Timbot

It never rains but it pours… Sadly I haven’t really had time to progress the Trabbie as life keeps getting in the way. I have added a few bits and bobs that will sit in the boot and mimic the real junk in there (fire extinguisher, jack block, bag of spares, etc), but that’s about it. I’ve found myself in a bit of a chicken and egg situation being unable to progress without painting some other parts but too lazy to do any airbrushing. Well, I finally managed to prime some of the bits this evening so I may even make some more progress in the next week or two. I would post some more pics but they’ll just be the same bits that I’ve already posted except grey…

I’ve had another couple of weeks of disasters meaning that yet again the model has been put on the back burner. I have made a little progress though… This is the upturned body where I’ve added the sun visors and the grab straps at the top of the b-pillars. I’m not sure why, I doubt anyone will notice either of the features! The seatbelts attach to the lower inside “tub” but they are incorrect for my version of the Trabbie. The model has modern inertia type belts, but mine has fixed belts with an incredibly complex series of buckles and loops to adjust them. There was no way that I was going to try to model them accurately so I compromised. I used the back of the original kit parts and then added a couple of loops of brass. Oh, also there’s a special hook to hang up the “clunk click” end bits. I’m reasonably please with the sides, which is good because they’ve been fiddly and time consuming. If they were built as per the instructions then each side would only have 3 parts. I’m hoping that I can make a start on painting bits soon. Exciting!

The last few weeks have been quite hard for me and as a result the Trabant build has been neglected. I have managed to do a few bits here and there though. Prepare to be underwhelmed by the lack of progress! The more I work on it, the more I realise that the engine and gearbox is not very accurate. I’m not a purist so I’m not going to make everything exact, but I have had a go at adding some of the missing parts. The engine is air cooled and has thermal shroud around it to try to help this. I’ve added some knobbly bits using scrap plastic these include the starter motor and the mount for the clutch cable. The insides of the driving compartment were a bit too clean so I’ve opened up and “filled” the door pockets. I’ve also removed the arm rests from the kit and replaced them with the straps that my car has. Unusually for socialist/communist car the Trabant came with 3 different levels of (dis)comfort: · The 601 (like mine) was the most basic of models lacking in luxuries like radio, head rests, reversing lights, etc. · The 601S (for “special”) which had all the luxuries like head rests, radio, etc. · The 601 “deluxe” which had all the trimmings of the 601S but with the addition of chrome bumpers and headlight surrounds. Sun visors = underwhelming I replaced the indicator stalk and the gear lever (on right) with some wire rod but in hindsight I should have made the gear lever a bit thicker I’m going to go off on a geeky rant now… I bought a 3d printed jerry can to stick in the boot. The standard jerry can holds 20 litres. The one in my car is a 10 litre version which is just half the size of the bigger brother so I cut the 3d printed can in half to replicate it. It was only then that I noticed my half jerry can was the same size as the kits petrol tank. The Trabant petrol tank holds 26 litres so should be at least twice the size as the 10 litre jerry can not the same size as it. I measured the real petrol tank and made a scale version of it with plasticard only to find that it’s too big to fit into the model… I suspect that the petrol tank is deliberately small to make room for the toy like bonnet hinges. The photo shows (L to R) the kit petrol tank, my butchered scratch replacement and the baby jerry can. TLDR: The petrol tank that comes with the kit is too small.

I've only just found this thread, and that's epic work for a £30 model! Hopefully I'll get a chance to read through it in depth in the next few days. Well done

Hey Andimal, You've done a really nice job with that. I wouldn't add anything else to it. Have you ended up with the 1:16 bug now?

You’ve done a really nice subtle job there. It looks so good straight out of the box for such a small and reasonably priced kit.

Really nicely done

Well I'm glad someone is taking an interest! Thanks for the reply. In the last month my world has unexpectedly been turned upside down so I've been going through a fair bit. I haven't really been in the right frame of mind for modelling, let alone writing about it! Things are on the up though and I have done a couple of little bits. I am hoping to do more over the weekend and I'll try to add an update when/if there's something worth updating!

I managed to put aside more or less a whole day to the build this week. I have made some progress, but I also had an accident that could have ended the whole thing… I rarely follow instructions and tend to jump to working from one part to another when I feel like it and usually to avoid another part of the model that’s a bit daunting – in this case the engine and its surroundings. I have made some progress, but mainly on details that will probably never be seen or noticed. The blobby things on the sprues are supposed to be the rear springs and shock absorbers. I know that molding things like springs is challenging, but these are rubbish! I thought I’d try to replace them with the spring from one of my wife’s extensive collection of broken pens (she’s as nerdy as me). This is the result – not perfect but still loads better than the kit part. I added some nails to represent the shock absorbers. I also added some 5a fuse wire to represent the rear brake lines. The rear seats in the kit lack any form of detail which is a shame because the front seats are well detailed. I scored lines of stitching on them and added some texture. The smooth faux leather at the top of the seat back should have the same pattern as the front seats but I don’t have the skill or patience to replicate it! I used yet more 5a fuse wire to recreate the prominent trim on the seats and arm rests. I’m pleased with how the seats are turning out, but I hate to think of how many hours I’ve spent on them… I finally got the bulkhead to state that I liked so stuck it to the rest of the chassis. I made the windscreen wiper motor out of bits of scrap plastic and wiring from stripped wiring of a long dead RC model. The real vehicle has a small sheet of rubber that folds over the motor to protect it and I replicated this with a small bit of tin foil. I have also spent some time on filling some of the molding imperfections on the body. This is a test fit of all the major parts. I also added the exceptionally fiddly rails that run along the shoulders of the body from the headlights to the rear lights. It was while doing this I had a little accident… I don’t know how but I managed to knock a nearly full bottle of liquid poly over the body. I ran it under the tap as quickly as I could but some of the rear and the lower parts did get a little melted. It was really frustrating, but I think I managed to repair everything in the end. Hopefully I’ll have better luck next week!

Thanks Spiny, I just wondered if car kits are generally designed to have moving parts like wheels, doors, steering, etc? It's the sort of stuff that you used to get on the Airfix kits of my youth, but modern military stuff tends to go more for accuracy than moving parts. Don't get me wrong, the Trabant is a very nice kit and despite the moaning I am enjoying it! I think I will always mess about with a model to make it "better" no matter how accurate it is. 😁

I haven’t made a huge amount of progress on the Trabant this week, partly because of work and partly because it was really beginning to annoy me and I needed a break The model is designed to have a moveable opening bonnet, which is great as you can see the engine, but this it does mean that a level of accuracy has been sacrificed to achieve it. This is also the case with the steering which is moveable and the instructions recommend fixing it in place with a hot screwdriver. There are plenty of toys available of the Trabant (I already have a few) so what I really wanted from this kit was a detailed, static and above all accurate model. The more work I do on the kit the more glaring inaccuracies I find. I make models for fun so I’m not usually bothered about accuracy, but this kit is really beginning to bug me! The bulkhead is a mess. The bulkhead on the real vehicle has a curve in it creating a shelf that the battery and petrol tank sit on. The kit bulkhead only reproduces a small part of this shelf where the steering tube comes through. I tried to correct the kit part but it still didn’t look right so I went and took some measurements from the real cars. In the end I had to scratch build the bulkhead as the shelf sits far lower than the kit part. It’s still not 100%, but it’s better than the original. I have also filled in the holes where the (inaccurate) bonnet arms come through the bulkheads – see part at bottom of photo. The interior floor is also wrong. The driver’s foot well isn’t long enough and there should be a very noticeable dip behind the front seats. This dip is replicated on the underside of the model but not the inside. I don’t have the patience or skill to rectify this and, as the area won’t be seen that clearly when the model is completed, I’ve decided to leave it. My car has carpets so I decided to replicate these with some thin card that should give the same texture when painted. I also added seat rails from scrap plastic. There is a small grooved rubber matt built into the carpet just below the foot pedals. After much thought I managed to replicate the fine groove pattern by running a razor saw across a thin piece of plastic card. The carpets in place after a day’s work. The rubber matt on the real car is flat but because the bulkhead is too thick / too far back on the model it has ended up with a fold in it. I’ve also been doing some work on the engine which is also turning out to be a bit of a mess. This is my first model of a commercial car, are they all like this?

Thanks, but I assure you the real one looks much better in the photo than in real life!

Hi Spiny, Thanks for the reply. I'm most of the way through reading your posts about your Trabbie build. In fact, it's what inspired me to finally get around to starting mine. Thanks for the tips with the instructions. So far I'm using them as a guide to where things go rather than when they should go there! I'm toying with the idea of not glueing the body to the chassis so it can be taken off to see the inside.

This will be my first car as all my previous efforts have been AFVs, tanks or military aircraft where I can disguise my poor modelling skills as “battle damage.” This is a bit of a special project for me and I have been putting it off for some time to practice my skills on other more basic models. My aim is to make a scale model of the 1989 Trabant Kombi that I own. The Trabant has had a terrible press over the years for being basic, badly designed and poorly built. I am biased, but I think the Trabant is a very well designed little car that suited its market when it came out in 1963. It had novel features like independent suspension and a transverse engine and gearbox before many western cars. The downside was that the design was produced without any significant changes until 1991 by which time it was way behind western cars. It is probably also the first recycled car being predominantly made out of recycled cotton waste mixed with resin and called “duraplast.” It loses out massively on environmental points being powered by a 2 stroke engine. The build quality is basic, but I’ve own far worse modern cars. My 1999 Ford KA was a baked bean tin with an engine and wheels and my wife’s 2013 Dacia Sandero appears to have been designed in total darkness and assembled in a wind tunnel... Anyway, this is the real vehicle: …and this is the kit: The box contents laid out before I had the chance to mess it up. It’s a really detailed model for its size and generally all the parts are quite crisply molded, but there is a lot of flash around some of the smaller and more delicate pieces. I also ended up with two bodies as one got damaged in the post so I was sent a replacement. The inner wings and bulkhead. The engine bay is really well detailed, but some of the wiring is molded onto the wings which I hope to replace. The other slightly annoying thing is that the bulkhead is completely wrong and is already causing me some headaches. The underside of my Trabant has been hand painted using Hammerite underbody seal. It was a horrible and messy job to do so I remember it well! I wanted to reproduce the texture on the model so I painted on some Humbrol liquid poly and then gave it a brush with a toothbrush. I thought that the wheels would be very easy to put together but holes in the rims had filled with flash. Each hole had to be drilled out. I also added tyre valves to each wheel with a bit of wire. They’re such an obvious and easy to add detail that I don’t know why they weren’t an original detail. Cheers now!

Evening all, I thought I’d say hello to everyone, but I’m not really sure what to say now. I used to be really into the hobby when I was a lot younger (last century!) and even won a few prizes. I then got more interested in girls, motorbike and cars before getting distracted by the mundane stuff of everyday life, work, etc. A change to shift work a few years ago meant that I ended up with more spare time and slowly fell back into the hobby with was accelerated by lockdown. Think the time has come for me to admit that it is now a proper hobby! I’ve been reading articles on this site for a long time but have only recently decidd to actually join the community. So far I’ve been mainly making (or remaking) old Airfix 1:24 aircraft and 1:16 radio controlled tanks found on Ebay. They’re big, which suits my ham fisted modelling abilities, but the downside is that I don’t really have the space to keep or display them when finished. I’m looking to broaden my range with other subjects that are more personal to me. I’m also going to use this post as a way of experimenting with adding images so there should be some photos of my efforts below… Cheers now! Tim Old Airfix 1:24 Spitfire and Hurricane rebuilt from part started and badly built kits found on Ebat and at boot sales A nearly finished WIP Airfix 1:24 Hurricane as bought (above) and nearly finished (below) A 1:16 Heng Long radio controlled Panther I detailed and painted a few years ago. Finally another 1:16 RC tank, a WSN T34/85 made last year.