Don't Fence Me In

Unless I am in a diorama if so then I got a trick for ya.

Almost any Fabric store has this lace stuff that is made of something like a PVC or plastic material and with a little help of paint, some of it looks like wire or chain link fence. It is called "TULLE LACE" pronounced 'tool'.
 I picked up a large amount of shiny black for under a dollar and from what I understand there are many sizes so I'm thinking many scales could be found. What I picked up measure almost perfect to be scale chain link fence for 1/25 - 1/25 scale. I measured my real fence outside at my home, then did the math and like I say it's almost spot on.

I used some fast drying Krylon Flat aluminum I had around to spray it which takes a bit being as it is lace and you want to rotate, twist and repeat to get color coverage in all the tiny angles. The result is some fairly convincing chain link fence, I plan to use it with some aluminum tubing for the poles.

-Hobby Dude

Revell 1/24 68 Volkswagen Beetle

I knew at some point I wanted to add a Bug to my shelf but was not really excited when I bought this kit, that is until I opened it. The mold I do believe is the same as the  Revell of Germany Police Bug kit. This kit is part of "California" Series which makes no sense since there wasn't flower decals or a surfboard in the kit.

If you want to compare the two different offering here are the manuals:

Revell USA VW

Revell Germany Police Bug

For my build, I used Tamiya Field Gray Lacquer which is this green color followed up with Tamiya semi-gloss clear. The interior is Model Master Fabric Tan Lacquer.



It is very nicely detailed build with build options. Very minimal sanding and most parts fitment was a snap fit which is typically only found on molds not made in China. This one was marked and inspected with sticking designating it came from Poland and hats off to the Poles for some nice plastic.

I can say if you are looking for a VW to build these can be found from $18 to $22 and it is well worth the price.

• Hobby Dude

Flexing Some Muscle

I know it is sort of a trite title but I am in final stages of finishing some 60's muscle. I have been waiting for a decent sunny day to get some better photos but living in the Pacific Northwest it is all monochrome here for another few weeks. These are some I received after the Holiday I posted previously.

Few kits here about ready:

Revell 69 NOVA SS - I came up with some custom wheel for it and used Rustoleum 2X Plum with Tamiya Lacquer Pearl Clear over it - So take notice if you are wonder about paint compatibilities.

Revell Foose 68 FireBird - used the Stock parts but ditched the decals painted it Model Master Italian Red Lacquer

Revell Of Germany 65 Mustang 2+2 Fastback - Model Master Daytona Yellow Lacquer - Stock kit, still have the interior to do.

- Hobby Dude

Kit Quality vs. Price

I am convinced that 80% of the models made since the early seventies were and still are never built. If even half of them were built there might be more influence from builders seen in what lines the shelves today.

Sounds like I just threw a blanket over the entire modeling industry but I shall explain. I bought my first model in the early seventies and ran a hobby shop thirty years later and now just a Hobby Dude so I base my statement on observations over many years.

It was fairly common that many of my friends built models at some point in our youth. Some were glue bombs and others a met flaming demise in the backyard, mine hung from 4lb. test fishing line from my ceiling. But, there were those other kids for whatever reason never built theirs and they usually received a ribbing from me "Come on man build that up" I would offer help, paints and my tools to no avail.  I am fairly sure a 64 Fairlane kit I had given a friend in the late eighties is still up on a shelf and my brother still has models I gave him in the nineties under four inches of sawdust in the garage.

At the hobby shop, I saw regular customers buy models for themselves in stacks and would ask them about their builds and a very large amount just collected kits. There were a number of times we bought out private collections, estates, etc. and resold them in the store. These collections were in high triple digit numbers, one buyout involved many trips in a box van. Now I could care less why someone buys or collects something, more power to them for whatever their quest, but all these stagnant kits influenced the quality.

My recent trip back into mainly automotive-themed modeling  I have formed some opinions and have me scratching my head on what I see available.  Last year I bought Revell's 68 Dodge Charger 2in1 and was very pleased. Next, I grabbed a Lindberg 66 Chevelle and was more impressed. Now on a roll, I grab an MPC 67 GTO thinking 'Hey this will be a nice start of muscle cars. The GTO still sits in a box. It was priced a little more than the Charger and less than Chevelle and silly me I thought it would be in the same ballpark for quality. I am one year older than the real size GTO and I would gamble I am in better shape than the mold that made this model.

Flash, Flash and more Flash. Can I recycle styrene?

I kept rolling the dice grabbing a couple MPC dragster kits, AMT 30's Fords and Chevy's and they are still in boxes at different stages with a ton of flash yet to be removed and chrome coated as thick as A Kardashian hipline. I resolved my building to better quality kits going forward but dang it Tamiya, Hasegawa, and Fujimi don't make a 48 Olds or a 37 Chevy.  If you have built any model be it aircraft, auto or military you are familiar with the quality and detail. Although there are quite a few imports I admire and want to build there are more domestic on my list. I have bought both the Tamiya Porsche 959 priced $17.95 and AMT's 37 Chevy Coupe priced $23.95 and it just leaves me thinking if Americans built more models rather than collected the demand for a better quality would happen. Box looks awesome but few know the kit is junk.

Tamiya Subaru $27.95 and excellent detail, clean, great tires, etc. A lot of quality that AMT/MPC do not have and if this example was a benchmark of the price most Revell USA kits would be less than $20.

Hats off still overall to Revell for being a decent kit consistently. Revell of Germany from what I have seen so far has been equal or surpassed Tamiya or Fujimi.  I picked up the Moebius Ventura and Catalina and I  have to say they have nailed the detail and I hope they put out new stuff regularly as there is great promise there.

I know some purists will always hold on to some romantic reverence for their first builds 60 years ago with lots of sanding and putty and tell me "That is just part of modeling". But I doubt those purists would be happy when they pay for the model and the cashier runs their card through the old mechanical card imprinter on carbon paper while they wait 20 minutes for the cashier to phone in for approval from their credit card company. "Just part of Cashiering"?

Well, stuff improves I say and someone at MPC needs to figure out how to cut a new mold because a 67 GTO does not have wheel skirts.

• Hobby Dude

Make A Real Wood Bed With Aluminum Rails For A Model Truck

There are some nice scale pickups out there but one place they all fall short is the pickup bed. I admit I have seen some amazing models done where the modeler did a 1st class job on painting the bed but I have not seen the decal in the bed convincing as the rest of the truck.

I thought about the time to really make a convincing look with decal or paint or a combination of the two and decided a while back just making one from wood be look a lot better and take about as much time. Wood is easy to work with and even if you make the top of the bed look good there is still the underside that needs to be painted up to look like the underside of a wood pickup bed. There is usually grain molded in on both sides but I grew up with that ugly wood paneling in the seventies and really despise fake wood not mention using plastic to replicate wood seems really bassackwards to me.

I have used basswood on my first attempts and bare metal foil for the rails, it looks ok, an improvement on the plastic. The one I did for the red Ford Pickup in my top image was weathered so it came out really good as weathering always adds that realism fast. This time I wanted to try something different.

Here are the materials I used:

1. Popsicle sticks, tongue depressors, thin craft sticks, they have many names but they are roughly 2mm thick and very cheap, basswood would work as well.
2. 1/16 aluminum tube, not rod - but the tube.
3. Size 8 13mm sequin pins
4. Wood or White Glue
5. Smooth jaw pliers or a vise with a smooth jaw or something like sheet metal you can line the jaw with.
6. Emery cloth or sandpaper and other basic hobby tools like a ruler and knife cutters.

I started by measuring bed area of kit and determining how many bed planks I wanted then went about cutting strips of wood with a razor knife so the sum of them would match up with bed area. I glued them together side by side using masking tape to clamp them down to my bench. Later I sanded the wood to a nice finish and clear coated with acrylic clear. I chose for this one to leave the wood natural but it would be very easy to add color or stain to it. I had selected pieces of wood so I ended up with some cool grain patterns and I positioned the darkest two on each side of the centerboard. This is one bonus to using the popsicle sticks over basswood as the basswood is mostly bleached and has very little grain pattern.  I am sorry I did not get a pic of this part but I think it's all pretty basic stuff, just gluing sticks together.

I took the aluminum tubing and essentially smashed it making a flat rail. The reason for "smooth " pliers or vise is you want to have the least amount of dimples or teeth marks in the tubing when you flatten it. Ideas started propping up in my head of how I could make a model metal roller or press and do this properly. The next step is cleaning up the aluminum where there are any teeth marks.  It easily polishes up.

I plotted out holes and drilled and cut my rails, really wish I had a mini drill press here, especially if I could make the holes have a countersink for the pinheads. After gluing I snipped the remainder of the pins sticking through the bottom. They could be pre-cut to length but they get really hard to handle and see for me when they get that small.

When using the 1/16" tubing the result is a 2mm wide strip. I glued each rail down over the joint where each plank meets up making sure to get glue into the pinhole I drilled in the board.

I cut out the bottom of the original bed in the kit and now it real wood top and bottom. It is fun to do real metal fabrication on a model at least in the scaled sense, it won't get me on the Velocity Channel with my own show but makes my pickups look better.

I will post this finished truck soon.

• Hobby Dude

Santa Drives a Brown Truck

Gift cards can be a bit generic and ordinary but a gift certificate to a major hobby distributor is perfect for a guy like me with all my coupon codes and deal hunting. The added benefit is Christmas keeps on giving!

Today Mr. Brown Shorts brought me:

1. Revell of Germany 65' Mustang - Love the wheels
2. Revell of Germany Mclaren 570S - Incredible detail and my foray into a supercar model
3. Revell Foose 68' Firebird - Of all the GM line I have always liked the Pontiacs most.
4. Moebius Models 61'  Pontiac Catalina - I have the Ventura from them and Moebius, from what I have seen are excellent detail and again I love the Pontiacs especially that bubble back window.
5. Revell 66' Shelby GT - Anything Carol Shelby is ok with me.

I will post as I build these.

• Hobby Dude

So Much Time Passes...

I realize how long it has been since I last posted but when I find the time that is void of back pain or numb hands I gravitate towards the paint and glue rather than the keyboard.

So a few updates:

Christmas was good to me and I hope for all of you as well. All my family was home and it was a holiday that returned us to the gift of time with each other rather than a mountain of wrapped boxes. Even with that said mine was still bountiful and model themed!

Tools and more employees to add to my garage. I mentioned in my last post I had my eye on a Tamiya "College Friends" kit with figures and a Vespa, well I returned to the store to look at it and I passed. It wasn't as detailed as I had come to expect with Tamiya. So now I have a number of mechanics for my garage with the addition of this Tamiya Rally crew kit. The detail is good but it is listed as 1/24, the same scale as my Testors kit but the Tamiya guys have amazingly small heads in comparison. It comes with very nice detail hand tools, Laptops with cases, and few other things great for a diorama The Fujimi Tool Kit is excellent. I have already built up a few of the tools and very pleased with quality and detail. My only complaint with Fujimi is Where the heck are the decals? For at least the A/C unit and engine analyzer. Luckily the Tamiya kit came with decals for the laptops and I have already scanned them to aid in detailing the Fujimi kit.

I opted to cut some basswood and convert the tire rack into some shelves since I already have a tire rack. Built up a few of the other items to populate the garage. The poster seen there is not in the kit, I had printed out some vintage scale posters and wanted to try my hand and making some for the garage. I used basswood as a base, washed it brown(stain) and used acrylic clear (60% gloss+40% flat) to adhere the printed image to the wood panel. Worked out well I plan to make more.

The jack stands are adjustable, I tossed the little plastic pins and made some from a hard wire. There are shelves inside the bench cabinet and the door opens and closes!

So progress is good and soon  I will have a lot more to update as far as my garage project, new Christmas models coming!

I hope everyone's start of Modeling in 2018 I starting as fun as mine!

-Hobby Dude]]