SCCA Camaro Trans Am Set

[Scale-Master]

Turns out the windshields need to be fully cemented to the opening for them to hold up to the spread of the body over the chassis. It popped out after a couple days leaving some of the black paint on the body, so that had to be cleaned up and the trim repainted. Now I know for the other two… The body & windshield did not fit well over the chassis either. The dash and windshield fight for the same real estate. So I notched the dash and trimmed the support bar to move the dash rearward.

[Scale-Master]

I'm pleased with how the patch job on the paint/cracked decal issue came out on the Sunoco hood. I know where to look, but it's not easy to see if you don't…

[corrrado]

Wow, such a cool cars! I am glad that someone finally built them in a proper way! Congrats on your work, it is really stunning with all those excellent details!

[Scale-Master]

Thank you Corrrado!

I thought I was going to be able to finish the decaling on the Hot Wheels car, but the last decal was the Z28 & bowtie for the rear and it was printed in white. It needs to be black since the back of the car is white. I used the kit bowtie and printed a new black Z28.
Finally clear coated after that minor delay...

[Scale-Master]

I installed the windows in the Sunoco car and went for a much stronger cementing of the windshield after learning how much load the chassis puts on it from the Rain-X car.
For some tips on using CA to easily cement clear parts in without risk of fogging (or worse) check this out:
https://finescale.com/how-to/2024/07...ithout-fogging

[Scale-Master]

I figured out how to get the brass ends I added to the exhaust to work with the kit provided exhaust tips. The body fit is not all that positive, especially if you want to be able to remove the body. And it manifested in the way the pipes exited the body non-uniformly. I decided to use the kit parts to make them look the same from the outside. I shaved the insides of the kit parts down and drilled them out to receive the modified pipes. I had to file the brass tips to fit too.

[Scale-Master]

The tires needed to be sanded and when I first got my lathe back in the 90's I made this nifty fixture that came in handy. I was surprised at how different the rears were in diameter when I trued them up prior to hitting them with a sanding stick. At least they were fairly round.

[Scale-Master]

Originally I was going to make all three cars have matching tire lettering as each kit has variations of the Goodyear Eagle decals. The Rain-X and Hot Wheels have lettering for radials, but they are not exactly the same size and the Sunoco has bias ply lettering. None of the decals match the molded in raised lettering so I applied them to what should be the inside walls. I wasn't in the mood to print two more sets of the bias ply versions so I went with the kit decals from each kit; inaccurate or not.
The Rain-X ones had so much extra clear it was a requirement to trim them, but they went on well. The Hot Wheels also needed the clear trimmed because it was poorly registered to the white letters, and they went on almost as well. Neither of those set work with decal solvents. The Sunoco ones required no trimming and worked well with decal solvent.
Rain-X on the left, Sunoco on the right.

[Scale-Master]

The chassis for the Rain-X car is finished.

[Scale-Master]

The chassis for the Sunoco car is done.

[Scale-Master]

The windows on the Hot Wheels were installed using the same process as I used on the Sunoco car, CA all the way. That's six windows in a row (on just these cars) and not a single smear or any fogging.
If you missed how I did it, here's a link…:
https://finescale.com/how-to/2024/07...ithout-fogging

[potsie]

Wow! I really can't express just how stunning these are.

[Scale-Master]

Thank you Potsie!

The chassis for the Hot Wheels car is done.