CDW

Don’t you love the way spellchecker ‘corrects’ spelling incorrectly? soluble not solvable (my previous post). Working from my iPhone. 🫤

The body shell is intended to come apart in order to reveal the entire chassis assembly later on. Mine won’t be removable. In order to get a smooth body shell, I temporarily glue the panels together using acrylic glue. After sanding, the panels can easily be taken apart to fit the chassis inside. The glue is water solvable.

Absolutely, please do follow along. Hope you enjoy the trip down memory lane. Yes indeed, they are great parts donors for custom projects.

This nostalgic kit comes all the way back from an original release by Revell in 1963, the Tony Nancy 22Jr Roadster and Dragster kit. Two complete kits in one box. My particular kit copy was re-released in the late 90's or early 2000's. When you open the box you find some very flash-filled and crude parts by today's standards but nevertheless, the kits can be built into a very reasonable facsimile of the original racers. I spent some time today cutting parts off the sprue trees and cleaning them up by sanding filling and sanding some more. Lots and lots of flash and parting lines on these old kits. If you get a chassis frame that's not warped, it's a miracle. These early dragster kits were notorious for having warped chassis but this can all be worked out reasonably well with a little persuasion and care. To start, I am building the AA gas dragster kit first. I don't intend to spend a lot of time on these kits but will add a few extras here and there to modernize them a tiny bit. Will try to get a good paint finish on both. You'll notice I almost always start by stripping all the chrome from the plated parts as they are so full of flash, once they are cleaned up the plating is rendered useless. Priming and painting them with metallic lacquers will do a more than adequate job of giving the appearance of shiny metal. Follow along and feel free to share comments as we travel down a nostalgic path that many of us took while building these kits in our youth. I sure did.

Looking forward to your build of Yamato!

Wow, that is nice. 3D resin printing is a game changer. The details are so clear and near perfection. Light years ahead of molded plastic.

Bugatti T35B, Winner of the 1st Monaco Grand Prix 1929, Found and sold unrestored more than 80 years later - Finished as it was found. This was a very pleasurable build, made possible by an excellent kit from Italeri, and most of all, by all you who followed along, made great comments, your likes and encouragement. It's time now to evaluate and contemplate my next project. PS: I ended up installing a set of magnetic bonnet strap attachments, as opening the bonnet would be rather impactable or impossible if the latches and straps were glued in place. Believe me when I tell you, installing the little windshield and the bonnet straps were by far the most difficult part of the build. A real pain where the sun don't shine.

Thanks Greg. It's been a lot of fun building and finishing it. Probably the best Italeri kit I have built to date, everything fit well and was not over-engineered. A lot of parts but not over the top.

Tomorrow, I'll build the bonnet straps, add the windscreen and some touches of paint/weathering here and there, then this one will be finished.

Stunning model, your finish of it is superb. I’ve heard nothing but good about Perfect Grade kits and your model shows why they are so highly rated.

Excellent looking model kit. Contains a lot of extra parts to do it up real nice. I like the surface detail on the model, too.

It's almost there now, the finish line. Just a couple more days at the most.

Awesome-looking model Andy. Engines look super.

Starting with the previous state pictured, I mixed Mr Color sail color with my Bugatti blue to make a lighter shade of blue paint. Then this was highly diluted with thinner before spraying high spots all over the model to give the appearance of paint fading. After that, oils were used to shadow and create oil stains along the louvers of the body pan. Last, Mr Color silver paint was used to create paint chipping effects on the louvers and scratches/chips on the body in various places. Your milage may vary, but when I do a diluted highlight spray as mentioned above, I turn the pressure down on my airbrush and use a much more controlled, light trigger pull to put the paint where I want it. The idea here is to highlight, not to overspray or repaint the entire model.

Thanks Alan. There are always newer and better tools it seems.

The colors I used for the 'Bugatti blue' are a mixture of Mr Color paints as shown in this photo. Mixed in a ratio of 2 parts of 323 light blue to 1 part of 72 intermediate blue. After painting all the body panels with the mixture 'Bugatti blue', I used the Uschi stencil to apply a mottle of color 72, intermediate blue all over the model. This was followed by a highly reduced coat of 'Bugatti blue' over the mottle to tone down the effect and give the car an aged paint appearance. In these next photos I have glued down all the body panels and have started adding other bits and pieces necessary to finish the model. Next I will continue with weathering the model by using various shades of blue paint, aluminum paint (chipping effects) and oils. Slowly but surely getting there. In my mind, I had set a target date of 1 month to complete this model. I started it on September 20, so I may get lucky and meet or maybe even beat that target. Don't really want to spend more than a month on this project. If you look closely, you can see faintly the dark splotches of mottled paint.

My interest in cars hit a high-water mark in grade school when a team of engineers from General Motors visited our school to encourage all of us to enter a car body design for a competition that would bring scholarships and other prizes for winning designs locally, regionally, and nationally. The car bodies could be carved from wood or other appropriate mediums. I didn't enter the competition, but it sparked a flame of interest I carried all my life.

There's some fiddly piping to add under the hood/engine compartment but the instructions are unclear exactly where it all goes. Will need to root around through references tomorrow to determine the particulars. Can't just have piping running off to nowhere.

Didn't do a heck of a lot on the model today but did manage to assemble the steering gear box, install it along with the steering column, and then added the throttle linkages. Will need to weather up these parts to match the other parts under the hood.

Hey EG Check out this 1928 Indy car kit from a guy in France. 1/12 KIT MILLER INDIANAPOLIS 500 1928 WINNER L. MEYER (TAMIYA ITALERI ALFA FIAT | eBay

What a beauty. I know little to nothing about railroads, but this makes me want to know more.

Speaking of Indy, I have the Watson Offy powered car from ‘63 and the Lotus car from ‘64 both in 1:25 scale. Would love to have the Watson car in 1:12 but there is no such animal I know of. edit: my cars may be ‘62 and ‘63, can’t remember for sure

When the great depression came along, grandpa had to turn back to his horse and wagon and park the car as they could not afford gasoline. Lucky for him I guess that he still had a horse and wagon. According to my mother, it was a great embarrassment to her to go back to this mode of transportation. My uncle didn't seem to mind it. He's riding in front beside grandpa. Mom is the dark-haired girl on the far left.

Great subject, I love it.

Right out of the box, the chrome plated wheels, finished in a semi gloss, look pretty good. I'll be weathering mine before it's all said and done. The tires have a slight mold separation line that needs attention but otherwise look very good. Tire size in raised detail on the tires but no maker detail. Would they have been Pirelli's in this era, or something else?