'65 Pontiac Grand Prix

[Spiny]

With the weather being so good this weekend, and the Micra paint drying I figured it was worth making a start on another car I've, well not owned as such but which shares a name with one I've owned. So step forward AMT's 1965 Pontiac Grand Prix. The pic below shows what's in the box (sort of), although there are two chrome sprues in that chrome bag. Lots of extras in there too, the vast majority of which I probably won't use.

 

 

Definitely one of those kits where the box art is doing its best to put you off buying it - I get that the front picture represents the original box art but wish that when you see these on sale they would included the one picture of a stock car which exists on the box. I haven't unwrapped the glass, chrome or wheels for the shot above as it's going to be a long time before I get around to building it. But I do want to get it sprayed this summer, and maybe one after this, so might as well make the most of the good weather.

 

In terms of first impressions, they're not that great I'm afraid. A couple of pieces have come loose from the sprue, and some parts (especially the interior tub) have a fair bit of flash going on. And then I thought about it for a minute and it occurred to me that the tooling for this kit is older than I am, so I think it's fair to see it's not aged too badly.

 

Naturally, first job (after washing it) is to tidy up the mould lines. Fortunatelt not too much flash on this kit, but some of the mould lines were a bit awkward to get to. It also hasn't got a panel line between the bonnet/hood and windscreen for the sides of the scuttle panel which should be there on the real car. I cut lines in with a #11 scalpel to try to get a straight line, then widened and deepened with the scriber. It was only after I thought about using masking tape to get a straighter edge  but this will do I think. Certainly better than nothing. The bracing bars between the front wings weren't too bad to remove though, and this is what it was like before I sprayed the first coat.

 

 

I thought I had picked up the imperfections, but as usual an application of primer highlights the bits I'd missed. As I was using the grey Halfords primer though, I could use the first layer as a guide coat to when I sanded back those remaining issues.

 

 

 

After that I gave it a proper priming. Looking much tidier now. Have to say though that this thing is huge - even though it's 1/25 and thoretically a smaller scale than most of the models I've done it still swarfs everything else, even the Jag XJ220.

 

 

It's likely to be into next year before I finish this, but thanks to all who've looked at the start of this one.

 

 

[Fnick]

Good start. Will be interesting to see your colour choices for this one. I'm not a big fan of moulded on windscreen wipers but these look quite sharp.

 

Nick

[Spiny]

Like you I prefer to have separated wipers, but I'm not so bothered that I'll cut them off. As for them looking quite sharp, it always catches me out how a body which looks so vague in bare plastic can suddenly look so well definted when the primer is added, and this car is very much a case in point.

 

In terms of the colour scheme, I mentioned that this was a car which shares its name with a former car of mine. The trouble is, my version was one of the less good years (150bhp, even though it had the most powerful of the V8 options ) but it did the job I guess. So this is the inspiration:

 

 

I'm looking at the same dark blue (TS-53) I used on the XJ-S, which means I'm going to have to be on my A-game with the foiling to avoid it looking rubbish. In my mind this is going to be a striking combination with all the chrome, only time will tell if that's right.

[Six97s]

I had a Saturday job as a teen and my "employer" had one of those.  Silver with a red crushed velvet interior...  I preferred the Chevy Suburban,

 

I suspect you'll finish this before mine, as @Pete in Lincs did 🙄

[Neddy]

You're dead right @Spiny, the combination of TS-53 and chrome trimming really rocks, as you saw on the Mustang I built last year.  This is going to look really good when completed.

[Pete in Lincs]

Please give me a nudge when you get around to it. You're right, it was a big car. Probably drove like a boat! I still like how mine turned out though.

The Barris design made a right mess of the original. I do love all the extras which came with these kits. All nourishment for the spares boxes!

[Spiny]

3 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

The Barris design made a right mess of the original.

 

Not really a surprise there. I'll try to remember to add the reminder when I get around to building it properly.

[Spiny]

Not exactly a massive update in terms of work done, but a big step forward in terms of how the car looks. Yes, this weekend I got the colour coat on. But first, a step back a couple of weeks and I decided to try something different for the lettering. So on with the BMF straight over the primer.

 

 

Now the first thing to note is that I had a bit of a bout of idiocy here and applied the foil before I sanded the primer, not sure why but I just didn't think of it until after I'd put the foil on. Then this weekend it was time to apply the colour, Tamiya's TS-53 dark metallic blue as I said before. I actually bought an extra can of this stuff expecting the huge Pontiac to need a huge amount of paint, but in the end one can was enough. So I need to find another build to use the second can on...

 

 

The photo doesn't show the paint particularly well, but it should look better when I have the clear coat on anyway so I'm not going to lose sleep over it. In hindsight I maybe should have cut the foil as tight to the edge of the badging as I could since the finish texture (although not the colour) is different where the paint is sprayed over foil than it is over primer. Hopefully a coating of clear will sort that out.

 

And for those of you wondering why foil then colour coat... The theory is that when I polish it I will burn through the paint over the raised lettering (something I'm far too good at doing ) leaving behind the metal finish. We'll see in a few months how well that theory pans out.

 

Anyway, that's the progress on this one for now. Thanks for looking.

 

 

[Neddy]

Great choice of paint again, I absolutely LOVE that colour.  Really innovative idea with the BMF, I'm intrigued to see if it works out.  If it does, can I nick it before you patent it?  😉

[keefr22]

11 hours ago, Spiny said:

The theory is that when I polish it I will burn through the paint over the raised lettering

 

Might it not be better to do that before clear? I'd think it might take a fair bit more aggressive polishing (or micromesh sanding?) afterwards with correspondingly more chance of pulling the foil off? (although with my experience of BMF you're lucky to get it to stick at all...!!) I've seen modellers on youtube clear over BMF and it doesn't appear to affect the shine too much, especially on small areas.

 

Nice color (getting in the spirit of the build there..!!  ) 

 

Keith

[Fnick]

Thought the same as Keith re sanding before the clear. Also just thinking if it might be worth trying (on a scrap piece first of course!🙂) using a sharpened cocktail stick dipped in lacquer thinner to gently remove the pain over the raised area. 🤔. I've not tried this myself so no idea if it would work in practice...

 

Nick

[Spiny]

I should say that the idea of polishing through the paint to reveal the BMF underneath is an idea I saw somewhere else (forget where) so I can't claim credit for it. I don't remember the polishing through the paint being done after the clear, but it is a very good idea to try on some scrap plastic first to make sure. One thing I do know though is that if I can polish through the paint on a curves surface such as the sill of the Gullwing, the paint on some raised text has no chance 😄

[Spiny]

Following all your comments I decided last night to have a go at a proof of concept. So a little bit of sprue was cut off, then a particularly wrinkled bit of BMF applied (hence the roughness) before some blue acrylic paint was slathered over the top - we're not going for high quality here... This evening I ran over it with the buffing stick and ended up with this result.

 

 

I will give it a clear coat next time I'm clearcoating, but the badges on the Pontiac won't be sanded back until I've cleared the car as I've just remembered it's metallic/mica finish so I shouldn't be sanding the colour coat on this one. But it will be good to see how it works for when I want to do the same on a car with solid paint.

[Neddy]

I'd say that's pretty conclusive proof!  Great idea, lovely to see it works in practice.

[CrazyCrank]

15 hours ago, Spiny said:

Following all your comments I decided last night to have a go at a proof of concept. So a little bit of sprue was cut off, then a particularly wrinkled bit of BMF applied (hence the roughness) before some blue acrylic paint was slathered over the top - we're not going for high quality here... This evening I ran over it with the buffing stick and ended up with this result.

 

 

I will give it a clear coat next time I'm clearcoating, but the badges on the Pontiac won't be sanded back until I've cleared the car as I've just remembered it's metallic/mica finish so I shouldn't be sanding the colour coat on this one. But it will be good to see how it works for when I want to do the same on a car with solid paint.

 

EXCELLENT trick 👍

[Toftdale]

21 hours ago, Spiny said:

This evening I ran over it with the buffing stick and ended up with this result.

Great result,  could another option to remove the paint be be using a cocktail stick moistened with an appropriate thinner?  - Andy 

[Fnick]

On 23/05/2023 at 09:19, Fnick said:

using a sharpened cocktail stick dipped in lacquer thinner

Great minds eh Andy?😄

[Spiny]

11 hours ago, Neddy said:

I'd say that's pretty conclusive proof!  Great idea, lovely to see it works in practice.

 

You're not the only one pleased to see it work in practice. Once again though, I can't claim the credit for the idea as I saw it somewhere else. Just wish I could remember where to pass the credit along.

 

2 hours ago, Toftdale said:

Great result,  could another option to remove the paint be be using a cocktail stick moistened with an appropriate thinner?  - Andy 

 

I suspect that the way I've done it will probably give a sharper edge than the cocktail stick method, and hopefully less likely to damage the surrounding paint. But I also think there is definitely a place for it, for example if the badging is in a place which is hard to sand. And, even more lilely, where the badging isn't completely smooth and has a low point in. If you look closely at the test piece of sprue, you can see that the base of the stalks of the '2's is slightly lower and is still showing showing blue - to my mind there is where a cocktail stick dipped in IPA or thinner would come in very handy for getting rid of most of that paint, a bit like when I use the same method to clear up paint which has crept under the masking tape.

 

[Spiny]

Had another thought for where the cocktail stick/IPA may come in handy - if you were to put the BMF on first, then prime, you could sand off the primer to expose the BMF on top, then use the stick to round off the primer from the sides of the top of the lettering so that when you polish back through the clear you're not risking leaving a thin rim of primer around the lettering. Well, that's the theory anyway... 😄 Bit late to try it on this one though.

[Toftdale]

22 hours ago, Spiny said:

Had another thought for where the cocktail stick/IPA may come in handy - if you were to put the BMF on first, then prime, you could sand off the primer to expose the BMF on top, then use the stick to round off the primer from the sides of the top of the lettering so that when you polish back through the clear you're not risking leaving a thin rim of primer around the lettering. Well, that's the theory anyway... 😄 Bit late to try it on this one though.

Great idea, but you'd be a braver man than me to try it.   My hand starts to shake just thinking about it 😅 ‐ Andy 

[Spiny]

Not sure clear coating this weekend was a good move. I generally try not to spray when the temperature exceeds 25 degrees... and as I started in the morning it wasn't. But the temperature in the garage rose quite quickly, and by the time I'd got the mist coats and final wet coat on it was up to 28 degrees and it's showing a bit of orange peel. I'm seriously thinking of giving it another coat if it's a more normal temperature at the weekend.

 

But one positive of the sun is that it's been great for bringing out the metal flake in the paint. I knew from the XJ-S that this colour looks fantastic, but that the metal flake needs the right light source to bring it out. And the sun brought it out in spades...

 

 

So that's where I am at the moment, sort of liking how it came out of painting, but also seriously looking at giving it a last coat somewhere down the line. Thanks for looking.

[keefr22]

Looks good to me already! Colour does look great in the sun!

 

Keith

[Neddy]

I DO like that colour and the finsh looks fine to me.  I'm not that experienced as a paintist to comment on the wisdom of another coat but I reckon that looks really good.

[Six97s]

Nice colour.  I really need to finish mine... haven't touched it in two years.  😐

[Spiny]

22 hours ago, Neddy said:

I DO like that colour and the finsh looks fine to me.  I'm not that experienced as a paintist to comment on the wisdom of another coat but I reckon that looks really good.

 

The trouble is that I only got two wet coats on by dinnertime (or lunchtime I guess I should call it now I live down south) and it was already getting so hot that I wasn't getting much of a smooth surface. That applied on both Saturday and Sunday so couldn't really have another go at it. The worry there is that there probably isn't a lot of clear to polish through before I start hitting colour coat - think if it's a tad cooler this weekend I might have to give it at least a third coat.

 

1 hour ago, Six97s said:

Nice colour.  I really need to finish mine... haven't touched it in two years.  😐

 

Yes, it would be good to see that.