1970 Buick GSX Pimp Mobile – Part 3

I’m getting a little fed up with this build. I bought this kit as a donor for my 1982 Corvette, but decided to have some fun putting it together anyway. If you’ve read the previous posts, you’ll know I’m turning this into a bit of a pimp car.

I wanted to carpet the interior, but was aiming for that over-the-top shag look that pimps seem to love. I looked EVERYWHERE for purple shag flock, and it was either WAY too expensive, or impossible to find. Eventually – and I hate to tell you this – I bought a product designed for women to stick to their fingernails, from a website called Born Pretty. But it was cheap, and delivery was free.

Buick interior

I think the interior came out quite well, but this product is a bit of a nightmare to work with. I started by sifting like you would with normal flock, and that worked ok, but the stuff clumps together unless you sprinkle it all over the piece, right from the jar.

 

Airbrush Setup

Wanting to improve the quality of my builds, I finally bit the bullet and forked out for a complete airbrush setup. I read the excellent guide written by my mate John from The Painting Bunker, then we hooked up and spent a few hours driving around Brisbane together picking up all the bits and pieces.

John’s advice was to spend MORE on the compressor and LESS on the actual brush. That sounded a little counter-intuitive to me, but he made sense. According to John, and he – literally – is the expert, you should expect to trash your first airbrush due to a variety of reasons. So spending $100+ on a brush isn’t too smart. Instead, I bought a $60 job from Supercheap Auto.

There are effectively two functions of an airbrush that you need to make a decision about. One is how the paint feeds into the brush. There are Gravity Fed and Syphon Fed brushes, and they’re pretty self explanatory. The Gravity Fed brushes have a little “tub” attached to the top of the brush and when you press the trigger, the paint drops into the brush and out the nozzle.

 

1970 Buick GSX Pimp Mobile – Part 2

Yo, check it out Playa. Iz got some pimpin’ stripes on my ride fo shizzle.

Thanks to a post I saw on the modelcarsmag forum a while ago, I’ve been trying my hand at pinstriping. My first effort was on my ’82 Corvette Snap-kit and was pretty simple. I tried a few designs but failed every time I had the tape crossing over itself. So this time I wanted to push myself. You only get better by doing something new, right?

I searched the web for pinstripe designs and using what I saw, I came up with my own design – one for the hood and one for the trunk. LOTS of cross-overs in these designs, so I was nervous during the whole experience. The problem with pinstriping is that you can’t check it as you go. Once you remove that tape, the process ends, so you have to leave it there until the piece is completely painted and ready for polishing or clear coats. It’s a scary time.

 

1970 Buick GSX Pimp Mobile – Part 1

Yo, what up G? Fo shizzle my nizzle, this here pimpin’ Buick ride is off da hook, yo!
LOL, sorry about that, but I’ve been getting a bit carried away with this build. Believe it or not, I bought this kit as a donor for my Corvette with gullwing doors. I planned to make pop-up headlights for the ‘bette, so I needed small diameter lenses, which the Buick has. The problem is, the headlights on the ‘vette failed, mainly because I lost two of the lenses. So at the end of this build, the lights on the Buick are gonna be a bit funky.

So when I was looking for my next (current) build, I saw the Buick and thought it might be fun. I had no idea just what an amazing car this was in it’s time, so despite having bought it as a donor, I’m kind of glad I ended up with it. But this is NOT going to be a standard build. Could you tell from the post title?

 

Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI – Part 2 (complete)

What an awesome kit this was. Thanks to being on holidays, and being continually motivated by the quality of this kit, I finished the whole thing in about 2 weeks. But it wasn’t without it’s frustrations. There were three main issues I had with this kit:

1. They give you a complex colour scheme for the undercarriage and then you’re supposed to cover it all up with panels;

2. The wheels steer, but once you add the mud flaps in the final stages, they fit so close to the wheels, that they end up only steering about 2mm; and

3. Some of the 1 million decals didn’t seem to fit properly.

 

Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI – Part 1

I have a bit of thing for Lancers. It could be because my Father used to work at the Mitsubishi plant in Adelaide, South Australia which allowed me to personally visit the production line and to get an amazing insight into the way Mitsubishi build cars and how they think. Maybe it’s because my Brother used to work on the line installing brakes. Maybe it’s because a friend of mine actually has an EVO VI. Who knows.

I tend to stay away from Japanese kit manufacturers, because here in Australia they START at about $60, but having built this kit, I fully intend to buy MORE kits by Tamiya, Fujimi and Aoshima since, along with the Lancer Evo X, I find the kits are exceptionally well put together and produce an outstanding finished product.

 

“General Lee” – Part 3 (complete)

I mentioned in Part 2 of this thread that this is the worst kit EVER. I’ve really wanted to post about other things, but I prefer to finalise one thing before moving on – otherwise my brain freaks out and I lose track of what I’m up to. The sad thing is, this kit (and the build) was SO frustrating, that even the thought of taking photos of the finished model turned me off writing. So sorry it’s been so long between posts, but you can blame AMT for that!

The turmoil I had with this kit is that I still like to do my best, but when you’re being blocked at every turn, it gets you down. I tried to be motivated to fight back, but it just broke me down, lol. So I wired the engine and I cut and rebuilt the role cage, and I redesigned the rear window, but I decided against wasting my effort polishing it or using BMF.

 

“General Lee” – Part 2

OMG, worst kit ever! I had SO much trouble with this kit, that just thinking about it depresses me. I’ve never been more happy to see the end of a build. But despite that, I didn’t just pay this off. I did the best that I could, which included making some MAJOR mods.

Here’s some examples of the issues that I faced:

The actual car body was NOT the same as the TV car (mentioned in Part 1);

The roll cage sat low (didn’t reach the roof), and didn’t reach the sides of the interior; and

There were pieces missing, as well as pieces that could be used (like the fuel tank that didn’t fit).

The rear window was the biggest mod, followed closely by fixing the roll cage. Here’s the way I fixed the rear window:

 

“General Lee”

About six months ago, I decided that rather than just building random cars, I needed a theme. So I came up with the idea of TV and Movie cars, hence some of the choices in my gallery. Recently, I’ve been building muscle cars (since I enjoy those old cars), but this time I thought I should get back to my main theme. One model I got my hands on recently – from my mate Jim – was the AMT General Lee from Dukes of Hazzard (the awesome TV series, not the crappy movie!)

I was looking forward to this kit, since it’s both a TV car AND a muscle car. But last night while I was looking for ref pics of the TV General Lee, I discovered that there’s a major problem. And one I’m kind of scared to address, but in the interest of making this car look like the one on TV, I have to step outside my comfort zone and do some significant work to the body.

 

1982 Corvette Snap-Tite kit – Part 5 (complete)

Finally, she’s done. My $10.00 Snap-Tite 1982 Corvette. I started out with some big hopes and dreams for this build, and most of them got all the way to completion. So here’s the details on the mods I had planned:

Gullwing Doors – Yes!

Wire mesh on the grilles – Yes!

Pinstriping – Yes!

Polished paint – Yes!

Lowered – No (but did use better wheels)

Pop-up Headlights – No