Fat Brian

I have to agree with you, if car modelers were more willing to pay a bit more for new releases we might get more of them like the armor and sci-fi guys. And that might help the price of reissues come down a bit.

I try not to use auctions but sometimes it's unavoidable and yes, now that eBay doesn't show the ID of the current high bidder or winner schill bidding is harder to track.

Yep, I learned after my first auction trying to stay the highest bidder for days only ends up costing you more money. Now I only bid in the last 10 seconds of an auction and if I get I get it and if not there will be another one on there eventually. They ran the price up on a decent but not great built kit that should normally go for $70 or $80 to $127 then an open but largely untouched kit got post and they've run it up from $10 to $41 on the first day. It would be funny if I wasn't trying to snipe the kit myself, and now somebodies holding the bag paying almost double on a built one.

About a third of my kits are in some for if partial construction but I find l finish more builds when I limit my number of active builds to two or three. I'm less likely to go off on some tangent and get distracted that way.

Some eBay amateurs just ran the price up on a decent builder kit l wanted higher than what an unbuilt on goes for tonight. The only bid that matters is the last on folks, fighting to stay the highest bidder four days before the auction ends only makes you spend more in the end. Now I've got to wait for another one to show up and hope the same thing doesn't happen to it.

The LN is the stock short hood version that comes in the kit, my L has a longer hood by about a foot. Notice how in my pics the front fender in all on the hood but in Brian's pics the rear portion of the fender mounts to the cab.

You had said in the spoon test thread that the soft spoons weren't the best ones to use, that was the point I was trying to make.

This is a situation where you hear about people doing the "spoon test", using their paints on a plastic spoon before trying them on the actual model. The test is two-fold, one to see if the paint attacks the plastic and two to see if the paints play well together. The first one isn't as much of a concern when using hobby paints but is very important when using hotter auto quality products. If you decide to go that route the general concensus is to use decent spoons, not the super cheap soft ones as the better ones are more analogous to model plastic. You can also use kit parts you don't plan to use in your build for testing. The tonneau cover in that Ford kit would be ideal to test on if you don't plan to use it. It's even big enough you could get some painting practice in with the actual materials you're going to use.

Do the clear parts from the AMT Road Runner/GTX/Super Bee kit fit in Johan B body bodies? I'm trying to decide between resin bodies or picking up kits or promos of a few things before prices get totally out of control and this is a major determining factor.

Well fellers, I think I've finally got a useable coat of paint now so I can start back on this project.

Enamel, the Testors laquers dry a bit thinner than the enamels so you dont have to be quit as concerned about the number of coats.

The things that have helped me are number one, surface prep. I do everything I can to get the body right before the primer because ideally I only want one thin coat of primer to not bury the body detail. Second, I try to get my body painted in as few coats as possible. Paint comes out of a can like a firehose and builds up very quickly. Don't paint the same part of the body pass after pass or you'll get a big wet layer than runs. When everything goes right I put on about an 80% coverage coat and set that aside to dry for a few hours. Once it's mostly dry but still tacky I put on a thin finish coat then let that stand for about ten minutes before putting in s thin layer of clear. Let that stand for another hour or two then do a last coat of clear. This should get you 90% of the way there with just minor wet sanding and polishing left.

To get super low your looking at a custom setup anyway so just about any A arms you can find will do the job. I robbed a set out of a modernish NASCAR kit to lower Moebius Ford.

The Ramcharger is the only 1/24 Dodge, AMT did some 2wd 1/25 stuff.

Honestly? A 1989 Cutlass Calais 2 door with a 3.3 v6. You couldn't kill that car and it never broke down on us once in over a decade and we bought it used. The people we sold it to couldn't kill it either, as far as I know it's still running somewhere.

I just talked with Kevin, the molds are dead. I saw another site called Resin Realm that did a 68 Galaxie but I remember seeing they're out of business now. I'm trying to contact them now.

I agree on both counts, I just wonder how the Hobbico bankruptcy is going to affect Revells new tooling budget.

I agree as well, a new kit of this generation of trucks is long overdue and would fly off the shelves. Moebius, are you listening?

Looking good Rob. I known what you mean about the intake, I've reworked mine 3 times and I'm still not sure I've gotten to it to its final form.

Personally, I think it's time to slow the cars down again so they aren't so loose that little bumps send them around. I'd limit engine size to about 4 liters but allow overhead cams so the engines will rev a little higher and respond quicker. Ideally the cars would top out at about 180 or so and the racing would get better, back to the bumping and grinding of the 70s and 80s.

This is one reason I always use clear coat over Testors paint, their clear seems to dry harder and less sticky than the paint. As Rick said a paint dryer does wonders for Testors paint. Getting the temperature up a bit helps the solvents to escape and harden the paint. Not too hot to warp the body, just enough to get the lingering gases out of the paint. I've hung a body from a chandelier with the lights before just to dry it a bit.

I like the day 2 tire and wheel idea with big and little wheels and period correct tires. Modern 4x4 wheels and tires would be great too. I'd like to see more engine packs with not commonly available engines, a slant 6, a 318 Poly, a Dodge long ram, a 351 Cleveland, an LS1, things like that. I'd also like wrecker stuff, good generic old or newer parts to build a custom bed off of.

I'm going to email missing link about the transit today. In the mean time I picked up a 69 Galaxie at a swap meet this morning and bought the hood from the missing link kit off eBay so I've got some options now.

You should be able to get the Cummins in there, Dodge put them in that body style truck originally. Plus, I think their stuff is 1/25 and the Ramcharger is 1/24.

I'll have to email them, I don't see it listed on their site right now. Thanks for the lead.