Merkur XR4Ti

That's looking great Ismael!

I did one that way and it looks nice, but it's a pain to sand off the vinyl top pattern on the roof. You'd also have to source the correct wheels from another kit. It would save a lot of time using the AMT version, even if the rear window on that one is not correct. Whatever you do, don't use Model master Lacquer Hemi Orange for the Dukes car. It's far too metallic for this application. Learned that one the hard way. Go with the solid orange color mentioned above.

Now on attempt THREE with the AlClad....I am not impressed at all. This stuff is very, very touchy to use. I'm frustrated with it. I'm making one more attempt, and then if that doesn't work I'm giving up and sending the parts to Chrome Tech USA.

That is a great find....I've got a project now I could use this on.

Are those tires and wheels more or less stock? Where'd you get them? I'd like to build one of those Caddy kits but I hate the lowrider wheels and tires in them and want to make it more stock-appearing.

Beautiful work! I was wondering what to do with all my leftover Electric Blue from my current Rebel Machine project; you've inspired me!

Well well well. I found out something very interesting about Alclad last night: Novus #2 removes it. I was using a touch of the #2 to remove some fingerprints off my rear bumper, and the stuff lifted the Alclad right off. It didn't touch the gloss black enamel underneath, so I'll just have to repaint the part, but I thought this stuff was supposed to be durable. It's not.

Great job! I've built a couple of those bike kits, they are a joy to build.

Well, reading this thread today got me motivated enough to try my first attempt at using Alclad on a rear bumper. The bumper was from an old buildup and it broke when I tore down the model for rebuilding, so I superglued the broken piece back in, stripped the whole thing in bleach and then in Bleche-White, primed and then painted it gloss black enamel (Testor's little square bottle kind). I just applied 2 light coats of Alclad and I must say I am impressed with the results. Once it's dry it really does resemble chrome a great deal. The trick is to go light; any more than 2 coats and it starts looking like silver paint. There are a couple of spots where a little more Alclad got on the bumper and it does make a difference. But for separate pieces this is a good alternative to sending parts out to be chromed. I still want a pony, though.

Glad to hear it's not just me having problems with sheets of BMF. I have a sheet I'm trying to use now and it's riddled with tears and cracks. What I wouldn't give for a paint right out of a jar that would provide the correct chrome look. I get very frustrated with trying to use BMF at times, particularly around vent windows. While I'm thinking about it, spray paint that looks like carbon fiber would be nice too. Oh, and a newly tooled kit of a 71 Mercury Cyclone, and a 66 Impala, and a pony.

I do this all the time. Plastikote makes their auto paints available in 2 oz. bottles. It needs to be thinned some with lacquer thinner, maybe 20% or so. It can then be sprayed through an airbrush. It works pretty well, but you'll have to experiment to see how much you should thin it and how best to spray it. I can be touchy stuff when spraying. Good news is that it dries very hard and sands out very well. Be sure to use a good primer on the body first; stick with Plastikote if you're using their paint. Duplicolor also makes fine auto primers and paints.

Fujimi just reissued their Ferrari F355 Berlinetta kit, 74 parts, molded in yellow and black. Mine arrived from HLJ yesterday. It appears to be a straight reissue of the earlier kit molded in red. That means body side coves still molded as separate pieces (which will require tedious sanding), hood vents still molded closed, and a separate piece that needs to be glued in the rear valance. The interior is a bucket and the door panels have no detail whatsoever. This won't be much of a problem for me as I'm going to keep the interior black, but for those wanting to use leather or lighter colors the lack of detail will be obvious. It's disappointing, but not surprising, that Fujimi didn't make any changes to the kit from the first release. If you can locate a Maisto discast kit of the 355 Spyder you can snag the door panels from that for this model if you want the additional detail. All that being said, the body looks nice and with some minor tweaks the kit should build up well. I also purchased the Accu-Station photoetch set with the kit and the pieces look beautiful.

Great find. I've never seen one of those kits in the flesh.

I'll add one thing to know about Future: If you are going to decal over a Future-coated body and need to use Micro Sol, you MUST wait at least 48 hours to decal or else the Micro Sol will etch into the Future and leave a milky white film that doesn't come out. For safety's sake I usually wait at least a week before attempting to decal over Future. I have a tough time airbrushing the stuff without getting runs. I wish there was a way to thicken it a little bit so it sprayed more like paint and less like water.

She built those and she's SEVEN? Ye gods. That's amazing.

Just stunning. I loved building mine despite having to fight with it a bit.

Hey Ron, are those tires from a particular kit or from ye olde parts box?

Looks fantastic. I was pondering how to get more stock wheels and tires on that kit.

Hi all, I am having a heck of a time trying to replicate the "buttery" tan color of Ferrari's leather interiors. I have tried Tamiya's Deck tan colors (too brownish), and 1:1 auto vinyl paint (too cream-colored). I'm trying to get something close to this pic: I suppose I can try to mix my own but wanted to check to see what tricks you guys use on your builds. The buttery leather color is one I have not been able to match just yet. BTW, for the carbon fiber bits pictured here I'm probably going to use Testor's Gunmetal Metalizer. I've found that in person the grain and color matches carbon fiber pretty closely, and it's a lot easier for me to use paint than to fool around with tiny bits of CF decal.

David, it looks great! What's that color you used to paint the valve covers? It appears sorta greenish-gold. I love those bike kits. Their Kawasaki ZX-RR is next up on my workbench.

Hey Gregg and Jairus, Does this forum have a policy on certain flags and logos that can't be shown here? I have just completed a General Lee model and I'd like to show it, but I know other forums have forbade showing the flag on the roof. What is our policy here? Note to all: I am NOT arguing that the policy regarding the roof decal in question is wrong, or they're suppressing free speech or any nonsense like that. Any forum owner has the right to set rules which must be followed, and I am MORE than happy to do so. If a forum owner says they don't allow purple cars to be shown, for example, so be it. I do not want to start that whole tiresome discussion again. I am simply checking to see what's allowed. Thanks.

Marc, I love this build and may be doing something similar quite soon. After reading this thread if I do this I'll use the Modelhaus kit. Stupid question: what are MV lenses? First I've heard of them.

I'll play. I'm nearly done with the recent Superamerica kit and I hope to have some pics soon.

Looking great! Awesome results in filling in the sunroof and creating the recesses for the door handles. I didn't dare attempt either of those things.

After seeing all the excellent builds here of this kit, I decided to give mine a shot. While the folks here did a great job with sinister black and silver paint jobs, I wanted to go in a different direction with this one, so I chose to build the car as a classy "wine and cheese" car, a car that you could take to the opera without blingy embarrassment while still being able to blow the doors off anything on the road. I glued the doors and truck to the body and tried to get the gaps as small as possible. I made door handles out of Evergreen rod sliced in half and sanded them down a bit; I'm pretty happy with the way they look. I used Aoshima wheels and tires for this kit; I cut off the calipers from the kit rotors and repositioned them so the new wheels would fit over them. Exterior paint is autmotive touchup decanted from spray cans. The merlot red is a ChryCo color I believe, with a standard silver on the bottom. I shot a few coats of clear over that and polished it all out. Interior has tan vinyl paint from the auto parts store. I painted the suede seat inserts Aircraft int. gray (sort of a charcoal color) and gave the dash, door panels and steering wheel cherry wood trim via mixing brown, red and black paint together. I did not gray out the grilles, but instead painted them with aluminum metalizer. I finished it off by making my own Maine SHIRAZ license plates on a laser printer.