Marty1967

Enamels vs. acrylics is largely a matter of personal preference. I've had good luck and bad with bottled enamels AND 3-oz spray cans, but if, say, you're trying to get a paint color as close to historical accuracy as possible, you probably have no choice but to mix your own bottled paints and then airbrush them on. IME the trick is to know how much colorless enamel medium to siphon off the paint and replace with airbrush thinner. Replace too much, and your paint will go on thin and watery; too little, and you'll gum up your nozzle and spray little blobs of paint all over your model. It's a s

...would there be any other car modelers interested in buying them? I've built 3 Zvezda aircraft kits, and IMO the crispness of their detail rivals that of Tamiya kits (pretty much the opposite of 1:1 Soviet-era vehicles, LOL!). Knowing Zvezda, they'd make car kits with a LOT of engine detail. I'm drawn to vintage exotics---I built Heller's '38 Delahaye and 1/16 Citroen DS, a Tamiya Fiat 500, Fujimi Ferrari 246 Dino, etc---and would love a chance to build a few kits of Russian vehicles which are little known to most Western hobbyists. Cars like the GAZ-21 Volga, Zaporozhets ZAZ-965, and UAZ-

If you've got any 1/24 or 1/25 RHD dashboards that you don't want, I'll buy them from you if the price is right... DudeOfManyTalents at yahoo dot com

^^What the last 3 posters said.^^ Also, what works for Tweedledum may not work so well for Tweedledee... if you're more comfortable painting with acrylics than enamels, go with your preference... and feel free to fiddle with diluting or otherwise modifying your paints until you've doctored them up to a formula which works best for you. Me, I usually get my paints home, let them settle, then remove 1/4-1/3 of the clear base with an eye dropper and replace it with airbrush thinner. This might not work for builders who are used to airbrushing with thicker paints.

Doesn't it seem like every time AMT reissues its 'Vair kit, they've included a few more optional parts? I don't remember the stock tires with "flipper" hubcaps being included with the "Prestige" reissue, and the late 1970s reissue kit had neither stock wheels nor stock rear hood. Maybe next reissue, they'll include an optional dash-mount T-stick automatic gearshift like my old '65 had. I'm still kicking myself for selling that car 20 years ago...

Kevlar cloth is available from www.aircraftspruce.com... with help from a little polymer chemistry over the years, I taught myself a lot about different plastics, mold-making materials, and their compatibilities. The doll's head is from a Fairy Enchantress Barbie (it has a closed mouth, not the typical shark-like grin) and the poseable limbs are from a Colorado University cheerleader Barbie from about 10 years ago---these were some of the few that had flat feet and could be made to stand on their own. FWIW, Mattel makes its Barbies in 6 or 7 different standard human-looking colors. Didn't

Years ago, before I even knew what "anodized" was, I achieved something very like an anodized effect on a Northrop Gamma by airbrushing it with a mixture of silver enamel and flat base. For red or blue, a little Testors #1104 Dark Red or #1111 Dark Blue could be added to the two. You might need to monkey around with letting the flat base and metallic pigment settle, then decanting off some of the clear vehicle and replacing it with airbrush thinner if you want to airbrush it at a consistency you're comfortable with. Hope this helps.

Honestly it never entered my head to search for "liquid frisket", but it sounds like a good product... I'm going to have to send off for a bottle of it. BTW if paint-caked brushes are a problem for you, just soak them in xylene, aka xylol. It works great for softening dried acrylic paints. Unfortunately I can't get it here in CA anymore because of the new state VOC regs for this year, though I still have my nearly full gallon can... a good alternative is still sold as a graffiti remover under the name "Goof Off" at Home Depot, it's just xylene mixed with acetone.

Ok, this is a strange one... but you know Revell's Visible Woman kit (ex-Renwal) that has been issued so often that the dies have worn so much that a new kit won't go together exactly right? Well, I wanted something a little more visually appealing, so I ended up taking apart 2 old Barbie dolls to provide the head and poseable limbs for a 1/6-scale "visible fashion doll". I learned a lot about working with styrene resin, fiberglass and Kevlar cloth, and PETG in the course of working on this doll so far. First, I built her torso out of the resin, with Kevlar in the neck and 2-oz fiberglass cl

Is there a gel-type product that I can dilute with water, alcohol, or something that won't attack plastic, that I can brush on, let dry, airbrush, then peel off? It should have the consistency of hot-melt craft glue when it's dry, and it should go on thick and not tear apart when it's peeled or rinsed off. I've given up on tape and frisket films because of too many problems with them. But when I googled "masking gel", all I got were those facial mask things they pitch to women. Can you guys drop some good product names on me?

CVS pharmacies also carry 91%. How about denatured alcohol (ethanol) from the hardware store? Will that work?