1970 VW Beetle Carbriolet 1:24

[riggy]

Just started work on this. Third car and hoping that the lessons learned with the first two will result in a better build. Got a few ideas about lights carpet and covering the seats. Going to spray the body a nice 70's yellow

 

First few hours spent on the engine

 

 

 

Thanks for looking

[riggy]

Happy with how this one is going engine now in place and front axle (inc moving parts) now in situ

 

 

Thanks for looking any comments welcome

Paul

[riggy]

After a break following a change in job I can now get some bench time

Upholstered the seats

 

 

[riggy]

Also airbrushed the body

 

[riggy]

Interior coming along need to make some floor mats with flowers on 

Edited April 9, 2017 by riggy
Additional text

[Roy vd M.]

Hi @riggy it seems you don't get much response in this topic. I find it always useful if people point out or suggest things I might be able to do better. As I read in your post that you are trying to improve as compared to your previous build, I guess you could be interested in an opinion as to possible areas of improvement. 

 

As I don't know what level you're at as a builder, or what level you wish to achieve middle- or long-term, I divided my advise into "novice" and "advanced". It will be rather brief (according to my standards) because I really should be asleep right now lol. 

 

 

 

Novice

- The paint looks a bit grainy. Try using different airbrush settings (e.g. slightly more thinner).

- Try to remove the 'fin' (hopefully I use this term correctly), to be seen on top of the air filter and on top of the black bulkhead in the back. You can sand it off or, if it is recessed, fill it with putty or CA glue (you can apply accelerator (not by spraying it, because it will weaken the plastic!) to speed up the drying process) and then flatten it. It will give a better finish.  

 

Advanced

- Wiring (for the spark plugs) always gives the engine bay that much more cachet. Drill a few holes in the distributer (the dark orange part), put in some 0,3mm. wire (to be found in old headphone cable for example) after priming and painting the wire. That's just one possible solution. 

- The air hoses show where the two halves of the moulds came together. Using a small file you can smoothen that, improving its view. 

 

 

 

Advanced

- In reality the drive belt is way thinner than Revell provides for. Thinning it by filing won't provide the best results in this case. To get the right look it's best to cut off the belt part (so that the two pulleys will become separate), to sand them nice and round, and to replace the drive belt by a piece of Evergreen sheet. These details will do wonders to the appearance of your car. 

 

 

 

Novice

- Using pure black in modeling is (as seems to be an opinion followed by many modelers) not realistic because of the small size of a model car. A real car will get more light reflected to so 'black' on a real car really means a dark grey in most cases. Only the darkest shadows in/around a real car really are black. To emulate that effect, many modelers pour a drop of blue or a drop of white in their black paint. Try it, you might love it. Not only will it look more realistically, it will also make your car more detailed; because more detail will be distinguishable. Not everyone will agree on it, the choice is yours. If you're interested I'll look up a link that explains the whole 'the smaller the scale the darker the model will look' phenomenon, from a physics point of view. 

- Try to use some different tones on the metal parts. For example, the bolts that hold the oil cap could be given a dot of steel-coloured paint. 

 

 

Here you can see what I mean re. the 'pure black' remark.

 

 

Novice

- Not sure what material of upholstery you're trying to replicate. Always keep in mind to get each aspect of your build, each part, true to scale. To me this does not look true to scale, if I'm allowed to be completely honest.

- Yellow is one of the more difficult colors to paint, just like orange and red. The problem with yellow is that it doesn't cover well. In my experience the best way to apply a nice coat of yellow is to first prime, then use white (which, perhaps strangely, covers way better than yellow) and then apply a few layers of yellow. 

 

 

 

Novice

- Each part of a plastic model kit has mould lines (flash / fin). High quality kit makes such as Tamiya seem to make it their goal to put those mould lines in places where they cannot be seen... so they don't need to be removed. In other words, when creating their sprue layout it seems like the Tamiya engineers are constantly letting the 'mould lines' influence the way a part is moulded. Another scar of the moulding process is so-called ejector pin marks. As the hot plastics sprue is pushed out of the mould, the ejector pins that do the 'pushing away' will leave marks. Of course they could wait 15 minutes until the plastic will have been cooled, but that would cost money. Because time is money. Some high quality kit makers strive to put the pins, like the mould lines, in spots where they can't be seen. For example, the inner side of a wheel rim. Others... well... don't care so much. 

 

So it's always a good idea to check each part for mould lines and ejector pin marks. Especially the body. If you're not sure, you can use reference pictures. With this Volkswagen Beetle body Revell used some pretty disturbing mould lines which you didn't remove. They run vertically along the rear bumper holes. You can also see them pointing at the top of the rear lights. A light sanding (or scraping with a round hobby knife) is usually all that's needed to get this corrected. 

 

- Your paint looks rather irregularly applied. I can see dust particles, either a hair or too thick a layer of paint (a 'teardrop') and other irregularities. Airbrush multiple very light coats, they don't have to cover. If you're using acrylic paint, once the first coat has been applied in full you can start the second coat etc. The last coats should be thicker ('wetcoats'). It's difficult to explain this in a few lines though, I could as well six pages on this subject. Take a look at Codger's Rolls Royce build, he explains how he achieves his mirror finishes. 

 

Anyway it's also possible to get as little dust in the air when you're airbrushing. Best to use a cabine and to even enter the workshop softly, so that as little dust as possible gets airborne. After airbrushing, let your model dry in a dust-free environment. 

 

 

 

Novice

- You can see the moulding line discussed earlier, now on the utmost part of the rear fender. 

- It would have been better if you had removed the two supporting pieces of sprue first. They were designed to make the body as stable as possible during the moulding process. Now you'll have to remove them anyway and there won't be paint on the former joints. In case you didn't know these parts had to be removed, I recommend that you study all of the kit instructions before starting the paint process. 

 

 

 

Advanced

- It's a good idea, although tedious, to mask areas before you do finish painting; for example the window levers. 

- Here you can see the effect of not using a good cover paint (white) before applying yellow. 

- On this picture you can also see the 'pure black' effect. Few details of the dashboard are visible. 

 

Hopefully this post may be of use. I wish you good luck in finalizing this car (which isn't bad... I wish I had this level the first few years I built model kits) and hope you'll do an even better job on your next project. 

[riggy]

21 hours ago, Roy vd M. said:

Hi @riggy it seems you don't get much response in this topic. I find it always useful if people point out or suggest things I might be able to do better. As I read in your post that you are trying to improve as compared to your previous build, I guess you could be interested in an opinion as to possible areas of improvement. 

 

As I don't know what level you're at as a builder, or what level you wish to achieve middle- or long-term, I divided my advise into "novice" and "advanced". It will be rather brief (according to my standards) because I really should be asleep right now lol. 

......

 

Hopefully this post may be of use. I wish you good luck in finalizing this car (which isn't bad... I wish I had this level the first few years I built model kits) and hope you'll do an even better job on your next project. 

Thankyou @Roy vd M. for all the great advice that I have read a few times over before replying to such a great in depth reply. This is my third car build (plus two small planes) so I am very happy to take on all the advice people can give me. I will definitely be taken your advice on board for this and future models. 

Ps hope you got some sleep 

[Roy vd M.]

@riggy Thanks for accepting and appreciating the advice. Some modelers do, some don't; I think that modelers who really listen to advice given (I don't mean mine, but in general) will get better results quicker. Which doesn't mean that everything should be followed, because opinions and perceptions differ. 

 

For your third car this is not at all bad, I can tell you that my third car wasn't nearly as well executed as yours is already. 

 

I did get some sleep thanks

Edited April 10, 2017 by Roy vd M.

[DWC1968]

Third build in and doing well, some cracking advice from Roy, lots in there for me too, looking forward to seeing this one done and your future builds.

Cheers Dave.

[BeastieBoy73]

Really enjoying this build, it looks great. I'm also building a Beetle cabrio at the moment as my third car build and I wish I'd read Roy's great comments before I'd started. Fingers crossed Roy stumbles across my "Ready For Inpection" post when it's finally completed as offers up more great and welcome advice.

[riggy]

@Roy vd M. , @DWC1968 and @BeastieBoy73 thanks for the kind comments and @BeastieBoy73 feel free to link to your ready for inspection post here be nice to see what you have done with yours. 

Tonight i have put the wheels on done a bit of painting around the doors where the windows will go and test fitted the body of the car to the chassis plus the roof (which needs the painting finishing).  Hoping the black drys showing more detail. 

 

[BeastieBoy73]

Great progress being made there, I look forward to seeing it completed. I have now posted my 'completed' build, it can be found here.

 

 

Can't wait to get stuck into another build.

[riggy]

Started to add the chrome work to the body 

 

[riggy]

The ready for inspection is here 

On to the next build hopefully a lot better finish than this one thanks to the advice on here