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.