February’s model challenge: Speedweeks

In reply to slowbird :

That is just typical old kit warpage. I have had some with unbuildable bodies. The roll cage parts are the least rigid, so the most likely to warp. Also why I always trial fit everything before any paint or glue. That one will be an easy fix with a mini heat blow or some very hot water.

I got the doors hung on the Ferrari last evening. Now comes the hard part with the forward interior shut faces.

Well gee...I'm done already.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I've never built anything like this before so it was a pleasant change.  Review video in a day or two.

In reply to ddavidv :

You could always put some dirt on it!

Looks great.

Body in white primer! I'm a little worried the pre wired distributor I ordered won't be here in time...

Javelin (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to ddavidv :

You could always put some dirt on it!

Looks great.

You'd think a guy with some model railroading background would be all over weathering his cars. Yet, I have trouble bringing myself to do it. I need to have one of those kits that doesn't turn out well to give it a try.

In reply to ddavidv :

Javelin beat me to the first dirt comment. I weather the underside of almost everything, especially Ferraris! Real dirt car stuff not yet, but there are ideas

Now for some red!

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

Nice masking job! 

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

Oh man that looks great!

I'm going to start this entry with a little F You to Testors. At some point in the last 30 years they changed the labels of the little bottles of paint and now they're darn near unreadable. I swung by Michaels to get decal set but got distracted by paint since I could use fresh gloss and flat blacks. They're poorly stocked/maintained at this store so I wound up sitting on the floor going through a bunch of little paint bottles, squinting over the top of my glasses to see if I could find any flat black (I couldn't). What a PITA. It was so frustrating that, while I did get gloss black and semi-gloss which I didn't know I didn't have, I completely forgot to even look for decal solution or Xacto blades that I also was going to pick up. I'll have to try my luck with Hobby Lobby next week (Hobby Lobby is 45 minutes away; Michaels' is on the way to the grocery store).

Back home, cage construction is chugging along. I don't know if I got all the hoses behind the driver going to the right places and/or if they will line up with the holes in the quarter windows. My guess is that they won't, and my second guess is that I won't sweat that detail that much since there will be more cage parts going on top of those hoses so I won't be able to change them if I wanted to at that point.

I can see the chassis being done in a matter of days, so let's see how the body's coming along. I sanded the front valance filler and I think it came out OK, as well as the mold lines around the rear bumper. With some finish sanding it'll be in paint over the weekend if we get a warmish afternoon.

First layer of primer shows how much more bodywork it needs.

At least the wheel wells turned out alright.

I totally agree on the Testors bottle labels. Even the larger Model Master bottles suffer the same problem. It's almost like they want to make their products so miserable to use we will stop.

Ill just put this here...

In reply to Claff :

I thought it was just me. Is it aluminum? Is it steel? berkeley if I know 

Glad to see I'm not the only one that struggles with bodywork. I suck at it in 1:1 scale too, lol. I have a lot of sanding on mine... and when I think I'm done I always find a spot that needs more work. That's why I generally/usually don't do it. 

I haven't bought a bottle of Testors paint in 20+ years. Tamiya acrylics are just so much easier to work with. They cover better, and are much easier to clean up... I hated dealing with thinner.  (smell better too!) 

ddavidv said:

I totally agree on the Testors bottle labels. Even the larger Model Master bottles suffer the same problem. It's almost like they want to make their products so miserable to use we will stop.

Well they did stop manufacturing nearly everything including model master paint so...

I really like Tamiya paint.

I really hoped to be one-and-done with filling the front seam on the Monte, but there were gaps in the filler that, while they probably would have been covered with decals, didn't sit well with me. Plus my initial sanding of filler was done with 240 grit, and I wanted to do stuff over with finer paper, so I put more putty on. I didn't put it on nearly as thick as the first go-round.

Chassis is almost done. I could have had the interior all wrapped up but I finally decided to go with paint on the gauges rather than decals. The decal sheet has a TV-friendly GOULDS PUMPS MIKE MCLAUGHLIN sticker to go on the passenger side of the dash, but the kit's dash has some molded-in accent grooves in that area that probably wouldn't help that sticker sit right, so I buzzed those down some and repainted that area. So the dash won't go in till that paint dries and I get the sticker on. Tomorrow's problem.

I got the oil tank on the bottom of the chassis, then the rear shocks. While test-fitting the rear suspension to make sure the shocks were roughly hanging where they're supposed to be, I discovered that the whole assembly might not be 100% square and that might affect how the wheels sit relative to the wheel wells. I'll have to do a bunch of test fitting and maybe crack some assemblies apart to try and get a better fit.

We're running out of parts! There are a couple of little cage bits that can't go in until after the engine does. The only other parts on trees are the front shocks, driveshaft, and radiator hoses. This is going to be going together quickly. Dare I tempt fate and say that I might be done well ahead of deadline? Maybe I could get a headstart on the next challenge, though I didn't see any road-racing kits when I was at Michael's yesterday.

In reply to Claff :

The C7R and Fors GT LM should be in stock just about everywhere for next month.

The NASCAR is looking great!

Got my wheels done: 

Saron81 said:

Got my wheels done: 

Love the writing on the tires. What did you use for references?

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

I looked at a bunch of pictures... and lots of guys put measurements (circumference of the tire I assume) on them to match and/or stagger them, but I never see Bill's car with anything other than tire location on it. The wheel weights and with line (usually to denote valve stem location) were just free handed with white and light gray gel pens. 

Engine

Friday night painting! 
Just sprayed all my grey parts (Tamiya AS-26 Light Ghost Grey) and the white (Tamiya TS-26 pure white.) 

In reply to Saron81 :

Me too! Body in primer: