Ace-Garageguy

Here's the website where that deco truck was shown...http://www.mamasboyz.org/

Wow. That's gorgeous.

Yeah, I'd forgotten about that, but as you say, it could be brutal in these little guys. I tried awfully hard to like them, but just couldn't.

The braided elastic bands women (and some guys, I suppose) use for holding ponytails also work great, look exactly like old-school black fabric hose, and can be painted silver to look like stainless braid.

Yeah, cutting thin metal is always a kinda problem. You can usually flatten the edge afterwards by running a block of hardwood down it, but depending on the thickness and the design of the cutting tool, the edge may get slightly stretched. That makes it difficult to straighten. Real-world sheet-metal shears are made in 3 versions to minimize distortion, so depending on your budget and how much cutting you do, might be worth looking at. The BEST way to do it is with a mini-shear like this, which is just a scaled-down model of the ones fabricators use. This one comes from Micro-Mark, and can also function as a brake to form radii and sharp folds in sheetmetal.

The color is definitely in the ballpark, but would look more real if the metallic particles weren't visible. Dow 7 isn't sparkly.

Good looking models of one of the most forgettable cars in the history of the universe. I always thought the stylists did a good job with it, making it immediately recognizable as a Chebby, with clean lines and nice proportions. I remember that GM proudly bragged they'd spent something on the order of 3.5 BILLION dollars developing the X platform, and bought a fleet of Fiat 128s and other front-wheel-drive cars to dissect as part of their R&D. I also remember being profoundly disappointed after driving one of the first production versions, and often wondered aloud WHERE they'd put that $3.5B, as it didn't seem to show in the quality or performance of the car. And again, in what has become GM corporate style, known problems (this time in the rear brakes) were swept under the rug, put into production cars, and resulted in safety issues, accidents, lawsuits (including a suit brought by NHTSA) and recalls...250,000 vehicles recalled, and really should have been closer to a million.

Fine looking work. Sending PM for further info, as selling here isn't allowed.

You are absolutely correct. Pete Chapouris built the car, and THE DOORS ARE LENGTHENED 10 INCHES. You can take that to the bank. The top is also chopped 3 inches.

A WORD OF CAUTION: Tom Decker mentions using acrylic enamel without hardener. Hardener is OPTIONAL in acrylic enamel. YOUR paint (Limco Supreme 2K) happens to be acrylic urethane, and hardener is NOT OPTIONAL. It MUST be used for the paint to dry fully. (I've been in the car body and paint biz, in various capacities from grunt to owner, for almost 50 years). AND WEAR A RESPIRATOR WHILE USING THIS PRODUCT !!!

I've been informed on several occasions that, as I have little tolerance for ineptitude, ignorance and stupidity, I have no heart. The upside is that I should never have need of a cardiologist.

Aluminum has some unique properties that can make it difficult to get a strong bond. For this reason, very specific materials and procedures have been developed to bond it in aerospace applications, as well as high-strength automotive applications. With proper surface preparation, epoxies, cyanoacrylate and urethanes all work well. Read this: http://www.permabond.com/materials_bonded/how-to-bond-aluminum/ What thickness of material are you needing to cut?

Happy trails.

See post immediately above.

It is indeed a clone, very similar to the AMT kit. Some parts actually interchange. Many issues have warpage problems, varying thicknesses of parts apparently due to sections of the dies being loose on their alignment pins, etc. It IS possible to build a beautiful model from the kit, but it's the best one to make a junker from. A member here called Joker built this from the Lindberg kit, so you see what's possible if you put some effort into it.

Three things: 1) Practice your spray technique more. Once you get it right, you won't have much orange peel at all. This green is as-shot...neither sanded nor polished, but almost NO orange peel. 2) If you DO get orange peel, it's MUCH more effective to sand it flat ("color sanding") prior to polishing. Polishing orange peel without sanding it flat only gives you shiny orange peel. 3) If you get orange peel in metallic colors, you MAY have to spray an additional coat to even the flakes out AFTER you sand it, and prior to clear coating.

Fine, fine work de-chroming this one. Lots of opportunity to get wavy panels and all sorts of shape problems, but you got it right, and right enough for black is pretty damm right ! Absolutely beautiful model.

You're going to need a G-scale layout to run her on.

Watching our departed friend Harry Pristovnik build so many spectacular models here on the site inspired me to try my hand at some larger scales. When I saw Harry's version of the 1/12 Italeri 806 GP car, I knew I had to have one. I'm getting close to the end of model buying, as I have more stuff than I'll be able to get to if I live to be 100, but I HAD to have one of these.

Getting a "miles deep" black paint job really isn't dependent on the spray medium you use. Rattlecans or an airbrush or an automotive touchup gun or even a full-scale spray gun (with a 1.4 tip, the material turned way down, and a narrow fan) can all produce outstanding results. The bad rap black has is due in large part to a simple misunderstanding. Black is actually rather an easy color to shoot, and usually covers very well. BUT...because a slick black paint job is as reflective as a mirror, it WILL show every slight wave or divot or minor surface imperfection, and orange peel really stands out. To get a "miles deep" black job, you need to remember these things: 1) Get your bodywork PERFECT. 2) After you shoot your paint, at least 3 coats and probably better 5, you're going to need to "colorsand" the paint with progressively finer and finer grit papers (I go up to 12,000), and then polish very carefully. 3) Straight black lacquer (Duplicolor sprays really nice straight out of the can and covers VERY well), sanded and polished correctly, will be spectacular. BUT...if you want it to look even deeper, colorsand with 600 to get the last coat dead smooth, and top it off with 3 or more coats of clear. Sand and polish that, and you have a show-winner (if you do it right).

Hmmmmm....Because Duplicolor usually sprays so nice, I would tend to think that you just might have a bad batch if you're having that much of a problem. I'm sure it's possible that the paint viscosity was a little too high before it was packaged. Probably not very likely, but probably possible. If that's the case, your only option for finding out for certain, and getting a decent job from that can, will be to decant it, thin it properly, and airbrush. And if it IS a bad batch, it won't just be that one can...but all of them that were filled at the same time. What's the color name and number? Another thought is that the spray-can nozzle might be the wrong one. I do not KNOW this for certain, but it would make sense for paint nozzles to have smaller holes than primer nozzles (this is true with real spray guns). You might try swapping nozzles from a can of a different color that sprays well.

It's my understanding that many car "modelers" neither know nor care how cars work, or what's correct. To quote one recent poster "...it's just a plastic model car man.(opposed to a replica) It's not going to the Smithsonian. They're only supposed to look cool."

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our... cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'” —Isaac Asimov Quoting from America's Cult of Ignorance by Tom Nichols "These are dangerous times. Never have so many people had so much access to so much knowledge and yet have been so resistant to learning anything. In the United States and other developed nations, otherwise intelligent people denigrate ... achievement and reject the advice of experts. Not only do increasing numbers of lay people lack basic knowledge, they reject fundamental rules of evidence and refuse to learn how to make a logical argument. In doing so, they risk throwing away centuries of accumulated knowledge and undermining the practices and habits that allow us to develop new knowledge." "This is more than a natural skepticism toward experts. I fear we are witnessing the death of the ideal of expertise itself, a Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based, blog-sodden collapse of any division between professionals and laypeople, students and teachers, knowers and wonderers—in other words, between those of any achievement in an area and those with none at all."

Steve makes an excellent point. When you go paint-shopping, look for colors labeled "mica" or "pearl". You'll find they usually have finer metallic flake particles than colors labeled "metallic" in the name.