'69 Camaro Glue Bomb Rescue

[Snake45]

Bought this Revell Yenko Camaro at the monthly local toy show on August 1st. Although I've built several of these, and have several NIB kits, I couldn't resist the model's apparently “good bones” and thought it might make a quick, easy rescue. Besides, I didn't already have a blue Yenko. 

It was 100% complete, and came apart without too much trouble. One of its major problems was the badly applied chrome silver paint trim, which had slopped over onto the blue paint in several and noticeable places. I tried with no success to polish these overages off with Wright's Silver Cream, and ended up having to carefully wet-sand several spots off with #1500 or #2000 WetOrDry. In a couple places I broke through to the yellow plastic; in others I just gave up. Also had to sand out either a paint run or glue booger in the area where the driver's outside mirror would have been mounted.

I'm virtually certain the paint was Rustoleum Cobalt Blue Metallic (available cheaply at my local Walmart), as that's what I used to cover and touch up the silver overages and bare yellow spots. I decanted it from the can by just spraying some into the can cap and applying it with a fine brush. The paint polished out quite nicely with Wrights—it's tough stuff. I didn't get all the orange peel out but I did get a fairly nice shine overall. (The decals survived the polish-out, too.) The Cobalt Blue is a bit darker than '69 Chevy LeMans blue, but not as dark as Dusk Blue (which wasn't offered on the Yenkos anyway), but oh well, it is what it is (i.e., a glue bomb rescue). The paint was a bit thin on the lower portion of the left side fender, door, and quarter so I didn't polish that area too heavily. Under some light, and in some of the photos, the kit yellow plastic shows up, but in real life it's not that obvious just looking at it. I could have masked this area off and hit it with another coat of the Cobalt Blue, but decided against it at this point. Maybe another day.

I polished out all the glass, which had some glue damage. The black interior just got some black touchup and some simple Silver Sharpie details. I removed the engine and squirted the chassis, radiator wall and firewall with TouchNTone flat black. The engine was then reinstalled with no modifications. I removed the OB's homemade yellow traction bars and crude rear spring jack-up blocks. But I kinda dug his jacked-up look with its Day 2 vibe, so I replaced the kit's rear TRX tires with larger Goodyear GT Radials from some Monogram kit (actually, from the Mono '65 Vette I murdered out last week.) I painted the wheel spokes and inner surfaces with Testor Steel, and touched up the chome parts with a Deco Color Silver Chrome pen.

All four side marker lights had been crudely and sloppily painted with yellow enamel (see the Before pics). I defined the edges with the Cobalt Blue, then painted the bezels Silver Sharpie, then the lenses with a fine Red Sharpie for the rears and some Folk Art Pearl White acrylic on a toothpick tip for the fronts. I couldn't get either the headlight or front parking light lenses out, so just trimmed up their ragged edges with an Xacto and then painted the parking lights with the Pearl White acrylic. (Notice the OB had mounted the kit RS backup lights under the front bumper! Of course those had to come off.)

I cut the side stripe decals away from the door lines, which IMHO really helps in realism. I re-chromed the window trim and rocker panel trim with my usual Silver Sharpie; the wheel opening trim was chromed with the Deco Color pen, which is actually easier to use for that sort of thing.

I'm fairly pleased with the finished product and its 8-10 hours of effort, much of which was in polishing the paint. I've often said that for my “rescues,” I'm happy if it looks like something I might have built in 1968 and ecstatic if it looks as good as something I built in 1969. I think I achieved that here—it's not as good as my very best 1969 work but definitely better than most of my 1968 stuff. This was my 56th glue bomb rescue of Other Builder's Models (I've also done 11 of my own), and my 8th completed rescue this year. Thanks for looking and, as always, comments welcome.

Oh, and here it is with an AMT (ex-MPC) Yenko I built for my kid back in the early 2000s. “One of these things is not like the other”--one looks like a '69 Camaro and the other one looks like a Krass and Bernie cartoon of a '69 Camaro. If you can't see the differences between these two bodies, I really don't know what to tell you.

[Oldcarfan27]

Now just get a Monogram and have the trifecta!

Fun project for a quickie fixer.

I've got so many of these glue bomb Revell Camaros, that I personally wouldn't have given a "Snake-foo" of one a second thought.

Maybe I should pay closer attention to the possibilities that lurk in my junk pile.

[michelle]

nice work 

[cobraman]

Looks darn good to me.

[1972coronet]

Another great resto !  Is it just me , or is there no primer / base between the yellow plastic and the blue paint ? If that's the case , then the O.B. ostensibly did a good job of blue-over-yellow (thin areas notwithstanding ) .

Thank God you painted the steering wheel centre ! That silver was driving me crazy !

I miss those Monogram Good Year Big-N-Littles  tyres from some of their 80's kits . I used so many of them for Monogram Challenger T/A builds back then !

[deuces wild]

??

[Snake45]

20 hours ago, michelle said:

nice work 

 

18 hours ago, cobraman said:

Looks darn good to me.

 

11 hours ago, deuces wild said:

??

Thanks Michelle, Cobra, and Deuces! 

[Snake45]

21 hours ago, Oldcarfan27 said:

Now just get a Monogram and have the trifecta!

Fun project for a quickie fixer.

I've got so many of these glue bomb Revell Camaros, that I personally wouldn't have given a "Snake-foo" of one a second thought.

Maybe I should pay closer attention to the possibilities that lurk in my junk pile.

I've done three Monogram '69 Camaros, one of them even semi-presentable, but none of them Yenkos or blue. 

Yah, do give a look at your junk pile for quickie projects. These things are an amazing amount of fun for the effort and money involved. 

[Snake45]

16 hours ago, 1972coronet said:

Another great resto !  Is it just me , or is there no primer / base between the yellow plastic and the blue paint ? If that's the case , then the O.B. ostensibly did a good job of blue-over-yellow (thin areas notwithstanding ) .

Thank God you painted the steering wheel centre ! That silver was driving me crazy !

I miss those Monogram Good Year Big-N-Littles  tyres from some of their 80's kits . I used so many of them for Monogram Challenger T/A builds back then !

You're right, there's no primer between the blue paint and the yellow. And judging from that lower left side, only one coat of it, too. Oh well. 

Yes, I blacked out the steering wheel arms--and turned the steering wheel right-side up, too! 

I too love the Mono Big & Little Goodyears. Only kit I know with them was the '70 Chevelle, and I've only got a couple sets. I think these are the small ones. If they're the bigs, then that '65 Vette glue bomb I rescued had four of them, because they were all the same size. I'm gonna check that, because I could use another pair of the bigs. 

Edited August 18, 2021 by Snake45

[Gramps46]

The Camaro came out really nice looking.  Without your explanation I would never have guessed what all you put into the details.

[Zippi]

Good looking Camaro Snake.

[TransAmMike]

Great recovery on that one Richard.    ?

[oldscool]

Came out nice.

[David G.]

Looks great!

Nice rescue.

David G.

[ATHU]

Looks great, well done!!

[spencer1984]

Another great rescue! As someone guilty of both extra driving lights and bright yellow slapper bars on my early builds (usually done with more enthusiasm than skill), I kind of miss that those had to be 86ed but can't argue the decision.

Also, seeing it next to the AMT/MPC version...yikes! I had used mine as essentially a cartoon car plus I painted it black, so the wonky proportions aren't quite as noticeable. But after seeing this I'll still have to keep it far away from the Revell kit once I build it.

[Snake45]

On 8/18/2021 at 6:09 PM, Zippi said:

Good looking Camaro Snake.

 

On 8/19/2021 at 7:28 AM, oldscool said:

Came out nice.

 

On 8/18/2021 at 8:34 PM, TransAmMike said:

Great recovery on that one Richard.    ?

 

On 8/19/2021 at 7:39 AM, David G. said:

Looks great!

Nice rescue.

David G.

 

On 8/20/2021 at 3:06 AM, ATHU said:

Looks great, well done!!

Thanks Zippi, Oldschool, Mike, David, and ATHU! Much appreciated! 

[Snake45]

On 8/18/2021 at 3:01 PM, Gramps46 said:

The Camaro came out really nice looking.  Without your explanation I would never have guessed what all you put into the details.

Again, nice to know someone actually reads my deathless prose. Thanks for the kind words! 

[Snake45]

On 8/20/2021 at 8:13 AM, spencer1984 said:

Another great rescue! As someone guilty of both extra driving lights and bright yellow slapper bars on my early builds (usually done with more enthusiasm than skill), I kind of miss that those had to be 86ed but can't argue the decision.

Also, seeing it next to the AMT/MPC version...yikes! I had used mine as essentially a cartoon car plus I painted it black, so the wonky proportions aren't quite as noticeable. But after seeing this I'll still have to keep it far away from the Revell kit once I build it.

Yah, I still have a couple of the AMT Yenko issues of that kit I bought mainly for the wheels and tires (two sets of each). I built my last copy of the last resissue before they screwed the roof up a few years ago. In all I've built five of the MPC Camaros and can't see myself ever building another one. 

[Bainford]

Nice save. Cleaned up real good. 
 

Krass & Bernie (snicker)

Edited August 27, 2021 by Bainford

[PappyD340]

Excellent save!