Car Guys, I Need Advice!

Hi !

I do know many frown on not painting a car model .If it is molded in the right color I will sometimes skip that step and go right to polish .It is rare that I do that , but it happens sometimes . Tanker-Builder  MODEL ON ! !

Hells teeth thats a pricy etch set, Gene!

That's awesome.  Thanks.

Consider this:

store.scalemotorsport.com/.../merchant.mvc

I too have that kit, and got the above-listed PE set to go with it.  I haven't put it together yet, I want to actually finish some other projects first, but it is on the list.  I remember seeing it at a friend's house when his older brother put it together back when that kit was original issue.  It's an awesome kit, and builds out to a very nice car.  Good luck!!

Gene Beaird,

Pearland, Texas

I built both the Jackie Stewart Tyrell and Graham Hill's Lotus 47B. Yes they are daunting but they were molded in the correct colour and I cheated by completely washing all components and polishing the bodies (and not attempting to paint them as then there was only basic spray cans to use) before I started any assembly, that was as you say around 20 years ago. The builds were relatively easy although there was a lot of wires and pipework to route and fit onto plastic pins. Other than that the builds were straight forward. I had already built a number of racing and rally cars of all sorts so I knew the decals would be a challenge purely due to their size. We had no decal softener then so soaking the decals  a bit longer to ensure that they came off in one piece. Everything went very well and having decalled a lot on other smaller kits I ensured that the decals were totally dry bofore carefully adding two coats of gloss clear over two days, the second coat straight ontop of the first coat, no rubbing down, but ensuring that there was absolutely no chance of dust anywhere. I still do the same to some kits, if they come in ready coloured form I clean them and polish them before laying up the decals. My two sons recently bought the 1/24 re-release of the Tamiya Jagermeister Porsche 934, which is is resplendent orange true colour finish which has been washed and will have the decals laid up with no re-spraying of the body. Good luck and just take your time.

That looks awesome, talentless.  

although its perfectly practical to just go with the moulded colour, BUT, i reckon a good paint and clearcoat give a much better finish. If you use filler or spill a bit of glue etc on it you will have to paint it to cover it up anyway. try zero paints colour matched range, they do a few ferrari red shades and look like this when given a good polish.

DSC01402 by omgpainful, on Flickr

I am a car model builder and have never done an armor or plane model even with all the experience I have putting models together. I would certainly practice on a few before I decide to build them, it's what you should do with this....

Right.  I think I have an old GT40 model laying around somewhere.  I'll do that first.

i'm kinda in the same boat. coming back to the hobby, but i have this one model that means alot and i want it to be perfect. so i bought a few other airplane kits to practice on first. get my flow..so to speak. my vote is practice on something else. besides what could you live with more...taking all the time you need to get it like you want? or..looking at the completed model and saying to your self " if only i did that instead, or painted this like that.."  The goal is to enjoy your time building it, which i hope you do :)

Yeah, I think you're right.  The assembly part is not what worries me so much as the painting.  Like I said, I don't normally do cars and philo's post about not painting it if it comes in red hit me as a, "Huh?"  I thought everything always had to be painted (it is molded in red, btw).  Shows how much I know about car models.  I'll try something else first.  Thanks.

Well since it is large scale you have more room so if you are a good modeler you should be fine.The only potential tricky part is if it is necessary to paint the Ferrari red if it is not molded in color.Ferraris are known for their great paint jobs so special care should be taken.

Considering the source of the kit,practice on something else first.The Ferrari has obvious meaning for you.