Migrant's Flying Ford, (finally) Finished.

[Sissel]

This looks so good! And I see the buffing was very effective.
Impressive job with the pinstripes. Even holding your breath and closing one eye, that is hard to do so straight. Well done!

[BlohmWolf]

Holy-


That's made of pure awesomeness.

[general rocket]

looking good

[JohnRatzenberger]

Wow !! Looks quite the part !!

I may have missed it, but how did you finish the chrome wheels ?

[Migrant]

Thanks John. The hubs were primed with gloss black and sprayed with Alclad Polished Aluminum; the spoked parts of the wheels were straightforward Tamiya silver enamel.

[Ian]

Nice, Mike. very nice.
You know, I could almost picture this on a training wings' airfield. The CO's car!

[Migrant]

Cheers Ian

I'm calling this finished, although as soon as I took the photos I found the tail-lights still on my bench. They'll go on later.

This is only the second car I've built in the last four decades (the other also for a UAMF Group Build last year). Here's what I've learnt:

a. Achieving a high gloss finish isn't easy, but it's no longer quite as intimidating as it was. The use of Tamiya lacquers, decanted from aerosols, and the use of their Polishing Compounds made things a lot more manageable.

b. Gloss paints take much longer to harden than matt paints. Even though I used lacquers that are touch-dry in minutes, frequent handling resulted in a few blemishes here and there. Because I was applying decals I sealed them with Pledge which also takes hours to fully harden. There's a beautifully embossed linen pattern on one of the side panels from where I picked the model up using an old handkerchief

c. Chromed parts – at least those found in AMT kits – are evil. I spent a small fortune on 3 types of bleach and a can of brake fluid trying to find a solvent that would remove the plating. The thickest bleach worked the best, but even so after a couple of days had only removed about 1/3 of it. In the end I resorted to scraping, sanding and polishing. I've watched YouTube videos where thick bleach completely removed plating from Tamiya parts in minutes, so maybe it's the chroming method that AMT uses.

d. I've really enjoyed this and would like to build more cars, but better quality kits and perhaps in a smaller scale, 1/32 or even 1/43.

[general rocket]

Looks good

"I'm calling this finished, although as soon as I took the photos I found the tail-lights still on my bench. They'll go on later. "

We've all done that.

[Ian]

And all 4 wheels touch the ground! She's lovely, Mike. The MGs sticking out through the radiator grill is a nice touch!

[Sissel]

A masterpiece! I love the little guns as well.

[Molly-new]

Awesome work, and a great colour scheme.

[splash]

I fully agree with the others, to quote Chip C "It's awesome"

Regards Splash

[Migrant]

Thanks for the nice comments, glad you like it

[philp]

Agree with all, it is one sharp looking car.

[JamesPerrin]

Brill!