Schwarz-Brot

May I ask what Primer you use? I am currently looking for what to use. I have Vallejo PU primers on hand which I use for miniatures and I know military builders use them a lot, too. For gaming miniatures I use Army painter stuff, but this leaves pretty rough surfaces, not what I want for a car. The primed body looks very promising. I love that step.

This is going to be a beauty!

A stock 6th Generation Honda Accord Coupe with 3l V6. Rare sight these days. Gotta love that back.

I already started to do so: This of course too isn't for everyone. Rally is my special interest and the 1/24 scale allows me to build more rapidly and choose from a wider selection of kits. Though it seems to be very hard to scratchbuild parts as they become unbelievable small and fiddly.

Don't get me wrong. I will always comment if I see something that bothers me. This is for sure going to be constructive criticism. Maybe I can only say this or that doesn't look right, but I will try to explain why and if I know how to do something in a different way I will as well always write it down. If I see something that helps me I or I see a posting that is meaningful to me I will hit the like button so you notice. If there is some information that is excellent I will also write some lines to let you know. If I get the feeling someone needs encouragement and support, I will write some lines - see my posting above, which was exactly meant like that: to encourage larchiefeng to post his build. So please, don't get the few lines I dropped wrong. There is always more than could be said with a few words. Not being a native speaker only makes it harder. Another thing, but this is my special situation: There is no way to read every thread completely. To be honest yours, being about a Rolls, wouldn't be on top of my reading list. Nevertheless I started reading at the point it stood at the very moment I joined these forums and try to keep up with everything. Being a relative newbie to the hobby there is not much more I can do than appreciate what guys like you are doing. And you already inspired me to tackle some scratchbuilding. This is something you should be proud of. Guys like you are the fuel that keeps the newbies going.

@larchiefeng Don't worry, there will be an audience. I of course can only speak of me, but I am pretty sure there are lots of people just like me: I have never tried a big scale model, I am not even close to the levels many of you around here achieve. A rolls? Not of any interest to me. ... But still I do follow along! I would follow aircraft and ships and sci-fi and everything else being built as well, if only I had enough time to do so. In every single WIP thread I find little tricks and lots of pictures that make their way into my building techniques. It is not only about the model you build, neither the make. It is about sharing the progress, the way things are achieved and the general joy of seeing something being built. The joy of learning! Getting few comments does not mean few followers. Again, I can only speak for myself: I only add something to a thread if I have something with enough weight to say. If I don't I simply stay quiet and enjoy. So, if it is another Pocher (and, yes, I get the feeling they are a bit over hyped), I would again follow the build and enjoy every step you document. You may only notice the follower counter going one up, as I probably wouldn't be able to say anything else than "wow". Most times I don't even care to hit that one - I simply forget and do read every new posting in the vehicle subforum anyway. Please. Share! Jan

Wow, I have mixed feelings about these bikes. I kind of like the aggressive shape. I am not a fan of carbon looks. May be because I associate it more with cheap-bottom pseudo tuning cars and bikes because there are so many of them completely or partially foiled with carbon optics. I hate that look if it is not for a real purpose. On that bike... well I am not sure if it is just this wannabe show off or really purposefully used. The chrome... Ugly as hell but I know very well that show'n'shine has it's fans. I might be one of them, but not with this over the top chrome stuff. Mixed feelings, as I said.

I got a bunch of ultra cheap airbrushes when I bought my compressor. Was cheaper to by that set then buying only the compressor... None of these guns work probably, so I may very well try your technique. I also have a very old Revell gun a friend gave to me when he moved to Japan. Nozzle and needle are in quite bad shape. May get this one back into working condition as well this way. Thank you for sharing! Edit: For the ultrasonic cleaning: I quite often use industrial ultrasonic cleaners at work. Usually, what does not come of in the first few seconds is unlikely to come off at all without further work. At least if the parts had enough time to soak in the cleaning fluid before starting. Temperature cycling helps a lot, too.

Could not resist >.<

@Hamden: Roger, thank you for that tip though it doesn't really help in this case. The edges are pretty sharp and simulate thin material quite well. But the bonnet as a whole is of a quite thick material which is obvious when seen from the underside. Would I start adding on details, it would look out of size very easily. Scraping the whole underside would lead to a very uneven surface and probably destroy the integrity of the part. I may at one point try to form the bonnet from very thin sheet metal and build the supporting structure from the underside. @MetroRacing: Thank you for digging these up, Ashley. Your help is much appreciated. I somehow missed these when browsing the site. Yesterday I redid the airbox, this time with genuine Greenstuff. Let it dry over night. Today cut and filed into the shape as it can be seen in some pictures and in the prodrive document upped a few posts before. Not perfect but as close as I can get right now. The inlet side is not angular to anything, but I don't care as the intake hose will be attached there and cover up everything.I may very well have another go at it in the future, but for now it is good enough. I'll leave this for now until more things are ready for priming. Also, this is made from carbon on the real cars. So I'll have to get me some decals to finish it. Look what else landed... Couldn't resist. Spent probably way more than I should have. It's like they say: Nothing is as expensive as hobbies and women... I will probably build the truck OOB to see some rapid progress in a kit while spending endless hours fiddling on the Impreza.

Never saw these before. Beautiful stuff!

Ashley, thank you again for the hints. Did not find anything fitting at Colorado decals, but may drop the a line! It helps a lot being pointed to the small manufacturers one would hardly ever find when new to the hobby! Have been a bit distracted by the landing of The Others: Seven Sins and have much to do all the time, but haven't been totally lazy. The turrets which cover the dampers (What are these called in English?) were much too small if compared to photos, so I took some profiles and started to add some material. The idiot I am I bought a whole lot of profiles, but did not notice they were ABS. So no easy glueing. I used some thinner to weld them in place. Have to get some Acetone, should work as well and smells not as bad. Then started to fill the gaps with some modelling paste. Still lots to do but the size looks about right so I am confident it will work out in the end. I also took the Factory 81 engine and tried what to do with it. Not sure yet if I will use a single part of that kit... I probably will scratch on top of the existing underside of the engine. Next I estimated the size of the airbox by comparing it to known sizes in the pictures of real cars. Then took some 8mm ABS tube and some 6mm. Filled the big one with cheap modelling compound and pushed the smaller one in to aid creating the intake side cone. For the outlet side I bent 3mm rod with heat and flattened its end with a hot blade to simulate the flange. This is what I have now: Not too shabby for a first try. Remember, I never scratch built anything before. I will redo this with Greenstuff and have to find a way of heating my ABS in a way that avoids bubbles. When done the top will be flattened and filed into its final shape. Next thing I am thinking about is how to cut open the intakes in an accurate way.

Vallejo Airbrush Cleaner works very well with the acrylic Vallejo Game Color which are a pain to airbrush. Should work with Tamiya as well. Alcohol is also a very good cleaner for all things acrylic. I do not recommend using cotton buds with airbrushes, though it seems to be common practice. I highly recommend using old brushes instead. Paint building up is common with acrylics. Again a brush and some Alcohol or Vallejo Airbrush Cleaner work very well. Water won't help much with cleaning acrylics and thinners can gum them up and make things worse.

Pics are alright on PC. At least for me. Nice kit, may have to build this one as well. And a good start. I like that Vaillant green as well.

Good to see another Subaru being built. I have a long way to go to reach that quality. Thank you for showing!

Thank you, Shaun. I hope my building will be as good as the research. I was not at home for the weekend, just came back, so no updates yet. Too bad I have to scrap the box I built under the bonnet scoop.

Alright, I watched some NZ 2001 videos and in one interview one can see Burns car in the background. It is the round air filter box, not the engine mounted one. McKlein Archive picture confirms that. http://www.mcklein-imagedatabase.com/imagedatabase/api/rws/index.php?p=images&a=image&id=22508&s=500*375&r=0

No, you do not necessarily want cool air to enter your motor. In fact some cars have preheaters for the air going into the engine! The big duct is indeed for guiding the air coming from the intercooler and radiator out through the big cutaway in the bonnet. It wouldn't be a good idea to push the air out against the driving direction Your last picture shows an unusual setup: AFAIK there was only one (!) duct going either from the left or the right side to the to mounted airbox. The other side would have been open to get a little airflow through the engine bay without pressing it. Not sure if closing off all openings is a good idea on a racecar.

Ok, I have another picture of a S7 with an open (!) airbox in my references: I cannot tell when their reference pictures were taken. I know they are from a 2001 Burns car. I sent an email so maybe we get some more details. My theory is: Tarmac: Motor mounted airbox with suction through the bonnet or just out of the engine bay. Rough conditions: radial 2002 style airbox. Now looking for NZ 2001 service pictures to get a hint.

Not sure, what's going on. This is from a Service on Burns car in Spain 2001. The box under the scoop is clearly seen, though the picture is a bit dark. The frame would push straight onto the classic airfilter box. In your engine picture the mounting holes for the counterpart in the engine bay can be seen. The S7 catalogue shows this airbox which would be a fitting counterpart: Then the parts 2, 5 and 6 would be omitted obviously. The same document shows the airbox Assembly as seen in your pictures: What is not clear to me: Where does this airbox suck the input air from? So it seems both versions were possible and typical in 2001 and maybe even 2002, though the S8 Catalogue shows only the latter option. Thank you for these pictures btw Very good reference and way higher resolution than everything I have so far. Would you mind sharing your source?

Again some great tips, Ashley. Thank you! AFAIK the numbers stayed the same all season. For the flocking: Flour sounds promising. I will do a test piece at some point. On the PE Parts - I think, I will have no problems using them. I want to do my own as I should own most of the chemicals and equipment needed to do so. My question was more for a tutorial on the process of etching them. It's likely there are some tricks on the process that differ from making PCBs. Thank you anyway for the heads up. I didn't even know there was a kind on a carrier material. Colourwise I already found Zero paints. I do not have a single Tamiya colour and I do not plan to change that. Have a complete set of Schmincke Aeros and way to many Vallejo Game Colours at hand. I will probably paint everything with these. For the body colour I will get the fitting Zero Paint. Jan

Alright, let's get that build on. This is what I have and use right now. May switch to a gravel spec car when I get my hands on one, base should be pretty much the same and I am not yet working on parts interfering with the suspension. I use this Tamiya model, that should be well known. I like the quality and details. I spare you unboxing pictures as this model is well known. Next up is the EJ20 engine kit by Factory81, which I plan to base my engine on: These parts are all you get, thrown in a zipper bag. Details are ok, but some bad seems on some parts. There's some instruction-like pictures on their website. I think that's alright for 15$ delivered. This is what happened so far. I cut off the bonnet and worked on some surrounding parts. I built the sidewalls of the engine compartment by shaving them into shape step by step in endless iterations. So this is what scratchbuilding is about? I used 0.5mm PS sheet for this. They are held in place on the undercarriage with Vallejo Plastic Putty 401. This was meant to give a nice seam, but I smeared it too much around when applying. I then used Planatol BB (that's a specialized bookbinders white PVA glue) to temporarily hold the radiator and headlights in place. This allowed me to trim and fit the small upward facing plasticard pieces, again made from 0.5mm PS sheet. The outline of the original airfilter box was traced on paper. The frame guides the air from the opening in the bonnet to the airfilter, placed on top of the engine. The guide was then rebuild and glued onto the hood. I am going to ignore the bonnet is way too thick as it is as I do not see a way to thin it down without risking to destroy it. In case you wondered: The sidewalls were trimmed to support the bonnet like on the real car. It is a perfect fit as if it never was shaved off. Only above the headlights I will have to grind a bit to give a petter fit.

Hi Roy, your thread is generally appealing to me. Especially superdetailing and scratching practices are very interesting to me, as this is the stuff that's coming up with my project right now. The analysis of photographs is another huge topic. I do not have the time to dig too dip in there yet, but that may very well happen in the future and therefore I bookmarked this thread. Don't worry about going more into detail. You already do a superb job, describing what you're doing. If there are open questions I will speak up. Thank you!

Ok, some questions popped up. It seems I cannot find decals for the 2001 NZ cars. Long term I will have to do my own decals. Can anyone please help me with what supplies I need? I have a colour laser printer at hand, if that's of any help. The seats, steering wheel and top of dashboard should get some flocking on. What does one use to do so? I read about micro balloons but only can find such a product as a filler material for resin. Is that the stuff? How do I use it? Any tutorials on photoetching? Have most materials at hand, I guess, as I used to homeetch electronics PCBs.

This is so awesome! Thank you for showing. Can't get enough pictures of this.