… for the King Cobra of Tamiya. The cockpit has been painted a Tamiya black (fitting, no?). The colour I got a while ago on the infamous flea market. together with it some fitting blue as well, but to late for the base colour.
Here you go with some pictures:
The black painted cockpit 1
The black painted cockpit 2
OK … my wife had to leave me … but only on family business. What else to do than to go on with one of my projects? Nothing!
So I started masking the cockpit area of the Tamiya kit. It will become flat black with the driver painted in traditional colours. But first there comes some masking … actually quite some of it:
Overall view of the masked cockpit ...
... from both sides.
Last Weekend I actually managed to get forward with the painting of the Body. Currently I am quite satisfied with the metallic blue that the body has taken on now.
Metallic blue ... lots of it
And even more from the other side
Is the colour that I have chosen for the King Cobra. The original box art of Tamiya shows the car in a colour scheme which brings it close to Carol Shelby (but we know already, that this was wrong). I found this metallic blue in my local supermarket when I was looking for some heat resistant colour for the Live Steam Locomotive I have and just picket it up.
The driver side ... and again sanded
The driver side, now from the front
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
Ok … I’ll tell you what happened. After all this sanding, priming and filling a made a “fatal” error. I used the wrong paint for the finish. Have a look:
Faulty Paintjob
Faulty Paintjob Detail
After a couple of evenings spent with filling, sanding and priming the body you should see something resembling this:
King Cobra Body
King Cobra Body
After the first layers of primer have been applied and removed again it is now time to fill some parts of the model. The filler used in this case is a 2 component filler used for car bodywork repair. Here you need to be careful again. It’s flammable and the fumes are not really healthy. Since the original windscreen is not available any more and instead a lexan windscreen is mounted the 3 mounting holes for the original windscreen can be closed.
King Cobra Body
King Cobra Body
After the first priming and sanding down I applied a new layer of primer and started to assemble the few bodyparts which need attaching to the body and then some filling to blend in properly.
Tamiya "King Cobra" Body
Tamiya "King Cobra" Body
I started preparing the body of the vintage piece already some years ago by disassembling it and then sanded it down a bit. Yesterday I applied some coats of white primer and now it’s time to smooth it up again.
Remember how it looked before and after priming:
Tamiya "King Cobra" Body before priming
Tamiya "King Cobra" Body after priming