Citroen 2CV by Landlubber Mike - FINISHED - Airfix and Tamiya - 1/24

[cog]

1 hour ago, CDW said:

Cute little cars, but I imagine they nor the passengers would fare well in crash tests.

Are the bars you mention ones that can be seen in the photos that precede your last post? They must be the upper control arms, but something looks odd about this arrangement and not correct. Have you compared photos of the real car's suspension with the model kit?

 

My brother-in-law told me about compact Citroen cars in France that were very popular, but prohibited from import to the USA due to safety standards. Wonder if these were the ones he spoke of?

You don't want to get a frontal accident, as you shall end up with the engine in your lap, entry at the driver's side is quite definite as well. But why always be safe, living on the edge gives a nice kick ...

35 minutes ago, Nirvana said:

CDW, 

The modern Citroen have a high safety standard otherwise they wouldn't be able to sell their cars at all.

Modern Citroëns, yes, but what has got that to do with these tin cans ... Don't get me wrong, I do love these ducks, my second car is an Austin Mini Van, a lot faster, and not much safer! Driving these cars really gives you the feeling you are driving!

[CDW]

5 hours ago, wefalck said:

Well, the car was conceived in the late 1930s, when there were not too many other cars on the road and mainly for use in rural areas. That it became so popular in the 1960s to 1980s particularly with non-conventional urban young could not be anticipated. The lack of passenger protection was one reason, why it was discontinued.

 

 I have a late 1970s repair manual, which shows a lot of cross-sections of the parts of the suspension, but no GA drawing unfortunately, but I found this site with a lot of useful photographs (albeit in German): http://www.entmontage.de/fahrwerk.htm. And the animated graphic from that site:

 

Thanks for the link. The first photo shows the "bars" Mike wrote about. Looks like they are the tie rods. Very interesting and unique suspension arrangement. I have never seen this design before now.

[wefalck]

I may be wrong, but I think Citroen used this kin of system for the rear suspension of the half-tracks that were used for the Sahara expeditions and the on-land trip from Paris to Pékin (Beijing) in late 1920s/early 1930s. 

[Baker]

Looks a bit like the  "horizontal volute spring suspension" or HVSS (M4 sherman) 

 

 

[lmagna]

12 hours ago, cog said:

my second car is an Austin Mini Van

I have seen pictures of your second car and it is MUCH prettier than this "Duck".  No bias on my part though.

[popeye the sailor]

interesting set up.........coming along nicely Mike  

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks for the kind words everyone.  I've made good progress on the Duck, and am on the home stretch.  Chassis, and engine are complete:

 

 

 

Also painted the exterior of the car body.  I started with Tamiya Dark Yellow (rattle can) as you can see on the body, but it was more tan that I would have liked.  So, I added a couple of layers of Vallejo Yellow Wash which you can see on the hood.  Looks much closer to the yellow color I was looking for:

 

 

I don't have pictures, but I've been playing around with some Molotow markers that I have.  I used black to outline the doors, which worked nicely.  Only problem was I applied the wash thinking the black markings had dried, and ended up with some black smears that I needed to paint over.  Now I know that the Molotow black markers need time to dry. 🙄  I also tried using the Molotow chrome pens on some of the accents, including the mirrors.  The color is absolutely incredible, but I found the markers a bit tricky to use.  Will have to try them again.

 

At this point, I'm close to being done with this kit with everything being painted - just need to stage things including touch ups which takes more time than I usually think.  Even though this kit is fairly simple, and not the crispest in terms of the details, it's been a fun first car kit since I was a kid.  I have the Tamiya Citroen 2CV kit as well that I might build after this one.  Looks a little better in terms of crispness of details, etc., so it should be interesting to see how they compare.

[fnick]

Looking good Mike. The yellow on the bonnet is much nicer in my humble opinion. Regarding the molotow chrome pen you can put a bit of chrome on a palette and paint it on. Trick is not to try and paint it on too thinly. Also work quickly and don't try to go over an area a second time without leaving it time to dry properly or you don't get the same finish as out of the pens. 

 

Hope this helps

Nick

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks Nick - that’s very helpful on the pens.  I noticed that also.  The finish is pretty amazing when done right - reminds me of the liquid terminator from Terminator 2 with the vibrant metal color.

[Landlubber Mike]

All done!  Had some fit issues with getting the hood on the car (others apparently have had similar issues), and I had to cut off a high part of the fan to get it to fit.  Ended up gluing the hood on anyway, so not a big deal.  The back wheels are a bit tight to the wheel wells, and one tire is slightly elevated versus the other three.  A few of the detail parts didn't really fit, or had poor anchoring, which was a bit frustrating - especially when it came to the chassis/axles, which as I mentioned earlier, were assembled by trapping the axle between two chassis pieces.  The rear axle broke off when I was test fitting early in the build and required me to break apart the chassis to fix it (possibly why there some issues with the tires). All that being said, it was a fun little kit and a good intro back into plastic car modeling after more than 35 years.  Learned a lot and got to experiment, so all good here.

 

I ended up scratch building the grill on the hood.  I didn't really like how it was a solid piece, and figured I would try to first hollow out the spacings between the grill cars with a tiny ball bit on my micromotor.  The bars were really too thin though, and I noticed the tendency of the plastic to fuse to the bit tip, which tended to make more of a mess of things and not give the precision with the clean bit (cracked the bottom of the frame which was annoying).  So I scrapped the idea, hollowed out the interior, and rebuilt the grill works.  Was tricky, and took a ton of time, but was a good learning experience.  It's not perfect, but doesn't look bad from a normal viewing distance.

 

 

 

 

While things were drying, I pulled the Tamiya Citroen 2CV off the shelf.  It looks like a better kit, with crisper details, pieces have proper anchoring components, etc.  Will be interesting to see how this one builds relative to the Airfix. I'll probably just add the Tamiya build to this log.  

 

 

Thanks for following and for the helpful advice!

[wefalck]

Gratulations to the completion !

 

I noticed two things that may have to do with the design of the kit:

 

- the 2CV didn't have an actual dashboard; there was a sort of open 'glove-shelf' stretching across the whole width of the car; close to the box with the speedometer and by the side of the steering wheel the characteristic gear-shifting stick was sticking our near horizontally, with a crooked handle and a ball at the end - the umbrella stick - this seems to have been missing from the kit ? Interestingly, Renault's R4 copied this arrangement, but they inverted the sense of the different speeds, which was very confusing, when you were switching between the two cars, as I did during a certain period.

 

- The front-wheels don't seem to be centered in the wings, they seem to be too far back ...

 

Looking forward to the building of the other kit then.

[Landlubber Mike]

Thank you!  

 

The kit had the umbrella stick - problem is, the way the kit is designed, you need to insert it from the engine into the body, which then goes through the firewall on the chassis and into the interior of the car.  I couldn't get the stick to fit through the hole in the body into the interior so I just left it off.  I ordinarily would have test fitted things, but after trying to add the body to the chassis early in the build and busting loose the rear axle, I wasn't too keen on doing more test fittings. Like a few other items on the model, the "dashboard" also didn't have a good system of anchoring it to the model, so I was worried that pushing the umbrella stick could cause the dashboard to fall off which would be a disaster (it had broken off twice before when I was preparing the body).  This was a problem with most of the kit - instead of having typical pins and holes to align parts together, there were little nubs maybe 0.5mm and dimples rather than holes.  I found I had to drill out the dimples and switch to two-part epoxy (from CA and plastic cement) in order to provide extra strength to keep parts together.

 

I just looked at the Tamiya kit and it similarly runs the umbrella stick from the engine into the interior of the car.  But, it looks like the body/firewall give better access and anchoring points.  Hopefully it works better as I am considering building the model with the top open.  The parts also look much crisper - looking at the final pictures of the Airfix, I should have tried to sand things like the bumpers more - without paint they looked fine, but after painting and trying to do the two tones, you can see how the plastic isn't particularly smooth.

 

I think the front wheels are fairly centered - I took the pictures from my phone close up, so from the angle, they probably look further back than they are.

[Landlubber Mike]

@wefalck, just to get back to what you're saying about the front wheels, I looked at the model and you are totally correct   Ugh, now I remember that a few months ago when I broke off the rear axle, the front axle broke off as well when I had to separate the chassis to reattach the rear axle.  There was no indication of where either axle were supposed to fit because again, the kit didn't have good anchoring for either axle, but just trapped it between the chassis and the tub.  So, I guessed, and it looks like I guessed incorrectly.  

 

Oh well, live and learn I suppose.  One lesson - use epoxy when you are worried about connections that aren't very secure and that may be subject to stress.  

 

Hopefully the Tamiya kit will come out better.  I had some time today and got started on building the engine and priming a number of the parts.  So far so good.  Even on the engine, you can see where the Tamiya developers took care in where the sprue tab connections should be, where potential sink marks could occur (minimal in this kit, and to the extent there are some, they are in hidden areas), better connection points, etc.  The Airfix had a number of sink marks in visible areas that had to be filled and sanded, and some parts came in two halves that didn't match up very well and needed a lot of work to make them look decent.  Tamiya took the approach of molding a number of these as full pieces so you don't run into those issues.

[wefalck]

The position of the wheels should be quite well defined by the swing-arms. Perhaps it would be a good idea to drill them through at the car end and pin them to the chassis ... one could make them even working by replacing the plastic spring cylinders with lengths of brass tubing with real springs inside

 

[Landlubber Mike]

That's probably doable, but I'm sure I will end up busting off the detail pieces, mucking up the body finish, etc.  I'll just chalk this one up to a learning experience and move on, especially since I have other kits on the shelf that I can work on.  Disappointing as now that's the only thing I'll notice when I look at it 😕  

[lmagna]

Turn the car so that it looks like the front wheels are centered in the fenders Mike. You did too good of a job to be drawn to the one bad point each time you look at it.

 

Congratulations. 

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks Lou!  I actually did just that in setting it up in the display cabinet.  Who knows, maybe I'll get a laugh out of it once I get a few more models under my belt.

[MadDogMcQ]

Well Mike, I've just finished looking through this build and enjoyed it very much. My cousin completely stripped and rebuilt one of these cars in his garage and that too was a joy to watch - there's much more to these vehicles than people think. Your model has come together really well and that scratch-built grille is infinitely better than the supplied one! Well done.

I look forward to seeing how the Tamiya compares - especially with your recent experience and knowledge of this one. 👍

Tom.

[popeye the sailor]

turned out quite well Mike.......some models,  they are as they are.   some inaccuracies you can do with little trouble........some are nearly impossible.   I'm still looking for that model that I've covered all the bases    it will be interesting to see how different companies cover the same subject.  on some models,  I've done better adding the dash to the inside of the body,  rather than the chassis.  the grille.........you did great with it.......I'm sure you did some profane words with it   

[Nirvana]

Mike, 

That Tamiya box says "functional suspension" - I am intrigued how that system works. Build log will tell. 

[Nirvana]

Back in the 80's a friend of mine had an R4.
After one evening and early morning on our way from the "dancing the night away", he suddenly had the "umbrella handle" in his hand.

Even with four people it did fine. Wasn't the rocket after a red-light stop. I think all Renaults and Citroen had their quirks and special electronical issues.

Mike, now back to your 2CV.

Oh btw, here is a sketch of the motor-bay. 

[Old Collingwood]

51 minutes ago, Nirvana said:

Mike, 

That Tamiya box says "functional suspension" - I am intrigued how that system works. Build log will tell. 

Need to ask  "007"   That question.........

 

OC.

[wefalck]

" ... he suddenly had the "umbrella handle" in his hand" - I seem to vaguely remember that this happened to someone I know too. My sister also had a R4 for a while, but I don't think it was her - her's lost a front wing while driving

 

[Landlubber Mike]

16 hours ago, MadDogMcQ said:

Well Mike, I've just finished looking through this build and enjoyed it very much. My cousin completely stripped and rebuilt one of these cars in his garage and that too was a joy to watch - there's much more to these vehicles than people think. Your model has come together really well and that scratch-built grille is infinitely better than the supplied one! Well done.

I look forward to seeing how the Tamiya compares - especially with your recent experience and knowledge of this one. 👍

Tom.

Wow, very cool Tom!  Apparently the thing with these cars was that they were so simple, owners could work on them to repair or modify them.  I love your cousin's work!  They don't seem to be the fastest thing on the road, but I bet with their simplicity, they are a lot of fun to drive.

8 hours ago, popeye the sailor said:

turned out quite well Mike.......some models,  they are as they are.   some inaccuracies you can do with little trouble........some are nearly impossible.   I'm still looking for that model that I've covered all the bases    it will be interesting to see how different companies cover the same subject.  on some models,  I've done better adding the dash to the inside of the body,  rather than the chassis.  the grille.........you did great with it.......I'm sure you did some profane words with it   

So far the Tamiya is crisper, with less to clean up and much better anchoring points.  I'll post some pictures in the next few days - I've pretty much gotten the chassis done, and am starting to work on the body and interior tub.

 

And yeah, the grill took me a bit to figure out how to approach it given that there aren't many anchoring points, and the grill comes to almost a V at the center.  Not perfect, and maybe could have tried using brass, but I'm happy with it as a first attempt.

6 hours ago, Nirvana said:

Mike, 

That Tamiya box says "functional suspension" - I am intrigued how that system works. Build log will tell. 

I'll try to post some pictures.  The suspension does move - take a look here beginning around the 6:00 mark:

 

 

6 hours ago, Nirvana said:

Back in the 80's a friend of mine had an R4.
After one evening and early morning on our way from the "dancing the night away", he suddenly had the "umbrella handle" in his hand.

Even with four people it did fine. Wasn't the rocket after a red-light stop. I think all Renaults and Citroen had their quirks and special electronical issues.

Mike, now back to your 2CV.

Oh btw, here is a sketch of the motor-bay. 

Thanks for the sketch!  Am I'm sure that evening was entertaining to say the least.

[Landlubber Mike]

I'm moving along fairly quickly on the Tamiya Citroen 2CV kit, and am more than halfway through the instructions at this point.  The fit and design are better than the Airfix kit, and you can tell that Tamiya set up the kit in a way to make construction more solid, easier to paint, etc.  One other thing that's nice about Tamiya is that the bumpers have a black band running in the middle of them.  I had a hard time painting a crisp line on the Airfix kit given that the plastic wasn't perfectly smooth.  Tamiya gives you black decals which make things much easier.  Tamiya also gives you the option of presenting the model with an open or closed roof, and I believe you can flip the windows to an open position.

 

I decided to go with a french blue exterior/gray interior (like Tom's cousin's car pictured above, but without the white hood).  For the exterior, I once again went with Tamiya - french blue in the rattle can - but this time decanted the paint and sprayed through my airbrush.  Much cleaner spray than spraying directly from the can.  For whatever reason, the Tamiya cans seem to like to spit, which is a pain because then you have to sand or otherwise remove blemishes and then try to repaint.  Decanted, it sprayed super smoothly in pretty much one coat.  On the Airfix, I spent a ton of time going back and cleaning up the spit and other issues, respraying, and repeating multiple times.  The rest of the car I'm using Vallejo acrylics.  I like the ease of use and clean up of Vallejo a lot.  For a car exterior, however, I like the harder finish of the Tamiya synthetic lacquer, which probably holds up better to my brute handling of the model during assembly.  Vallejo also can be weird about peeling when being taped at times.

 

 

Tub:

 

 

Chassis - nice that all four tires are sitting evenly on the ground unlike my Airfix kit  

 

 

Behold!  The mighty 29 horsepower engine! 😆

 

 

 

With the chassis and tub done, really all that's next is to add all the details to the body (and a fewer remaining details to the engine compartment).  Tamiya has you add the body to the chassis, then add the details.  I think I'm going to first add most of the details aside from things like the windows, then spray the clear coat, then assemble.  I figure I might as well have a consistent clear coat on the model without worrying about getting clear coat on areas it shouldn't go like the tires, and the clear coat can generally cover up any extra glue marks.  

 

Thanks for looking in!

[Nirvana]

Mike, 

I went to HobbyTown the other day, and looked into Tamyia models and Trumpeter. 
My oh my, has Tamyia changed their quality to much better.

[yvesvidal]

Very nice model, Mike.

 

Yves

[popeye the sailor]

two squirrels on a treadmill..........unique looking engine       the interior looks really good with those colors.........should look super in blue.  you'll have to add some of that 'new car smell'  

[wefalck]

It was an air-cooled boxer-engine, like on BMW-motorcycles.

[popeye the sailor]

are those clutch bands...the circular parts with the gears?  been a long time since I've seen a model that uses screws  ..... I did a few car models in my day.  the body must not weigh a lot.........imagine throwing a small block in there