gsdpic

Interesting craft. Am I reading the scale right, your model will be just under one foot long? That might make those railings and other details more challenging.

I happened to be in Galveston over the weekend and saw the USS Texas. Below is a shot of her from the Texas Seaport Museum, with the Elissa in the foreground. Apparently the Texas will be refloated very soon but it will be another year or two before they complete the deck and superstructure restoration. Eventually she will be moved to a pier just next to the seaport museum and re-opened. I also went to the Galveston railroad museum while there and they had a temporary exhibit about the USS Texas with a few artifacts, and about 25 signs with highlights of the ship's history and photos as well. For more info and more photos and videos, https://battleshiptexas.org/

Amazing details being brought forward on this jet. Looking forward to seeing it completed. Those extra decals look good but I've never seen a sheet of decals so packed together. Better not let the scissors slip at all when cutting them out. And as everyone has said, congrats on the retirement. I am about 10 months in on my retirement and still adjusting. Though I don't have an admiral around to "help" with the adjustment.

Nice, I'll follow along. I checked out the kit, parts list, and instructions on the Artesania Latina web site. Looks like it will be an interesting challenge, and I say that being about 75% through their Sopwith Camel. (Though it is currently on the shelf again). The Fokker definitely has more metal parts and fewer wood parts than the Camel. And it looks like it has a few more places to attempt the fake wood grain paint look, and those parts are more conspicuous.

Excellent! Beautiful, well built model and very sleek, professional looking case. Thanks for letting us all follow along on your journey.

And I'd recommend using a new, freshly opened bottle. Over time, once opened, CA seems to take longer and longer to grab and to cure.

Thank You. I kind of wanted to use the alclad polished aluminum, but they recommend to not use decal solution on their "high shine" paints and I knew I would need decal solution on at least some of the many decals. And in my experience you need to be very careful about what clear coat you use over the alclad paints.

Thanks as always for the likes. And here we have it, both models completed! Overall I enjoyed this project and felt the kits were pretty decent though not quite up to Tamiya standards. I have mixed feelings about the photo etch parts. I don't enjoy working with them and many of them would have been (near) invisible on the finished model. I probably used half or less. Maybe if you were detailing a model and showing it with doors open and wheels off it would make more sense to use all the photo etch parts. The decals with the Martini kit went ok, though I did tear a few of them. The third party decals for the Gulf car seemed a bit stronger though there were no large decals to apply. Unfortunately a couple of them bubbled up a bit when I applied the clear coat (Tamiya X-22 plus Mr Color Leveling Thinner). One huge win was getting the black "paint marker" and using that around the edges of the windows and clear parts for the head lights. That worked very well I think, and was fairly easy to do. I feel like each kit I do, I improve a bit, so that is something. Anyway, here are a bunch of pictures of the Gulf car then both cars together. Enjoy!

Nice work on the chrome foil. Do you just depend on the adhesive on the foil or do you do something more to ensure it stays where you put it?

Glad to see you back at work on this, it is looking good!

Thanks, as always, for the likes. Getting close to the end now. In fact, I have completed the Martini Racing car but still have work to do on the Gulf car. Below are a few pictures of the former.

Thanks all for taking a look and clicking the ol' like button. I've now completed the chassis for the Martini car. This time I took a few more intermediate pictures to try to show some of the steps of constructing the rear structure. Also note that this is the one that I received painted blue and partially started. You can see some remnants of the blue paint in these pictures. Also, the plastic pin for the left front wheel had apparently been broken or lost and replaced but the front wheel did not quite fit right, so it is now attached with CA and does not rotate. Oh well. Here I've added the X shaped piece in the back, and one piece on each side with vertical pipes to support the upper structure: And now I've added the upper structure with the spare tire, air intakes, and tail lights: Added a couple more supports for the upper structure: Added the rear fender liners and the top half of the engine: And finally added the wheels: This was easier the second time around, though still a bit fiddly. The parts fit together fairly well, though in some cases the locator pins were a bit lacking, such as on those angled support between the lower and upper structure. The end of the support with the point of the V shape did not have much of a pin to fit into the hole provided in the lower structure. I just sort of lined it up, put on a drop of Tamiya extra thin cement, and held it there for a bit. I hope that is enough to keep it in place....it is definitely something I don't want to touch or put any pressure on during the rest of the build. I still need to do the seatbelts on the Gulf car, then it is on to detailing the bodies.

The finish is looking great. One of these days I'll work up the nerve to go through all the steps to try to achieve such a shiny finish....just not on a build like my current one with a lot of decals....too much fear of sanding/polishing through the clear and ruining them.

I also used liver of sulfur gel on the copper I applied to the hull of my America. See post 77 in the build log in my signature. As I recall, I mixed less than the instructions specified in warm water, hoping to have a bit more control over how dark the copper became. The consistency was just like water. The patina did not rub off or flake off....it was very much like an old penny, dark brown not black. Just like a penny, if you rubbed enough or used some sort of cleaner you could bring back the copper shine but it would take some effort. On my copper, I used a clear acrylic semi-gloss spray over the copper and in the years since then it has not significantly changed color...it maybe is a little darker now than it was.

Well, I am now...almost...done with the chassis for the Gulf car. I say "almost" because I realized while taking pictures I have not yet put the seatbelts on that car. And, it looks like I should try to clean up one of the rear tires a bit. Since the last picture of the chassis, I've done all the work on the rear suspension and rear structure. There are quite a few little, delicate, fiddly bits to attach back there. Plus, the engine top and bottom halves. And yes there is some light blue overspray in places but it will not be visible on the finished model, I think. Kind of like many of the photo etch parts which I have opted to not put on. I'll work on the rear chassis bits for the Martini car, then I have a bunch of detailing of the bodies to do before attaching the body to the chassis.

Thanks, as always, for the likes. I've now finished the decals on both bodies and put a few coats of tamiya X-22 clear gloss coat, thinned with Mr Color Leveling Thinner, on both. I'll go back to working on the chassis and rear suspension of both kits while the clear coat cures, then decide if I want to do more clear or do any polishing. I put 3 or 4 coats on each, though the Gulf car looks glossier than the silver Martini car.

Thanks as always for the likes and for looking in. I put another lighter coat of blue on the Gulf body, about a 3:1 or 4:1 mixture of Gulf Blue and Pure White. I then taped up the body to prepare for the orange area. After spraying the orange, I added another stripe of tape just inside the previous tape in order to paint the thing black outline between the blue and orange areas. I used a testors black enamel paint pen to add that stripe. Then I did the always nerve-wracking task of removing the tape to see how things went. Overall it looks good but there are a few areas where I need to clean up some blue paint that seeped into the white areas and a few places where the black seeped under the tape, primarily at the panel lines. I hope I am able to clean up those bits without making things worse. I also intend to paint the borders of the window openings black as well as the headlight areas. I may try to delicately wet sand, primarily the border between the blue and white as there is a small ridge there, then add a few decals and then gloss clear coat with Tamiya X-22.

A little change of pace. But first, on the Martini car, I now have all the decals done on the starboard side of the car. No pictures. I'll take more when I complete the other side. But I resumed paint work on the Gulf car. I started with light gray primer followed by Splash paint's Pure White. I was not diligent about coating the whole car, mostly worried about the areas where the white number circles are on the car. I then cut circles from Tamiya masking paper and applied them. I am hoping this will work well enough that I can skip the white circle decals, we'll see. I then painted a couple coats of the Splash "Gulf Blue" paint. I definitely feel like I should tone this down a bit by adding some of the white to the blue. This modern Gulf Blue just looks a little bit too saturated blue for me. I'll probably do that and do one more coat, then let it cure for a while. Then I'll tape off most of the body and paint the orange teardrop shape on the top.

Nice, I'll be following with interest. I have one of the fujimi "enthusiast models" in my stash (the '73 911 Carrera RS).

Thanks. I tried about a 4 to 1 mix of Tamiya X-4 blue and X-1 Black and painted over some of the gaps and tears in that front decal and it looks good, so I think I can match it. Further google image searching leads me to think that the box art is a picture of the restored version of this car.

As always, thanks for the likes. I've put a few more decals on, but I have some mixed feelings about this. This car was the winner of the 1971 Sebring race. If you look at pictures of the car from that race, you see things like black duct tape around the headlights, silver/gray duct tape over the seam between the hood and the body, and even the number on the side of the car is a bit funky as there appears to be a larger partial white circle over a smaller circle as if they put on a different number on the car. All of those quirks are represented in the decals. But the box art, as shown above, is more "idealized" without those features, and I prefer that look. It is easy enough to leave off the black duct tape around the headlights decals, but leaving off the others may leave some gaps. I've already left off the underneath white circle on the side and there are tiny gaps between the blue stripes and the other white circle. Leaving off the other silver duct tape decal will leave gaps as well. At this point I am not quite sure how to proceed; I am wondering how closely I can match the dark blue on the decal with paint. I may need to experiment with that before I decide.

I thought they were Santa's other reindeer..... “Now, Biter! now, Blazer! now, Boxer and Bouncer! On Cruiser! on Clinker! on Sparkler and Spiteful!" Sorry it does not rhyme. As for the model, it looks to be an attractive subject and more manageable than many of the usual ones.

Maybe a slightly more exciting update...the first decals are on the Martini car body! These decals are definitely on the delicate side. I've already torn several of them. And there are a few spots where I'll need to try to mix up some dark blue paint to hide some of the flaws, and maybe some red paint touch up as well. But overall it is going ok so far. I've never had a situation like this where you have a layer of three decals. But in front, there is the dark blue stripe, then a separate decal for the white circle, then a third decal for the number 3, all one on top of the other.

If you click on the "cc" to get closed captioning, it will show text that better explains it, but your conclusion is basically correct.

Yes, at least the GT classes required room for a standard suitcase. There is a story, possibly apocryphal, of a team having to pound out bumps in the trunk of the Shelby Cobra to make room for the upper corners of the suitcase. Thanks to all for the likes and other comments. As mentioned earlier, this kit does not include a complete engine, just top and bottom panels that are visible through the body work. These panels are fairly well detailed but have a minimum of parts. Unfortunately the exhaust is molded into the bottom of the engine and not a separate part, making it a bit more difficult to paint cleanly. Below is a picture of these assembled and painted parts. The rear suspension and chassis is made up of quite a few delicate looking parts. I've not started on that. And, I've made minimum progress on the body decals and painting.