USAC Camaro (best in show) (Bellbrook, Ohio) Jerel Wolfe custom '67 GTX (Greenville, SC) Paul Grala-Corvette C6 (ACME member) Dirk Joseph-VW Crew Cab (Jacksonville, FL) Chris Chapman-Big Bomber "rat" truck (Knoxville, TN) David Morton-mostly scratchbuilt Brockway (Somewhere on East Coast, between Virginia and Florida) Ken Mouton-Porsche 910 (Simpsonville, SC) Clay Kemp-Brut funnycar (Indianapolis, IN) Chuck Sears-Zesto diorama (Atlanta, not an ACME club member) Winston Mitchell Magna Custom (he's an ACME member now, but not before the '06 show) Best Porsche: Eric Cole 1/12 Tamiya Porsche 935 (ACME member) Best NASCAR-Clay Kemp Monte Carlo (Indianapolis, IN) Best Junior-Jordan Rhymer Camaro (Chattanooga, TN) Augie Hiscano Best Engineered-Dan Smith '25 Dodge der Black Max (Danville, VA) Best Pony Car-Randy Derr Foyt USAC Camaro (Bellbrook, Ohio) Steve Linngren won the ACME President's award, which is given to an ACME club member every year, voted on by the president and previous winners.

Ismael, I haven't tried DC primer recently, in years past it seemed pretty hot. I'm working on Revell's newest plastic, and I'll tell you that a coat of Tamiya white primer wasn't enough to block Cobra Color from mildly etching some of the plastic after a wet final coat Those areas were under the hood and the chassis, not a big deal. A few other parts had not been painted yet, and I applied the CC paint over them in very light coats and the crazing problem didn't recur. The body had a lot of sanding of mold lines, PK primer definitely made the mold lines ghost after sanding, I spotted Zinsser BIN via airbrush over those areas only, sanded and reprimed the entire body w/PK primer, sanded and then applied Cobra Colors paint and had zero problems w/ghosting or crazing. I had spotted in just the mold line areas w/PK primer before any sanding so the lines would show up easier; it didn't craze the virgin plastic. I think PK is milder than Duplicolor. Thankfully I know one Wal Mart and several Michael's that still carry it. I can empathize with your inability to get PK primer...I really think it's the most plastic-friendly of the auto primers. Tamiya spray paint is lacquer, but it doesn't eat plastic, it doesn't need a primer, but it does need to be applied over a color that complements Tamiya's rather thin pigment. Tamiya primer is the best/smoothest, but it's expensive and it's not as effective a solvent block as other primers and sealers. If I'm doing much bodywork/sanding and using auto paint for the color I'm at a point where I'll use Plastikote and BIN as my preferred primer and sealer combo. Requires a bit more wetsanding w/micromesh before the color coats, but it's worth the extra effort when the plastic doesn't craze.

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Don't fix it unless it's broke. It weren't broke. The way this post is set up doesn't make much sense. There's a reason most forums have the original post first, and all other subsequent replies in order below it. If you could arrange it with the original post first, then the replies in order from the newest down to the oldest, that might be okay.

Wow The license plate truly says it all!

Sounds good so far, but I'm guardedly optimistic until I see a correct grille and an effective solution to the taillight panel differences between the two. Wish Revell would take the yawn-worthy '99 Cobra and turn it into an '03 Mach I.

The Nova HT is great; but the roof does have one inaccuracy. The drip rail molding is dead flat, where it should have a gentle arc to it. Nothing major, and oddly enough it's exactly the same inaccuracy as the AMT annual '62-65 Nova HT's. The Nova CV windshield looks way off to me, and the tonneau cover is rather tall. The '60 Pontiac...well, it's been beaten to death. And deservedly so

Has anyone tried fitting the "stock" Cosmopolitan taillights from the inside of the body? Seems they might mount there w/o too much trouble, and would look better frenched. I want to try making the "stock" fender skirts fit flush to the body as well.

Actually the taillights are chrome; the bigger ones are from a Lincoln Cosmopolitan and the smaller bullets are '59 Caddy units. Both need clear red applied. There are small clear lenses for the front turn signals, the larger ones that look the size of the taillights are the spotlight lenses. Perhaps they'll work as taillight lenses too if you don't use the spotlights.

Lookin' forward to seeing this one! The color choice sounds interesting. Good luck with it, and can't wait to see it finished. Nice choice of rolling stock, too

I read the other online tutorials and they say to wait at least an hour, perhaps overnight...I guess these are the same guys that say to leave enamel drying for a month before working with it When I decant the spray it tends to boil a bit in the cup for a few minutes. I use an open cup on my airbrush and haven't had any disasters, but capping the decanted spray could be messy upon reopening, like a soda bottle shaken then opened. I tend to decant small amounts, apply a few drops of thinner, let it gas out a couple minutes, and spray. No problems so far. And I've found new straws that fit tightly over Tamiya nozzles, so that I don't need any tape or fun-tack to hold the straw in place. It's so easy, even a cave man can do it

The '58 PM kit came with tampo-printed whitewalls that look pretty good. The white's a bit glossy, but can be dulled a bit with some dullcoat. If you want to paint them yourself, you can get a circle template from the drafting dept. of your favorite art/craft supply store, tape the tire to it securely, and airbrush flat white acrylic. You could add a little bit of flat yellow or tan to give the white more of an ivory appearance. Shabo makes pretty good wide white dry transfers as well.

I doubt it, but who knows? Plain old hardware store lacquer thinner is what I cut Testors enamel with. It's dirt cheap and hasn't ever caused any crazing. Dries faster too. I would save Mr. Color Thinner for cutting hotter paints like Black Gold HOK stuff, or thinning decanted Tamiya sprays. Tamiya's own lacquer thinner seems identical to Mr. Color Thinner.

Nice pics, thanks for sharing. Hope you don't mind me saving pics of the Alfa; I'm going to attempt to build my Heller Alfa 1750 Zagato prior to our NNL in November. Good reference

Strange indeed; I haven't had to log back in for about a week or longer, no problems with either Firefox or the couple of times I opened it w/IE.

It would help to know which Tamiya putty you are using. They make three very different kinds. Only the 2-part epoxy putty would work like modeling clay and be helped w/water for shaping. They also have a traditional style (gray), and a UV-light-curing putty.