1995-'96 Chevrolet S10-Blazer (AMT-ERTL)

[Ken Car-Fanatic]

So I got this partially started kit that I bought for $1.00 (they wanted $2, but took $1)  It was painted red with a black interior (including windows painted black on the inside).  I started stripping it down with Scalecoat-2 paint stripper & successfully got everything cleaned off.  It didn't have the stock wheels & tires, but the wheels it had looked pretty good except the big 3-wing knock-offs on them didn't look right on a modern SUV to me, so I came up with an option to make my own center caps.  The body pics are during paint stripping (could only do 1/2 of body at a time).  Also decided to strip paint off grill & wheels to paint them.  

I was thinking this might just be a somewhat quick build, but "quick" has quickly been blown out as a possibility.....  The engine was mostly glued together & painted all black, so I've started with that.  Having to re-learn quite a bit, especially how long it takes to do some of this stuff & how much prep-work can be needed.  But determined to make this work (got some ides & things I'd like to try), so hopefully it's a fun adventure?

[espo]

Looks like you have gotten all the paint striped and impressed with the way the "windows" cleaned up. 

[Ken Car-Fanatic]

1 hour ago, espo said:

Looks like you have gotten all the paint striped and impressed with the way the "windows" cleaned up. 

Yeah, the Scalecoat-2 paint stripper is a bit pricey & harder to find, but it does work great. And yeah, I haven't even polished the windows yet, but they almost don't need to be.

[Ken Car-Fanatic]

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Edited December 14, 2024 by Ken Car-Fanatic

[Ken Car-Fanatic]

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Edited December 17, 2024 by Ken Car-Fanatic
copy of previous post

[Ken Car-Fanatic]

2 hours ago, Ken Car-Fanatic said:

Sorry, I just realized that I probably should have put this build in the Truck, Van & SUV section, I may try to see if I can move it there soon.

So I did just re-post this in the Truck, Van & SUV "WIP" section.  I guess I'm just so used to almost always doing cars, I forgot I was doing a truck based SUV? 

 

[Ken Car-Fanatic]

I just recently got back into model building and of course, rather than starting with something quick & easy, I decided to do this one?  I guess I figure I might as well jump back into the deep end & either sink or swim?  I guess if I'm going to have to re-learn stuff, I might as well go for at least a bit of a challenge.  The wheels & tires are a bit larger & the wheel backers that are supposed to fit are too small for the tires, so that's my next issue to remedy.

 

[Jordan White]

I will say that, depending on how realistic you want your build, those wheels weren't available on the 4WD Blazers due to having a different offset. If you want to use them anyways, you could always cut the centers out of the wheels that fit the tires and slot the new wheels in the center.

[Ken Car-Fanatic]

7 hours ago, Jordan White said:

I will say that, depending on how realistic you want your build, those wheels weren't available on the 4WD Blazers due to having a different offset. If you want to use them anyways, you could always cut the centers out of the wheels that fit the tires and slot the new wheels in the center.

Yeah, I'm not concerned with keeping it too stock (close to stock, but not 100%).  I did find some correctly sized wheel backers in my collection of parts that I can make work.

[espo]

Think of building model like riding a bike, it will come back to you just like riding that bike again.  

[TarheelRick]

27 minutes ago, espo said:

Think of building model like riding a bike, it will come back to you just like riding that bike again.  

But be prepared to skin your knees a couple of times.

[Ken Car-Fanatic]

2 hours ago, espo said:

Think of building model like riding a bike, it will come back to you just like riding that bike again.  

Yeah, I'll probably crash & wreck at keast once, but nothing ventured, nothing gained?

[Ken Car-Fanatic]

I finally decided to try to make a Copper-Red color for the Blazer with darker wheels.  I mentioned at the beginning that I had some ideas & trying something different with the paint was the biggest one.  So about 3 years ago Hobby Lobby had a 40% off sale on these cool pearl/metallic & color-shift powdered pigments along with some fluorescent pigments as well.  So I bought them & figured I could mix-up some unique colors & almost anything I wanted?  I also started stocking-up on the Tamiya Lacquer paints & figured I could use the gloss clear as a base to mix the pigments in?  I'll see how it works & what it can (or can't) do I guess. I've done some test sprays & it looks promising (I'm hoping).

[Ken Car-Fanatic]

The picture isn't the greatest (darker than normal), but it's the color I figured I try to reproduce. 

Got the door panels, carpet & seats painted tonight, still remembering how to do things & was trying to figure best way to mask off different sections of seat fabric when I realized I still had some Parafilm for masking (great stuff for complex shapes).  The colors (greys) are all air-brushed Tamiya Acrylics, with the carpet & the seat fabric mixed thicker (almost not thinned) & sprayed at low pressure with the air-brush held further back to create the speckled & textured look.  Mixed some gloss clear into door-panel & dashboard paint to create the vinyl sheen.  Now the detail painting begins.  

[Ken Car-Fanatic]

Got the body & wheels painted using the Pearl EX powdered pigments.  Ended up having to use some metallic red Tamiya Lacquer paint along with some clear as a base for the pigment (used Super Russet [metallic-red] & Antique Copper pigments with some Fluorescent Red).  The color came out a bit too bright with a more copper color than I wanted, so I ended-up clear coating with a mixture of Tamaiya's Clear Smoke (dark tint) & Clear Red to get the color I wanted.  Happy with how it came out (the photos look brighter than it is, it has a deeper color in person).  I painted the wheels Black with a clearcoat that had just a little Antique Copper mixed in.  The self-pigmented paint worked well, but did require a good bit more stirring every couple of minutes because the pigment does settle in the spray cup of the airbrush.  It also seemed to take maybe a couple more thin coats of clear than I otherwise might have used, but the new color options are amazing & I will use this technique again if I need to.

[Ken Car-Fanatic]

Pretty much completed detail work on interior, except during that, I tried to use Tamiya Panel Liner to accentuate the folding seat seam & found it works great on gloss paints, but not on flat acrylics, it just soaks into, bleeds & stains the paint (Arg!).  So I had to re-mask & touch-up paint on rear bench seat (luckily it was the easiest thing I could have mucked-up & redo).   Also when un-gluing the interior pieces, the steering wheel assembly didn't come off clean, so I just took an Evergreen plastic rod & drill the steering column & dashboard to make a locating pin to help re-glue it. 

Edited December 18, 2024 by Ken Car-Fanatic
Not said correctly.

[Ken Car-Fanatic]

Also found some correct diameter & thickness wheel backers (had to de-chrome them), not sure what they where originally from, but they'll work.  The center post hole was just a little too big & sloppy, so I ended up taking some Thick C/A Glue (super glue) with some Zip-Kicker (C/A accelerator) & used a toothpick to apply glue & a Q-tip soaked of Zip-Kicker to build up 3 coats on post hole, then re-drilled to correct needed size.  So now the wheels fit nice & snug with no slop.  Also got 'em painted. 

[Ken Car-Fanatic]

     Sadly, I thought I'd have lots of time to work on this over the holidays, but of course, all kinds of stuff has to go wrong all at once & I just finally got back to this.  So things are much better now.  Continued interior & chassis detailing & assembly.  Working on engine compartment & body now.   Lots of details, parts & test fitting on some of these AMT kits, but I'm fairly happy with the way things are coming out.  Hopefully I can finish this in the near future?

[WillyBilly]

What a great build. Love the work so far.

[TopherMcGinnis]

Awesome! The paint looks like it will be radiant in the sun.

[slusher]

Great detail and detail painting. Beautiful color choice!