Fat Brian

It can be a gamble though. They don't get every kit and sometimes you miss stuff if you wait too long to see if they get it.

The Revell 66 GTO and AMT 62 Catalina are much easier kits to find than the 68 Firebird. The GTO has a Tri-power intake and the Catalina has two four barrels so not stock for a GP but either is a cool upgrade.

That is so nice, I wish I could build so cleanly.

I'm calling this one done. This is the red Monogram 79 Mustang kit that passes for an 81 too. I borrowed the chassis plate from from the later 92 convertible kit for the dual exhaust, the engine is from the Monogram pace car version of the 79 kit. I swapped the manual for a parts box C4, four barrel intake is from the MPC 79 pace car kit, the Predator carb is 3d printed, the valve covers are from a Revell 32 Ford, and the triangle air cleaner is from the Moebius 64 Nova. I cut the top off and used the MPC filler panel for the T-tops and made the gaskets from Evergreen. I built the auto shifter in the console then added a cb to the passenger side along with a whip antenna on a vintage style trailer hitch. The wheels are from Fujimi and the tires and decals are from Fireball. I wanted to build this in 1981 style so I lifted the rear and added the cb and antenna. The Predator carb and air cleaner also add to the classic flair. I'm going to shoot some better shots when I get another background printed but I wanted to put something up.

I really don't care who makes a kit. My main criteria after subject matter is level of detail and fit. The older I get the less I'm inclined to fix bad kits, I'll put that effort into two good kits instead.

You're best bet to get a good one would be to find an open one on ebay so you can see the parts or find a seller who is willing to open the kit and inspect it before sending it out.

The Monogram 64 GTO is another chassis option.

Yes, scratchbuilding materials are essential, it makes it so much easier when you have all the shapes you need. I recently bought digital calipers and don't know why I waited so long. Keeping my scratchbuilding symmetrical and checking my build during assembly is much easier now. Photoetch saws make your cuts much cleaner and remove less material than other saws. A panel line scribers have all kinds of uses, they are available from a few sources or you can make your own. I used a piece of a 3mm wooden dowel about as long as an Xacto handle, I drilled a small hole in one end and stuck in a piece of the core wire from a wrapped guitar string.

I'd like one of these for the Monogram kit as well, and the SD hood.

Wow, you think if a person had that kind of money they would have had a safer way to store them.

This is really cool. There are a lot of specialty vehicles from this period that approach the design most consider a monster truck. This has been at times a heated debate within the monster truck community. The current thoughts on finding the first monster truck is that it must have the 66" agricultural tires that became the standard tire for the genre and it must have done "monster truck things" like car crushing, sled pulls, or hill climbs. This definition excludes a lot of the early vehicles like this that were designed mainly for working. By the current accepted definition the original Bigfoot truck is the first monster truck. There was a mud racing truck called Kaw-liga that was on 66" tires first but they only ever used it for mud racing so it doesn't meet the second requirement of doing "monster truck things". This is an argument of when a thing becomes different enough or it's use changes to the point that it is now a new thing.

I glued strips from a wide rubber band to the inside of the tip of one pair of my tweezers specifically for handling small parts.

PM me your address, I've got two sets you can have.

I may have some of those if you want them.

This is a new video recently put out by a table top gaming channel showing a modern injection molding operation. There are some points made about how the mold is designed and balanced that are pretty interesting.

Revell is bringing the 39 Chevy back out soon so these might be on the shelf again shortly.

Yep, this is a reboxing of the Monogram kit. The only difference between this boxing and the Hertz car is the color of the decals. This is just the standard GT350.

I like both of those but the nose of the Monte Carlo needs a bit of work. I would move the turn signals down about six inches and add some kind of crease to be a fuax bumper. The way it is is a bit too much big flat space for me.

Yep, happens to me almost every time. I typically hit it with a type of clear less susceptible to blushing.

In cases where a defect is this widespread they might also be trying to charge these kits back to the manufacturer. If that's the case they can't both get their money back from the injection molding contractor and sell the kits, even at a discount. It's a tax thing where charged back items have to be destroyed, selling them or even giving them away can get you into trouble.

I used to build 3d models back in the day but the programs got so complicated I couldn't keep up. I build this mostly from scratch and placing individual vertices in the space, no fancy extruding back then. I really need to get back to it I guess.

This one has me truly jealous, the 68 KR is my favorite Mustang and it hurts my heart the only kit available is the old AMT version. It's inspiring to see what you're able to do in such a short time.

Different areas do it a few weeks apart but it usually happens right around now and again around March. Typically the only way you know your local store is getting ready for their reset is models with orange stickers on the shelf. They used to move them to the clearance section but now they leave them on the model aisle. If you don't see any orange stickers but a do see a bunch of empty spots you probably missed it but your store will have new stuff in a couple weeks.

You might want to talk to Charles at Texas 3d Customs, he seems to be taking on new work for his site. I would like one of these in 1/24 for the Fujimi kit.

Ideally you could get replacements but I've never tried from Tamiya before. Someone is selling that parts tree on ebay right now but it'll be $70 to get it. Unfortunately that looks like a defect that won't polish out.