I painted the AMT/ERTL F-150 engine in the specified black for the transmission and aluminum for the block. I opted to get a can of Model Master Metalizer Aluminum Plate, which is buffable to a high shine but which I was going to leave “raw” to look more like real aluminum. I haven’t found a spray aluminum that comes close to what the Metalizer can do. It’s pricy but the result is pretty realistic. The happy accident came when I made the “mistake” of removing the black parts after having unmasked the transmission. I should have known but forgot that my fingers would be coated in loose aluminum from the masking tape I’d used. Normally this would be a disaster. In this case, however, I found aluminum dust coating the high spots on the transmission and found that it looked much more realistic than just straight flat black.  I gave all of the black parts a light finger-brushing and then hit the “fins” on the valve covers and pulleys of the fan belt much more heavily. I couldn’t have purposely painted these parts any better. But I’m stopping here for the day while I’m ahead. I know what happens when I try to push on at this point: overreaching and eventually a frustrating (usually) minor disaster. 

I began working on the jaw-dropping 600+ part 1/35 scale Caterpillar D7 from Miniart about a week ago, and after a day spent breaking stunningly small levers and losing other nearly invisibly-small parts, I packed it up. I can’t say I’ve ever had a kit give me a headache, but this one truly did. True to the company name, it’s a miniature piece of art, but there are only so many sesame-seed sized parts I can strain to connect before I have to give in. I’m not done forever, but I needed something more simple. Enter AMT/ERTL’s 1997 Ford F-150. Continue reading “New project: F-150 Styleside” →