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DocRob

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  1. DocRob
    Phew, decals are on and I, as an old decal coward have to say, these Cartograph decals are the real deal. They are very opaque and fit like a glove, if you made a precise masking job between yellow and white. Even the superfine pinstripes fittet, bordering the yellow. For the first time, I used Tamiya Decal adhesive and so far, I have no complaints. The standard one was used on flat surfaces and the additional softener type was used on contours. There is one tiny fold on the curved front black stripe, but I hope with some stronger softener this will vanish. Before decaling, I wet sanded all the body parts with 6000 and 8000 grit and the surfaces were absolutely smooth and the color borders got rid of the tiny edge from masking. The rear wing was resprayed, because I polished through the edges on a tiny spot. I painted all the rivets on the body with a precision brush for a little bit more detail. Cheers Rob
  2. DocRob
    Thanks Ken, it went on surprisingly well, with very light coats first, building up opacity and a final slightly flooding layer to achieve a super smooth surface. Cheers Rob
  3. DocRob
    My new compressor arrived after a long week of making up the engine and cleaning parts. A task, not to underestimate wit this kit. Every part has to be inspected, sanded, scratched with a blade, the age of the mold forms is obviously. I will show you a total un-Tamiya look with lots of scratched off material only from the turbo system and gear housing . Finally I had to test my new Sparmax compressor and what better to try is spraying yellow onto the body parts. I really like the result, where only minimal polishing will be needed before I apply the decals. I sprayed the heavy thinned Tamiya LP8 with low pressure at about 13 psi or 0,9 bar. Next test was spraying lots of the innards with different metallic colors, AK's Extreme Metal Aluminum and from the Tamiya LP range titan gold, titan silver, gun metal, pearl silver and finally semi matte black for the air intakes on the upper body. Cheers Rob
  4. DocRob
    Thank you Kevin and Mike, the engine is a little kit in itself with the Renault. The detail and fit is not exactly up to Tamiya's standards as of today, but it's a solid base. Yesterday, I prepared the exhaust, and this is a completely different story. The nicely matte chromed plastic has terrible parting lines and defects and the fit isn't perfect as well. I needed to scratch away lots of the plating and later repaint everything. There are times, where you feel, you're working on a dinosaur kit. Cheers Rob
  5. DocRob
    Thank you gentlemen, after getting rid of the idea, applying 0,2 mm rods as tube connectors and gluing the tubes directly onto the plastic, it took me only about two hours, to finalize the refinement. Means, I should always request my shortcuts, specially when a better solution is simple to achieve. Wine cap foil is a great material for modelling. I used it not only for clamps, but for flags and towels as well, not to mention tie down straps. Like you mentioned Gary, it has the right rigidity for many purposes and you can fold it to taste without a spring. The other benefit, you have to open a bottle of wine, to get some and if you are clumsy and waste the cap, a second one Cheers Rob
  6. DocRob
    I know, I know, I promised you a pause from my efforts, but today, while cleaning the bench, I thought about my desire to change the engines fuel tubing. I cut off the plastic connectors and glued on sections of clear brown tubing with an outer diameter of 0,4 mm and 0,6 mm. The first one, I pre-drilled and inserted 0,2 mm micro silver rod, but that proved tedious and simply butt gluing the tubes did the job. Then I painted all the tube connection points titan silver for contrast and all the screw heads around the engine in silver and sparkling silver. Last but not least, I found my cylinder head detail work showing not enough contrast, with the pencil onto the anodized blue. I carefully scratched the pencil and blue color away with a blade and voila, now it looks much better. Finally, I shortened the yellow ignition wires and bundled them with clamps made by tiny strips of wine cap foil. Now I feel good about the engine. Only for comparison, how it looked before: Cheers Rob
  7. DocRob
    Unfortunately this build is paused for a while, because my trusty old airbrush compressor, which I bought in 1989 passed away yesterday. I hope the new one arrives soon. Cheers Rob
  8. DocRob
    Very nice display OC, the models are splendid themselves, but the dio with the figures make it perfect. Cheers Rob
  9. DocRob
    One step forward, two steps back. I progressed with the addition of the front suspension and cockpit internals to the monocoque, steps made a bit delicate, because Tamiya decided on a flimsy workable steering and working suspension. The fit was a bit vague in places, but with a bit of wiggling all came together, but without the typical Tamiya snap. The decals for the dials went on perfectly, the RPM-meter got a self adhesive mirror backing, which was supplied in the kit. The yellow body parts are not mounted as of yet, but only show dimensions, fit and very important with this build, how the parts interact. Well, two steps back it was, because I was a bit lazy and omitted an old self imposed rule in plastic modelling. Never use power tools, if it can be avoided. After some hand polishing of the yellow body parts, I remembered, that I own a Proxxon micro drill with a cotton polish bit. To tell a cursing experience short, The bit caught on plastic edges and left marks in my paintjob on two parts . Repainting is necessary and I decided to airbrush the upper body part in white (Tamiya LP-2) first and then spray all the remaining yellow parts together. Luckily the white lay down very well and shiny. Cheers Rob
  10. DocRob
    Thank you Mike, it looked even better after polishing, but that is a different story, to be read below. Cheers Rob
  11. DocRob
    Thank you Gentlemen. the next steps will show, if the yellow paint will be good enough. It looks, like with polishing compounds, I can get rid of the orange peel effects, without polishing through the coat. The LP yellow sprays well, but somehow build up a bit of orange peel on some surfaces, where I have no explanation for. Anyhow, next will be the monocoque assembly, as I need some space on the workbench, before I continue painting. Cheers Rob
  12. DocRob
    After the primer, in my case Alclad white microfiller, which sprayed fantastic and gave a fine satin surface, I applied the firs body color, in this case yellow. The Tamiya LP-8 was thinned with almost two thirds of leveling thinner and sprayed on in fine layers. For yellow is not the easiest color to spray, it went well and with a relatively fine glossy surface. For the first time, I sprayed some pure leveling thinner over the drying yellow color, which indeed levlled a bit more. I have not a lot of experience, painting car bodies, but I think with a liitle polish and some elbow grease, all will look good as a base for the decals. Cheers Rob
  13. DocRob
    You may think, I was lazy, as I've posted no updates, but no. The nature of the build dictate, that there is a lot of painting and planning ahead involved with this build along with time consuming cleanup. The kit shows it's age, but all is manageable. I sprayed different metal and black shades to the monocoque and front suspension but nothing is assembled now, the pictures are only a mock up. I decided to use Polished Aluminum from the Extreme Metal range, but it permanently clogged my airbrush, even after in thorough between cleaning. Strange, last week, it sprayed without problems. I opted for Chrome then, which looks bright and shiny and enough like polished aluminum. As a primer, I used Tamiya's gloss black LP color, which is fantastic for the purpose. The designated AK black primer proved horrible in earlier test and never thoroughly dried, with keeping it's tackiness, even after weeks. All other colors were from Tamiya's LP range, namely Sparkling Silver, Metallic Grey, Silver and Semi matte black. All these colors spray exceptionally well, thinned with Leveling Thinner and are very durable. Cheers Rob
  14. DocRob
    I'm looking forward to your GT 40 build, is it 1/12 as well? No matter which kit you own, I guess the supplied tubing is always lacking some detail and can be refined. Cheers Rob
  15. DocRob
    Me too, I think, I will use them, which means to cut off all the plastic tube holder parts and drill some tiny holes and add short pieces of wire, to accept the tube. Cheers Rob
  16. DocRob
    I took a photo for comparison and product numbers. These are the tubes I have. The unpacked one on the bottom is the Tamiya supplied one. It has an outer diameter of 1,2 mm. I think, I will exchange the tubes, but as I have to wait for the connectors, I leave the Tamiya tube on for the moment, until I know, which preparation is needed. Cheers Rob
  17. DocRob
    I thought the same Craig, and I may substitute them with clear yellow tubing from Hiro. I will wait for my supplies of connectors to arrive, until I decide. The clear yellow tube has a outer diameter of 0,8 mm and should look better. Cheers Rob
  18. DocRob
    There was a lot of work involved for it replicating only a 1,5 liter engine. The turbo chargers which will push the engine to about 500 PS are not even included. Cables and wires are not finally attached, as I may add some resin connectors later, if my parcel ever arrives. I added a thin black oil color/white spirit wash, to enhance the details a bit. Before, I tried Tamiya and AK panel liner, but didn't like, how difficult they were to remove and found the oil color mix much mor controllable and noted for the future, to mix my own washes preferably. Fit of the parts was not brilliant, but in most cases sufficient. I had to cut some connector lugs for the belts and few other smaller parts, but no major complaints. Cheers Rob
  19. DocRob
    Thank you Gary, the good thing with the RE 20 is, due to the reboxing, it's still widely available and has Cartograph decals along with a PE-fret, when you chose the new edition. The kits have aged relatively well, but quality wise, they are far away from Tamiya's todays standards. Lot's of cleanup is necessary, but I believe, you can build a very nice representation from the kits. I only have the Brabham BT44 in large scale in my stash, along the huge Martini Porsche 935. Kits of the same age more or less, but I look forward to build them someday. Cheers Rob
  20. DocRob
    I have a wide array of interest modeling wise and a great interest to replicate the used materials correct. Therefore, I like to read in others build threads, how they achieved their great work and let me inspire by the materials they used. Knowledge of other users about colors and weathering products is very important to me and that's why I normally document what I use. The flat aluminum called for in the Renault's manual Tamiya LP-38 is dead flat and doesn't look right to me. I would have chosen another color, but found, with a bit of semi matte clear coating, everything came together. Cheers Rob
  21. DocRob
    Fantastic work Yves, I stumbled into your build log by accident and now I have to read 15 pages, thank you for that . Your work with the Bellona is absolutely perfect, one thing caught my eye immediately was the beautiful patinaed copper bottom. Cheers Rob
  22. DocRob
    Continuing with the engine, all parts were sprayed with Tamiya LP matte aluminum per manual. After masking, I applied Tamiya X-3 Royal blue, which I left a bit translucent, to have a nice anodized appearance. Next, I picked of the ribs and branding with a soft lead pencil. The AK weathering pencil silver was not found suitable after testing. After some detail painting, I assembled the engine so far and decided to give it a coat of Tamiya LP semi matte clear, as the matte aluminum was too matte for my liking. I plan to use a very thin oil wash next, where the clear coat will be a good base for. Another test of patience were the numerous belts, which were sprayed in matte aluminum entirely and then the belts were painted with Tamiya LP Nato black. Various parts, which will be added to the engine block soon, were painted with AK's Extreme Metals dark aluminum, polished aluminum and duraluminum. Cheers Rob
  23. DocRob
    We had a heat wave here, combined with a heavy storm and a humidity under 15%, definitely no weather for airbrushing, but as my cave is relatively cool, I managed to prepare a zillion parts for the engine and suspension, which is a really time consuming task with this dinosaur. Lots of flash and burr, every part had to be inspected closely. I filled all the gaps and ejection marks on the wing with Perfect Putty, as best as I could, which is hopefully sufficient. I really suck at filling. The engine parts, of which there are many, got a coat of Tamiya LP flat aluminum as a base color. The next step, I pondered in my small brain. The cylinder covers as well as some other parts of the engine block, where in a blue paint, originally. I tried to mask the demarcation line with tape, but was unable to get a perfect masking with the difficult shape of the part. Tamiya could have parted the cylinder covers for easier painting. During my siesta, I had an idea. I once bought a big bottle of semi viscous masking fluid from Moiotow for a special paintjob, which never worked out. Here it came to rescue. I spilled an amount of masking fluid onto some plastic and moved the part in the fluid, et voila, it worked. Siestas are no wasted time it seems. Cheers Rob
  24. DocRob
    Thank you Andrew, I'm blushing. I never built a British plane to my knowledge, so I'm hardly an expert, when it comes to painting. For the Tiffy and Mossie, I chose AK's Real colors, as they generally match well and spray superb, thinned with leveling thinner. They are also very durable and good to mask and weather on top. Cheers Rob
  25. DocRob
    I misread something, sorry

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