Day 3

Today is not only the last day of the year, but an exciting one at that!! I cleaned up the cars around the border, giving them more detail since the quilt will be big enough to show the detail. Actually, that's not entirely true... I redid all of the cars, starting over and doing the spokes on the wheels and the black part - this would be the same on all the cars. Then I colored each car again with more detail as shown in these pictures, and I exchanged them with the old pictures. You may think it is a waste of time to spend hours redoing the drawing and painting, but I don't want to do this 1/2 way. As the saying goes... "Go big, or go home." :-)

I also added a roundel decal with the number "6" on the Heritage GT (blue/orange). It looked too plain without this decal, and now it matches the Heritage GT that will be on the white squares.

The good news is that I am FINALLY finished with the drawing and design!!! :-)

There is a lot more that needs to be done though. I had to figure out how to get the picture and graphics on the quilt. Well, after spending another few hours online and making a zillion or so phone calls, I found out that I had a couple of options.

I could use silk screening (like you do with t-shirts). However, this would mean feeling the paint on the quilt (which might also peel off), and I wanted it to stay soft. The next option was to take them to a fabric dyer and have them dye it into the fabric. This is like creating custom fabric. The problem is that I am only making one quilt, and this option is only financially doable if you are using a large quantity of fabric. There are also a few places that will put the images on the fabric for you, but you are looking at spending a few hundred dollars that way. The problem with this third option (outside of the cost) is that the pictures come out as squares. The cars are not shaped like squares, and at that price, I would at least want them to cut the fabric (which of course I would end up having to do)...

The fourth option was to use fabric paper. It is actual paper-sized (8 1/2 x 11) sheets of fabric made of different material. They are not cheap, so I have to make sure I have them exactly the right size before applying the image to the fabric. You put them in an inkjet printer, and then after printing, let them dry for a few hours.

Before ordering the fabric paper, I needed to make sure that the fabric sheets with the images were washable. (I am hoping the baby uses the quilt and that it will be washed frequently.) I also needed high quality cotton, since that is what fabric the rest of the quilt will be. (If you are wondering why, I spent a lot of time online looking at different fabrics to use. Flannel with satin edges would be my top pick since it would feel amazing to a baby! However, obtaining the fabric in these materials would not be easy and would be much more expensive than cotton.)

Printed Treasures is the best fabric paper you can get, and it only costs a few extra dollars than the other brands. Now here is the difficult part... Because they are only 8 1/2 x 11, the black GT on the crib side of the quilt would need to be put onto multiple fabric sheets. I do not want to just do "quarters", because sewing them that way will look very bad. Instead, I am going to have to break the car into pieces (e.g., door, hood/trunk). These pieces will later be cut and appliqued to the quilt. (Yes, "applique" is a new word to me as well, but most of this quilt - all of the cars around the border and the cars in the white squares - will need to be appliqued.) I will get into all of that once the pictures and graphics have been printed.

The other thing I should note is that I have no inkjet printer. I gave my little sister a call, and since she has a printer at her home, I will have these sheets shipped directly to her. I asked her simply to wait at least a day before shipping them back to me so the ink could dry completely.

While I was online looking for ways to attach the graphics and photo to the quilt, I found a place in West Palm Beach called "My Quilt Shoppe". It is about a 30 minute drive, but sounded like "the" place to purchase supplies, so... I decided to swing by and pick up some fabric! On the way, I took a zip drive with the front and back of the quilt on it to The UPS Store to print a copy of each in color. (I figured that seeing the quilt would help with picking out the colors.) This turned out to be more of a hassle than it was worth! After a 10 minute drive, the store did not have a colored printer. (Why advertise that you make copies if you do not offer them in color?) Well, I asked them where I could have colored copies made, and I had to go to the next UPS Store a few miles away. For some reason printing 2 colored sheets of paper took that store 20 minutes, not to mention another 15 minutes of waiting in line! Don't people know that Christmas is over? :-)

Noting the time, I drove rather quickly to get to My Quilt Shoppe before they closed. While there, I used the colored copies to try and find good colors to use, but there were so many to choose from! I was completely lost. (This is even harder than clothes shopping!!) Despite that, the lady at the store was very helpful! We talked about the quilt project and looked through a number of different colors. She also threw in a few tips along the way. Even though they closed at 5 PM, we did not finish until 5:20, and she did not kick me out (as many larger stores do). Since this is not the first time I have noticed this, I thought I'd take a moment to point out that the personal 1-on-1 service you get at small "Ma and Pa" stores is amazing! I was very pleased! :-)

Getting back to shopping... Without seeing the actual images, it was difficult to know how strong the color would come out. In the end, I decided to leave the rest of the fabric behind until I finished the white squares. That way, I could bring the squares in and match them with the fabric once I finished with the applique (this was actually the lady's idea). I picked up a couple yards of white cotton fabric, a rotary mat (which was a supply listed on many of the quilting web-sites I visited), and a large rectangular see-through plastic ruler.

Once I arrived I home, I looked at the rotary mat and felt like an idiot. What a waste of $45! They are closed until 01/04/10, but I will try to return it then...

Day 2

This project is a little bit different than the GT model and will take a bit longer to make. Once both sides are finished, I will have to patiently wait until the baby is born to get the quilt embroidered. However, sewing it together should be the easy part, and not take too long.

Today I continued working on the design of the quilt. First I decided on four cars for the play area rather than six. Making the cars was difficult. I did not want to use photos, so I created four different graphics. I do not have Photoshop, so it was not easy to do! I opened the photos in "Paint", zoomed in, drew an outline around the entire car, and painted the background white.

Then I drew an outline around each part, and filled it in with whatever color I wanted that car to be. The first time I did this, I did not add any detail. It took about 45 minutes for each one. Then I realized the quilt would be much larger - each graphic would be about 6-7 inches long.

Therefore, I decided to redo them in a little more detail (like adding silver for the wheels and adding the headlights and taillights). This took a few hours for each one, but I believe it was well worth it! The Heritage GT (blue and orange) took the longest.

I drew the three "6" decals on the car, and added the gas cap, wheels, fog lights, and headlights. The stripes on the cars also took a little bit of time to do, but they look nice. The hardest part were the spokes on the wheels. I had to free hand these since I originally painted them solid black. It might have been more difficult to do, but I ultimately decided on the BBS lightweight aluminum wheels to match the wheels on the border cars. They did not come out perfect (but I don't think the baby will notice). :-) The black, yellow, red, and blue/orange (Gulf color) cars shown above are the graphics I made for the center of the "play side" of the quilt.

Once these were done, I knew that I had to change the design. When you put a lot of time into something, the last thing you want to do is toss it and start over, but I would prefer it to look good, so I decided to go for it. I took a break to eat one of my favorite foods - mac n' cheese. That put me back in a lovely mood and gave me energy to keep going! :-)

I went online looking at more patterns, not really seeing anything I liked. Time to get creative! Simple. It needs to be simple. (After all, I wouldn't want the little one to go crazy looking at a bunch of wild shapes!) The stars went bye-bye, and were replaced with white blocks surrounded by a border of color. This cleaned it up a bit, and the white won't compete with the colors of the cars. It also kept the colorful look, with the reds, yellows, blues, and greens.

I did receive a comment from one sister that the primary colors were too bright. After talking with a few quilters (and my wonderful mom), the general thought was that the lighter pastels are good for babies up to about 4-5 months. After this, they outgrow the lighter "baby" colors and prefer the brighter "primary" colors. Since I want the baby to use this for a few years, I will keep the primary colors, and also make sure it is big enough to use as a blankie for the first few years - not just the first few months. I might take my sister's advice and use a calmer blue for the background and border when I pick out the fabric. Either way, here is the new play side of the quilt:

I also decided to personalize the quilt a little bit by adding some embroidery. The embroidery will be in red, and will have the baby's name at the top (thick), and then the date of birth and weight underneath (thin). I do not have this information yet, which is why I will need to wait to put the final touches on until the baby is actually born in February. (Hmmm. I wonder if he will be born on Valentine's Day?) While I anxiously await the little one's arrival, there is still a lot that can be done! Here is what the crib side of the quilt will look like:

The background will be one blue fabric pattern and the border with the cars will be a different one. The lines shown here that separate the border from the background will not be there.

Day 1

As someone who loves children, when I found out my good buddy was finally going to be a dad, I wanted to make something really special for his new bundle of joy! :-) Just like with Ralphie, Chris and I became friends through a mutual interest – the Ford GT. The baby is going to be a boy and is due sometime in February. It is the end of December right now, so I have at least a month to put something together. But what?

When I had my little baby two years ago, one of my sisters presented her with a beautiful patchwork baby quilt. Another sister sewed a special baby bib for her. And yet another had a Christmas ornament made with her name and date of birth. There were a lot of ideas I had, but I wanted to try something I’ve never tried before, and I wanted something the baby could enjoy for a long time. So… I decided to make a baby quilt.

The first thing to do was figure out the design. Most baby quilts are one-sided, but I thought I would go all out and do a double-sided quilt. Why? Well, one side would be to put face up in the crib for the baby to sleep on, and the other side would be to put face up on the floor for the baby to play on. These designs would have to be very different, but still blend together.

I spent a bit of time looking at designs for baby quilts. I did not see any that I really liked, but I did get a few good ideas. I want something that incorporates the GT theme since it is a boy and that is the connection I have with his dad. :-) I also want something that can be washed a lot (as I expect it will get dirty playing with it on the floor), so it needs to be quite durable. And, I want something that is darker and less “flashy” on one side for the bedroom, but more colorful and playful on the other side to keep the baby entertained while playing.

Using Power Point, I drew up a few designs. The first design contained a star pattern made out of triangles and squares. I thought I could use primary colors for the stars (red, orange, yellow, and green) and use a blue background. The bright colors would be for the baby to play on. Inside the stars, I could put a different GT - different colors and different angles. I knew I needed a border that would be a different blue material, and considered a rainbow of colors around the border. I thought about using 3 different GT designs. As you can see in the image, I used regular shapes (sun, hourglass, and heart) with the different colors of the GT, to see how the colors would look together.

I wasn't sure about the border - the rainbow colors were too much. So, I tried using a black and white border, as well as a red/orange and green/yellow one. Then I thought it would look cool to have GTs around the border. I replaced the hourglass, sun, and hearts with actual GT's that I would later need to make patterns for, and also put GT's around the border. Here is what the second design looked like.

I then decided to make the border smaller, as it was competing with the images in the stars, and created a pattern for the cars in the border, using different colors. Being patterns rather than pictures, I would use fabric to cut them out, and then sew them into place. Once I did this, I experimented with using only 6 images, and making them larger. Here are designs #3 and #4:

The design still looked too "loud". I asked my sisters and a couple of friends what they thought, and most agreed. I would have to find a different pattern - or leave the cars off of the border.

The next step was to design the other side that was for sleeping rather than playing. I thought that using the car border rather than just a different material would look nice, but I may need to get rid of that idea, depending on what fabric I can find... For the sleep side of the quilt, I will use the same border as the play side, and will keep the background blue. However, I would like to use a picture of Chris' GT. Here is what I came up with:

I am not sure how to get the picture on the quilt yet, and I am also not sure about the car border or the design on the play side of the quilt. I will wait until tomorrow and see if my sisters have any additional comments to make - it should definitely help to have another pair of eyes looking at it!

Day 12

The GT model is just about finished! I waited until early evening before spray painting to avoid any potential problems with the decals. A small part in the front of the model bubbled up, but other than that, the clear coat went on smoothly and looks shiny! The decals stayed on, and this coat should protect them as well as the paint.

I waited 5 hours to ensure that this coat was completely dry, and then I removed all of the blue tape from the clear plastic, as well as the aluminum foil covering the wheels and tires. The memorial decal stayed in place, which was a relief!

Then I took the 4 fender shields, put glue on the end, and slid them into place (holding them there with the tweezers until the glue set). Sounds easy, but in reality, it was incredibly difficult and required a steady hand and a lot of patience.

The pieces took about 45 seconds before sticking enough to let go. Sometimes it took 4-5 tries before I could hold it steady that long. Eventually, I got all 4 pieces in place.

And then...a good friend was kind enough to point out that I had put these "mud flaps" on the wrong side of the wheels... So, I had to rip them off, cut open another plastic bottle, and attach these new fender guards to the correct side. A couple of them moved after being glued, and the front two had to be cut shorter. Other than that, they look good!

While doing this, I noticed that the rear stripe right over the license plate was coming off. This is confusing, because I had sprayed clear coat over the top and waited for it to completely dry before doing anything else.

Well, it is now finished. But before I show you the final result, here is the "real thing". These are a few pictures of Ralphie's GT. The first two are from the rally in Austin. The third one is at Yosemite, and although it does not yet have the Gurney bubble or decals, I find the GT and scenery absolutely breathtaking together!

Here is the finished GT model:

The final thing to do (which is more for fun than anything else as they are not to scale), is add a few butterflies to the front grille. Ralphie will be able to take these off when he gets it, but I thought that his seeing them would bring back nice memories and make him smile. :-)

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog! The Ford GT model is now finished and on its way to CA to join Ralphie for Christmas. Stay tuned for the next project, which will be designing and putting together a Ford GT baby quilt for a good friend who is having his first baby boy this February!!!

Day 11

I did not work on the GT model yesterday. Instead, I drove to Jason Heffner’s shop in Sarasota. Chip, a good friend of mine, trailered his yellow and black GT from AZ to FL to have twin turbos, a new exhaust, and a number of other small modifications installed. It was a gloomy day with rain, wind, flooding, and even a few scattered tornadoes – not the type of day you want to take a three hour drive across the state. However, this was an opportunity I could not pass up! When I arrived and opened the front door, I had to smile. :-) There, laid out on the floor in front of me, were pieces of his GT. They looked just like the model pieces, only supersized!

I was able to watch the guys in the shop work on the GT, and (rather than be annoyed at my interrupting their work space), they happily answered all of my questions and let me take pictures. Each one of them did a great job, and made my experience there a VERY pleasant one!

After working on it for awhile, Chip and I stood by and watched as the car was brought to life for the first time with the new twin turbos. The throaty growl made an incredible sound!

Towards the end of the day, it was the moment Chip and I had been waiting for. The car was put on the dyno, and we crossed our fingers hoping the new set up would bring it up to 800 horsepower. The sound at wide open throttle in the power zone was so great, that standing behind the car, we had to plug our ears!!! They dyno’d the car three times in 4^th gear (which goes up to almost 190 mph), and when it was finished, we went over to the graph to see the results. It did not hit 800 hp. No sir! It hit 841 hp, even with catalytic converters on the car!!! :-)

By the time I got home, it was already way too late to work on Ralphie's GT. But it brought a smile to my face this morning as I started to put the finishing touches on it…

The first thing I did was cut out the decal section where the four #2’s were. Since I had to use my nails to get the back part off rather than just dip it in water, I chose to peel the back off of each decal before cutting it. The first #2 was for the back of the car. I tried to cut the entire skinny number, but found that that caused problems with the decal getting wrinkled. Luckily, I printed a total of eight #2’s, so tossing that first one was not an issue. I also had the foresight to put a red background on the white #2’s, so what I ended up doing is first peeling the back off of the decal, and then cutting most of the red off of the #2, but leaving it in the hard to reach places. The red matched the car, so unless you look closely, you do not notice the different between the red in the decal and the red in the car.

The next decal I added was the gold arrow. I cut all of the red from this decal, and ended up having to shorten the length of the arrow as well. Ralphie put this arrow on the car for Rally IV’s track day at the Texas World Speedway. If he were to get in an accident on the track, the arrow would show the tow truck where the tow hook was on the car. The GT model does not have a tow hook, but I added the arrow anyway.

Time to add the American flag decals that Ralphie has on the sides of his car. These are located on the white side stripes, just before the words “Ford GT”. On the driver side, the flag is facing forward, and on the passenger side, the flag is facing backwards.

In other words, the stars are near the front of the car, and the stripes are near the words “Ford GT”. These are not stickers, but decals that need to be dipped in water before separating the back and applying – similar to how the white stripes were applied. However, when I tried to do this, the flag ripped into about 5 pieces. I had not even applied pressure to remove the back. This was not a good sign! But since I had 3 flags for each side, I had 3 chances to pull this off. The second flag worked better. It still ripped right down the middle, but I was still able to apply the decal without visibly being able to tell that the flag was in two separate pieces. The other side surprised me! The back of the decal would not come off after dipping it for 10 seconds in water. I was being VERY careful not to rip the flag. Therefore, I set it back into the water. I decided not to use the tweezers, as this might have caused the other ones to rip. The decal fell to the bottom of the bowl of water, and the back of the decal fell right off. I was not sure how to get the decal out of the water in one piece without the back on, but I used my finger and gently pushed it up the side of the bowl. I then set it in place over the white stripe, and it went on perfectly, without so much as a tear!!

The last sticker to apply was the memorial sticker for our friend Daniel. Because this was so small, I cut most of it before taking the back off. I also noticed that the top and two sides around the clamshell window are supposed to be black. I went ahead and painted that area black. It not only looks more realistic, but the memorial decal stands out more as well now.

I had to wait for the black paint and new flag decals to dry before applying the clear coat. But there was still some prep work that could be done...

Ralphie has clear plastic fender guards on the front and rear of his car. When I was at the shop yesterday, I tried to think of a way to manufacture these fender guards. A few hours later, Chip handed me a Gatorade and the light bulb went off! The idea was to wash out the container and cut the fender guards from the plastic.

I used a couple pictures of the fender guards that Ralphie had sent me pictures of to figure out the shape. Then, I punched a hole in the Gatorade bottle, found a section with a nice curve in it, and cut out a large enough piece for all four fender guards. I started with the first, and placed it in the GT model for size as I continued to trim it down, adjust the curve (it had to be flattened out a little bit), and file the edges down. The rear fender guards were the most difficult to make, but all of them turned out okay! These will not be clear coated, so I am not gluing them on the GT at this time.

This evening, when the decals and paint had a chance to dry, I prepared the car for the clear coat. To do this, I first used aluminum foil to thread through the wheel wells and completely cover the wheels and tires. This took about 45 minutes to do, as there was a bit of trial and error to get it to flow through smoothly without ripping, catching on something, or sliding out. The two left wheels went smoothly, but while putting the foil on the right wheels, the flag decal came off...TWICE! It was dry, so I had to apply more water to get it to stick again. I was planning on putting the clear coat on tonight, but these decals seem to need extra time to dry. Part of the problem might be that they were placed on top of another decal rather than the model directly (though I don't see how that would make a difference).

I finally managed to get all of the wheels and tires covered, and then I went ahead and covered all of the clear plastic parts with blue tape. The small fog lights, headlights, and side windows took the most time to do, and the only thing I am slightly concerned about, is that after spray painting, when I remove the blue tape, the memorial sticker from the clamshell window will come off with it. I did plan ahead for this and made an extra memorial sticker just in case...

I am completely ready for the clear coat, but I still have to wait for the flag decals to dry. The fact that they came off so easily after sitting for about 8 hours concerns me a little bit. Therefore, I will have to wait until tomorrow to spray paint on the clear coat.

Day 10

I am finishing everything on this model today except for the clear coat. The clear coat cannot be applied the same day as the decals are added, because they have to be completely dry. The instructions say to wait 48 hours before spraying the clear coat on. I will only be waiting 24 hours. This way I can apply the clear coat Friday night, remove the tape and add the wheels and tires Saturday morning, and take this to the Post Office Saturday afternoon, so that Ralphie receives it the day before Christmas. :-)

Having learned my lesson about applying glue to windows yesterday, I very carefully applied 4 tiny drops of glue to the corners of each side window, and then used a toothpick to spread that glue around the edges. As you can see, this worked MUCH better than the windshield!

Once this was in, I applied the first section of stripes just below the windshield. As with the smaller decals, I cut out the decal, dipped it in water for about 10 seconds using a tweezers to hold it, moved the tweezers to a new spot and re-soaked it for few more seconds, removed the back, and applied it to the model. It took a little bit of maneuvering to get it into place, and then I let it dry for a few hours. I also applied the gas cover, which I had painted last night.

As I let the decal set, I moved on to the back end of the GT. The engine window needed to be glued to the clamshell. I can proudly say that this was the best job I have done yet of gluing a window in place! I let the glue set for a few minutes, and then glued the clamshell to the body of the GT. The top part slid into place effortlessly, but the sides had to be squeezed together in order for it to fit properly.

I let the glue set for about 20 minutes, and then added the two side vents. Once these were in place, I used the toothpick to punch a hole in the middle of the stripe decal, and then I tried to figure out which wiper went in each hole. The picture did not help much, and to paint them, I had removed them from the plastic sheet with the numbers, so I ended up just taking a guess. As with a few of the other pieces, I had to file the glue off of the attachment point so that the wipers would fit in the holes. I then had to apply glue to the wiper itself. Without the glue, the wipers fell down onto the top of the car instead of staying flat across the bottom of the windshield.

The front and rear of the GT shell is complete (other than the decals, which will be added last). So it is now time to turn our attention back to the chassis. If you recall from yesterday, I attached the engine to the chassis, and also re-painted a number of pieces. We are going to finish the chassis now.

I first glued the three pencil braces together and then attached them over the engine. I then took the rear wheel axle that I had assembled several days ago, and attached this to the back of the car with the calipers to the right of the disc brake.

Next, I glued the first two parts of the exhaust system together and touched up the paint. I then also noticed that the back piece of the exhaust system also needed a touch up with the black paint. No sooner had I applied the paint, that I realized I would have to wait a few hours for it to dry before attaching it. I wanted to get this finished tonight, so waiting was not an option. I sacrificed the tips of my fingers, getting black paint on them as I attached and glued these pieces to the rear of the chassis. The first part also needed to be glued to the end of the supercharger. Once this was done, I did the best job I could of washing my fingers (which remained sticky and black as if the paint were tar). Then I used the black paint to touch up the areas that my fingers had smeared. I was not sure how this would turn out, but you cannot tell that it has been re-painted 4 or 5 times. :-)

All of the fluid containers that were painted black yesterday, were now glued to the chassis. They had to be glued on the outside a little bit to keep them from tipping over, since the point of contact on the bottom is minimal. This took a few minutes to get right, and more black tar...I mean paint...found its way to my fingers. I had to do only a minor touch up on the sides, and then decided to paint the coolant and oil caps silver to match the real GT caps.

I thought it might be wise to just leave them alone, and couldn't be happier that I went ahead ahead and painted them. I think that other than the license, the small star-shaped cap is the best work I did on this model. That piece was hard to reach with a paint brush and extremely small!! I am not sure I could do that again if I tried.

The next piece to be attached to the chassis is the front wheel axle that was assembled towards the beginning of this project. Here is a picture of where we are thus far:

Now it is time for the wheels. I twisted the wheels off of the plastic sheet and pushed the tires on each of them. This was one of the easiest steps of all!

After the tires went on the wheels, the next step was supposed to be attaching each wheel to the axle. Here is where I ran into a dilemma. According to the guy at the hobby shop, I was not to add the wheels until after the GT was sprayed with clear coat. If I put the wheels on at the end, I would not be able to glue them in place because of the shell. I considered applying the decals to the shell at this stage, and then spray painting on the clear coat before putting the shell on the chassis. However, the decal for the stripes on the back covered multiple pieces. Therefore, the shell had to be on the GT in order to apply all of the decals (which of course needed to be done before the clear coat could be applied). I decided that I would put the GT together as designed, and then figure out how to cover the clear plastic, wheels, and tires, before spraying on the clear coat.

The directions said to put on the wheel and then apply a drop of glue in the hole over the top. I did this to the front wheels, but was not able to reach the glue down to the hole for the rear wheels. What I should have done, was to apply glue to a toothpick, and drop it in place. Instead, I put glue on the back side of the wheel that would be attaching to the axle. (You will see why this was a huge mistake in just a moment.)

After that, I added the 2 red reflector decals to each side, and then careful not to touch the wet reflectors, I attached the rear section with the bumper and exhaust pipes, and glued that into place. While waiting for that to dry, the thought occurred to me that I had just glued the wheel to the axle, but the axle does not move! (Why did I not think of this before I applied the glue to both rear wheels?) To make matters worse, I realized this mistake not only after the glue had already set, but after the rear piece was already glued to the GT. :-(

I tried to rotate the rear tires, and (as expected) they would not move. On top of that, the place where the axle was glued to the chassis came free on both sides from my efforts. (That would be another "oops"...) Because everything had already been set in place after the axle was glued, I could not even see the attachment place where glue needed to be reapplied!! I thought I might be able to detach the rear piece, but the glue was already set, and the connection point would rip off if I tried to pull hard. I took a chance and let a few drops of glue slip down blindly into the general area where the attachment point should be.

I did not want to test my luck by trying to pull on the clamshell brace to see if the piece was actually glued down. Instead, I let the glue dry wherever it happened to land, and I went for the interior section of the GT with the dashboard and seats. This piece seemed too big for the chassis, but once I put glue on the bottom, I was able to press the front section firmly down so the glue could catch.

By now I should know to wait for the glue to dry completely before continuing, but it was getting late and my lack of patience got the best of me. The last piece to attach before putting the decals on was the red GT shell. I tried to fit this piece over the top, but it caught around the sides of the car and pulled the interior section right off the chassis! In addition to this, while trying to remove this piece, which was extremely tight on all sides, I inadvertently knocked loose the clamshell brace and rear wheels/axle again!!! Finally, I removed the GT shell, tried to reglue the axle into place, and reglued the interior to the chassis.

I then waited about a 1/2 hour for the paint to dry before attempting to attach the GT shell for the second time. This time it worked! The rear had to attach to the shell, and once glue was applied, I had to press down with both hands - one on each side - and apply a lot of pressure to get the glue to stick. I held it like that for 4 minutes and let go. Not long enough... The glue separated without the pressure, so I had to apply more glue down the cracks and try again! This time I held it in place firmly for 8 minutes, and to my excitement, this time the glue held! Once I was sure that the rear was not going to detach from the shell again, I glued the sides and front of the chassis to the GT shell. There is some glue that shows up underneath the car, but I thought it was better to glue it than leave it alone and risk coming apart. So here is the GT without the final decals.

The one other thing I noticed after this was assembled, is that the rear diffusers are supposed to be black - not silver. These will need to be painted after I apply the decals.

I did some last second touch up paint work on the black where the glue was (under the car). I also painted the rear diffuser black. Once that was done, I applied the silver door handle decals, the side stripes, and the orange front reflector decals. Then I put the stripes on the front, top, and rear of the car.

The smaller decals are very easy to apply. The stripes - not so easy. With the stripes, it is difficult to place them and then make adjustments. I found that it works easiest to keep the back on the decal, place it where you want, use a tweezers to slowly remove the back from one side while holding the edge in place, and then keeping the rest lined up, continue to remove the back until the entire decal is in place.

It is 1:30 AM, but I finished everything I wanted to finish, and it was worth it. The GT looks great!! :-) There are still a few final touches that will go on tomorrow evening before I apply the clear coat, but here are a couple more pictures with the stripes on.