Aldi Special - AMT 1968 Shelby Mustang GT 500 1:25

[Homerlovesbeer]

Hi all,

A quick post. I bought this kit from ALDI here in Australia for about $20 (about US $13 or £12.50) with the intent of building it with my 10 year old nephew.

He has never done any airbrushing at all so we started off sanding the body and getting rid of all the seam lines and giving it a coat of primer. This was back in January 2020.



He got a bit heavy handed in a spot of two so I sanded it back at got it ready for painting.

Then the world changed with the Corona Virus social isolation rules so my nephew could no longer come around. I decided to crack on without him.

So I applied 4 coats of SMS (Australian brand of paint Scale Modellers Supply) Dark Bronze METALLIC and the clear is their SMS Ultra Clear Coat 2K.







I tested the 2K on the bonnet and following the instructions to the letter (15psi and ratios of 10:5:1 Part A B and thinner) I found some slight orange peel affect.



I reached out to the owner of SMS paints and mentioned my problem and if the activator was a slow, medium or fast and got told it's normal. For a hot climate in Brisbane this means the clear goes off too quickly and doesn't have time to level properly.

So it was time to spray the rest of the body. I have had amazing success with Gravity Paints 2K clear at 30 psi so thought I'd try that with SMS. I also increased the thinner to 20% to try and slow the cure and give time to level properly.

Here are my results.













So my findings suggest 30 psi 20% thinner and the final wet coat go to town on it. I doubt you can over do it unless you hold the airbrush in the one spot for too long causing runs. When you think you've put enough down fill up your airbrush cup and do another fully wet pass.

All of you in a hot climate may find this helpful. These pictures were taken after approximately 45 mins after the final super wet coat.

I am extremely happy with the results and stoked to find a great 2K clear locally in Australia.

I cracked on and tackled the engine next. I de chromed the intake manifold and rocker covers whick looked rdiculious and resprayed them with AK Extreme Metal polished Aluminium. The engine block was painted with Mr Hobby aqueous blue and the gearbox with Metal aluminum. The exhaust manifold was done with Mr Metal also.



I decided to leave the carbys and air filture in the standard chrome parts. The fit and flash on the kit so far is pretty bad.

More to come soon.

Cheers guys

[LWWales]

Nice cheap kit, but you're doing it justice!

Looking great.

Also, cool to know that you guys have Aldi, too!

[Homerlovesbeer]

Thanks!

Yep Aldi is great for random stuff as well as food lol

[LWWales]

It's great, you can do a weekly shop and pick up a trumpet, welder and inflatable giraffe, too.

[CygnusX1]

Nice build - looks really nice in that graphite metallic colour.
Shame your nephew can't come around and get his hands on it!

[Homerlovesbeer]

Nice build - looks really nice in that graphite metallic colour.
Shame your nephew can't come around and get his hands on it!

Yea it is a shame. Thanks for the nice comments.

So.....can anybody tell me how to turn this.....



Into this.......









I'm talking about the dashboard. There are no decals at all.

The door card is a bugger too!

[Homerlovesbeer]

Getting pretty frustrated about how to paint these dials. Tried so many things now and they still look rubbish.



Tried painting with a very small brush - no joy.



Tried dry brushing (as seen here) - no joy.



Tried using a white 0.7mm paint pen - no joy.



Tried using a cocktail stick and dabbing paint on that way - no joy.



Losing my mojo over this as I cannot find a solution to how to paint it.



Sigh....

[Homerlovesbeer]

Ok guys,

Thanks for all the suggestions. I had a crack at the foil method tonight. The dials are quite complex so the notion of cutting out every single element to reveal the black below is unthinkable.

I did add a Tamiya wash over the foil however the wash really clings to the curves at the side and not so much consistent over the whole surface.

I tried flooding it so I couldn't see any dial at all and letting it dry but the curve of the dial at the edges had massive build up and the middle not much at all.

I cleaned it up and applied another small wash which doesn't look too bad. It's very hard to photograph so I do apologise.





What do you all think? Dry something else again?

This is a cotton bud for scale.



Cheers,
Homer

[Homerlovesbeer]

In other news the tub is pretty much done. I used a steadyish hand to paint the wood trim on and a 0.1mm Molotow pen for the chrome.

The carpet was done by painting a coat of black paint and while wet applying black glitter nail I bought off Ebay through a tea strainer lol.







I still have to do a couple of chrome surrounds on the door panel yet. I'm not sure if it's worth it or not.



Does anybody know how to make the centre ribbed part of the seats look real and slighty warn?



Cheers

[Homerlovesbeer]

I tried painting dials white, adding a black wash and scratching off the wash to reveal the white dial.



Molotow pen around the gauges.



Dunno if I've been that successful.

[code1303]

Hey HLB, I'm also trying to build this kit, and you're right the flash and clean up on parts is horrendous. But it was a challenge I set myself to give it a go at making it look respectable.

The interior is a fatherless person of a thing to make look right, I like how you've done the door cards and the wood looks good. Those dials are killing me too, haven't yet got them to look anything reasonable.

Keep going it will come together with persistence.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Ok cool project
Your door card wood look great you are doing fine mate

How would I paint that interior?? Oils fir the wood for sure
The dials I would dry brush silver or white...dab off the dipped brush until almost no paint on your brush and just a very light touch across the dial face trying to just hit the raised parts. Let dry a couple minutes and then do more
Molotow chrome pen for the bezel rims. Don’t kill yourself over it, no one can see in there; you just need to give the impression of the raised bits without getting heavy handed

Alternatively, IF you can find appropriate dial decals, you can drill out the faces, put the decal on some clear acrylic circles and install them from behind. It is a big IF in finding the right final decal

[Kevthemodeller]

Superb looking colour and clear coats