danthecapriman

No, if it’s wet it still looks opaque. I don’t suppose there’s anything left to lose by polishing it!?

I keep getting the ‘Bad Gateway’ error thingy again while trying to get on certain threads. Seems to be running slow in general though.

Fella’s and fellet’s, any of you come across anything like this before on models or toys? I recently bagged some of the 1:43 Jaguar partwork cars in a little bundle, but the one I was mostly after was this mk10. Problem is, the windows shouldn’t look like that! I did buy it knowing the problem but I’d like to put it right. Taking the body off (and there’s evidence someone’s been in here before me!) shows the rear window has some sort of tinting paint on it. The others almost look like they’ve faded in the sun and gone opaque. I gave the car a quick wash when I got it as it was pretty grubby, but it did nothing to the window colour. Anyone got any suggestions or ideas how to make these clear or clear-ish again? I did think about some of that polish for plastic headlights? Or maybe trying some kitchen cream cleaner with the little gritty bits in? Im not really sure what’s going on with it tbh! The back window definitely has some paint on but the others??? Ive got a mint boxed one too and that one is crystal clear.

Had some more arrivals today. These two were in one from Europe with some others. ovloV 343. I’ve actually got two of these now (yes, ones for painting!) and a Triple9 version in yellow. Nice looking models. And this tiny chap! Morris Mini. Apparently from the same collection as the Volvo but not one I’ve ever seen before. It’s clearly an older model than some of my others, details are a bit coarse or less of them! The paints quite thick on it too, but I like it! Certainly looks good to my non Mini expert eyes!

Exactly like that! It’s such a shame that so many of the 2 door basic models have ended up turned into yet another Mexico/RS or rally car. That blue one is exactly what an Escort mk1 should look like. Basic cheap transport, and exactly how the vast majority of them were. A Mexico or whatever top end model barely gets my attention anymore tbh, but seeing one like that is definitely a real head turner.

Decided to get the next projects lined up ready to follow the two trucks I’ve been building. Go for something a bit simpler this time! First, Bond partwork Dodge RAM pickup. Nice looking 1988ish long bed version of the first generation RAM pickups. Stripped. Still a couple of stubborn bits of old paint clinging on that I’ll scrape off later. Nice casting, although the back of the cab is actually a separate plastic part that slides in from underneath. No idea why they did it like that but whatever! Just means I’ll need to mask the window in that off and paint it as a separate part. Plan for the Dodge is a simple paint job. Grill needs the chrome surround adding in place of the black it’s got at the moment, and the centre bars doing in a duller silver. I’ll also be deleting the light bar/roll bar in the rear bed (which might fit another truck Im doing!). Joining the Dodge in the stripping booth is this Vanguard’s Escort mk1. Picked up as a damaged and unboxed one. Other than some missing bits and worn scratched paint it’s not too bad. Stripped. Paint came off almost instantly on this one! It’s actually a really nice casting under the thick factory paint. As it was some of the details were difficult to see as the paint filled them up. Not decided with this one yet, but it will definitely not be yet another RS/Mexico/Rally version! Im thinking standard low spec car in a cheapskate paint colour! You know, like most of them were in the day!

Got the lights painted on the F150 yesterday. Im pretty happy with this one! Came out better than I expected. Tail lights were dead easy but the front fender side markers were a bit more tricky. They’re tiny!

Fabulous work @FakeConcern 👍 Definitely looks the part comparing it with your phot of the real one! Im not sure how best to fix the doors on these. I keep having a similar problem with the Range Rover Dinky did with the tailgate. Maybe you could fill the hinge holes in with some strong filler then drill them out again to the exact size as the doors hinge pin? Thats assuming of course it’s the same sort of thing on these Mini’s as the Dinky Transit side door hinge!?

They are a really nice casting. The shape really lends itself well to custom paint jobs. Seems strange to me they only did a couple of police colours and that one civvy colour. Doing one as a hot rod or low rider would look great too. Pearl paint maybe, or some modern metallic/mica paint? Different wheels perhaps… Side exit exhausts, chain steering wheel and lifted rear suspension! Do it!!😄

Todays project’s. First order of business was to check the Dinky Pontiac chassis and see if the putty had gone off and fixed the suspension/axle issue. Which it had! So reassembled that one. Ford Onyx green paint, Humbrol dark green for the interior. Bright trims picked out in bright silver. Unfortunately it’s another one that’d benefit hugely from a new glazing unit, but nobody makes them for this model. I might yet remove the chassis and polish up the front and rear bumpers and grill, then do the headlights and taillights. After that one I did some hand finishing on the partwork Ford F150 service truck. If you don’t remember, this one started life as an army green Argentinian airforce ambulance with a big box body on the back. It’s been stripped right down, cab sprayed white, tan interior with details in silver and black. The service body on the back was fully scratch built from plastic card and various shape strip. I also decided to swap the wheels. Originally it had some plain steel wheels but from photos lots of these had the chrome/stainless centre caps so I swapped the wheels with an F100 I’ve got in bits at the moment. Looks much nicer with those wheels. It’s not quite finished yet, still got a few spots to touch in, and the tail lights & front fender marker lights need painting but it’s almost there. Just needs a trolley jack and assorted junk rolling around in the back now!

They look fantastic @MiniMinorMk3 Those little badges you’ve added look great, really cool little details.

Cheers!👍 I think it’s the bigger Transit. I forget which is which now tbh! I know it’s a later one, no sliding door, but before they really got cheap and did away with the jewel headlights. I do prefer to try and keep the old original parts if I can, like you say - it gets expensive quickly buying new! But sometimes the fit on the repro parts isn’t as good. Once that chip on the back is touched in it’ll look reet on a shelf anyway! Technically, the Volvo wouldn’t have had that colour. The Matchbox model is an early 200 ‘flat hood’ big bumper car but that colour didn’t come out until after the facelift. But, it looks fine to me. Sometimes with the metallic paints the metal fleck in the paint is too big for a miniature. This time it’s worked out I think. I was trying to get the Dinky Pontiac reassembled but ran into a problem with the chassis. It always had a squat to the back end, but it turns out the rear axle was almost broken in half causing the squat. Well, now it actually is in half after I started messing with it! So the back end basically sits on the floor now. Fixing it by squashing a big lump of chemical metal putty over the axle and into the surrounding chassis seems to have resolved it but it’s now lost most of its soft springy suspension. But at least it looks better now.

I had one of those cap guns with the revolver ‘clip’ of caps too. You could buy the cap ‘clips’ in boxes, they usually came on a red plastic ring from our local corner shop. That type of gun was a chromed effect magnum revolver if I remember right. It was a pretty heavy thing too. Great for pistol whipping other kids in the playground!😆 I don’t suppose toys like that are very politically correct these days!? Edit: I’m pretty sure I had some sort of similar rifle too. I was a proper little gun slinger when I was little!

Another one nearing the finish line. Matchbox Superkings Volvo 245. This one started out as the usual red version, it wasn’t actually too bad as it was but I’ve already got a really nice red original one so this one got the custom treatment. Bare metalled, sprayed into proper Volvo green blue paint (conveniently from my 1:1 740!). Interior left as it was as the colour combo looked ok. Chrome bits picked out in silver. Again, there’s a few marks on the original glazing but you can’t get replacements. The only thing wrong with this one before was the suspension had gone very loose and saggy. Inside there’s a plastic retainer over the axles which is riveted to the base plate. All that’d happened was the rivets heads were both loose where the plastic had worn away or shrunk so I’ve tightened it all up by using a blunt chisel to peen over the rivet heads further down against the plastic. Seems to have done the trick. Just waiting for some glue to dry then I’ll touch up the worn silver on the headlights and grill badge. I might paint the tow hook black too.

Haha, I had cap guns just like that! Not seen any for ages. I had a spud gun too which was great fun.

Got the Dinky Transit finished today. Finally! Just a reminder of how it started. It was pretty battered. Glazing missing, interior broken, side door hinge broken, tailgate broken. Axles bent etc etc. And now. It’s actually now made up of parts from at least 3 broken Dinky Transits! I should have really bought new glazing for it tbh, but one of the donor vans had this intact glazing so I just reused it. There’s a few scratches and a chip on it but it’s ok. It also seems the toys have similar problems to the real thing when it comes to using panels from different vehicles! Getting them to fit properly sometimes isn’t easy. The tailgate on this van came from another donor van and doesn’t fit perfectly. It was an absolute arse hole to get it to fit it all and unfortunately it resulted in a tiny chip to the paint on the rear roof gutter strip. Annoying but at least it’s easily touched up later. Likewise, the rear window. It was salvaged from another van and ideally I should have replaced it for a new one as it’s cracked in the corner. (Can you even get the tailgate window new?). Overall though I’m happy with that. It was more of a test for me to paint these models/toys than anything as I’d not done it for a while so to come out like that is a good result. The masking up for the red stripe was the real test! There’s a couple of touch ups to do on the gutter and some silver missing in the headlight bowls and I might do the number plates too.

That looks a million times better! Never thought of using rivet heads for hubcaps either. They sort of look like old Corgi or Dinky wheels.

Yeah, I’ve used a clear coat over the top on them. Definitely brings them up shiny. These have been painted for a few months now and there’s no sign of any blistering or peeling so I’m calling those paints good for metal! The mica paints are great. I looked it up, but mica is apparently a mineral ground up into tiny dust then added to the paint. It behaves similar to metallic when the light hits it and you get sparkles and colour reflections, but being finer than metallic it does it much more.

That’s a great looking car @SEATMad I’ve not seen one in any condition for years, but yours is absolutely mint! I used to work on one of these, a gold E reg one, years ago. Owned from new by a little old lady. That must have been about 2002/2003 the last time I saw it. It was quite rusty around the front end though and it used to absolutely piss oil out everywhere. It just kept on going though. In fact I can’t remember seeing one since then!

Just had a look at the can… yep! That’s it. I’ll have a look for the pearl blue. Are the Tamiya paints meant for plastic? Some have a different item number code to others, which I think means they’re for plastic kit body’s or RC plastic shells. I’ve had no problems with them on metal though, as long as the primer is good it seems to go on fine.

Cheers! That green isn’t even an automotive colour, it’s just a tiny Tamiya rattle can! I just bought a selection of them for doing these cars and it actually turned out to be a really nice colour. Suits the 504 perfectly I think. It does remind me of a car colour but I can’t think what. It’s a bit like Ford crystal green but not quite.

😂 gotcha! Thanks.👍

Today I have been finally doing some detail painting on various things I’ve repainted then set aside as I couldn’t find or get to any of my tins/jars of model paints, brushes etc. Did some sorting out recently and found my modelling box with my paints inside so no excuse now! Selection of the first batch. Dinky Pontiac has been getting its silver trims added. I was using a jar of Railmatch silver paint but it is incredibly thin and was barely covering at all. I had to go over it several times to get it to really show up. So I gave up with that new fangled shizzle and dug out a tin of Humbrol silver. This tin came from my grandads model making shed and it’s probably almost as old as I am! But, after a good stir, it’s absolutely spot on. Dinky Transit. Bond partwork Cortina mk4. Bond partwork Peugeot 504. Im well happy with the colour on this one. Really suits it I think, and so much nicer than the black it came in. Dinky D series cement mixer cab. Loads done on this one! Black around all the windows to resemble the glass rubbers, dark grey for the grill - these were plastic on the real ones so I thought the grey would look better than black. Lined the grill with silver, as it should be and finally did the bumper silver too. Some of the ARC trucks seem to be silver or black bumpers.

I have absolutely no idea what any of that stuff is or what it means… but I like their use of colour in it!?!🤣 Things seem to have improved now though!👍

Everything’s very slow to load for me too. Some threads (shite in miniature & eBay thread) I’m getting the bad gateway screen again sometimes. Also intermittently get this error when trying to upload pics.