Ace-Garageguy

Had to get out of the weather, get warm, calm his PTSD symptoms, then call mom to tell her "the car wrecked", after which she called the family lawyer to sue the companies that made and sold the hoodie.

Looking good. I always wanted that kit when I was a kid, but somehow never got around to it. May have to get one now. Looks like it'll make a very attractive model. A 1/25ish version is in my future, based on the Flintstone repop of a Danbury Mint White 3000 cab and the old Lindberg tanker.

His mommy is going to ground him for at least a week for that, and maybe cut his allowance.

Prevalent is nothing like covalent.

"Sheeps, don't fail me now" said the feller who was prone to misquoting.

Something wicked their way comes, perhaps?

Mower maintenance can be eliminated by replacing your mower with sheep.

"Reason", defined as "the power of comprehending, inferring, or thinking, especially in orderly, rational ways" appears to be in global decline.

Very fine, as always.

Pretty slick spaceship. Very nice indeed.

Very nice rendition of one of my favorite kits.

Great alternate-reality build. Well done, sir.

Best answer...or just use different tires, assuming you have a stash of parts. The kit tires from that particular Gunze kit are somewhat undersized anyway, IIRC. Barring that, there are several flexible 2-part epoxy-based fillers (made for flexible parts repair) available from bodyshop suppliers that MIGHT work, possibly requiring an adhesion promoter, and refinish with a flexible black coating (SEM or Mar-Hyde, etc.) as Mr. Sipper suggests. Not knowing exactly what material those tires are made from, I can't make specific recommendations.

Yup, they're great little cars. If I was looking for something quick and reliable for reasonable money, that's one that would top my list. It really makes me sad to see it wrecked, and to know it's a write-off.

I can tell both frame rails are "swung" to the right just from the position of the bumper reinforcement. The LH apron is toast too (that's what the suspension strut hangs on), the "core support" (supports the radiator, AC condenser, hood, lights, etc) is history, and on and on. You can't just "pull" the structural damage out. You pull it first, then drill out dozens of spot-welds, remove the damaged parts, and build the structure back up from new parts, all spot-welded back together like the factory did it (which it never really is). It's major surgery, and has to be done right, or the car's occupant safety "crush" impact energy management won't be there if it gets hit again.

1) Really glad your wife's OK. If she'd been punched in the door that hard, it would be another story. 2) It'll total. There's almost certainly heavy structural damage when there's that much suspension damage. I look at this stuff every day, and I'm 99.98273% sure it's a goner. (The "total" dollar threshold is typically around 70% of the market value of the car; when the estimated repair cost goes over that, you're done.) 3) I'd be pretty mad about the mindless destruction of a perfectly good little car.

Considering this was built in pretty primitive conditions with the most basic tools required to do the work, it's of astoundingly good quality. "Inspirational" doesn't begin to describe what a bunch of Vietnamese kids accomplished here. Some of it's a little crude, but the amount of good seat-of-the-pants engineering and craftsmanship that went into this thing, especially the building of the body and interior panel clay "plugs", good enough to splash molds from to make fiberglass panels...it just blows my mind. EDIT: In the YT comments under the Rolling Bones vid I posted a coupla days back, there were a bunch of haters ragging on "old rich boomers" who had hot-rods. OK dwerbles...build something cool yourself like these young guys did, and quit your whining about " boomers bad ".

Lacquer is generally not recoat-window time-sensitive. You can recoat it at any time...usually. But if I'm going to shoot over lacquer that's been sitting for a while, I'll scrub it with Comet or Soft Scrub and a toothbrush to give it a little tooth. I'll also final-wipe it with 70% isopropyl alcohol, because believe it or not, fisheye-causing contaminants can get on the surface of a model in just a few days. 70% iso will clean them off without harming the paint. Sadly, some products labeled "lacquer" behave like enamels when recoated even years later. I discovered this when I tried to shoot Duplicolor black lacquer over old Ace Hardware-store black "lacquer", only to have the old stuff (that had been on the model for almost 10 years) crack and wrinkle. I rarely use enamels, and would most likely strip an old enamel job simply because there's always a chance solvents in the new paint will attack and wrinkle the old paint.

Visit exotic locations, or friends and family, and spend your time in the room building models?

As it's working for you and Steve, I'll give it a shot. Always nice to have another option in the box.

Most excellent. I didn't know that kit even existed.

"Sealers" for real cars are intended to discourage solvent penetration from color coats into primers, which in turn reduces sand-scratch swelling and gloss "die-back" as the color shrinks. They can also help prevent "feather edge" lifting, which can be a real nightmare when painting real cars over some unknown substrate. This is why, in general, real-car "sealers" are not supposed to be sanded, as sanding tends to diminish the barrier effect.

It's been around forever, but none of them are universally available all the time. Besides the light gray, there's dark gray "hot rod primer", red oxide, black, and white in the "sandable" line. They can all be too "hot" for some of today's garbage soft styrene formulations, causing surface crazing if shot too wet. The "self etching" primers are generally hotter still. The "scratch filling" line of primers are also sandable, but build quite high, possibly obscuring fine surface details.

Assembled kits can often be bought for a small fraction of what unmolested ones bring.

Can it be sanded, or does that defeat the "sealer" aspect?