What's on my desk? Part 119.
Good morning on this bright sunny day!
Last reminder: this Sunday, April 19th: Modelbouwdag of the Duffel club. From 10 to 17, Zaal Den Biet; Naalstraat 43F, Duffel 2570. Make sure to come by; if not for me, for the club!
The models then.
Let's start with the Focus. I polished the final gloss coat a bit using the Tamiya polishing compounds and a new glasses-cleaning cloth... and lots of elbow grease. This is the before:
For showroom models you can go all out and give it a mirror-like sheen. This is a rally car, though, so I limited the polish to just a final extra shine.
Once done, I could finally add the windows, headlight covers and rear wing. There are also the last decals to apply to the windows. The one for the windscreen was pretty beat up:
Luckily, the white ends are there to act as a base for yellow markings. So any damages I could just paint over.
The final step was making the antennas using some stretched sprue, painted black.
So here's the end result. You'll see the driver's side has some serious flaws. There's a ring on the door decal, the rear window is broken and scratched. If I'd found new decals or windows I'd have replaced these, but as the kit is fairly old and out of production there aren't any after-market sets made anymore either...
As mentioned last week, I made another car. This is the UGears Drift Racer. In the box you'll find several sheets of laser-cut wood (which includes a push tool), a small sheet of sandpaper, a steel spring, a stick of candlewax and several sizes of elastic bands.
This is the first assembly:
You use the stick of candle wax to 'grease' the moving parts, so they spin and turn easily. Don't be shy about using this! I think I didn't use enough in places, and as a result my car doesn't run very smoothly.
The push tool pictured is used to push parts out of the frames, or as a spacer during assembly.
The steel spring is the heart of the model. It's pushed in place first:
Then wound up into the assembly, hooking into one of the supports:
Even though this is all made of wood, the final assembly is really sturdy.
There are some assemblies, like the seats and trunk, that are curved. This is done using parts lasered completely through. I was a bit apprehensive at first, but again: very sturdy. You also get spares for these, just in case.
Construction is fairly straightforward. Make sure to study the instructions thoroughly. Everything is called out, but you need to pay attention to orientation and order at certain points. This is where I got the first day, after a couple of hours of work:
If there's one area that could use a bit of improvement it's those side exhausts. They're a bit loose, but as they are mostly cosmetic, it's a minor gripe.
Near the final assembly, you're going to make the trunk and engine hood. These are made from thinner, plyable wood. As you can see, they're about a third the thickness:
Looking good, though:
The trunk lid is similar to the seats, the surrounding plate is a big sheet of thin wood.
So it took me three days (about 18 hours) to fully assemble the model. On the bottom, you have a tensioning screw, connected to the spring (the part with the arrows on it):
When you've wound up the spring, put the car down and slide the 'Start' piece on the engine forward. This will release the lock in the passenger's footwell and the car will drive:
The switch in between the seats is for forward/backward movement. You can even turn the steering wheel and have the front wheels turned to left or right.
Here's a final shot showing the fully assembled model:
Trunk and engine hood can be posed open:
The doors can be opened, but they're kept shut with a elastic band.
In all, pretty enjoyable build. It all comes together nicely; some areas (like the wheel mudguards) need some (careful) force to push everything in place, but this adds to the sturdiness.
I've also made some progress on my T-72. Looking at pictures of other people's builds, I brought out all my washes and filters, and gave every tray of the autoloader a random filter to slightly discolour them and give the entire carousel a more interesting appearance:
The sidewalls and floor finally received their satin varnish and were glued in place. Adding the carousel, the hull is now looking nice and busy:
I really should've filled that big knockout mark in front of the driver's seat. Hopefully with some extra weathering (mud!) and the front upper glacis in place, you won't notice it that much...
This is the other side. You'll notice there are 3 shells mounted at the back.
Not all ammunition was held in the autoloader. There are separate rounds spread all around the compartment. Painting these needs some attention to detail:
I started with the airbrushed grey, then brush painted the brown and used a fine paintbrush to paint the straps white, finishing with a drybrush of metal over the fasteners. Looking at the two charges at the top, I hope I can hide that seam line...
Finally, I started on the engine and transmission for the rear engine compartment:
Next week I'll hopefully have some aircraft to show as well...
That's all.
See you Sunday, or next week!