Model Cars? now that's Grassroots!

Just got my first model car ever after seeing they made one of my new to me Z06. Admittedly I didn't know anything about them when I ordered it, still don't. I was not aware it didn't come painted and exactly how many pieces this one has. I look forward to going through this thread and eventually getting mine built. 

vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) said:

Did anyone ever make a formula Vee kit? What about a formula junior OSCA from 1959? I know, long shot. The vee may be a scratch build based off a VW bug kit.

The closest I could find is a 1/43 scale Formula Ford, not exactly a high detail kit. I would like to see some more open-wheel kits too.

In reply to Robby :

Nice! My advice: test-fit the parts before gluing, take it slow and be prepared to encounter minor setbacks. If a part doesn't seem to fit right, the instructions might contain an error, or the part could be designed wrong. Most of the time, these issues are rare on newer kits like that one. And use as little glue as possible, while still using enough to attach the parts securely. Gobs of glue can make a mess of a model. I like the Loctite gel super glue for finicky pieces, and Testors or Tamiya glue for the ones that aren't so finicky.

In reply to slowbird :

Thanks for the tips! Would you recommend test fitting before painting as well? That way if something needs sanded a bit, it wouldn't mess up the paint? I'm mainly concerned with all the little parts after getting them off the sprue and then not figuring out where they go later. 

In reply to Robby :

I go on a case-by-case basis. Some parts, I test-fit, then glue together, then paint all as a unit. Others, I paint, then fit and glue. For example, if an engine is mostly one color, I put together most of those parts and then spray it all at once before adding the chrome bits later. Or a suspension and chassis, that can sometimes be assembled and painted all together if a lot of the parts are just black. (I mostly ignore the "semi-gloss vs. gloss" notes in the instructions and paint the whole underneath with the cheap 99 cent gloss black paint from Walmart or Lowe's, which tends to come out in a semi-gloss type finish anyway. This is just personal preference; paint the underside body color and detail the suspension separately, if you want!)

Small parts of differing colors, I'll paint them, then test-fit, sand/scrape as needed, and then glue. The glue doesn't stick too well to paint (except superglue which does stick but could fog the paint) so I'll scrape off a tiny spot where the attachment point is. Oh, and sometimes the paint will add just enough thickness that the parts won't fit together until you open up a hole or scrape the paint off a tab or whatever.

A lot of this is just experience from doing it for so long. You sort of get a feel for what works and what doesn't as you go. Oh, and a lot of times there's a small seam on the parts where the two halves of the injection mold meet; that should be sanded off if you want a perfect result. It's often hard to see until you get paint on it, so be prepared to be annoyed once in a while that you have to sand and repaint some parts. It happens to me a lot because I forget to check for it  I am by no means a contest-winning builder, but they look good on my shelf and that's good enough for me.

One other thing I recommend is watching some Youtube builders to learn various tips and tricks. They sometimes reveal a new way of doing things that I hadn't thought of. Hpiguy is one of the more well-known channels.

Reply to Woody and VWCorvette. Very few lesser formula cars have been kitted in any scale. Heller did a F2 Matra and an F3 Brabham. The Brabham would convert into a pretty convincing early F Ford with the crossflow Kent from the Tamiya Morgan kit. I might do that, as I have both kits, and it would free up the Morgan for a Rover V8....I built the F3 Brabham straight from the box about 40 years ago. I will go take some photos and post them later.

Lower level (and lowest level) formula cars in 1/24 scale. The earliest F3 rule set, when it was truely the bottom of the ladder, got modeled by Merit in the form of a Cooper Mk9, in these photos as built by my father in 1958. F3 in that form faded and got replaced by F.Jr in '58, then re-apeared in '65 as 1 litre production engines with intake restrictors. The first application of such devices. Modeled here by Heller as a Brabham with no model designation, but probably BT9. This one I built around 1978, and the green is unpainted plastic. I did not use any decals either, all hand painted. Heller really did poorly on the oddball Weber single throat conversion DCOE..The rest of the Cosworth MAE is OK. Early Hewland OK too. 

On F Jr, I have a great regret that I failed to make a good set of plan drawings of the Taraschi that I inherited from my father and subsequently sold on, chassis #BT052., also the Rytune Scorpion that I dragged out of a field. Both would be interesting scratch builds. 

a couple more recent Magnante Roadkill Extras on his models, pretty neat

So the 65 Riviera I want to build has an optional supercharger I've never heard of (Latham). I suppose if the American Q were to build a car for the American Bond they might use the factory motor plus enhancement. Would this be the hot ticket for 1965 era Buicks? Or some kind of big block. Thoughts? I'm not very versed on Buick performance from the mid sixties. I'll need to find resources.

In reply to vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) :

I never heard of Latham superchargers, but it seems like they're somewhat rare and sought-after pieces these days. More for their uniqueness than for ultimate performance, but they do look pretty cool. Side-mount carbs were to help it clear the hood, ironic for these hoodless examples I found.

I was going to post this in the November snap-together challenge thread but it doesn't really belong there since none of these are new. But snap kits in general, and the '79ish Mustang that someone came up with, brought me back to misspent youth.

This is maybe 1986 or 1987. Out of high school, working part-time and going to community college, still lots of time on our hands. Me and a friend were in a toy store and found a stash of 1/32 '67 Camaro kits marked down to a buck or two each. We probably bought six of them that one time, and in my basement we threw them together. What do a couple young dudes do with cheap toys? Destroy them. We'd sit at one end of the playroom in the basement and, one at a time, roll a Camaro down towards the other end. They'd wind up bouncing off each other and wind up in a pile, and wheels would break off and bodies would split. Ha ha! What fun!

It turned into competition. As they'd break, we'd fix them and reinforce them and run them all over again. I kept track of results and a season championship. When they got past the point of being fixable, we'd go back to the store. When the store ran out of discounted Camaros, we'd get whatever 1/32 snap kit they had. When I went out of town I'd swing by hobby stores to see if they had anything better. At our high-water mark we probably had fifteen cars each and we'd spend more time building and repairing them than actually demo-ing them. Eventually we decided this was a pathetically stupid hobby and moved on to real cars and girls and other pointless endeavors.

I have some of these cars here, and dug them out for some pictures.

This is a pretty good example of the Camaro kit that started it all, and I'm pretty sure this is one of the last ones built and used in competition. It wasn't used long since it still has windows and most of the windshield frame: those tended to be the first things to break off completely. At the time we also spent a lot of Saturday nights at the quarter-mile roundy-round track and I was heavily influenced by the lumpy awesomeness that were street stocks.

This Malibu sedan was another one of mine, and it's a bit of a mongrel. #30 was originally a 2nd generation Trans Am, but the plastic used in that kit was different than most and the body didn't hold up to the punishment. By contrast, the chassis under these Malibu kits weren't holding up well, so this is a Maliby body on the Trans Am interior and chassis. As you can see with the gap between the left front wheel and my stovetop, we weren't too concerned with how well the cars went back together after getting eliminated.

These were two of my friend's cars, both being that same Mustang kit that just made an appearance in the November challenge thread. The #33 (inspired by Larry Bird) was one of the first non-Camaro cars entered, and it was pretty tough so it took a LOT of hits. My friend was also less strategic about aiming his cars at the pile. While I tried to pick on particular cars that seemed especially vulnerable by where they rested relative to the pile, Jim just hurled his cars with great speed and very little aim. The #31 was newer but still far from pristine. Most of our cars looked like the 31 - no windshield or windshield posts. I'm not sure how the 33 managed to avoid losing those parts.

This is the underside of the #33 body. At some point it became more glue than plastic. We went through a LOT of glue.

I bet there are a lot more of these cars still in mom & dad's basement. I'll have to grab them if they survived this past summer's purge.

Here's more 1/32 snap kit goodness from 30 years ago. I had a wild thought of producing the entire NASCAR field in 1/32 scale somewhere around 1990 or 1991. At the time, nobody made NASCAR cars in that scale. No problem, I say, I'll just apply their paint schemes on what was available to me. Luminas turned into 67 or 69 Camaros. Thunderbirds were Mustangs. Grand Prix became a Firebird. I even made New Hampshire International Speedway's Corvette pace car, even though the Corvette I used was a '68 and not a modern C4.

Everything was hand-painted freehand. There was no internet so my only source material was magazines. I subscribed to Autoweek but NASCAR wasn't covered thoroughly in that magazine, and they rarely had color photos. I'd get Circle Track or Stock Car Racing and if I was lucky, an issue would have one good photo I could use to build a car. Fortunately, this was before the days where a driver could have six different primary sponsors and at least that many primary paint jobs used throughout the year.

At some point, one of the model companies started producing 1/32 snap kits of Luminas and Thunderbirds, which made my job a little easier. But I was winding down by that point, and I think the last one of these was built in early '92. This isn't all of them as I know I did a Morgan Shephard #15 Motorcraft on a '68 Mustang fastback and that's not here. But I can't think of what else I might have done but lost track of.

Painting those front fender stickers was torture.At the time, I was very anti-alcohol for some reason, and because of that I wouldn't scribble the "BUSCH" on the sticker under the red and white Winston sticker under the A-pillar. I would paint the white rectangle but I left what would have been an unreadable Busch name off. I guess I got over that sometime between building the #3 Camaro and building the #3 Lumina.

The biggest thing is that since my only source material was pictures in a magazine, and those aren't too good at showing how bright neon colors used actually are, my colors are way off. When I finally saw a Tide car in person with its neon orange, it took me by surprise. Same with the oranges and yellows used on Davey Allison's#28.

Started the long process of replicating my race car.  Lots of work converting the Revell Kit which is based on an FB into an earlier SA22C along with extensive scratchbuilding required to replicate the details.

magnante has a couple more extras on models up these past couple day, one was on model trucks

In reply to Claff :

That is incredibly cool! Both the demo derby cars, and the hand-painted NASCARs. I can't believe you painted all those tiny logos, that's amazing. As for the demo derby, well, I used to do a similar thing as a kid, except with the Crash Test Dummy toys that were designed to come apart.

Claff, those hand painted cars are awesome! Cool that you still have them. I think the oldest kit is still have was built circa 1999. 

Posting here since I'm not even sure which contest this was meant for. Hasegawa Porsche 962 with the Hobbitime IMSA conversion and Indycals decals. Not my best build, but it's a decent 4 footer. Now that I'm posting pictures, I see I need to go back and do a little more work on the windscreen decal.

Magnante did another Roadkill Extra thats up today. Talks about a couple altered wheelbase funny cars he has built. One he had custom made graphics done. Interesting stuff.

Looks great Ben!

In reply to BenB (Forum Supporter) :

I always spot things in the photos that I didn't see on the building bench! Progress pics below on the Ferrari 250GT SWB that I started in 1990. A couple earlier shots posted in a "Quick Build" thread. Definitely not a quick build...

Thanks, guys. I've found that as my eyesight gets worse, my models keep looking better and better!

In reply to BenB (Forum Supporter) :

More significant is that gravity is getting stronger too.

Never was a big fan of snap kits but the 1/32 Monogram NASCAR kits were crazy detail. Loved the Street Cars too. 

solfly said:

Magnante did another Roadkill Extra thats up today. Talks about a couple altered wheelbase funny cars he has built. One he had custom made graphics done. Interesting stuff.

2 more last week. One on johan models and another on 1/4 scale engines.