Ace-Garageguy

I was looking for a 1/24-1/25 WW II or Vietnam era 6X6 and came across this seller offering some very interesting subjects in 1/25 scale (and others too). http://stores.ebay.com/PAPIERMODELLE?_trksid=p2047675.l2563

Ohhh...love it.

Light car, lots of engine...just right. Nice kit-bashing, as everyone has already said. Love the color, and particularly like the 3/4 angle shots.

Well then. All those things taken into consideration, the logical conclusions would seem to be: 1) Any paint is going to be more apt to chip on a sharp edge, as you mentioned it did in the fourth post above. 2) As you suspect, you may not have applied enough paint on the frame for it to develop full "film strength". 3) As you also already suspect, it may simply need to dry longer to develop the "toughness" you've seen previously. Pretty much impossible to draw any other conclusions.

Just about everything bad people do to other people, the fact that the energy sector as a whole is so reluctant to embrace change, the human species' fear of change in general, lack of respect for and understanding of the past, ignorance-by-choice, any kind of fanaticism, greed...shall I continue? We live on a planet that seems like Eden if you take the time to look, but a lot of PEOPLE make life difficult, dangerous, harsh and stupid....and choose to live in the gutter rather than reaching for the stars. And yes, I've seen things in the sky and experienced phenomena that defy all the standard and logical explanations.

Wow. I'm impressed. It's impossible to discount as-sprayed results that look like that. Interesting. Very interesting. What clears can be used over something like that??

Thanks for the responses. I've done a fair bit of internet digging and came up with zero. I've also looked in any kit I have here that could possibly have it, and again, zero.

Did you shoot it over bare plastic? That's possibly part of the problem. If so, did you thoroughly scuff the plastic (with something like Comet and a toothbrush) to get good adhesion? If you didn't, that's also part of your problem. And like ANY two-stage paint system (like we use on real cars) the full performance of the product isn't achieved UNLESS you use the clear topcoat. These basecoats are simply more fragile than paints designed to be topcoats. Period.

Cool. The original release of this kit was mostly a re-boxing of the original Ala Kart / '29 Model-A double kit (as shown by the photos of the first version of THIS boxing shown above by Exotics Builder. It included a '32 grille, and a few other bits that weren't in the Ala Kart double kit. The actual Ala Kart tooling was modified later, but enough of it was retained so it should be possible to back-date it to the original configuration without reinventing anything. Round 2 has been great about restoring the original contents in some kits (like the recent '32 Victoria) so we can hope they'll do it here as well. Bits of the original Ala Kart, in modified form, have been in most of the re-releases of AMT's '29 Ford kit...including the frame and suspension, the body tub, hood, the fender unit (with the louvers removed), and the Red Ram engine...with a very good '39 Ford gearbox attached. You're right. The Red Ram in this kit is the one from the original Ala Kart. It IS accurate (I've measured real ones and posted the results here and on other forums), whereas the "new-tool" Ala Kart kit has a seriously underscale engine. People love to argue about this but the numbers don't lie. That's a takeoff on the original Ala Kart suspension. It represents coil-springs over air-bags instead of the more common transverse leaf.

Slightly off topic, but while the older ones do that here too, mostly, I always have to ASK for my "senior" discount. Oh, the shame of getting old.

Last time I was carded I thought it was pretty ridiculous too. I looked at the girl, smiled and said "you've got to be kidding. I'm old enough to be your grandfather." She laughed and said she thought it was silly to have to ask, but she just started working there, and her boss said she gad to card EVERYONE or else. She was pretty, nice, had a great voice and smile. How could I possibly refuse? Ah, to be 40 years younger...and know what I know now.

"Regular Testors" lacquer, or "regular Testors" enamel? The enamel strips easily, but the lacquer can be tough. It makes a big difference what paint you use...exactly...to determine what stripper to use.

Looking for a PE fret or a kit decal sheet that has "Superleggera" on it. As you probably know, this refers to a type of lightweight construction on some mostly Italian cars. All need is two copies of the word, but I'll buy a whole PE up-detail set or a kit, if anyone knows a source.

X2. You have a fine steady foiling-knife hand too. Envy envy.

Does anyone have any good photos of the results you're getting with "craft store paint" ?

The olive '32 or the gray '36 would work just fine as daily drivers...

There are a couple of links to PE egg-crate screen in several sizes on this thread... http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/109768-photoetch-egg-crate-screen/ Your paint looks great, so do your scallops, and your doors fit WAY better than most folks achieve with this kit. Nice work.

Just be glad she didn't drink it.

Very purdy.

Yes, Rick Dore gets the credit. Dore does design work, and functions as the primary contractor on most of Hetfield's cars. They're all pretty spectacular, and 100% first rate.

The advice above is all good. Toxicity of rattlecan paints is all about even. Testors lacquer clear is my particular choice. It dries MUCH faster than enamel, has no yellow tinge you sometimes get with enamel, and will sand out and polish to a beautiful gloss. Tamiya primers are fine, but Duplicolor makes a great primer product line in several colors and builds (high-build for covering rougher bodywork, for instance). The Duplicolor primers ARE hotter than Tamiya, so you may get a little crazing of the plastic if you hammer it on too thick. The "matte" finish Jantrix mentions is usually a function of humidity being too high. Jantrix lives in Florida, so there you go. This is Duplicolor shot straight from the can, no polishing or clear, over Duplicolor high-build primer. As far as metallic colors go, two notes to be aware of. 1) SOME metallic colors can be polished out with no clear, and they'll look great. Some will get streaky and blotchy if you try to sand and polish them, so test first. The ones that get blotchy need to be cleared BEFORE you try to sand and polish. 2) Generally, the colors that have "mica" or "pearl" in their names have a finer-grain-size metallic particle, and look more scale-correct than colors called "metallic" (which can look like bass-boat or dune-buggy monster flake).

Actually, James Hetfield's custom Auburn "Slow Burn" is a re-built Glenn Pray fiberglass replica. James H himself designed the wheels. The shop I subcontract to here is currently finishing up a 100% period-perfect '32 Ford roadster for Mr. Hetfield. The car was supposed to make it to this years Roadster Show (where the AMBR is given) but Josh and crew (I have absolutely nothing to do with that particular build) missed the deadline due to a variety of factors. You can be certain it will be there NEXT year. Below is Hetfield's custom Auburn.

It takes time, skill and commitment. We know that. It's possibly not "simplistic", but it IS a very straightforward operation if the people involved are competent to do the work. It is NOT magic. It does NOT take a multi-million dollar budget to take photographs of a car, print the photos out, and proceed to take measurements from the real car and write them on the photographs. I've done it myself, more than once, most recently to get dimensions for a 1930 Ford roadster body...not available as an accurate 1/25 model anywhere I know. And if the real car isn't available, there are numerous ways of determining accurate dimensions from photographs...again accessible to people who are motivated and competent. Yes, it's more difficult, and it takes some judgement, but it's hardly impossible. And PEOPLE can do it perfectly accurately with no computer intervention. The resulting data is LATER put into CAD format to actually cut the tools. There's no excuse for someone who's getting paid to make a "scale model" to measure something that's 12" in reality and make it a scale 13" on the model. When two model-car companies have BOTH done their measuring and dividing reasonably accurately, the parts interchange fairly easily...sometimes perfectly...and the models look exactly like what they represent.

It looks a lot like the Triclops Superleggera SS1500, styled by the somewhat obscure Scultore Cieco, while working for the equally obscure Sapone Bagnato-fusa coachbuilding firm that was housed in a windowless basement in Fiat's old Officine Grandi Motori inTurin.