The Bench - September 2019 - Scale importnut.net

Plugging along through September, I made excellent progress on the Mustang, Superbee, ’63 Snap Vette, and Alfa Romeo. I finished the Magnum build. My son and I attended a “local” model/toy show and found some treasures for future builds. I also bought parts for a future Honda Civic build. I was very busy!

Mustang and Ford Truck

Work continued on the Mustang Chassis and the Ford truck frame.

The Mustang chassis and engine bay are complete. I also finished building the Ford truck Frame. At this point, I set it aside to focus on the rest of the projects.

63 Corvette

Body work on the Corvette was complete. After spraying touch-up primer, I sprayed color. A few days later, I sprayed clear. One detail I struggled to resolve was how to finish the hood “vents”. Being a Snap-Tite kit, the decals were stickers. One of my local model club members brought up a suggestion from a Scaleauto build that resulted in a nearly perfect execution. Use a marker to color a piece of paper black, attach the stickers, spray dullcote, cut and attach. More on this next month. Later in the month, I finished sanding and polishing the clear and completed the bare metal foil trim.

The Vette is painted Ferrari Rosso Fiorano by Gravity Colors

Since the Vette is a snap kit, all of the detail is molded into the chassis. I’m grateful that there is a significant amount of detail that can be painted. Plenty of careful masking and hand painting was involved.

After primer, I sprayed the engine orange then masked with silly putty.

I sprayed the rest of the chassis satin black. At this point, I was ready to start hand painting the rest of the detail.

Magnum

The Magnum build is now compete! I finished sanding and polishing the paint and followed that with plenty of careful masking and trim painting.

Masking the grill was not as tricky as you’d think. The paint turned out great!

Once the trim was painted, I was able to start final assembly. I painted the trim on the windows and attached them. I detail painted the lighting and attached them. The last major step to this build was attaching the wheels. I was able to utilize the kits mounting pins and axles which greatly simplified the process. I did lower the rear slightly by moving the brake rotors and drilling to relocate the metal axle. After that, I decided that the spokes needed to be darker than the gold I used. I fixed that with Tamiya bronze.

Alfa Romeo Giulia

Great progress was made on the Alfa Giulia build. I sprayed the body with color and clear. In between color and clear, I attached all of the decals and metal transfers.

Decals to be followed shortly by clear coat.

I also made progress with the chassis. I prepped all of the parts, attached them to sticks and sprayed everything in various colors. Shortly after, I finished the chassis detail and engine.

I couldn’t leave this twin spark engine without plug wires so I added them as well.

Superbee

The Superbee was sanded, polished and foiled. I also added the glass.

Then there is this thing:

In my quest for a 63 Vette, I bought one from AMT. It isn’t very good. I tried combining it with parts from a Monogram kit but I couldn’t get past issues with the body. I decided to build it and list it for sale. I started prep work and set it aside to focus on current builds.

There isn’t much to it when you spread out all the parts.

Goodies

Beyond all of the recent work completed, I bought kits and parts for future builds.

Picked up this Impala at a local hobby shop.

Internet buys, from Hiroboy and C1 models. Most of the parts are for a future Civic build. The seats are for the Mustang build.

My son and I picked up quite a few junk kits at a recent model/toy show. You know those bags of junk models that sit under the tables and sell for $5 each? We bought several for kit bashing and general mahem. Out of a dozen kits, I did find one salvageable kit. A ’65 Riviera that was complete enough for a fun build.

Along with the junk kits, I picked up a ’16 Camaro for very cheap and a junk 40 Ford Sedan.

The Riviera is the green one in the bottom right corner. No other kit was genuinely salvageable. They will make for fun times for my 11 year old!

This 40 Ford Sedan will be an excellent salvage/restoration project!

One other noteworthy purchase is this VW bug split window trans kit from Best Model Car Parts. I had seen this kit online and wasn’t aware they are regularly sold. Although I paid a premium for it but I look forward to building it. Interestingly, I later found that they are selling them on eBay along with an oval window version.