66 Nova--Engine and Details

I have to remind myself that there are things everywhere. This silly hobby is no exception. Metalworking is something I want to know more about and what safer/easier way to learn a little about it than with a scale model.

So...this weekend, while some servers I was working on remotely were churning away on updates, I did some (very simple) metalwork to detail out the engine of the 1:25 scale 66 Nova, which I would now very much like to finish.

When I look at really good modelmakers, most seem to make pretty extensive use of metals (brass, tin, aluminum)....I spent many years working with electronics, so I am familiar with soldering, but I can't see how that would help with anything this small--at 1:1 scale even a really small solder joint is going to look like someone made a fist-sized weld. So I need to use glues. Epoxy works well for joining metals to all sorts of surfaces but mixing it is a pain, and the 5 minute kind isn't useful after, well, 5 minutes. CA glue works, and is especially good for metal to plastic bonds. The other glue you see here is "Cement for wood and metal" by good old Testors. I didn't know Testors made a glue for metal! It works well for metal, but is not useful for bonding metal to plastic.

Using simple bent brass and some small styrene bits, I scratch built this little fuel feed setup.....

Using CA I glued that to the intake manifold....Here's what I came up with so far.

Overall, metal (photoetch, wiring, brass tubing) does look pretty good for detailing out scale objects, but it's really hard toget the glue joints looking neat. And, getting the fit right on any engine has always proved difficult to me. I got some very small dremel grinding bits from Harbor Freight and put them to work levelling out the engine block so the oil pan and manifolds sit straight (or, straighter then usual, for me).

The carb assemblies were some of the smallest-scale detail work I've done--without really good magnification this isn't possible at all. I left the bend in the fuel feed to wrap around the radiator hoses (not quite sure how I am going to work that one out, but I will figure something out)....I left some of the plumbing long on purpose because at the moment I have no idea how any of this is going to "plug into" the firewall; that is for next time.

66 Nova Hiatus Continued--Now, a 68 GTO....

In my experimentation with two part polyurethane clear I shot a 68 GTO body I had lying around, so I figured why not finish the build....

Paint was Jacquard Acrylic, I mixed up a purple and kept throwing in red flake and red tint until it was a nice dark shade.

Overall, things were a bit rushed, although it seems it took a good 3 weeks to finish it, but just a bit of work here and there.....

There are lots of little sloppy things about this build--the Bare Metal Foil is a bit ratty in places (it usually seems to be)--next time I figure I will use some sort of guide to help this go on straighter.

I have always like GTO's--it was fun to build this but now it's back to the question--how much time am I really going to devote to this? To take this to "the next level" I'd need to spend more time....not sure I want to do that.

One thing about 2 part clear--it seems to amplify flaws in the color coat and makes careful sanding and finishing of the color coat critical. The danger though is burning through the color coat trying to flatten it all out. More time and effort are needed here.

The box stock stance was pretty bad--the tires for instance were way too big, giving the car a clownish look. I robbed some smaller tires from the parts box. I like the way the mag wheels came out.

I used more photo etch on this build, and it was a major breakthrough for me that photoetch looks good painted. However, after paint you have to apply it straight! Much harder!

66 Nova Haitus--So: 67 Impala--Finished.....

I haven't been posting a lot but have done some building....Last time I was messing with acrylic flames and 2-part Polyurethane clear. Before finishing the Nova I thought I'd mess with finishing another build--a 67 Impala.

The goal was to get this build done fast, fast, fast. To save time, I decided to make this a "curbside" (no engine!) and perform no major "reengineering" so I could concentrate on the finish and trim.

I liked this 67 Impala kit (AMT/Ertl 8208) with a couple of exceptions. Like the 66 Olds I finished not too long ago, the window glass is too thick and doesn't fit correctly into the body. I put a black trim strip, cut from electrical tape, over the top of the windshield to compensate.

More important: the "box stock" stance for the kit was a disaster!! The tires literally didn't fit into the wheel wells, and the rear axle was way too low. To compensate, I drilled new holes in some inner wheels I had in my parts box. These holes were off center, correcting the obvious stance issues. Painted flat black they look OK. I also used smaller tires for the front, as the stock front tires were too fat and wouldn't fit no matter what I did. If I had more time, I should have "reengineered" the axles and stance. But this was a quick build.

The mag wheels came out of an old AMT Corvette kit; they had to be modified somewhat to work with my funky fix-the-stance setup.....the flames came out a bit weak, I should have made each flame thinner and more graceful....next time....

I have 3 more bodies trimmed out: a 68 GTO, a 71 Charger, and the Nova. I figured as long as I was spraying 2 part clear I might as well clear several bodies. Not sure what I am going to build next...stay tuned....

66 Nova--Flame On! Part Two!!

Not being able to get scale pinstripes right has really been bugging me (see my last post) and it's been working in my subconscious. I had a idea, which now seems completely obvious--why not use a masking agent to help with this?

Out comes the bare metal foil, which in addition to using for brightwork, can be used as a high-end masking tape. I threw the mask on one of my "junk box" bodies (a '49 Stock Merc) and carved out some flames using a SHARP #11Xacto. The rest of the body was masked with Tamiya tape. Finally, to keep paint from seeping under mask, I brushed a light coat of Future Floor Polish acrylic clear on the seams.....this is all stuff I've done a few times, nothing new here.

Once this was all done, some Jacquard acrylic was fogged into the flames. Now here's the new part. I got a 000 brush and loaded it up with international orange acrylic paint and carefully painted each mask border. The idea was to get about 2/3rds of the paint onto the mask and 1/3rd on the flame.

Here's what I ended up with. The pinstripes weren't perfect but much better than doing this without using a mask as a guide.

Not perfect, but a lot better.

And, I got a bit better as I painted more flames. By the time I was done--the whole process, start to finish, took about an hour and half--I had pretty good looking flames. Still far from perfect, but, good enough that I was a bit sorry I hadn't started with a lacquer color coat--I could have kept my work and built some sort of scale Billet-Proof Merc, but alas, this was practice only--flames over bare grey plastic. I ended up experimenting with laying some russet red over the whole body, which as a disaster as I had the amount of thinner wrong, so I wiped everything down with Windex, and the test body is back to bare plastic.

But the photos remain, hey, that's what a blog is for right??? I am going to try this in a few weeks on an Chevy body with an enamel color coat. I have been curing this for about three days and in about 2 more weeks the enamel should be tough enough that I can try this again.

66 Nova--Flame On!

It's still a bit too cold and misty for painting, so I worked this week on my "flame" technique.

First I needed to be able to draw flames. Earlier attempts looked like crab claws. Maybe a bit of practice is in order.

Tools for the job include a fine tip paint brush, a Sharpie marker, and a single-action Paasche 200 airbrush. I found the Sharpie wouldn't write on plastic or paint unless you lightly sanded it first.

Using the Sharpie I drew flames on some junk box bodies by hand. This is looking a bit crab-claw like; after some practice I got a little better.

Once the shape was drawn in I went over it using paint. Acryic seems to work OK for this. But here's the best thing--using Acrylic, painting details over an enamel or lacquer color coat, it's easy to fix "mistakes" with a q-tip dipped in Windex, since Windex will take off the acrylic but doesn't affect enamel or lacquer color coat below.

Then I filled in the outline with some Jacquard color. Anything that "spilled over" the flame outline got fixed with Windex used as a thinner.

This is about the best I could do after an evening of messing around with this.

In general, flames are not easy to paint at scale I am finding. Things are just too tiny. The biggest issue I have is the pinstripe that goes around the flames. I know there is a way to do this because I see other modellers who have figured it out. But for me, the lines around the flames come out too thick, making them not look "scale". I got some extra fine Sharpee paint pens, maybe that will help. Stay tuned.

66 Nova--Experiments with Two Part Polyurethane Clear!!!

One of the toughest things I've grappled with, since coming back to this silly hobby, is how to apply clearcoat to a finished color coat and get professional results. In the old days, we'd just spritz some Testors Enamel Clear over whatever we were working on and hey, we were done. For better or worse, I am setting my sites a bit higher now....

Reading the hobby mags, the clearcoat of choice (for model cars as well as some 1:1 cars) is Two Part Polyurethane. "Two Part" because the paint consists of a clearcoat and hardener--you have to mix the two right before use.

However there's a catch! Polyurethanes are extremely toxic before they have gassed out, especially for folks with lung problems (I have had asthma my entire life, so I would consider myself someone with "lung problems".....)

If I am going to experiment with Two part clear, I'd better be careful!

First thing I did was buy a forced-air system. These are mandatory at pro paint shops, and can cost thousands of dollars; fortunately scaled-down versions ($400 US or so) are available for small-potato painters like me.....I chose an Axis Air "Hobby Air" system as it seemed to be the most popular one out there.

You put a little yellow box--basically a small compressor--by a source of clear air. You make sure the air from the paint room is isolated from the air pushed from the "Hobby Air" device. The compressor forces the clean air down a 40 foot hose to a breathing mask. In addition to this mask, you have to wear a hood and latex gloves--you don't want the clear to get on your skin!

OK, with safety precautions taken care of, next thing I wanted to do is make sure two part clear didn't "eat" the color coat--no point in having a great shine if the color coat gets ruined!

To test, I got some body scraps out of the junk box and painted each with different paints I commonly use--here, it's Testors one coat lacquer with a quick and extremely ugly test-flame of some testors enamel and Tamiya acrylic. I would **never** try using lacquer clear over this as the ugly acrylic flame would be destroyed--come to think of it, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.....

For these tests: no primer, no sanding, nothing fancy--this is not for show.

I then mixed up a 4:1 ratio of clear to hardener and shot it out my trusty Paasche H0708 single action el-cheapo airbrush. The results were fantastic, and, incredible!

So: does polyurethane clear eat water based acrylics for lunch? Good news is, if there was a problem, I didn't see it. As they said on SNL--great taste--and look at that shine!

Lacquer--duplicolor here--same thing! I spent about 2 minutes polishing this one and it looks um--OK.... With some more work, both in prep and in finishing, it would have been (could have been?) perfect!

In fact I had so much luck with this stuff that I thought I'd try to "clear" something REALLY tough. I had an old body lying around that on which I was practicing painting flames by hand. I don't remember all the different paints I used during my practice sessions, but I think it has pretty much everything I own, including metalizing lacquers, transparent enamels, water based acrylics, acrylic/enamel hybrids, you name it, it's there. So I sprayed a few coats on there, sure that at least some of the paints would fade, welt, weep, or otherwise dislike the clearcoat. In the end, I didn't have a single problem with color coats and detail paints being destroyed--any of them!

So to sum it up--two part clear requires a lot of safety precautions but it's worth it! I made separate "test units" for Jacquard acylic, Testors lacquer and enamel, Tamiya acrylic and enamel, Duplicolor lacquer, as well as a motley hippy flame job consisting of everything I had lying around, and the clear coat played nice with all of it!

I think for my hobbies, 2 part clear will "change things". I won't treat clear coating any craft materials--model cars or otherwise--the same again!

66 Nova--"Not a Project"--Parts is Parts

Easter Already! And on my day off I am dabbling on with a 1:25 build of a '66 Chevy Nova....



As a kid, building stuff in the basement, enamel paints ruled the roost; since then we have more many paint choices, such as acrylic or hobby lacquer. About 2 years ago I gave away (literally) my whole collection of enamels, mostly because I was frustrated with how long enamels take to gas out (sometimes as long as week!) But now I am back to using a few of them again--for fine detail work, for me, enamels still work the best--they flow and cover better.



The engine included in the 66 Nova kit is quite tall, and I am not sure it will fit under the hood, having never test fit this! Let's hope it does!



The guts of the engine are ready for detail work now--I have already scraped away paint to glue on headers and drilled holes for plug wiring.....I am leaving off the oil pan for now. In the past I scratched it while handling the engine--no point in gluing it until the engine is ready drop into the chassis.



In interior is box-stock except for the seats, which I stole out of an old gasser kit. The 66 Nova kit didn't have a roll bar so grabbed an old vette rollbar from the parts box and fabricated the rest.



I tried weathing the seat backs and floor of the interior--I have never tried to weather anything before. It came out OK--but not great. Surprisingly, getting a realistic "clean" look might be easier than getting a lifelike "worn" look!



For the license plate I used a backing fabricated from a thin sheet of brass, which looks better than plastic--the latter looked too thick, and thus less realistic.



So I'm just building up the parts--I keep putting off working on the body. I plan to try, for the first time, using two-part clear on this build. The prospect of working with something so toxic is a bit off-putting, but at this point I have bought the materials and am probably going to do it.....maybe next weekend?