I can honestly say that some of these modeling tips MAY be obvious to some, but the point of this site is to help all types of builders – from novice to advanced. Hope these help!

TIP #1 – WATER BOTTLE CAPS –

If you are like me, you don’t spend the extra cash for huge palettes to mix paint and sometimes you just need to make that red a little bit more orange-y. The easiest, and cheapest way to do this is to use the top off of a water/soda bottle. I’m sure someone in the house drinks water/soda and the caps make a GREAT size to mix needed colors. Plus they are disposable, so no need to bother with cleaning. And, yeah…. I’m sure a beer cap would do the trick too…

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TIP #2 – MODEL CLEAR PARTS CEMENT –

So, I am writing about a tip that includes something already made for modeling? Yeah. Thanks to my friend Wade Phillips, I’m going to let you in on a really cool trick to help with dried out paint. Huh? Yeah! I have gone to my white paint jar numerous times to paint headlights or back-up lights and found it to be dried up. Screwed. TIL NOW. The cement to the left can produce decent looking headlights (see right). No more waiting til you can get to the hobby store to finish your ride!

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TIP #3 – WIPER STALK –

Here is a little helper I’ve found works well. If you have a LOT of extra parts, you’ll probably run into this beaut. If you take a wiper from just about any muscle car kit and hack off the end, you can use it for a directional stalk for your car that didn’t come with one. They are the right width and usually the right length. You can also make good use of unwanted antennas this way too. Necessity is the mother of goofy ideas… or something or other.

TIP #4 – EXHAUST RADIATOR HOSE –

This is something that MANY kits have a problem with – missing radiator hoses. Whether it is missing from an open kit you purchased or not included with the kit you are building, a proper engine bay has a hose joining the engine to the radiator. A simple trick is to use a piece of old exhaust to make one. Exhaust typically bend all kinds of ways, will be plentiful (as most sports/muscle cars have dual exhaust), are highly bendable, and are almost always the correct circumference for the size of a radiator hose.

Sorry it has been a while since I did my first Car Craft tip page, but here we are nonetheless. I hope you liked these tricks and if you have any of your own, please feel free to submit them. You’ll get credit for whatever glorious help you send my way! Keep modeling!

—Kev