Post by Darkside on Sept 26, 2021 16:13:07 GMT -7
Alright, buckle up everybody for another flood of pictures and details about my latest build.
Car's name is Six Nine. This was the car I had envisioned when I built Raggity Six Nine. That car was built from a used AMT kit that I found on Ebay for $10, and I got what I paid for. It had been sloppily painted orange and detailed, so I made the best of it and went the raggity muscle car route. This car was built from the new Revell 69 SS Chevelle kit which is an amazing kit especially when compared to the AMT version.
If you don't like long winded details, tune out now... You have been warned.
So I've been working on this one off and on since I got the kit in January. Mold lines and flash were minimal so body prep wasn't bad. Overall just a light sanding with 600 grit. Panel lines were pretty good, but I still scribed them with a Tamiya 0.2 mm engraving tool for a little more depth an definition. Kit wasn't molded with a vinyl top so I had to add the trim for that. Trim is .025" round styrene rod glued in place and then sanded flat. It didn't match well with the side window trim that was molded in so I removed that and re-trimmed it as well.
Paint is two coats Zero Paints gray filler primer wet sanded to 1000 grit to remove flaws and then re-coated and wet sanded again with a 3rd coat. I wanted to paint it with 69 Chevrolet Olympic gold, but I couldn't find it, so after a lot of back and forth I ended up using Gravity Colors Brembo Titanium Gold. It's a color match paint for Brembo brake calipers, but it was also a spot on match for for Olympic Gold. Metal flake is super fine as well, so it made for a nice scale look. It was sprayed with two mist coats followed by two wet coats. I didn't wet sand it because it laid down super nice, but I probably should have because it had a couple dust specs in it that I couldn't see until it was cleared... Lesson learned. Decals were applied on the base coat and then cleared over. Clear is two mist coats and two progressively thinned wet coats of Gravity Colors 2K clear. Clear was then lightly wet sanded with 2000 grit to remove orange peel and dust specs. On Nailhead I used Scratch-X for the first round of polish. I skipped that this time and went directly to McGuire's Ultimate Compound followed by Ultimate Polish, and honestly that worked just as well, so not sure I'll be using Scratch-X again. Final finish was with Zero Paints wax polish after trim and detail work was complete.
So the vinyl top was a first for me. Did a bunch reading on it and watched a ton of YouTube videos and finally settled on the masking tape method. Seam lines were laid out with 1/8" tape as a guide only. Sides were then applied and then trimmed to the trim lines and the tape laid down for the seam lines. 1/8" tape was then removed, and the center section was measured, cut, and applied. Center was cut to width allowing for a 1 mm overlap on both sides to mimic the seams. Center was then trimmed to the trim lines around the windows. The tape formed pretty easily and surprisingly didn't try to lift at the trim lines, but I sealed the edges with thin CA just to make sure it wouldn't lift with time. Once it was all set, I masked off the rest of the car and sprayed it with Gravity colors Anthracite Black with no clear. Pretty happy with the end result, and although tedious, it wasn't super difficult. The masking tape gives it a good scale texture. Tape I used was Dunn Edwards Premium Painter's tape. It kind of had an in between texture when compared to regular masking tape and fine line tape.
All trim on the car, including hood cowl vents and windshield wipers, was done in Bare Metal Foil. Details on the front grill and rear valance were hand painted with Testors semi-gloss black that was thinned way down so it would flow easily but still fully cover. Bumpers, wipers, and cowl vents were detailed with Tamiya Panel Line Accent paint. The molded in SS 396 emblems on the grill and valance were sanded out smooth and decals then applied in their place. Marker lights were molded into the body. I tried to use the decals that were supplied for those when I decaled the car, but they would not form around the raised plastic no matter how much Micro-sol I used. Technique I ended up using was trimming them with BMF, after the car was cleared, when I did the rest of the chrome trim. I then masked them off and hand painted the lens color with thinned down Tamiya clear red for the rear and clear amber for the front. The effect turned out really nice, so I think I'll be doing that again. One other new thing I tried was mirroring the side view mirrors. Rather than leaving the mirror surface stock chrome I cut and fit "mirrors" from some chrome trim tape. I wasn't convinced that it was worth the effort when I applied the tape to the mirrors when they were on the chrome tree, but once they were mounted to the car, the effect was really cool. Wheels are stock BSA wheels with the spokes machined off. Centers were then polished smooth to remove the machine marks and finished with a 2 mm Molotow liquid chrome pen. I was going to mask them off with little triangles to mimic a set of Cragar Saw Blades from the early 90s but then I came to my senses and realized that I was taking this all WAY too far as it is.
Speaking of taking it way too far, I think I'm gonna end this here... This was a fun build. Hope you all enjoy.