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Showing results for tags 'Kool Kat'.
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Hi All, This is the second in my "Promise Made, promises fulfilled" project. I had this model over 30 years ago when it was first released. When I saw that Hasegawa had re-released it, I knew that I just had to get it. My memories of the first time was that it was a rather good model, with crisply moulded parts, and reasonably easy to build. My biggest mistake was to use automotive cellulose paints to paint it. The end result looked very good for about 6 months... Then it started to crack, and look rather shoddy. I removed the body from the floor pan, stripped the cellulose paint, can't remember with what, re-primed and sprayed it with enamels. However, that cellulose had attacked the plastic rather badly, even though I had primed it first. I could never get a good finish on it after that. Still, paints have moved on. I tend to use Zero paints these days and with care, they are much kinder to polystyrene. So, here we are so far: The obligatory box top. This kit comes with a finely detailed engine. Here are the first stages of the build. That's just eight parts to get to this stage, The fit is superb. I painted the block and cylinder heads with Tamiya XF-16, and the cam-covers with my own satin black concoction (One part Tamiya X-1, Two parts Tamiya XF-1 + three parts Mr Color levelling thinner). This seems to make a satin black that is easy to paint and with a finish not as glossy as X-18. I mix up about 25 mL and store in a glass bottle. This gives me enough to spray, if I need to, and it will brush paint well as well. One thig that I though looked a bit naff about the kit was the front disc brakes. For some reason, Hasegawa had moulded them on the 'chrome' tree. Some parts look right in high chrome, like the bumpers, and headlamps/tail lamps. But the front discs and callipers? I think not. This is what they looked like: A touch garish, I think. So out came the tub of caustic soda solution I keep in the garage, and I popped the offending items in it for about 50 minutes, and the result was: Completely stripped. They do seem to be coated in some kind of high-gloss varnish which the caustic soda won't touch, but the removal of the "chrome" seems to reveal more of the moulded detail. So, a quick priming with my 'grey primer' concoction followed by the right kind of colours, will make them more realistic, I think... That was where I stopped taking pictures, as I was making such good progress on the model. Anyway, this where I have got by early this morning... The sharper-eyed of you may have noticed that one of the air filter chambers is not yet fitted. That's because I forgot to cut it from the sprue and fix it on. For small parts, I tend to prime and paint them on the sprue then tidy them up on removal before attaching them to the assembly. This is nearly done. I'll show the images soon. Thanks for looking. Cheers, Alan.