Pete in Lincs Posted April 22, 2022 Share Posted April 22, 2022 9 hours ago, TonyW said: but both cars are well on the way to completion now. And very nice they look too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keefr22 Posted April 22, 2022 Share Posted April 22, 2022 1 hour ago, Pete in Lincs said: And very nice they look too. What Pete said...!! I do like that pearl blue/red combination - very nice indeed! Keith 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Dean Posted April 22, 2022 Share Posted April 22, 2022 11 hours ago, TonyW said: All the Jag could see were my six tail lights... You bring the Corvette, I'll provide the XK-E..... Nice start, promises much. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Dean Posted April 22, 2022 Share Posted April 22, 2022 (edited) The blue with red interior looks the business Edited April 22, 2022 by Mike Dean 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnlambert Posted April 23, 2022 Share Posted April 23, 2022 The Corvettes are looking good, I love Tamiya's Pearl light blue. Apologies for the hijack but when you described the blue and red as an Italianate combination, it made me think of the Maserati I built with pearl light blue paint and dark red interior. Also 1:25 scale so I think I might need a 1963 Stingray to park next to it 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyW Posted April 23, 2022 Author Share Posted April 23, 2022 4 hours ago, johnlambert said: 4 hours ago, johnlambert said: Apologies for the hijack but when you described the blue and red as an Italianate combination, it made me think of the Maserati I built with pearl light blue paint and dark red interior. Also 1:25 scale so I think I might need a 1963 Stingray to park next to it Great minds think alike! I know I've seen the combination somewhere before. It might well have been your build if you posted it here. Somewhere in a dusty corner of my memory I think there's a Ferrari 400 in that combination as well. Possibly an article in Car Magazine back in the day? Whatever the origins, it's a classy looking pairing. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyW Posted April 23, 2022 Author Share Posted April 23, 2022 A couple of hours here and there over the course of the day saw the pretty little red corvette move forwards somewhat. A few tryouts of the different options available with the extra parts provided in the kit was enjoyable in a balance the parts without knocking them over kind of way. There was a fair bit of knocking over though... A plan of sorts started forming. The kit chassis is so basic it might as well be ignored for any kind of proper model. Everything is cast as one. Front and rear suspension included. I've cut off the front suspension and a beam axle with transverse spring and four bar will substitute. ARE D spoke mags are the wheels of choice, with super skinnies up front and something like 8x15s out back. Rear tires are protruding out the arches, as they should. A few old speed decals got added from old AMT and Auto World sheets and things started to come together. The car is heading to the Drag Strip rather than the Drive In, but that's not a bad thing really. The engine is leaning towards a big block Chevy with a tunnel ram and two carbs, although that might change yet. It's only the bits sticking out the hood that are important really. as I don't intend going crazy on engine detailing. Three options present themselves on the sticking out front, a pair of carbs on a tunnel ram manifold, a set of injector tubes or a supercharger and two carbs. Plenty of time to decide yet. Just before quitting time this afternoon I added a set of silver racing stripes to the bodyshell. Done on a whim, I'm happy with the look. More later. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Dean Posted April 23, 2022 Share Posted April 23, 2022 Yikes. That's brutal. I'm watching this one from behind the sofa. My XK-E has already thrown the towel in. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyW Posted April 23, 2022 Author Share Posted April 23, 2022 20 minutes ago, Mike Dean said: Yikes. That's brutal. I'm watching this one from behind the sofa. My XK-E has already thrown the towel in. Tougher than a tough thing, right up until the first corner. Let's not even talk about a bit of rain on the road! My money is still on the Stingray though, you have to get around it before you can beat it. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Dean Posted April 23, 2022 Share Posted April 23, 2022 13 minutes ago, TonyW said: Tougher than a tough thing, right up until the first corner. Let's not even talk about a bit of rain on the road! My money is still on the Stingray though... "Well, the last thing I remember, Doc I started to swerve And then I saw the Jag slide into the curve" It seems the Jag wasn't too hot at cornering either. My XK-E is prettier anyway.......... 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyW Posted April 24, 2022 Author Share Posted April 24, 2022 Stingray vs XKE. Both beautiful in their own way. I would love a pair in my garage. It's going to have to be a 1.25 garage to achieve that though. Sob. A very popular swap back in the day, was to put a Chevy small block and four speed into XKEs once the old Jag lump died. More power, lighter and cheaper. You even got synchro on first with that swap. What's not to like. As far as I know, nobody ever put a Jag motor in a Corvette. I rest my case. 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Six97s Posted April 24, 2022 Share Posted April 24, 2022 18 hours ago, TonyW said: A couple of hours here and there over the course of the day saw the pretty little red corvette move forwards somewhat. A few tryouts of the different options available with the extra parts provided in the kit was enjoyable in a balance the parts without knocking them over kind of way. There was a fair bit of knocking over though... A plan of sorts started forming. The kit chassis is so basic it might as well be ignored for any kind of proper model. Everything is cast as one. Front and rear suspension included. I've cut off the front suspension and a beam axle with transverse spring and four bar will substitute. ARE D spoke mags are the wheels of choice, with super skinnies up front and something like 8x15s out back. Rear tires are protruding out the arches, as they should. A few old speed decals got added from old AMT and Auto World sheets and things started to come together. The car is heading to the Drag Strip rather than the Drive In, but that's not a bad thing really. The engine is leaning towards a big block Chevy with a tunnel ram and two carbs, although that might change yet. It's only the bits sticking out the hood that are important really. as I don't intend going crazy on engine detailing. Three options present themselves on the sticking out front, a pair of carbs on a tunnel ram manifold, a set of injector tubes or a supercharger and two carbs. Plenty of time to decide yet. Just before quitting time this afternoon I added a set of silver racing stripes to the bodyshell. Done on a whim, I'm happy with the look. More later. I like where this is going. I have a similar one in the long queue of stalled projects, with a blown big block. Apologies for another hijack... 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyW Posted April 24, 2022 Author Share Posted April 24, 2022 Spot on! The lettering looks the business. That one needs dragging to the front of the queue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbadbadge Posted April 24, 2022 Share Posted April 24, 2022 They are looking rather nice Tony, really liking the stock one. Great work Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyW Posted April 26, 2022 Author Share Posted April 26, 2022 More got done on the stocker over the last couple of days. The dash is nearly done. Endless touching up of the touching ups are slowly getting the thing painted. I don't know why I'm bothering really as the rest of the tub is pretty indistinct all round. The seats are terrible. I cut them out of the modified car and tried to bash then into some kind of shape. I failed. A pair of period racing seats got added there, but that's for a later post. The stocker keeps its miss-shaped lumps. The steering wheel is the kit one, shaved down quite a bit. It needs a bit more fettling. Moving on to the rolling stock, I've made moulds and cast new wheels and tires for the car. They are copies of the Airfix Mako Shark wheels, complete with spinners, sat in tires of unknown origin. These are the Mk1 versions as I can do a bit better with the tires but these ones will do for now. Later versions will have different tread and a bit of backing plate detailing. These ones have blank reverse faces. The tires have had their raised script removed to simplify the sidewalls a bit. Painted with Tamiya Rubber Black with the narrowband whitewalls added with thinned white enamel, run around the groove using capillary action, a very satisfying process. Two coats were needed. The wheels were hand painted with Molotow ink that went on very well as long as a wet edge was kept and you didn't hang around while painting. Once the ink had dried completely I hit the recessed areas with diluted very dark grey enamel. I like the look. The spinners took a few goes. The failure rate was high as the smallest air bubble was enough to ruin the casting. More as it happens... 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyW Posted May 5, 2022 Author Share Posted May 5, 2022 I've been sorting out a few old photo CDs today and found a gem from April 2010. An open day at the place I used to live above, North American Motors, in Farnborough. Check out this 396 powered Corvette Stingray. Same wheels and tires as my current build. Here's the car from my flat above the garage. Not a bad view... The car came into the garage for recommissioning after years in storage, and a new set of wheels and tires. The old set were poorly fitting slot mags with modern profile tires. No No No No. The new tires were skinny as you like and went up in smoke at the merest hint of throttle. Just the job! I got the pleasure of a couple of trips out in the car before it went back to its owner. The Corvette was keeping a Shelby Mustang company at the time. Not a bad place to live. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyW Posted May 6, 2022 Author Share Posted May 6, 2022 Two steps forward, one great big step back today. The red car paint job didn't look right to me. The clear pearl I had put over the bright red gave a slightly grainy looking finish. The shine was there, but the pearl made it look a bit rough in some lights. I thought that maybe another clear coat might help, one without pearl in it. All I had was Humbrol gloss clear, so I brushed on a coat. I've brush painted car bodies before and a decent finish is possible with a whole lot of care. This time I failed badly and the finish was terrible. Lumpy and with visible brush marks and no hope of flatting and polishing clear enamel. Take a deep breath. Don't do anything silly. Leave the lump hammer in the tool box. Into the rubbing alcohol with it. Either that or bin it. There's no coming back from the self inflicted boo boo. By tomorrow it should be ready for another go. The blue car cheered me back up though. Front and rear screens got made out of thin clear plastic. Paper templates got the shape and in an effort to leave glues behind, I fixed the glazing in place with roofers flashing tape. Thin strips were added around the glass and once fitted inside the car they could be burnished down to hold the 'glass' pretty tightly to the screen frames. I'm still not completely satisfied with the glazing as it's only curved in one plane. It's close enough to get away with it on this car but a proper moulded screen is the only way to get a double curvature and I've not managed that yet. I'll get there eventually. Single curved it may be, but it's a whole lot better than the glazing Matchbox/AMT provide. Here's the new glazing in place... 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnlambert Posted May 6, 2022 Share Posted May 6, 2022 Wow, the blue Corvette looks absolutely stunning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyW Posted May 6, 2022 Author Share Posted May 6, 2022 17 minutes ago, johnlambert said: Wow, the blue Corvette looks absolutely stunning. Thanks John, it's coming together nicely at the moment. Next up is getting to grips with spraying Molotow ink, as my efforts to paint the stuff onto the cars bumpers are not that encouraging. I thought a broad brush and the small area of the bumpers might mean I could get away with brushing. I was wrong. Here's another couple of shots with a bit of glazing shine going on... 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete in Lincs Posted May 6, 2022 Share Posted May 6, 2022 That's me caught up, and lots of good there was too! Shame about the red car, I hope the early bath will teach it a lesson and will shape up before long. The blue car looks fabulous. Wheels, tyres and glazing all add up to give it zing! The maroon on that real one looks rather nice too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbadbadge Posted May 7, 2022 Share Posted May 7, 2022 The blue car, wow, what a beauty, great work. Chris 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyW Posted May 7, 2022 Author Share Posted May 7, 2022 The red car disaster has been sidestepped and I think it's come out better than before! The rubbing alcohol bath overnight got all the old finish off with a bit of help from a dishwashing pad and a couple of cocktail sticks. I dried it off in the sun for an hour, then gave it a couple of mist coats of Tamiya Gold, or metallic beige as it's sometimes called... Nice and bright! A colour explosion followed with about half a dozen thin coats of Tamiya Clear Orange over the gold., spread over a couple of hours. An hour in the sunshine got things dry enough for the impatient side of me to prop up some wheels and tires and a big block Chevy motor. Hubba Hubba! The colour certainly pops in the sunlight. It's a good finish for a curvy shape like the Corvette's, all those swoops and bulges catch the light in a very pleasing way. Here's the two Corvettes together. I'll be aiming at getting the rolling stock of both cars fitted to their chassis over the weekend. Endless propping up for pictures is all well and good, I would be a lot happier to have both cars sat properly on their wheels and tires though. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JOCKNEY Posted May 7, 2022 Share Posted May 7, 2022 Both look amazing Tony although I've now swapped sides to the orange one as my favourite, brave choice painting anything in that colour ! Cheers Pat 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malpaso Posted May 7, 2022 Share Posted May 7, 2022 Excellent colour, was thinking of gold + clear orange for a Lamborghini, now I’m convinced! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keefr22 Posted May 7, 2022 Share Posted May 7, 2022 That. Is. STUNNING...!!! gorgeous colour! Keith 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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