Zoom Zoom

Here are the beauty shots taken this afternoon after watching the F1 race. I didn't like the appearance of the windshield seam; there's no molding over the edge (not in '64, though the restored car has it) and there was no way to hide the glue holding it. So I removed the front/rear glass and did the Sharpie-along-the-edge trick, and reglued them. Much cleaner looking, totally inaccurate, but hey...I had fun ! Total time of build: 18 hours. It's a fairly simple curbside kit, low parts count and of very nice quality.

Continuing: First color coats (Tamiya TS British Green, airbrushed): First color w/clear, sub assemblies painted. Car was reshot in green (sans airbrush) and recleared by 1:45 pm (wetsanding found problems in the previous paint). It cooked until about 6 pm when it was buffed out w/3600 Micromesh and coarse/fine/finish Tamiya compounds. After a long day, this is where it was at the point when one member had his Porsche 917 done. It's now closing in on 10:00 pm Final assembly, the small photoetch parts were a bear. I invented new cuss words when attempting to glue them in place and I was tired and cranky. This was done enough for me around 1:00 am. It was the middle of the night in Ringgold, GA but the sun was already up at LeMans.

I'll break this into three posts to keep the photo count manageable. This was my LeMans Palooza build; several ACME members have now spent two years in a row building LeMans models during the running of the race. I built the Profil24 Jaguar E Type Low Drag Coupe that raced in 1964. We are allowed to have the car in primer before the start, and to have parts cleaned/ready for paint. I took about 3 1/2 hours to prep the car prior to Saturday. At the 9:00 am start:

Wow, that's so realistic I can almost smell the rust

Amen. Pegasus 23's aren't "real" 23's when you compare to 1/24 scale. The Pegasus 23" diameter is 21.96" in 1/24 scale, with the visible bead lip (usually adds about 1.5" to the "real" diameter taken at the bead) the actual dimension of the wheel would be about 20.5". That's why they look good on some of these 1/24 scale models with really large wheel openings. They don't look cartoonish on these Ferraris, nor Magnums, nor 350Z's, nor Chargers. Even the AMT 1/25 Chrysler 300C has massive wheel openings and these wheels look like a stock diameter in them. If Pegasus 23's were scaled to 1/24 scale, and were real 23's, they'd be 1.02" in diameter and that would look freakish. I'm not all about bling, just the right balance. Anyone who looked at my latest "anti-bling" Boxster kit built last weekend can vouch for that

All of them would look good under the Fiorano; I've tried the Vantage and Vanquish, and will have to get the Virage. The 2-piece design is cool because you can paint the center any color you like. My Scaglietti almost wore the Vanquish wheels: The Fiorano below has the Pegasus rims from the Vantage/Vanquish/Virage, but I cut the centers from a Sportec and BBS RE to see how they would look: Still wish Fujimi would just make the proper 20" BBS RE's for the Fiorano.

It's an off-brand that I got at Big Lots years ago; it's like a Ronco but a bit smaller. It has no temperature control, just rotating vents on the top/bottom. I checked the temperature inside and it was below 110°, so I'm okay. Any brand will work, but if the temp goes over 110° you will have to ventilate it sufficiently.

I used Tamiya spray lacquers, the silver and first coats of clear were airbrushed in light coats, the final clear was applied straight from the can. I shot the first coats of silver over the bare grayish-silver plastic (I had removed mold lines w/a 4-sided polishing stick); after an hour in the dehydrator it was very dry. I wetsanded it w/3200 and applied black panel lines, then applied more silver and started adding clear to the silver mixture, laying on thin coats, until it was mostly clear. Then a few coats of just clear. Let that dry about 2 hours or so, it was very dry, hit it w/3200 micromesh wetsanding the surface relatively smooth, then went over it w/a couple good wet coats straight from the spray can. The next morning it was plenty dry (after about 8 hours in the dehydrator) to wetsand w/3600 and then I did a quick buff out w/Tamiya coarse polish. That's as far as I went, it was very glossy at that point. A darker color would have required a bit more care in polishing. I've painted/polished hundreds of models, along the way I've learned a lot of tricks to cut down on time. Also, when I airbrush Tamiya sprays they go a LOT further. I could easily paint 5 or 6 silver cars w/one can of paint. This almost makes up for the fact they don't sell their lacquer paints in bottles.

Thanks for the comments! I took a trip to Discount Tire aka my Fujimi 356A Speedster kit to get the other set of Maisto 356 wheels I had (to try under another project), and found two of them had modern radials. Remembering when I tried these wheels on a PT Cruiser, I checked that kit, and found two sets of stock PT Cruiser tires (and no desire to build a stock PT Cruiser...ever). Handling problem solved immediately Stock Maisto tire on left, Revell PT Cruiser tire on right. I do believe this would transform the handling just a bit

Agreed, the model is sweeeeet!!! I don't think it matters if the side grilles were honeycomb or not from the factory, this is a pro-touring inspired model w/a modern influence (wheels/tires at least) and it's not really a matter of factory accuracy, it's a matter of fact that it looks perfect on this model and that's how it could have/should have been from the factory.

Who needs 24 hours to build a model when you can build one in about 8 hours? I combined a desire to build something in a minimal amount of time, but still look like a halfway decent model. I sifted through the stack and kept coming back to the Revell Boxster snap kit. For whatever reason I thought it would be amusing to see what the Maisto 356 wheels just removed from my RS60 would look like. I actually liked it :eek: So off I went; started this Saturday at 7:05 pm, in 3 hours I had applied a layer of silver (Tamiya gloss aluminum airbrushed), dried, wetsanded, applied panel lines, reshot silver, applied clear, let dry, wetsanded, reclearcoated. I shot the interior pieces in a better shade of red than molded. The chassis is just flat black. All sub assemblies were painted by the time I quit at about 12:15 am. In 2 1/2 hours on Sunday morning I did final assembly and detailing. I needed this build to keep me from starting my LeMans car too fast So what do you think? Crazy? Cool? :x I think it would be a lot of fun to drive. I don't think a 356 would be flattered at all w/Boxster rims, but the 356 wheels/tires seem to fit this car in this color scheme pretty well. I got that out of my system (though I do want to find an inside rear view mirror and cut some mylar door mirror faces), now I can be more relaxed for my LeMans build next weekend

Here's a thread from last year: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=660

I haven't tried it, but everyone that I've seen on other forums who have tried it raves about Hiroboy's paint. It's likely very similar if not the same type of paint as Cobra Colors. Considering Cobra Colors isn't selling paint at this time, Hiroboy is the only ready source of many of the colors they offer. Hiroboy/aka Steve has his own forum in the UK as well. http://www.spc.org.uk/forum/index.php

Whatever you choose for wheels, they need to be BIG. Those are huge wheel openings to fill. Pegasus 23's are almost too small (unless they have the larger diameter tire). Someone on another board suggested Revell Honda Civic tuner rims. :shock: :roll: They'd look about the size of brake rotors on a Magnum Even Aoshima 19's look a bit puny on the model. I think the Pegasus 23" T's would look pretty good.

The ride ended several weeks ago at the Year One Experience. None of the movie's stars were there, Burt was sick, he was supposed to be there. There were plenty of impostors :wink: Chip Foose and AJ were there from Overhaulin'. Year One sold a $180K "Bandit Edition" Trans Am recreation that weekend as well. Here's an album of pics taken that weekend (mine were the first 18, the rest were taken by another ACME member), I was having way more fun riding shotgun in a new C6 Corvette doing 16 hot laps of Road Atlanta http://public.fotki.com/ACME-IPMS/full-siz...one-experience/

Looking good so far, and Dale's model is spectacular. Anyone have ideas for making the side glass that's also missing? The Revell kit is kind of like a paint-by-numbers kit, a nice start but they forgot half the paint :roll: :wink: The Revell AG "LeMans winner" variant is out, the only change to the kit is the decals. None of the other issues has been addressed whatsoever, and the wheels are completely incorrect. SMS has the wheels, but no side glass.

I haven't even seen it, but Gunze products often mimick Tamiya in usefulness, so it's probably pretty good stuff. Mr. Color Thinner and Tamiya lacquer thinner are identical (I assume; they smell identical and work exactly the same-both are excellent to thin out decanted Tamiya sprays for airbrushing). The Tamiya cement is nice, but I haven't found any when I've been to any shops, so my experience is only a few times borrowing a friend's bottle when doing a group build. It is nice stuff. Hobbylink's description of Mr. Cement S says it's very thin and watery. Ambroid Pro Weld, Tenax, Plastruct, and Model Master all have excellent liquid glues, Krazy Glue is available in a bottle w/a small brush, so I've been able to resist buying the Japanese glues so far and my models haven't suffered.

I think you can still find them through Accurate Miniatures. Killer wheels, great design concept and execution. Just way too small for most applications. Revell already included a lot of optional rims in their tuners. XS Tuning should have gone with 18" wheels as a bare minimum, and worked up from that. Starting at 17" gave them a fraction of the market, they only fit a narrow range of rather small Japanese kits or the already small 1/25 scale tuners that Revell insisted on making (when 1/24 would have been better for the subject matter). Forget putting them on anything American, or anything larger than a subcompact. Even on Z cars and Supras they look puny. They were supposed to do the same designs as 18" wheels after the 17's came out. No surprise that since the 17's didn't fly off the shelves, they had no budget left to do the 18's. Right at a time when the Japanese companies couldn't make enough 18's-20's in the right designs. XS Tuning made killer wheels, but they made a huge tactical error in sizing their first production run. I'll bet had they gone w/18's and 19's from the beginning, we wouldn't be wondering what happened to them.

The Nova HT is the one to get, it's a nice kit. The CV has a windshield frame that's way too tall, and a top boot that's overly thick.

Thanks for all the comments! They say the third time's the charm. I've made another pass at finishing the RS60. Thanks to a trade I made w/Darin Bastedo, my RS60 is now rolling on proper wheels, tires, and brakes. It's no longer a glorified kit car :wink: Just a few more visual tweaks (a light wash on the wheels, some sort of lap belt arrangement) and it'll be ready for competition in the model contest at Rennsport Reunion III at Daytona in November :sunglasse The wheels/tires/brakes are from a Fujimi Porsche 356A cabriolet. The wheels/tires/hubcaps that were on the RS60 will look just fine on the 356A, so that kit can still be built and not just for parts.

Now this is retro I can wrap my head around Actually it's S-Cargo; a play on the French word "Escargot" aka "snail" which is an accurate description of the design (and probably the performance as well); it's a modern interpretation of the Citroen 2CV delivery vans from the past. Very clever name for a very cool delivery trucklet. I really hoped that the Japanese model companies would have done a kit of it, but alas it never happened :cry:

It's a gorgeous kit builtup, but it's a glorified curbside. If you shine a light through the louvers you see something under there, but in reality you can't see anything from the built model and the engine cover doesn't open. You see a lot more from underneath. Therefore you are free to do whatever you like w/what there is of the engine; IIRC it's not a full engine. Miura SV painted w/ Cobra Colors Ferrari Grigio Alloy:

Wow, I'm really liking how the composition is coming together! I'd be in the same position doing the painting as it's a medium that I haven't worked in years. I totally understand the "arty" dilemma about the foreground vs. background and why the trees in the distance aren't rendered w/as much contrast now. I think they look fine as-is, and when the rest of the subjects are painted is when one stands back and determines where, if any, extra work can be done to punch up an area. At this point in a watercolor it's perfect. Get too much contrast back there and you can't go back. It's a one-time-only shot with watercolors. Thanks so much for showing the progress, it's fascinating to see it come together 8)

Looks pretty good for a model built in 8 hours! Quick builds can be pretty fun, and one can do amazing things if you plan ahead a bit; have all the tools/paints/etc. that you need right at hand.

Amazing 8) Can't wait to see that in November!