Fat Brian

The first time I noticed someone parting out a kit he had split it up into useful groups, like the whole body with the bumpers and stuff, then the whole chassis and so on. I bought a couple different of these groups since they were reasonably priced and had everything you needed. I can't justify paying $25 for a cab and then having to pay $15 for the hood and $10 for the grill and on and on.

Chuck, looks like you've got another project for the Moebius bump side.

Okay, at least it's easy to fix. I just remember when this kit first came out someone mentioned about raising the plow.

One issue with the plow is thet there is no mechanism that would actually lift if off the ground when it's not in use. You would need to add a hydraulic cylinder that goes from the lower frame that holds the blade to the upper frame that holds the lights to make it appear to be fully functional.

BMF is just another tool in the arsenal to replicate the look of a real vehicle. As others have said, the surface it's going has to be very smooth to get the best look. Another thing is you have to careful where the foil overlaps because it's so thin it always shows a crease where the piece underneath ends, it can be useful to look at how the trim pieces are broken down on the real car so you can plan out where to put your joints. Something else that contributes to the poor results seen sometimes is that they let a bad batch get out a few years ago that wrinkled really bad when you removed it from the paper backing and you could never quite them out no matter how much you burnished it. I don't use it on every build but it's nice to know how to use it when you need that look.

The Auslowe 6v-71 would be fairly accurate and would fit under that short hood.

Well, each barrel of a carb doesn't feed only one cylinder, early V8s ran one a single barrel carb. The area of an intake manifold under the carb is open and the runner to each cylinder connects to this common area, think of a bucket with as many holes as there are cylinders around the bottom. The vacuum of the engine draws in the air/fuel mixture through however many carbs there are up there and into the common area where it's drawn into the individual cylinders on their intake stroke. Here is a diagram that kind of shows how all the intake runners come together under the carb.

I had a seller do that to me after I asked a question about a kit they had listed as Buy it Now. I had just bought a sealed Transtar 4070A for close to $100 and when I opened it the cab was crushed so when I found a good price on a Revell K100 with only one picture I sent a message to the seller asking if the kit was in good condition. She flipped and cussed me out and raised the price on the kit about 20%, needless to say I passed on that one.

I have to agree, one seller has the Truckin' USA van I recently picked up listed for $200. I won mine in an auction for $41 and it was still bagged inside. You really have to do your homework, if you impulse buy you're very likely to over pay. I know the sellers are being kind of predatory but as a buyer if you drop that kind of cash without comparison shopping it's as much your fault as there's.

That's what happens when the molds get modified, the previous version gets scarce. If demand gets high enough maybe a resin caster will fill the void.

The DM 600 is fine for the MPC/AMT dump bed like in the Ford snow plow and Paystar kits but the chrome Revell bed is probably out of it's weight rating. I see trucks like this with that size of bed almost daily. Those wheels would be accurate, you could get the truck with the kit style spokes, two hole Budd wheels or the aluminum Alcoa wheels.

When we compare Tamiya and Fujimi to Revell and AMT we're leaving out one significant part of the equation, the imported kits cost twice as much if not more than the domestic offerings. Would the market bear new US kits costing $50 a piece if it meant gettting better results? What if the US companies would adopt a pricing structure like the Japanese, reissues of older tools are cheaper than brand new subjects?

Attaching the valance first lets you paint it with the body which is nice but it makes getting the grill in a pain. I think this is how I did mine, try this and see if you like it. I remember putting the valance on and the radiator support in and being able to drop the grill throught the hole in the radiator support and position it. Test this before gluing anything in place because it was a long time ago that I did this and I might have forgotten something. If this works go ahead and make sure the grill fits the valance well before gluing it in so you've got more room to work with it.

After a few emails with the builder he said it was a Corvette orange metallic with gold flakes in the clear coat, I think this car looks pretty similar.

Parts 84 is either an amplifier or cd changer, I never figured out what went on the package shelf.

The five spokes look incredible Mark. Getting down to brass tacks, what is the ballpark for a set of these?

For me, my ideas are ambitious but frequently outpace my skills. I can't seem to stick to just the parts in the box and eventually I hit a wall where I can't make an acceptable fix and end up shelving the build. I'm trying to make a concentrated effort to stick to one project start to finish, it's just hard because I have so many ideas floating around.

The Johan one from the Mustang and Pinto drag kits are really good, you might find one cast in resin.

B-n-L casts a 69-70 grill.

I would love truly staggered wheels like these. One of my biggest gripes with modern kits is that they don't offer realistic wheel widths. When I had my SC 300 I ran 235/30/18s in the front and 345/35/19s in the back on 18x8.5 and 19x9.5 wheels and it is nearly impossible to find similar fitment in the model world.

Harry, I think part of the reason for the lowering of expectations is that it's become so hard to hold any one person accountable for anything. Think about the last few times you've been wronged, how many times was it an individual versus a cog in a nameless, faceless multinational corporation or governmental morass? We've become so accustomed to these various degrees of injustice that we have lowered our threshold for what "good" is.

Like others have said most of my really bad ones got burned or blown up years ago. Now if one is going awry I just put it back in the box until either I figure out how to do it correctly or my skills get better and I can realize my vision.

This looks really sharp and several will be coming home with me.

I'm so glad to hear this, I haven't bought one online because I've been waiting to see if HL got them.

One will be getting a dump bed and another a mixer, I might get a few more for maybe a crane truck or a removeable container truck.