2022 Nextgen Camaro

[MarkJ]

I have all the panel decals installed after much consternation and some don't fit like the reference pictures I found, say they should, so I had to do some trimming. Won't be too much longer now.

[MarkJ]

I messed up some decals, but luckily, I have the spare decal sheets that came with the Chase Elliot kit I'm using to build the model. One that I messed up was the ethanol decal that goes over the fuel inlet. The Elliot kit's ethanol decal is just a green border decal with nothing in the middle. The one that came on the decal sheet for the car I'm building has the cap in it and that was how I messed up the decal trying to get it to form into the cap using micro sol. I will just have to paint the cap aluminum. I'm ending up with 2 Camaro decals that I don't know where they go, so, I guess I will have to just leave them off. The quality of these decals is very good just like the last set of powerslide decals I used a couple of years ago.

[MarkJ]

I think the Camaro decals are extras for this car because the Camaro decal comes on the rear bumper decal for this model's decal sheet. I also noticed that the thin white line decal at the jack placement point is not on any of the sheets that come for this model. I ended up masking it and painting the little white lines at that location.

[MarkJ]

I have one more thing to do before fururing, and then I might try some santin finish I bought from Micro Mark, after I try it on a spare body. All of these nextgen cars are covered with wraps that are not see yourself mirror smooth glossy. Especially this car that I'm doing. 

[MarkJ]

I found an old truck body that I had sprayed with testors enamel probably 40 years ago. I polished it with 4000 to 12000 polishing pads and then mixed up a small amount of microscale satin finish which I thinned 1:1 to make it flow out better with a brush. I painted it on the door and really liked the results. It brushed on smooth with no brush marks just like future does but it gave me the satin finish I was looking for when it dried, instead of a glossy finish like future gives you. I think this will be the only thing I need to coat my finished body with to seal the decals and also provide a satin finish to the whole model. I transferred some of the microscale satin to a dropper bottle so I could mix it with distilled water. below is the product and the finished door of the truck.

[dawgvet]

That’s a great tip! I may have to give that a try. 

[MarkJ]

11 hours ago, dawgvet said:

That’s a great tip! I may have to give that a try. 

Jed, I think you will be pleasantly surprised by your results. You can use your airbrush if you want, but I'm not sure how much you would need to thin it for that. It says on the bottle that you can use water or alcohol to thin it. To me, distilled water is safer for the decals.

[Pierre Rivard]

Wow Mark, I'm going to JacHobby today to get that stuff. Perfect for a modern car with a wrap but perhaps also for a 50's - 60's style race car.

Thanks for this great find.

[MarkJ]

1 hour ago, Pierre Rivard said:

Wow Mark, I'm going to JacHobby today to get that stuff. Perfect for a modern car with a wrap but perhaps also for a 50's - 60's style race car.

Thanks for this great find.

Thanks, Pierre. Microscale also sells a gloss and a flat in the same product. What I like is that this is specifically designed to use as a decal sealer and thinned properly, it goes on just like the future floor finish and takes about the same time to dry. On the next model I do that I want a glossy look I will use the gloss instead of future.

[Pierre Rivard]

7 hours ago, MarkJ said:

Thanks, Pierre. Microscale also sells a gloss and a flat in the same product. What I like is that this is specifically designed to use as a decal sealer and thinned properly, it goes on just like the future floor finish and takes about the same time to dry. On the next model I do that I want a glossy look I will use the gloss instead of future.

So maybe Future will be a thing... of the past?   😀

[MarkJ]

1 hour ago, Pierre Rivard said:

So maybe Future will be a thing... of the past?   😀

Ouch, Pierre. I see what you did there. Very funny.  We shall see. I'm sure this microscale stuff has been around for a while.  I just wonder why I have never heard of it before.

[Pierre Rivard]

On 12/12/2022 at 6:34 PM, MarkJ said:

Ouch, Pierre. I see what you did there. Very funny.  We shall see. I'm sure this microscale stuff has been around for a while.  I just wonder why I have never heard of it before.

Just got a bottle of Micro Satin and one of Micro Gloss. Sanding down and preparing 2 hoods for testing. Curious to see how decals will look with a satin seal coat and risk for some silvering.

[MarkJ]

7 hours ago, Pierre Rivard said:

Just got a bottle of Micro Satin and one of Micro Gloss. Sanding down and preparing 2 hoods for testing. Curious to see how decals will look with a satin seal coat and risk for some silvering.

I hope you have better luck than I had. It did not turn out well on the model and I had to end up using future after all. I thought the test with the red truck body was good but not so much. It was more of a flat finish than a satin one.

[MarkJ]

Well, my first NextGen model is complete. I will try to take the final photos tomorrow. I really enjoyed building it. It took 88.5 hours to complete. I only had to make two scratch-built parts and device a system to hold the body to the chassis without gluing it. I will post it in the tips and tricks section after I post the final photos. Its a pretty easy  solution . Its seems a shame to glue the body to the chassis hiding all the neat stuff some of you guys add to the chassis .

[dawgvet]

Mark,  I’d love to see what you’ve come up with for the body-to-chassis problem. I totally agree that I’d like to be able to see all of my work that’s buried in there!

[MarkJ]

12 hours ago, dawgvet said:

Mark,  I’d love to see what you’ve come up with for the body-to-chassis problem. I totally agree that I’d like to be able to see all of my work that’s buried in there!

Jed, I can describe it to you but it's better to show you with a picture. It works very well though. You will be surprised how simple the fix is.

[MarkJ]

Finally finished. More pictures in the finished Nascar forum, Daniel Suárez

[bbowser]

I really enjoyed following your build, nice work.

[jjsipes]

Nice looking model.

[MarkJ]

22 hours ago, bbowser said:

I really enjoyed following your build, nice work.

Thanks, Bruce. Now I know the things I won't have to paint on my next one because you can't see them. My next one is also a black car and the body comes black so I'm thinking about just futuring it instead of painting a black car black. I just wonder if the future will stick to unpainted styrene or if it might flake off. That would sure save a lot of time not having to paint the body.

[MarkJ]

5 hours ago, jjsipes said:

Nice looking model.

Thanks, Jason and also for checking in from time to time on the wip.

[MarkJ]

Started on my next Nextgen kit but no need for a wip. Things are going much smoother on this one so I'm going to keep my own record of the build just to see if I can beat the 88.5 hours it took me on this build.