billn53

I've been attending to a few things about the Arii kit that have been bugging me to the point that I couldn't ignore them any longer. Namely, air scoops: The kit provides an air scoop that goes behind the left door. This was in actuality a rather large scoop, but the opening of the kit item is much too small. Out came my knife (again!) and, with some tailored cuts and a bit of plastic strip, I enlarged the opening to roughly twice its original size: There should be another scoop forward of the right door, but this is missing entirely from the Arii kit. I scratched on up and attached it in place: I also added a blanking plate beneath the screened openings aft of the radiator outlet: Here are a couple of pics to compare my rendition of this Chaparral 2C to the real McCoy: Getting closer to painting time! But I've run into another snag... I want to get the clear headlight covers installed and faired in before painting. Unhappily, the covers for the 2C are missing. They are listed on the instruction sheet, but there are no such items on the clear sprue. I have two of the Arii kits and the covers are missing from both! But I have some ideas on how to skin this unwelcome kitty. Stay tuned! ,

Yes, the pic is from the 1965 Monterey Grand Prix at Laguna Seca. The wreck was salvaged and rebuilt as a Chaparral 2D, and then rebuilt again as a 2F.

Somebody please take my knife away before I cut again! I've been doing more surgery on my 2C... I noticed that the forward console and instrument panel in the Arii kit are wrong. The IP is set too far back and runs straight across from one side to the other, making the cockpit opening rectangular. In reality, the forward console is three-sided, with the IP set about halfway between the door jamb and the apex of the windscreen. So, out with my trusty hobby knife. Here are before & after pics: An unintended consequence of this is that I now needed to close off the forward end of the canopy tub, otherwise the tires, etc would be easily visible through the cockpit. I built a simple, three sided wall on the belly pan that approximates the shape of the actual car's cockpit enclosure: And here is how everything looks now when pieced together: Compare the IP shape with what can be seen in this pic: Not perfect, but much better than before. Back to my 2D coupe, I had to fill in another opening in the body, this one for the flipper actuator mechanism used in the slot car version of the kit. I also had to fill in the corresponding attachment point on the bottom of the flipper: I think I'm almost ready to begin painting!

Another quick update. I seems like I was working on these builds all weekend, but progress is in little baby steps! A little more surgery, on the 2D's rear deck. Monogram's design has it attaching to the body with a couple of large pins, which would be easily visible. I removed the pins and filled in the associated holes in the deck. Also, Monogram had two large rectangular cutouts over the rear tires, probably a legacy from this originally being a slot car body. I filled those in as well. After checking photos online, I concluded that the interior of the body, including the transition to the transom, was painted black. No fancy airbrushing here, just old-fashioned hairy stick: My attention right now is on the interior. For the 2D, I limited my effort to painting (I plan on using the driver figure, and being a coupe, the interior will not be easily visible): The 2C is another story. Arii's interior, to say the least, is rudimentary. I decided to make the driver's ride more comfortable with a seat cushion and seatbelts fashioned from Milliput: And, that's all I have for now. Like I said, little baby steps...

Very nice!

Love it!

I suspect the answer to your intake color question might be "it depends". My research into wheel bay colors found that there was little consistency across aircraft, at least during the Vietnam era. Heres the the pic I used as reference for my build: Bill

I believe I have found an appropriate screen material -- it is a brass photoetch product sold by Eduard. It comes in various mesh sizes and arrangements (hexagonal, rectilinear). The one I've selected is the smallest hexagonal mesh that Eduard sells: The only way I can imagine attaching the screen material to the Chaparral bodies is from the backside. This means there will be a step between the mesh and the outside surface of the car body, due to the thickness of the plastic. If I didn't do anything, the step would be a scale 2-inches or so, which is totally unacceptable. So, I set about thinning down the plastic around the screened-in areas using a rotary grinding tool. Here's an in-progress shot on the Chaparral 2C. The two openings on the right have already been thinned down, the ones on the left are the original thickness: Quite a difference! And, here's a pic with some of the PE mesh tacked into place: A couple of points need to be made. Comparing to photos of the actual car, the mesh is still not small enough and the step is still too large. I can't think of any reasonable way around these issues, so I will just have to live with them. Second, it's easy to see through the mesh, so I'll either need to add interior detail (see photo above), or blank off the backside to preclude see-through. Most likely I'll follow the second path, except perhaps for the rear transom on the 2D, where the rear wheel wells and spare tire area clearly visible. That's it for now. Time to get back to grinding!

It's always a bit scary to take a knife to a beautiful body, knowing if you screw up you may end up trashing the whole project. I'm happy to report that I've managed to open up the various screened areas and a few other items on my Chaparrals, and they've survived the surgery! Here's a step-by-step using my 2C as the example: First, I carefully drilled holes inside the perimeter of the area to be cut away: and used a sharp knife to cut through the holes: That was the easy part. Then, using files and sanding sticks, I carefully trimmed and cleaned the edges: Same for the rear transom: While I was at it, I opened up a couple of air scoops: A lot less work was needed for the 2D -- a couple of long openings in the deck on either side of the engine, and the rear transom. There is also a small oval opening that is screened in near the right-front tire: I haven't yet decided on what to use for the screens. More than one kind of material seems to have been used, sometimes different types of screen on the same vehicle. And, I will need to watch for a particular problem with my 2D, namely, the kit's belly pan runs all the way to the rear and might be visible through the screen (depending on what I end up using). If this turns out to be the case, I may need to add details like the spare tire, etc., as in the pic below (in this particular 2D the screens seem to be absent): Till next time!

Time for a Sunday afternoon update. I've made good progress on my pair of Chaparrals (although it may not look like it). First off, my latex mold material arrived so I was able to sort out my wheel and engine situation. Here's the result of my efforts: At the top are the original resin wheels that I used for my mold. My duplicates are on the bottom. My versions are solid behind the mesh spokes, so when it comes to painting I will use a black wash to give depth. On the right is the top portion of the Chevy 327 engine (borrowed from the Fein Design kit) that will give the illusion of detail below the cars' velocity stacks. Wheels after painting with Vallejo Metal Color aluminum (black wash yet to be applied): And dry-fitting parts for the two engines. 2C on the left, 2D on the right. I'm using brass tubing to raise the 2C's carbs to the appropriate height for the specific car being modeled. This isn't exactly accurate (see detailed pic of actual engine below), but my simplification probably won't be noticeable. For the velocity stacks themselves, I plan to cut them from thin wall brass tubing after estimating the appropriate lengths for each car from photos I've collected online. Finally, I've cleaned up minor flash, mold lines, sink marks, etc. from two bodies & other major pieces and applied my first colors. For the interiors and chassis pans, I airbrushed Tamiya gloss brown. I've given the bodies an initial coat of Tamiya "rattle can" white primer. My next chore is to open up the various air scoops and screened areas on the 2C and 2D bodies. Below are some pics of the actual cars to give you an idea of what I'm getting into: 2C: 2D: Wish me luck, I'm going to need it! And now for something completely different... (Cherry268, this is for you) My Fisher Chaparral 2F has arrived, and it's a beauty of a kit. Clean resin moldings, PE details included, two sets of vacuform clear parts (in case I make a mistake, which I usually do with vacuform parts), good looking decals, and excellent instructions. Take a look: The kit is pricey, but there's good value here. In any case, if you want a 2F, it's the only game in town. Till next time!

Very cool. The base makes the model.

Thanks to everyone for the kind words. My only disappointment is that my work detailing the salon cannot be seen. But I’m hopeful that my Nautilus will do well in the local model show later this month!

Too late for me, I succumbed to temptation and ordered one last week. Now, if only I could find a 2K and original Chaparral 1, my stash would be complete. Hi

While waiting for my latex mold material to arrive, I took a closer look at the 2D kit. I haven't actually started any work, so this post is more of an in-box review. My kit dates from 2004, but I remember building this many, many years earlier. Also note that decals in this release are by Cartograph. As you will see later, they look to be excellent. First, the body. It's well molded with almost zero flash. I haven't compared it to any drawings, so can't say how accurate it is. But to my eyes it does look like a 2D! Obviously, there's room for detailing the body. For example, the rear grillwork is molded in, and would be greatly improved by some PE grills: The interior tub is pretty basic... but as this is a coupe not much will be visible, so I don't intend to do much additional detailing here. Here's the belly pan. This is definitely a curbside model. Like the Arii 2C kit, the engine and its velocity tubes are poorly represented: I expect that I'll replace this with duplicated parts from the Fein-Design kit, in the same way I'm planning for my 2C: The tires in this kit look very nice, and decals are provided for the Firestone markings. On the other hand, the wheels are a big disappointment: Somewhere along the way I must have picked up replacement tires & wheels, because I found these tucked away in my box! Much nicer! And, if I use these I'll have some nice vinyl tires for my 2C build Clear parts come in a protective plastic bag, and look pretty good. Some polishing and Klear should make them look great. Unfortunately, the windshield wiper is molded in and I would prefer to see it go away. But that will mean more work to get the windshield clear again. Also, I'll need to find a replacement wiper somewhere. I assume they're available as PE detail parts? Also in the box is a pre-painted driver figure. But no attempt was made to fill in the seam lines, so I'll have to fill those in and re-paint: The decals, as I mentioned earlier, look great! I hope they go on without any problem (given that they're nearly 15 years old): Finally, I thought I'd share the kit instructions. Only 5 steps to a finished model! And, the last two steps don't really involve much work: That's all for now. My latex molding material should arrive tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Here's one for you: 2G? Yes!