February model car contest?

A few days ago it looked like I was well ahead of this build....Nope While polishing out the clear I went too far (or not enough clear) and went into the primer on the roof. With this base coat it means sand all the clear off and re do the base. Well that does open up the possibility of shaving the letters on the bonnet, so I am. Not going to be done early though.

Here's what it takes to make this car sit like this. 

Here's the front suspension. I had to trim the molded in bumps that represent shocks to get the wheels, cut about a quarter of the springs and uprights, and make the spindles all the way up.

Here's the rear chassis trimmed so much that there's a hole now.

And here's the rear axle itself also trimmed down with now banana shaped lower control arms.

My intent was to pain the seats in the GT6 an appropriate shade of light muddy brown, as seen in the research photos I found online.

My only hobby shop that carries Tamiya paints and has banker's hours decided to close Saturday, the only day they are not open 8-5. 

Looks like the interior will be black. 

I've been busy. 

made fuel injection lines, and oil lines on the engine. Have many more lines to add.

current progress: engine in chassis. 

Here's the box photo: 

I love the coloring on your exhaust.

Repainted all the hacked areas,  detailed the firewall and radiator support, and got the engine more together. 

Good news and bad news with the Grand Sport. Good news: found what my eyeballs say is a close-enough shade of blue for the lower half of the body. Purists will scoff at the fact that it's allegedly Ford paint.

The bad news: the front suspension for the car turned into a bit of a hot mess. The instructions used all upper case CAREFULLY and TAKE YOUR TIME when dealing with the front sway bar, but it was not meant to be. The delicate thing somehow needed to be twisted and turned to fit into an opening not big enough for it, and it snapped in two while hamhandedly trying to make it work. Ah well, we'll just use heavier springs instead I suppose.

The other wrinkle with the front suspension was the instructions saying to install lower control arms first, then the uppers, and then deal with the uprights. Of course it's impossible for my feeble mind to predict what angle those upper control arms should be at to make sure there's enough room for spindles (but not too much room). So while the lowers were on and dry, I figured I'd have to tackle the uppers and the uprights all in one easy motion. It worked, but dealing with glue on three axes (axises?) and trying to hold them all together, while also keeping in mind that I needed to make sure the uprights weren't toed in or out so I could put the steering linkage on after the engine goes in, was messy. Again, if I realized I could have had all this assembled before paint, that probably would have saved some headaches. But it's done now, sans sway bar, and it'll all be hidden under fenders when all is said and done.

I need to pick up quality masking tape soon as I don't trust what I have to hold the line for when I shoot blue on the body this week. I also don't have gold paint in my stash for the wheels, so they might stay silver. The local Michael's has a pretty understocked model supply section.

TurnerX19 said:

I love the coloring on your exhaust.

Thanks! This is what I was going for:

 Good progress on the Gran Sport! I built one years ago, and remember the chassis being fiddly on it too. The Accurate Miniatures kits all seem to have fatal flaws... which is a shame because they were sooooo close to being awesome kits. The McLaren Can-Am cars are the same way. If you build them with all the box supplied engine detail, the bodywork won't fit on the car. 

Avengers Assemble! Or something like that. I'm calling it progress. Not getting super detailed. Saving my time and fears for the decals on the body.

Side two. Time to stop before I go nuts. N-V-T- S...nuts!

Finished the interior. Hand painted "wood" trim, added clutch pedal, and swapped 4-speed stick with T-handle.

Also finished the engine. Swapped to a dual 4-barrel intake setup. I think I nailed the color of K&N filters. 

Some type of super glue is a necessity with this thing.

Mounting points are small and not engineered to actually hold things together. The rear axle just sits down into two frame cutouts. The leaf spring is on with hopes and dreams. This is not a kit for a beginner.

Body is finally painted so I can start detailing that. I'm...uh...eager to fit the opening doors.

It was an exciting day here at Parsimonious Modeling as I was set to shoot the blue on the Grand Sport body. First step, lots of tape.

Laid down primer, then on to the next step, shaking up the rattle can and shooting a couple of practice spritzes to gauge the spray pattern. Except it didn't spray at all, it puked out of a crack in the nozzle and covered my hand more than anything else.

Well, what now? This was the only can in this color at the store so I couldn't go back and try again (especially at $10.49 for a half-size can). Thought about trying to figure out how to dribble paint out of that crack into some sort of container so I could brush it on. Then I realized I had another can of the same brand on the shelf. Swapped nozzles and found success. I'm still going to have to do the dribble thing for brushing as I didn't attempt to mask the fender flares; I knew it wouldn't come out nice and round, so the plan was always to brush the paint on the flares after unmasking the car. At first glance, the blue went on well, but I'm going to restrain myself from trying to do anything with it for a day or two.

So I'll leave the body in the garage for the next couple days, out of sight and out of mind (unless I want to drive the car that's currently being used as a paint bench). I'm starting to run out of things to do with the rest of the kit: chassis is essentially done aside from exhaust, which I've been led to believe is one of this kit's bigger sources of frustration. Miraculously, this car is going to have both upper and lower radiator hoses, which I hope will make up for the lack of a front sway bar.

Interior is 75% done. After that I need the body to make further progress. I still need to source gold paint for the wheels, so there's an excuse to go for a ride (Michael's is out, and the next-closest place with model supplies is Hobby Lobby, 45 minutes from home). I think the next project to tackle is building the hood vents and getting all that stuff painted.

So apparently this kit is my white whale. Semi-defeated again! 
I came home from work today to find this... all that's left of both front wheels...

the guilty culprit:

however.... I will not be defeated! 

In reply to Saron81 :

They are not going to digest well, you might be able to retrieve them later and piece them back together.

Chassis done except for exhaust, tires/wheels, and touch up painting. Then onto the body for final assembly and the decals.

A shame these kits don't have any sort of harnesses for the seat. That one detail would really set ofd the interior. Well, so would more color variety, but I kept it simple to the directions.

Clear coat is done

In reply to Javelin :

Very nice. Need to get my Vette going that's the same color. The 1/18 wheels I agree are too big. Might look into 3d printing some Volks.

Paint nozzles. They are the bane of my painting life.  Rust Oleum in particular seems to cause me no end of grief.

I've learned that, if I have one that works, to not throw it away if the can empties. I need to look into buying a supply of these things.

I also learned that nozzles from other products don't necessarily work. I think I used one from a spent can of WD-40 and found the spray pattern to be waaaaaay bigger than the paint version.

I've had too many issues to count over the years with spray nozzles from either Testors or hardware store paint. It's driven me to use Tamiya sprays on pretty much everything. 
 

Everyone is building tube chassis'! 
Here's my current progress. Chassis done:

Added all the plumbing, and stole a steering box from a nascar kit. 

almost hate to cover it up!

Everyone isn't building tube frames. My Mercury uses the original ladder frame. No chassis improvements other than lowering and 4 wheel disc brakes.

Breathing a sigh of relief after unmasking the Grand Sport and discovering that it actually came out pretty well. Lines are, for the most part, pretty straight, and I get to hide the worst bits with a red decal pinstripe that goes around the entire car. I intend to use the restored car's painted headlight covers so I wasn't concerned with the separation of white and blue in the headlight area. I do need to paint the flares blue still.

In reply to Claff :

It looks great!

I made a bit more progress tonight. Rams head manifolds, shielded distributor, fan, and single master cylinder were replaced by Nascar bits. 

I refuse to buy Testors spray paints ever again. Maybe one out of five of my cans may spray properly. 

Tamiya is, unfortunately, painfully expensive for the amount of paint you get. But they sure do spray nice.