February’s model challenge: Speedweeks

Productive first day with my Monte. Here's all the parts as they came out of the box:

First thing today was having another epiphany over a possible livery, that being the Joe Bessey-owned, Geoffrey Bodine-driven Power Team #60. Yup, another Modified driver with the bonus of a Busch North car owner, running Cup. But I have the same problem that I do with the Pennzoil car, the only decals available appear to be for the 2000-2001 Monte Carlo. But also like the Pennzoil car, the decals would very likely still work on the older body.

But then I saw the small car display, and realize that I've done Power Team to death with two Matchbox cars, one 1/24 Team Caliber diecast, and even a hauler

So we're back to the Goulds Pumps Busch Series car. Now for inspiration, I checked out the two previously built NASCAR cars that I have on hand here:

The Raybestos Buick has the date "9-29-98" painted on the bottom of the frame, making it most likely the last model I had built before GRM got me back in the game last year. Both of these cars have the same affliction, parts falling off of them. The throwback dual shocks on the rear axle never seemed to stay attached on my NASCAR builds, and they're like that on both cars here..

So I'm going to try to build the forthcoming car differently in an attempt to help it stay together better. Instead of painting every individual part and then glue stuff together with the silly scraping of paint beforehand, I'm going to preassemble as many subassemblies as possible before any paint gets thrown onto any parts. With this in mind, the engine is already half-assembled, and the roll cage is well under way on the chassis. I won't be able to fully assemble the cage before paint because there are things that will need to be installed inside of it, and they won't be the same chassis gray, so I'll get as much of a headstart as I can before shooting paint.

Looking at the body, I hate that the front airdam is a separate piece. There are no seams in this place on the real car, so there's going to be quite a bit of bodywork needed to blend this all together. There are also some bad mold seams on the back half of the body. On the plus side, the body is going to be painted in blah white, so that'll hide a lot of my amateur filling and smoothing. Decals will further hide my shortcomings.

I wanted to get a quick start on this in case the weather turns nice towards the end of the month and I get distracted with real car stuff, and I think I've made a good start.

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

I love that build so much!

In reply to Claff :

In reply to Claff :

I usually put the entire cage together but don't glue it to the chassis, paint and detail everything then glue the completed cage on. It's a tough call between Park and McLaughlin but I would have gone with Magic Mike too. I've been a fan of his forever, his kid Max is a hell of a racer too. 
 

For March I'll be digging out a Corvette too if were doing Sebring.  

Here's my entry. The truck is the AMT C-Cab Ford that's been around in one form or another for many years. Everything behind the cab is scratch built from Evergreen styrene sheet and shapes. The car is the old MPC '72 Mercury that was re-issued in generic form a few years ago. The decals on the car are from Yesteryear. Paint throudhout both models is Tamiya acrylics.

Hope y'all like it.

In reply to 2002p51 :

Wow!! That's incredible 

Wally (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Claff :

In reply to Claff :

I usually put the entire cage together but don't glue it to the chassis, paint and detail everything then glue the completed cage on. It's a tough call between Park and McLaughlin but I would have gone with Magic Mike too. I've been a fan of his forever, his kid Max is a hell of a racer too. 
 

For March I'll be digging out a Corvette too if were doing Sebring.  

Hmmm? I just happen to have a C7-R that would fit the theme. Add one more Corvette to March.

In reply to Claff :

I'm facing a similar blending/smoothing chore on mine as well. The front and back should have been molded all together, but oh well.

I also have to try to fill in the door lines, because they stopped having actual doors long before '82.

I built that Mercury when I was probably 12. I recall it being a pretty nice kit. I'm not sure I could build it today as a Pearson car, being a King Richard fan and all. It's on the list of kits to pick up if I come across it.

We should clarify that only stuff currently being built is eligible for prizes but sharing older builds is okay.

Which reminds me...I had a Petty Plymouth kit I was going to make into a General Lee NASCAR version. Sort of, what if the Duke Boys had actually made it into the big time? I had the decals but never did it.

I also had another Charger kit I was going to build with a slant six and make it '00'. Such is my sense of humor.

In reply to Claff :

Make sure the engine fits with the firewall installed. I seem to remember some of the NASCAR kits needing to have the engine installed in the chassis first. 
 

My fingers are sore from sanding! 
Door moldings removed 

mirror area filled... flare blended a little better and a pillars thinned 

front bumper leading edge filed down and angled a little more... front valance rounded off 

And.... more sanding got me here 

I'll see where I am after another light coat of primer. Expect to have a pinhole or two to fill. Considering using super glue instead of putty to do so. Still need to figure out the front wheel wells. 

In reply to Saron81 :

I think that body style T-bird is one of the best looking cars. Keep going!

Saron81 said:

In reply to Claff :

Make sure the engine fits with the firewall installed. I seem to remember some of the NASCAR kits needing to have the engine installed in the chassis first. 

The instructions say the firewall goes on early in the chassis build process, way before the engine goes in. So, fingers crossed.

FWIW I have a mid 80s Tbird kit sitting unbuilt for decades at mom & dad's, along with a decal set for Alan Kulwicki's #35 Quincy's ROTY car. Good thing I get to see how much work is going to be needed to make that "right".

Interesting wrinkle on my car's front bumper, I see now that this generation Monte Carlo actually did have a small seam across the front of the bumper face. That actually makes my work more complicated: I need to fill that seam but only up to a point, it doesn't need to go all the way to the wheel wells. But it needs to stay at least partially.

Mike McLaughlin decal set was ordered last night, so I'm committed. I hope to have the car itself at least half built by the time they arrive.

Made a little progress, some paint and some glue, but nothing that reflects any significant developments. But it's better than doing nothing. As much as I'd like to get primer and paint on things, but it was 36 degrees in the garage and I figured that would be bad for business. Conditions appear to be better for that in the coming days.

In reply to Claff :

You are making me consider doing my first NASCAR kit.

Mine arrived two days earlier than Amazon promised. Got the parts washed so I can prime them tomorrow.

Just finished this Pontiac LeMans from a Salvinos kit.

1981 was the first year for the shorter 110" wheelbase cars. The Harry Ranier team headed by Waddell Wilson surprised everybody when they showed up at the Daytona for the 500 with this car rather than the Buick Regal, Chevy Monte Carlo, or Pontiac Grand Prix that most other teams were using. The Lemans sloped rear window made the car not only faster but more stable on the high banks. Bobby Allison led most of the race and would have won the race but for a strategic move by the Petty team to only take two tires on the last pit stop getting them out of the pits ahead of Allison.

The Salvinos body is pretty good but I had to shorten the nose a little and reshape the rear quarter windows to better match the real car. Paint is all Tamiya acrylics and the decals are by Powerslide.

Garage got to 50 degrees this afternoon, so the primer was flying

About this point I realize that I'm never going to have decent paint on the chassis as I'll be laying a light gray gloss paint over light gray primer. But it's the chassis, odds are it won't be very noticeable if there's some dull spots where I missed with the finish coat.

Today's conundrum has to do with the dashboard. The kit has the gauges molded into the dash face:

Historically I've never done much with the instrument panel on these other than shoot it flat black and dab at the outlines of the gauges themselves with a little silver. No gauge faces, no needles. Now on my $8.99 super duper NASCAR detail decal sheet, there's a decal that theoretically replaces all that with real gauge faces:

Those gauge decals are all in one long sticker, which wouldn't lay flat over the kit's instruments since they're three-dimensional. So I'm flipping a three-sided coin: buzz down the instruments on the dashboard to leave myself a flat surface to put that gauge decal on? Or not bother with the decals and just keep doing the minimal detail painting I've done in the past, or snipping individual gauge faces out of that decal sheet and lay them on the kit's dashboard one at a time. The last one sounds like the most work but might come out the best.

Other than that, it was mostly paint today, not much glue. The big wait is for the chassis primer to set up so I can lay down the paint on it, and then assembly can get going. I'm kinda thinking of having the chassis pretty much done before launching into bodywork, since I know the body needs quite a bit of attention. Looking at how the air dam went on, it extends past the fender opening on the drivers side but is flush on the other. So that needs to be trimmed back as well as filling in some of that seam.

In reply to Claff :

Did the real car have white face gauges? If they were black face I would paint the black and scrape the needles and numerals to make them stand out. If they were in fact white I think I would use the decals if they are waterslide type, with lots of setting solution to get them over the molded detail.

Matador NASCAR or Gremlin Modified?

In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :

The Matador won a qualifying race at Daytona, so it gets my vote. 

In reply to slowbird :

I didn't know that! Matador it is!

Yay! It has the correct decals for that car!

I'd have said Gremlin. Because then you could have sold the Matador to me.

In reply to ddavidv :

I have a spare one 

The Matador kit is clearly an older kit, and more detrimental, based off of an annual issue kit of the real car. This is an issue as the stock car has numerous changes as seen in this photo:

As you can see, the stock car's front wheelwell cut goes above the bodyline and the way bigger issue is the rear quarter window as the stock car has a smoothed in plug and the model car has the original window and trim molding. I need to glue the plugs in and sand and fill until it's all smooth. I also need to trim the wheelwells and sand ask the original trim molding off.