Model Kit Builder » How-To

Skyline the hardest work done?

Klaus Weitzel — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 10:55:52 +0000

Over the last couple of days I di fit the body kit for the skyline so that the huge gaps in the body lines may disappear. It took quite some sanding and refitting to get where it is now:

Skyline Body left side

Skyline Body right side

Skyline Body rear

Skyline Body front

Next step is to take out the white primer and prime the body in white, obvious, isn’t it? The yellow colour is ordered and hopefully will arrive next week.

masking … a different approach.

Klaus Weitzel — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:04:12 +0000

Sometimes you need to mask of areas differently if you don’t manage by “just” applying strips of masking tape around the area you want to have masked. Here is a different approach, you apply the stripes all over the area and then use a scalpel (a sharp one so be careful!) to cut out the area you want to paint. Here the area are the 2 rear air scoops in the rear area of the Porsche.

Detail view of the masked area ...

... and the cut out area afterwards

As you can see, my scalpel was not sharp enough, so the edges do look more ripped than cut. For me that means … do it again. Anyway, here is also a complete view of the car with the samples …

The masking again ...

... and from the other side.

Masking and Spraying

Klaus Weitzel — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 07:44:24 +0000

Last week I went to town wif Claudia, my wife. Actually I don’t like at all going to town, but as a “reward” I got myself some new propellant for the old airbrush. OK … I didn’t have the other 2 guns yet so I thought let’s go for it with the old one. I masked the right side of the Porsche 936-78 to give the air duct a bit of the old red colour that the LeMans Car of ’78 (Jacky Ickx , Henri Pescarolo, Jochen Mass) had. Additionally the rear wing gets some of that red as well.

View of my "Paint Booth" ...

Detail - Masked of Area of

So here you have it, a nice look into may spraying area. It’s located right beside one of two windows in the room (remember the fresh air!) but, since I don’t have active air circulation, I have to protect me during the brief painting sessions. I actually have 2 cardboard boxes, a small one for little parts and the large one for the bigger jobs.

small paint booth with spainted spoiler

large paintbooth with model and airbrush

In the last picture the freshly painted parts just need to be protected against dust for drying and they are ready to go. If you don’t protect those freshly painted parts, they will attract the dust like a magnet (in the larger pictures you can see what I mean …).

Creating a master for a lexan windshield – done!

Klaus Weitzel — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:47:32 +0000

Remember, a couple of posts ago I promised a dutch reader that I would make a master for the Tamiya King Cobra wind screen. Finally I did it. I mixed up some CeranoFix (by Eberhard Faber) and pured it into the windscreen part I had.

The empty lexan wind screen

The empty windscreen besides CeramoFix

Some people tend to adhere to strict recipes when it comes down to mixing something, but I tend to mix as I go on. I am used to this by my apprenticeship as electrician, about 20 years ago. Anyway, stir the mixture well and leave it a bit liquid so it lets air bubbles escape. The more liquid the mass is, the longer it will take drying.

The CeramoFix has been poured

Final Product ...

Now I will let it dry a couple of days and then get it ready to ship if this reader still needs it …

[UPDATE]
Now I’ll just need the address of Peter to ship it to him. But that will be done privately.

Creating a master for a lexan windshield

Klaus Weitzel — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:15:12 +0000

In one of the posts about the Restoration of the Tamiya King Cobra I was asked by one of the readers where I got my windscreen replica. Since I bought it a couple of years ago from an Australian and don’t have the contact details any more, I suggested to my reader that I could create a master for a replica.

Tamiya King Cobra Lexan Windscreen - 1

Tamiya King Cobra Lexan Windscreen - 2

So I want to make a simple master for replicating this screen. I will be using a simple casting technique with materials you can find in any crafts shop, actually you should be able to get the material required even in a DIY store. Ceramic plaster will be the material used for the negative.

In the pictures above you can see already, that the raw windscreen has already the right form to pour somthing into it, so it might as well be some plaster for a new master form.

Metal finish for model kits

Klaus Weitzel — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:57:30 +0000

In quite a lot of model kits you have to deal with a metal finish of one sort or the other. Now, what options are there for the finishes?

Paining with enamel
Painting with acrylic
Foiling

You most probably have done the first and maybe the second as well, but did you try the third yet? The advantage of foiling is that you can achieve loads of different finishes with the same material (e.g. aluminium wrap) just by sourcing it from different manufacturers and treating it differently. But be cautious, foiling is not for the beginner.

There are a couple of nice articles about this topic, for me notably:

I wanted some model with less detail to start with so for my first experiment I ordered the “Naboo Royal Cruiser” from Fantastic Plastic for this experiment.

Royal Naboo Cruiser by Fantastic Plastic

I am not sure yet what foil to use, but the shiny side of a simple household wrapper foil seems the right material for this. As alternative I have set my eyes on some specialised chrome foil for modeling purposes, but as you can imagine the price is comparably higher than for simple household alu foil. So, watch out for the model comming up.