Thanks to those who suggested coating the Pattos decals with Future before using them -- It worked outstanding! I only lost two decals thanks to my big fat fingers, none to disintegration.

So here is what I was working on -- I finished decaling it today -- I wanted to do an open-cockpit interpretation of the Minolta Toyota CV89 LeMans racer. I acquired one of the white Tyco grand champion kit cars and some French blue Testors paint and went to town.

I free-handed the paint on the nose as there was no way to mask the curve that I could figure out. The sides I was able to use scotch tape to mask the angles off. I sent the decals from the Tamiya Minolta Toyota model kit to Patto and he made me a few sets in HO scale, as well as 1/32 and 1/24 (the next project will be a Minolta car transporter made from a Matchbox Indy 500 set.)

So anyway, long story short, here are some pics of the Tomy Minolta car and my open cockpit representation of it.

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/MinoltaToyotaLMP-_004b.jpg
Side by side

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/MinoltaToyotaLMP-_005b.jpg
The helmet is the Irish flag. I'm half German, about 1/3rd Irish and the rest a mix of French, etc. My last name is Irish so that's the reason for the helmet colors.

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/MinoltaToyotaLMP-_008b.jpg
Back detail

More pics in a minute.

'doba

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/MinoltaToyotaLMP-_009b.jpg
Lots of little decals on this car, Denso, Tom's, TRD, BP, Tokico, NCAA, Bridgestone, Cibie, etc.

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/MinoltaToyotaLMP-_010b.jpg
I was particularly happy with the airbox detail and steering wheel looks nice in all black. Maybe I will add a few buttons to it yet . . . The twin stacks on the engine cover are black on the Tomy car so I have to detail those yet too.

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/MinoltaToyotaLMP-_013b.jpg
The decals wrapped around the curves on this body very well. The holes on the front fenders are for the mirrors, which are around here somewhere.

More pics in a minute.

'doba

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/MinoltaToyotaLMP-_015b.jpg
Another angle of the two cars. I have raced the Minolta Toyota in our sports car league since 2001. I went on a title binge in our GTP class with the car, winning the title in 2001, 2002, 2003 & 2004, leading to the nickname "Shea-macher." :lol: We've added an LMP class for 2007 so I thought I'd bring the Minolta livery to that class as well.

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/MinoltaToyotaLMP-_016b.jpg
At home on the race track -- this car won't be any shelf queen.

Later.

'doba

Awesome job! :thumbsup:

How could anyone not prefer the open cockpit? ;)

Real nice job Doba! I like the attention to detail! Those small decals can be a nightmare if you don't have a steady hand. :thumbsup:

Evan

WOW!! :eek: Awesome Job :thumbsup:

Wes

WOOHOO!!! NICE

Jerry

it looks better than the coupe. I wouldn't be surprised if Tomy saw it and decided to run a few similar open cockpit cars to compliment some of the other liveries they have produced. Why is it we always think of these things? I see more good ideas on this board than I see out of the big mfg's. Great job Mr. D !!!! nd

Great job!!!

Hi ´doba!

Your open cockpit racer turned out really great! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

I never had problems with disintegrating decals from Patto yet (and I had dozens of his sheets cross my workbench over the years!) - even the ones I have laying around for years are still usable (as opposed to some of my selfmade ones I obviously used minor quality paper for)! I´m glad to see you got yours to finally work so well!

Wish I had the balls to just begin my red Tyco kit waiting in one of my drawers for quite a while now - I´m afraid of messing it up!

I really prefer working with resin bodies as these can be easily thrown into a jar of paint thinner and start all over then. Never had much luck with paint stripping styrene/ABS bodies... :freak:

Keep up your great work!!!

Greetings from Germany,

Claus