Snake45 Posted October 26, 2021 Posted October 26, 2021 Picked this one up at the local toy show a couple months ago. It's the Revell snapper. I already did one of these and painted it silver, but have been wanting to do one molded in that lovely metallic dark green. It seemed to be complete and in good shape, but I didn't look at it close enough. Turned out to have quite a few problems. Most obvious problem was the poorly applied stripe stickers. Tried to save/fix 'em, couldn't, peeled 'em off without much regret. So it's a stripe-delete car. Next, the top was quite scratched up. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but some kinds of plastic will polish out nicely and some kinds won't, and this turned out to be one of the latter. Tried all my Snake-Fu polishing tricks and got it fairly nice, but not quite as shiny as the rest of the car. Oh well. I also sanded and polished out the molding lines on the C-pillars. The glass was all scratched, too, but that polished out pretty much okay. Didn't notice when I bought it that it was missing the left taillight. Actually it was missing the right taillight—OB had incorrectly tried to install the left light on the right side (they're “handed”). Gave some thought to using the lenses from an AMT '70 Chevelle I'm parting out, but decided it would be easier to just scratchbuild a lens out of .030” styrene. This only took about a half hour, and I painted it Testor Stop Light Red. OB had replaced the kit rear tires with some AMT slicks, a change I actually didn't hate. But turns out he didn't use the kit rear wheels. All four wheels are of the same general type (Magnum 500s), but they're from at least two and maybe three different kits. Sorting out the wheel problems took a couple of mornings' work, not even counting detail-painting them. The headlights had been installed with what seems to be hot glue. I tried and failed to remove and fix or replace them. Ended up just picking some hot glue blobs off around the edges with an Xacto point. They're the weak point of the finished model, but, ah shucks oh well. Did some detailing of the (molded in tan) interior with black paint and Silver Sharpie, and painted the headliner tan with craft acrylic. Everything else was standard Snake-Fu—window trim and grille detailing, side marker lights, and so forth. Oh, I had to detail-paint the center bar of the grille with Model Master British Green. When finished, I took it to the next toy show and showed it to the vendor I bought it from. He went absolutely NUTS over it, and offered me a fistful of money for it (but not enough to cover the 10-12 hours work I had in it, IMHO). Was kinda pleased he liked it so much, though. Thanks for looking and, as always, comments welcome.
1972coronet Posted October 26, 2021 Posted October 26, 2021 Great save on that bad boy ! Did you re-clock the steering wheel as well ? It appears to have been clocked upside-down in the 'before' photos . That green plastic looks nice , albeit super metallic-y . Just the same , a great 'canvas' for painting the headliner *without* its showing-through the topside .
Snake45 Posted October 26, 2021 Author Posted October 26, 2021 38 minutes ago, 1972coronet said: Great save on that bad boy ! Did you re-clock the steering wheel as well ? It appears to have been clocked upside-down in the 'before' photos . That green plastic looks nice , albeit super metallic-y . Just the same , a great 'canvas' for painting the headliner *without* its showing-through the topside . Good eye! Yes, the steering wheel was upside down and I put it right. The green plastic isn't super-glittery, though it looks that way in the side pic. Happens sometimes in flash photography. And it's quite opaque--no danger of any color showing through on the headliner, even black. (I've learned about dealing with this problem on my polish projects.) 1
Bills72sj Posted October 27, 2021 Posted October 27, 2021 Well done! I truly admire how you take so-so built ups and bring them back to display-quality subjects.
Dodge Driver Posted October 28, 2021 Posted October 28, 2021 Nice one! The fixes and upgrades sure brought it to life.
spencer1984 Posted October 28, 2021 Posted October 28, 2021 Awesome work as usual! I always thought these snap kits capture the Chevelle look best of all the options out there, I just wish they were easier to find.
Snake45 Posted October 31, 2021 Author Posted October 31, 2021 On 10/26/2021 at 2:19 PM, thatz4u said: nice save, well done On 10/26/2021 at 2:20 PM, RAMBENNA said: nice job, looks great On 10/26/2021 at 2:44 PM, happy grumpy said: Great save Thanks for the kind words!
Snake45 Posted October 31, 2021 Author Posted October 31, 2021 On 10/26/2021 at 5:05 PM, PappyD340 said: Nice save, looks great! On 10/27/2021 at 8:17 PM, Dragonhawk1066 said: Excellent Snake-Fu job!! On 10/28/2021 at 2:36 AM, Dodge Driver said: Nice one! The fixes and upgrades sure brought it to life. Thanks for the kind words! Much appreciated and model on!
Snake45 Posted October 31, 2021 Author Posted October 31, 2021 On 10/26/2021 at 9:42 PM, Bills72sj said: Well done! I truly admire how you take so-so built ups and bring them back to display-quality subjects. Thanks! It might be more accurate to say that I take substandard builtups with "good bones" and potential and bring them up to just barely fit to display publicly (i.e., here).
Snake45 Posted October 31, 2021 Author Posted October 31, 2021 On 10/28/2021 at 7:40 AM, spencer1984 said: Awesome work as usual! I always thought these snap kits capture the Chevelle look best of all the options out there, I just wish they were easier to find. Thanks for the kind words. I agree that the Revell snapper Chevelles are the best of the available options. They haven't been reissued in a while but they're still on eBay if you really want one. The metallic green ones seem to be the hardest to find, which is the main reason I bought this one and put the work into it. Model on, everyone!
Hmann68 Posted November 1, 2021 Posted November 1, 2021 Another great save, and the color combo is fantastic. Nice work ??
doorsovdoon Posted November 1, 2021 Posted November 1, 2021 All the hard work paid off nicely, she's looking real good. Those wheels are looking so much better detailed up.
AMT68 Posted November 3, 2021 Posted November 3, 2021 (edited) Impressive transformation and that color combination just works really well. Edited November 3, 2021 by AMT68
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