Motorcycle
GT-R Complete & Photos
08 - August - 2010 - 10:07
I've wrapped up the build of the Tamiya GT-R kit. By the time I was finishing up this kit, I was remembering why is was that I tried a wooden kit in the first place. I get worn out on all the painting, the frustrations of various paint types not agreeing with one another, and the fragility of decals. Although at least with this project, I took away a few valuable lessons that I can keep in mind for future similar projects. Here are a few tidbits to remember:
- If it is going to be shiny, use lacquer. Tamiya's gloss acrylics just never behave when airbrushed.
- Don't use the microSOL (aka Decal Melter) until the decal is in it's final place and already partly dry.
- If some of it will be painted over, remove the underlying chrome plating first, otherwise, the paint will just chip off, despite using primer.
- Give the aforementioned lacquer PLENTY of time to dry before putting masking tape on it. Probably should wait 24 hours before trying.
- One should probably order a second set of decals for a project like this, as some are sure to be damaged. Alternately, perhaps one could scan them, and buy a self-print decal sheet so one could make replacements (although I'm not sure about the quality difference here)
- Third party racing harness kits, while pretty cool, might not be worth the effort unless the car is an open wheel type.
Anyhow, with this project completed, I spent a few minutes photographing but this car and the last project (WWII BMW r75 motorcycle). I recently purchased a new lens, which has some macro capabilities, and tried that out on this shoot. I am pretty pleased with the results. Here are a few images of the completed models:
The full galleries are online and can be seen in the completed models section of this web site.
Next up: Model Airways' Curtis 'Jenny' wooden plane. Stay tuned for more model adventures!
- If it is going to be shiny, use lacquer. Tamiya's gloss acrylics just never behave when airbrushed.
- Don't use the microSOL (aka Decal Melter) until the decal is in it's final place and already partly dry.
- If some of it will be painted over, remove the underlying chrome plating first, otherwise, the paint will just chip off, despite using primer.
- Give the aforementioned lacquer PLENTY of time to dry before putting masking tape on it. Probably should wait 24 hours before trying.
- One should probably order a second set of decals for a project like this, as some are sure to be damaged. Alternately, perhaps one could scan them, and buy a self-print decal sheet so one could make replacements (although I'm not sure about the quality difference here)
- Third party racing harness kits, while pretty cool, might not be worth the effort unless the car is an open wheel type.
Anyhow, with this project completed, I spent a few minutes photographing but this car and the last project (WWII BMW r75 motorcycle). I recently purchased a new lens, which has some macro capabilities, and tried that out on this shoot. I am pretty pleased with the results. Here are a few images of the completed models:
The full galleries are online and can be seen in the completed models section of this web site.
Next up: Model Airways' Curtis 'Jenny' wooden plane. Stay tuned for more model adventures!
And Moving Right Along....
19 - June - 2010 - 08:00
I didn't rest long after wrapping up the Panzer. I jumped right into another vehicle of the same era and same scale. This kit is a BMW R75, manufactured by Lions Roar. I'm not adding any after market parts to this one, but it comes with quite a bit of detail out of the box. It's got a variety of photo-etched parts for the wheel spokes, various engine bits and for a few other small details, like the padlocks on equipment boxes. The kit also comes with a sidecar and two versions of a little trailer.
The build was pretty straightforward, with the exception of things just being very very small. The motorcycle is the same scale as the last tank model I built, at 1/35 scale. This makes the whole bike only a few inches long. As you can see from the photos below, there is a pretty good amount of detail in the kit. Also, overall the quality of the kit modeling, while pretty good, was not quite as good as the Panzer kit (which was made by Dragon), so required a good deal more cleanup of mold seams, etc. With the parts being as tiny as they were, this cleanup occasionally resulted in broken parts. This also led me to be fairly certain that I like working on larger models :)
I'm currently working on wrapping this project up, with weathering powders, etc, but as it's not quite done, here are a few photos of the model as of last weekend. My hope for this one is to combine it with the Panzer for display, so that I can put them both on the same wooden base. This just means that I've got to be sure they generally match color-wise and look like they've been living in the same world.
Assembled in sections, engine masked for painting the body.
After a base coat of dark yellow.
The build was pretty straightforward, with the exception of things just being very very small. The motorcycle is the same scale as the last tank model I built, at 1/35 scale. This makes the whole bike only a few inches long. As you can see from the photos below, there is a pretty good amount of detail in the kit. Also, overall the quality of the kit modeling, while pretty good, was not quite as good as the Panzer kit (which was made by Dragon), so required a good deal more cleanup of mold seams, etc. With the parts being as tiny as they were, this cleanup occasionally resulted in broken parts. This also led me to be fairly certain that I like working on larger models :)
I'm currently working on wrapping this project up, with weathering powders, etc, but as it's not quite done, here are a few photos of the model as of last weekend. My hope for this one is to combine it with the Panzer for display, so that I can put them both on the same wooden base. This just means that I've got to be sure they generally match color-wise and look like they've been living in the same world.
Assembled in sections, engine masked for painting the body.
After a base coat of dark yellow.
Hobby Expo 2009
21 - February - 2009 - 22:20
I was up bright and early this morning in order to head north to Petaluma, California, and Hobby Expo 2009. I was hoping to see some well-built models, be introduced to some aspects of the hobby that I was not familiar with, and perhaps run across some hard-to-find items carried by vendors there.
I arrived around 10:30 in the morning and upon entering the building, wandered past a few folding tables stacked high with plastic model kits, and then found myself in the r/c room. There was a little course set up on the floor and a few tables for r/c rock crawlers (something I didn't even know existed), and a small race track for tiny r/c cars. There were a few r/c airplane tables, a table with some r/c tanks (I had run across these at Maker Fair, as well), and a 'robot' table. As I wandered in, there was a fellow heading outside to the pond to fly his electric plane, so I followed along.
The plane that was flying and one of the r/c plane tables:
After that I found my way into the main room, where there were a few central tables, with models on display, and a ring of vendors around the outside. Here are some images of the models that were on display.
Besides the main room, there was also a room with a few wooden ship models, some model railroads, and quite a few maquettes. I also ran across what appeared to be a room full of model terrain and people playing table-top war games with little tanks and people. I didn't hang around long in there, as I've never been big on table-top games.
All in all, the event was larger that I had been expecting, but still not particularly huge. There was a vendor selling resin car kits and photo-etched detail sheets that were pretty impressive. I believe he also sells them from his website here: www.mshobbies.com (also there is a link on the right side of this page, now). Most of the kits and parts he was selling were Japanese imports made by a company called Studio 27.
While I was checking out the model ships, I noticed the group exhibiting (Redwood Empire Model Shipwrights, I think), had their monthly meetings at a local hobby shop. Figuring that if the ship guys met there, the store might sell things that would be handy in my upcoming build, so I decided to go check it out. It turns out that this particular store had some of the best selection of any brick-and-morter hobby store that I have ever been to. If you are in the north bay, and are interested in a hobby store, be sure to check out Hobbytown USA in Petaluma (http://www.htupetaluma.com/). They were even having a sale on all plastic models (buy two, get the third free). I picked up two WWII German armor models (both of which were also discounted $20-25 each), both made by Dragon, and a WWII motorcycle model, along with various other odds and ends.
All three models have a pretty high level of detail, having some photoetched parts, very fine molding, etc. Here are a few images of the kits, although I'm planning on putting these aside for a while (probably until the summer, when I can open up the apartment for airbrushing, etc). I just couldn't pass up the great discounts at the hobby store :-)
The motorcycle:
First tank model (this one came with a little booklet telling me all about how awesome the quality of the kit was):
The other tank model. This one had an enormous amount of parts that formed a mountain of plastic on my desk, and were, frankly, a bit intimidating.
That's all from me for now. My next kit should arrive mid next week, so I'll post some pics when that arrives.
I arrived around 10:30 in the morning and upon entering the building, wandered past a few folding tables stacked high with plastic model kits, and then found myself in the r/c room. There was a little course set up on the floor and a few tables for r/c rock crawlers (something I didn't even know existed), and a small race track for tiny r/c cars. There were a few r/c airplane tables, a table with some r/c tanks (I had run across these at Maker Fair, as well), and a 'robot' table. As I wandered in, there was a fellow heading outside to the pond to fly his electric plane, so I followed along.
The plane that was flying and one of the r/c plane tables:
After that I found my way into the main room, where there were a few central tables, with models on display, and a ring of vendors around the outside. Here are some images of the models that were on display.
Besides the main room, there was also a room with a few wooden ship models, some model railroads, and quite a few maquettes. I also ran across what appeared to be a room full of model terrain and people playing table-top war games with little tanks and people. I didn't hang around long in there, as I've never been big on table-top games.
All in all, the event was larger that I had been expecting, but still not particularly huge. There was a vendor selling resin car kits and photo-etched detail sheets that were pretty impressive. I believe he also sells them from his website here: www.mshobbies.com (also there is a link on the right side of this page, now). Most of the kits and parts he was selling were Japanese imports made by a company called Studio 27.
While I was checking out the model ships, I noticed the group exhibiting (Redwood Empire Model Shipwrights, I think), had their monthly meetings at a local hobby shop. Figuring that if the ship guys met there, the store might sell things that would be handy in my upcoming build, so I decided to go check it out. It turns out that this particular store had some of the best selection of any brick-and-morter hobby store that I have ever been to. If you are in the north bay, and are interested in a hobby store, be sure to check out Hobbytown USA in Petaluma (http://www.htupetaluma.com/). They were even having a sale on all plastic models (buy two, get the third free). I picked up two WWII German armor models (both of which were also discounted $20-25 each), both made by Dragon, and a WWII motorcycle model, along with various other odds and ends.
All three models have a pretty high level of detail, having some photoetched parts, very fine molding, etc. Here are a few images of the kits, although I'm planning on putting these aside for a while (probably until the summer, when I can open up the apartment for airbrushing, etc). I just couldn't pass up the great discounts at the hobby store :-)
The motorcycle:
First tank model (this one came with a little booklet telling me all about how awesome the quality of the kit was):
The other tank model. This one had an enormous amount of parts that formed a mountain of plastic on my desk, and were, frankly, a bit intimidating.
That's all from me for now. My next kit should arrive mid next week, so I'll post some pics when that arrives.