Back to the bench
Wow, very nicely done! I have always loved the Gulf livery and didn't know the Mclaren Can Am beasts ever ran that scheme. Mind if I asked what paint you used for the gulf colors?
Thank you all for the compliments.
Yes, this is an old kit. The instructions say from 1981. That must have been why I missed getting this kit back then as I would have been very busy with work and raising a family.
And, no, these cars never ran in this livery. Think of this as a private owner racing in the SVRA today. It is just a paint scheme that I thought up.
The paint that I used was mostly from MCW. Along with the MCW light gray primer to protect the plastic from the MCW "Gulf" racing colors some Testors Model Master alumium, gun metal and black were used.
Even though this was an old kit, I had absolutely no problems with the kit decals. However, new decals of the "Gulf" logo instantly turned to smitherines when attempting to slide them off of the backing paper. So, a clear coating was needed. The big "Gulf" on the wing and roundels were cut out of white decal sheet on my daughter's "Cricut" machine. Because the upper body is much wider than the chassis tub, the side roundels are actually ovals that wrap under the "overhang" in order to keep the "round" appearance when viewed from the side. The lack of opaquicy was the white roundels called for a second layer of decals. Although this was my first time at trying this method, I don't intend to do it again. Next time I will go back to my tried and true method of painting white and masking off the roundels!!!
*WARNING* (
Learn from my mistakes!)
One big problem that I encountered out of the box was a warped extreme front part of the tub ahead of the front suspension. Rather than try the trusted "hot water" remedy, I jumped to the triple-dog-dare hair dryer method. Bad decision!!! I held the part down in strategic locations with weights and gently tried to soften the plastic using as little heat as needed. Big mistake! I guess that being an older model along with the type of plastic that it is, the plastic not only sofened, but, tragically shrunk! I have never had that happen before. It was crazy, almost like I could have taken the hair dryer and shrunk the entire 1/20 model down to 1/24 scale! Oh well, it happened that I caught my misfortune just at the right time and I was able to cut that section off and replace it with some sheet plastic.