Jdurg Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 Okay, so it's been nearly a decade and a half since I had built a model car. After going away to college and then having a 40-hour a week schedule, I found myself not really wanting to spend the time, or finances, on model car building. So I simply lost interest in it. The fact that my parents threw away all my completed kits and all my equipment while I was away at college didn't help either. Heh. (Thinking back, I had a LOT of photoetch sets, paints, brushes, instruments, etc. that were thrown away. Thankfully, I had my SAE and Car Modeler magazines stashed away for posterity). About 5 years ago I was finally able to afford to leave the abode of parentdom and bought my own place. My creative arts wound up going into work around the house. Building a poker table, building speakers for my modest little home theater, repairing plumbing, etc. It wasn't until I was involved in a car accident this past January and found myself wanting to do something to get my mind off of that accident that car modeling came back to me. It helped that my digging around in my home office and finding a box filled with car modeling books and magazines happened as well. I don't have any "in-progress" images of this build, and the image quality is a bit poor as I had to take these photos using my iPhone. (Strangely enough, on my iPhone the images look much crisper and cleaner and less blurry). I finished the kit just a few hours ago, and in the images you may be able to see where there is still some white glue showing as I used that to glue the clear plastic windows and lenses to the model so that there would be no crazing of the plastic. (In my supplies I only have cyanoacrylate gel, testors liquid cement, and white glue). Aside from flocking, this was built box stock. Photos are below, and the details of the build are as follows: Body Color: Rust-Oleum ATU6027 Medium Quasar CC. Primed with PRI2000 gray primer, and then finished with CC1000 Clear Coat after blue color coat was polished with polishing compound, washed thoroughly with soap and water to remove any wax or polish, and then applied decals for the front logo, rear logo, and license plate. Interior Color: Testors Model Master Flat Interior Tan, and Testors Model Master Semigloss Black. To achieve a consistent semigloss tone, I then coated everything that needed it with a clear semigloss finish. For the dash, Model Master Chrome Silver Trim was used for the parts of the dashboard that should be silvery. (For reference, I went to http://www.corvetteimages.com which is a bible of images for anybody building a Corvette model kit). Interior Details: After painting, I went and applied black flocking for the black carpeted areas, and tan flocking for the tan colored areas. It turned out quite nice. It's a shame the photos don't pick up on this as well. Exterior Details: Nothing too fancy here. I used Testors Black Chrome Trim for the exterior parts that needed to be painted black (Windshield frame, underside), and used some Bare Metal Foil to cover the front and rear sidelights. After trimming the excess away, I went and covered the front foil with MM Turn Signal Amber, and the real foil areas with MM Stoplight Red Metallic. Engine Compartment: Engine area was painted according to the images I saw over at corvetteimages.com. Only additional detailing here was the addition of another Corvette Logo from a spare sheet of decals that found its way into this kit, and the addition of an oil dipstick made out of flattened and curled solder which was then painted yellow and black as per the photos I had seen. Otherwise, the engine compartment is box stock. Chassis/Wheels: No real details here other than building and painting it box stock and using lots of shades of black. I did, however, remove the chrome from the wheels and painted them MM Chrome Silver Trim as I thought that matched the photos I had seen much better than the bright chrome from the standard kit build. For the photos, I again apologize for the quality as photography is not a big talent of mine and I had to take the images using my iPhone while standing up on a broken leg. (Told you I'm dedicated to this. ) The pics were taken with the car sitting atop one of the speakers I've built and am using since it has a nice gloss-black finish. Sadly, that also shows a lot of dust on this. A light is directly overhead which may be causing problems too. In the light, the blue is fairly bright and nicely metallic. Without direct light on it, the car really has a nice, deep dark blue metallic look to it. I quite like this color. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jdurg Posted March 1, 2012 Author Share Posted March 1, 2012 Okay, I was able to get a better looking photo of my completed Corvette that really does a good job of showing off, what I feel, is a great paint job. It's not perfect, but I'm quite happy with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrObsessive Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 That is one very CLEAN model for someone who's been away at this for so long! Very nice paint I might add and it sits like it should. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Cranky Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 Well, buddy, it looks like you've still got it, your touch. Nice model. I hope your styrene addiction continues. It's a great hobby, and it's one that has saved me time and again. Thank you for sharing your work with us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jdurg Posted March 1, 2012 Author Share Posted March 1, 2012 Thanks guys! In the mail today, I got the MPC 1/16th scale 1988 Corvette Convertable. Came in about a week earlier than I expected it to. I know what I'm doing this weekend. (VERY happy that it has opening doors already built in. I may spend the time and open up the convertible top hatch on it and use some fabric I have to construct a "stowed away" convertible top since the only time it would be open would be when the plastic kit top is off). Looking forward to building this as I really like the larger scale models, and so very few of them are modern era Vettes. Plus, the '05 I built showed me that I still can do this. Taking a look at my real car ('09 Civic Hybrid), there's FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR more orange peel on my actual car than on my model car. I love the way the blue turned out. Now I'm trying to figure out what color to paint my '88 model Corvette. I'm thinking of a Dark Red Metallic with a Black/Saddle interior. Still not sure yet. Have plenty of time to think about it. And yes, this hobby is like model-kit crack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick2005 Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 I dig the color and the tinted tails! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jdurg Posted March 2, 2012 Author Share Posted March 2, 2012 Thanks! Yeah, the color just looked really good to me when I was looking at all the options available at the auto shop. Amazing how a rattle can paint job can turn out nicely. Even though it's a metallic blue, I was able to wet-sand it without any issues. The tail-light tinting actually happened by accident. Heh. I was painting the inside of the body shell flat black and accidentally got some paint on the backside of the lights. Instead of trying to get the paint off, I just took more black paint and put it behind there. The lights are red plastic, and the black paint behind it darkens them nicely and really makes the back-up brake light on top stand out a bit more. Quite a serendipitous mistake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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