Aurora's Super Spy Car: James Bond's DB5 wannabe

[Pete in Lincs]

Hendie,

Just think of the value for money you are getting;

In terms of Dollars per hour this thing must be counted in cents.

BTW, Mould, Licence. We still have letters to spare in the UK, No need to miss them out or use the wrong ones.

(I put that in to save Nigel pointing it out).

Yes, the original figures, No matter how horrible.

Though I do have an Airfix 'villain' in the spares box. And, an original Airfix instruction sheet.

If using solid 'headlamps' then mix a touch of white with silver (Humbrol) for a good effect. Not sure what to recommend for the clear covers.

I think plastic tube would fair into the front wings better than brass, but hey.... Would clear nail varnish repair the screen?

BMF is easy to use, with a little practice. Do not try to cut pieces to size & then buff. Cut large, buff & then cut to size.

Good luck

Pete

Edited December 27, 2013 by Pete in Riyadh

[hendie]

Thanks for all the replies guys. Looks like I shall need to lay my hands on some BMF now.

You are right Pete, plastic tube would fair into the wings easier than brass, but I can't find thin walled plastic tube of the correct diameter.

I will have another look and see what I can find.

and as for dollars per hour - I think this one if lipped and I am getting hours per dollar

Nigel, I have managed to lay my hands on some Holloway House floor polish that some people are commenting is as good as the old Klear. I will try and post photo's of the before and after with the transparencies - provided I can get some decent shots.

One quick question around the polish - is it just a quick dip? or should I let it soak, for an hour? a day?

Edited December 27, 2013 by hendie

[Nigel Heath]

What size plastic tube do you need? I might have something suitable in my cavernous Modelling Materials Storage Facility.

On dipping the transparencies, its just a quick dip, drain on some tissue and cover with a DDS. At least that's the theory, I have not had much success with dipping and seem to get on better with applying with a wide, soft brush (or you could airbrush it if you like to live dangerously). I airbrushed Klear onto my Dalek dome lights and that worked well but it was on top of Tamiya clear red acrylic which probably helped it wet out the surface. If its like Klear, its self levelling properties will easily take care of any brush marks.

[hendie]

I have Ø8mm brass tube on hand. It will fit but I think it's just a tad too large. I have some Ø7mm on order, along with various other strange American sizes like 9/32 etc. I should be okay but thanks for the offer Nigel, and I'll bear you in mind if my supplies turn out not to work.

I did actually find some perfect sized tubing in the house. It was packaging for those light sticks that the kids seem to love. Unfortunately, it's a very soft plastic - some kind of polypro? and I can't get a decent edge to it.

When I sand or file, it just leaves rags on the edges and it's impossible to get a clean edge to it. It also seems to go soggy when any filler is applied to it, and it doesn't bond well at all. It sucks as it was a perfect diameter.

The focus is slightly out here, but this was cut with my razor saw and still left fuzzy edges.

Here, you can see that it would have been perfect for the operation.

And in this shot, you can see just how far out Aurora were in getting the shape of the front wings. That black area will all need blended in when I get the proper tube in place.

In fact, the entire front end of the car is way out of shape. You'll notice the side lights in the photo above. On the Aurora model, they actually form from the front around the side. On the real car, that area is almost flat and facing front - otherwise how would they get the guns to fire straight ahead.

I could fill and shape, but then the bumpers wouldn't fit.... you can only fix so much, and have to be selective at times.

I plan on having the sidelights open with the guns protruding, so I am not too concerned with this particular issue.

Nigel, you asked for photo's of the transparencies... well, I'll try.

In an endeavour to please our BM viewers I made a special trip to Walmart today to pick up some blue card as this is what everyone seems to be using for photo's.... well, not actually everyone....

If you can remember way back... this is what I started with.... yes, that is glue on the transparencies!!!

They were all removed as carefully as I could then all were polished to within an inch of their lives using micro mesh. I only have one set of pads here, starting at 1500: 1800: 2400: 3200: 3500 and finally 4000 grit.

Using those pads the best I could achieve was a sort of cloudy finish. I'm not sure if other BM users have smaller grit sizes but I have sen some pretty amazing results on this site, and I couldn't get anywhere near that finish. That was when I started looking at that Holloway House polish.

Anyway, I was out this morning, primarily to get an airbrush cleaning kit, and in the shop I spotted some plastic polish, and thought, what have I got to lose? $8 a shot and it was mine. WOW I am meg impressed with it.

Here's the rear window before micro meshing (sorry for the focus, or lack of it)

Here are the transparencies after being micro meshed, and my blue card has turned green for whatever reason.

As you can see, I managed to get rid of the glue, but they certainly wouldn't be any good for use in the model as they are still very cloudy, and certainly not transparent. I spent literally a couple of hours with micro mesh on these windows and this was the best finish I could get.

Enter Meguiar's (you'd think they could at least spell McGuire correctly!) PlastX miracle plastic polish! This is the rear window after a few minutes polishing. It's actually transparent again. I haven't washed the parts yet so they probably still have some slight polish residue on them.

I am having a hard time getting a decent photo as the darned thing is transparent - here's a closer shot and you can see that it's looking pretty darned good... I'll still attack it with the polish again before dipping it.

The side transparencies were much easier to polish as they were flat.... again, just a few minutes with the polish... perfect!

I would certainly recommend this polish for anyone wanting to bring out the best in their transparencies. I'm not sure if it's available in the UK but I am sure you'll find it on ebay.

I have used plastic polish in the past (polishing aircraft transparencies, was it Greygates?) and it was always a right PITA - it would take hours of polishing to see any results. This stuff works in minutes with great results.

You know, I think I am going to be able to rescue these transparencies after all. I think there will still be a few slight marks, such as splay from the original molding process that I won't be able to get rid of, but at least they'll be the original parts.

[Nigel Heath]

I did actually find some perfect sized tubing in the house. It was packaging for those light sticks that the kids seem to love. Unfortunately, it's a very soft plastic - some kind of polypro? and I can't get a decent edge to it.

When I sand or file, it just leaves rags on the edges and it's impossible to get a clean edge to it. It also seems to go soggy when any filler is applied to it, and it doesn't bond well at all. It sucks as it was a perfect diameter.

My guess would be PET. Is it affected by liquid poly or cellulose thinners? PET, PE and PP are all essentially unaffected by these solvents. When you say it goes soggy, what does that mean? Could you put it in the deep freeze to harden it up? (Slightly bonkers I know but my freezer did come to my rescue before). Maybe put it over a metal rod to give it some thermal mass?

The results of the polishing operations are highly impressive.

[hendie]

Soggy = soft and mushy, almost molten. For example, trying to file it resulting in the plastic almost stretching with the file and rolling into little balls

The results of the polishing operations are highly impressive.

Very impressive. It even removed the yellowing of the parts.

There is one drawback though - the parts have polished up so highly, that it has allowed me to see some minute crazing that I couldn't see before. The crazing is very light and only visible if you move the part around in the light.

It does provide me with one more dilemma though - do I use the rescued parts, even with the crazing? or do I go for brand new home brewed parts, crystal clear and shiny?

I am almost tempted to use the original parts even with the slight crazing. I will need to mull this one over.

[Pete in Lincs]

Hendie,

The tube.

Now that I see the size...

Ball point pens? Felt tip pens? Sharpie marker?

One of them must be about right. And it should be a useable plastic.

Lateral thinking. The scratch builders friend.

Pete

(Now back in Riyadh)

Edited December 27, 2013 by Pete in Riyadh

[triumphfan]

Hendie, if you are still thinking of dipping the transparencies in a 'Johnsons Clear' type fluid, be sure to wash them in dish washing liquid to remove any traces of polish.

The clear will be affected by any polish residue and 'fish eye' in a big way - not pretty!

I have had to do the same job as this on clear parts in the past, albeit on a smaller scale, and found a dip in Johnsons Clear took the parts to a crystal clarity, even removing (hiding?) visual crazing.

Steve.

[hendie]

Steve, I am going to try one part just to see what effect it has. I have one window that is going to be scrap as there is too much crazing on it, along with some kind of glue mark which seems to have gone through the entire thickness. If it works - great, if not, then it's no loss

[hendie]

Hendie,

The tube.

Now that I see the size...

Ball point pens? Felt tip pens? Sharpie marker?

One of them must be about right. And it should be a useable plastic.

Lateral thinking. The scratch builders friend.

Pete

(Now back in Riyadh)

Yup,, I had been through the house and tried that to no avail, but took another gander after your post and I might have found something.... a drinks straw, from my daughters theme park mug - it seems to be rigid enough. I'll try it out and let you know what happens

[Nigel Heath]

I think a coat of Klear type stuff will fill in and hide the crazing as Steve says, it should at least make it look a lot better.

No feedback on my deep freeze idea then?

[hendie]

I think a coat of Klear type stuff will fill in and hide the crazing as Steve says, it should at least make it look a lot better.

No feedback on my deep freeze idea then?

Turned out I didn't need the deep freeze as I found a plastic tube of the right diameter.

Maybe I am doing something wrong or I don't have the right stuff, but the transparency looked worse after it had been in the dip. I ended up trying a couple of coats. The first dip resulted in a patchy coating - I definitely washed it thoroughly and didn't handle it with my greasy mitts, but it certainly looked better with just the polish.

I might try another piece later but for now, I am just going with the polish - it seems to be doing the job.

[hendie]

and just to finish off on the transparency issue for the moment - here's a shot of the rear window fitted to the body shell. I can't believe that rear window was rescued from the original.

Now, onto more pressing matters... the headlamps.

As I mentioned to Pete earlier, I managed to find a suitable candidate for repairing the shambles that were the Aurora headlamp openings in the shape of a drinks straw from one of my daughters drink mug from a theme park.

It appeared to be the correct OD but the wall thickness was a bit on the heavy side. - I can deal with that later. The OD was the main thing.

I duly chopped a small section (about half an inch) off, and using an epoxy putty, stuck it in the headlamp aperture.

I don't know why it looks squint here. Maybe because of the putty, shadows, and the angle of the cut showing. It is as straight as I could get it - not perfect, but certainly not as bad as it looks here!

More putty was added to the inner wing to help hold things in place for the butchery to come.

I began by filing the tube down to the approximate angle I needed. You can see here just how thick the tubing is, and just how ragged the other headlamp opening actually is.... uuurghhhhhh

That was followed by some filling to start the blending in process.

At this point, I was only doing one headlamp - I still wasn't sure if this was going to work or not, and I didn't want to give myself double the work to recover it if it didn't work.

First pass at blending the tube to the wing.....

You can see the angle I have filed the opening at in this photo. On the real car, the headlamp cover is not as angled as one would think - provided you view it directly from the side. I think I still need a little bit more on the angle but I am starting to be limited by the shape of the Aurora version.

It is more discernible in this photo. The headlamp aperture should be almost horizontal when viewed from this angle, however, I am limited by the shape of the front of the car.

If I square the headlamp off, then I cut into the grill section. If I bring the headlamp forward in order to square it off, then I screw up the side light below the headlamp, and the front bumper won't fit, so I have to compromise somehow.

Well, I thought I had taken more photo's than I apparently have. You will have to make do with a description of the operations instead, and I'll try and pay more attention in the future!

I gave the front of the car a quick blast of primer to see how the headlamp/wings looked. The wing looked surprisingly fine, but the actual opening for the headlamp was a bit on the small side. The drinking straw was pretty thick - built to withstand children no doubt.

That resulted in me opening up the tubing by my patented method of some rolled up sandpaper, and rotating it while at the same time, pushing and pulling the sandpaper through the tube.

The operation was successful, and it looked pretty good - so that spurred me on to fitting the second headlamp tube... bring on more filing... more filling...

and we are now at this stage....

I have thinned out the tubing as much as I dare. I think I have taken about 2/3 of the original thickness away. I just checked some photo's of the original car and I don't think the overall diameter of these headlamps is too far away.

In case anyone is wondering... I measured the diameter of the headlamp openings to make sure they were equal by the highly technical method of inserting a tapered paintbrush into one opening, marking the handle, then inserting the brush into the other headlamp and checking how far the handle went in to the opening - it seems to have worked.

The one issue I have still to resolve here is that the chrome retainer on the lens (of the original car) is almost flat. I don't think I have enough in the shape of the wings here to replicate that sufficiently.

However, I am quite pleased with the results so far. - Given that the base model was really a wreck, and the headlamp apertures weren't even round (or equal!), the application of some drinking straw and some filler has worked wonders for the appearance. Still loads of filling and shaping to do in order to finish off the headlamps properly, but I thought I would share the progress so far.

Edited December 28, 2013 by hendie

[louiex2]

Great work and ingenuity in fixing the myriad of problems. The straw solution for the headlights was brilliant.

Regarding the figures, I recall there was a full range of 1/24 diecast figures from the Bond movies but I don't remember the manufactuers- perhaps one of our fellow BM chaps will know. Prieser do hace an "Adam & Eve" set of figures the have various mix and match parts and I believe they are available in 1/24th scale.

Keep up the great work.

[Nigel Heath]

After all that work the headlamp apertures are looking really good. The patchy appearance with the Klear is what I seem to get whenever I have tried dipping clear parts, nice to know its not just me.

[Graham77]

That windscreen salvage is great, as is the rest of the restoration. I just inherited an old Airfix MG magnette roadster that has been half built and am trying to strip the paint at the mo then embark on a similar job to you. I am pretty sure I used that polish on an old headlight unit a year or so back so should be readily available from Halfords etc over here in blighty. Keep up the good work and looking forward to seeing it get some colour and all the hard work paying off

Cheers

Graham

[hendie]

I still have to make the actual headlamp units that fit inside the tube - that should be pretty easy. It's making the curved lens that fits over the headlamp that is going to be much harder, as the outer edges of that need to blend in with the wings

Graham77 - have you tried oven cleaner on the parts. I found that it worked wonders for removing chrome on this model and paint on another

[triumphfan]

Great save on the rear window and the headlamp housings are looking great, well done Hendie.

Steve.

[hendie]

thanks everyone, it gives me the impetus to keep moving on this project.

I have given the body a coat of primer so I can see how bad/good the headlamps are. That is off to one side drying as I type.

The time is fast approaching when I need to use my new airbrush. I have a few parts that I need to alclad chrome. But first I have a small problem... missing parts.. and a slightly misshapen part.

So today, boys and girls, we are going to learn a new skill.. the art of molding and casting (says he with an air of ultimate stupidity!)

The front and rear bumper have a pair of over-riders on each bumper. Unfortunately, I only have a total of three over-riders. So guess who needs to make one?

There's not much detail to them, and I could probably have fashioned one out of some scrap styrene, but there's nothing like making life difficult for yourself, is there?

I started off by finding some styrene tube which was about the right diameter as the bumper. The recess on the over-rider is actually tapered, but the tube is good enough for now.

Then I cut a length of tube, and sanded a flat on the tube.

I kept going until the flat on the tube matched up with the flat on the rear of the over-riders

The styrene tube was then glued to a backing piece of 1/8" styrene - I chose thick as I wanted a flat surface and stability here. And since I am going to all the trouble, it's just as easy to make three as it is to make one - and I am bound to screw up at least one of them.

I also chose to try molding some spare white walls for the tires. One of the originals I had was covered in glue, and by the time I had removed the adhesive, the shape of the white wall was not as crisp as I would have liked - so I may as well try my hand at molding a couple of them as well.

The white walls were tacked in place with a tiny spot of superglue (hoping I can remove them later), and the over-riders were placed over the flattened tube and a small piece of blu-tac was used to secure them. After pressing as hard as I could on them, I removed the excess blu-tac, and they stayed in place successfully.

Then it was out with my latest toy.... the Alumilite Mini Casting Kit.

I made up a small box with scrap styrene around the parts, mixed up some silicone rubber, and poured it gently over the parts I am hoping to be able to cast, once this has all cured.

Of course, my scales decided to turn off when I was measuring the catalyst, so it's a bit heavy on the catalyst side, but hopefully it will turn out okay... stay tuned...

The destructions tell me that it takes 12 - 18 hours for the silicone to cure - so I shall leave that aside until Monday evening.

Both the white walls, and the over-riders have flat surfaces on the rear. I am using that to my advantage here and hoping to end up with a one piece mold. Once I remove the original parts from the silicone mold, I am hoping to be able just to pour the resin over the voids left by the parts. If I overfill, it's no big deal and I can just sand the excess resin away.

Well, that's the plan... and it's subject to change!

I really need to practice with the new airbrush but something inside me is holding me back, not wanting to dirty my gleaming new toy.

[Nigel Heath]

I like the look of that casting kit, where did you get it?

Good luck with the casting but I'm sure you won't need it - I mean what could possibly go wrong??

[hendie]

I picked it up from Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Alumilite-Corp-Mini-Casting-Kit/dp/B0054IS6KY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388254873&sr=8-1&keywords=Alumilite+Mini+Casting+Kit

It's not the most cost effective way to purchase all the components, but it had all I needed in one kit. I could have got more "value for money" but I would have spent a lot more than $30 to get everything. This has got enough resin and silicone to allow me to finish the DB5, and I can pick up more resin etc when and as I need it.

[hendie]

Not much of an update, but a little is better than none.

After this mornings little meandering into the world of casting and molding, there wasn't a great deal I could do. I spent an hour giving the basement work area a good clean up - it needed it. It's amazing how quickly work space is eaten up with the addition of compressors, new tools, raw materials etc. I need a TARDIS for the basement.

I did finally manage to get some time to use my new airbrush in anger though.

About the only things I could paint was the exhaust system. I used Testors Steel. I wasn't too concerned about this area as it is unlikely it will ever be seen, but it turned out okay.

I hate having to use the kit manifolds but there's no way I am making those from scratch!

Now this is one area where I really should do some weathering - when have you ever seen an exhaust as clean as this, except in the showroom?

I guess I can try and if I really muck it up, it's underneath and will never be seen.... or do I just leave the exhaust in pristine condition as it's an Aston Martin?

Using the airbrush was fun but cleaning it afterwards was a real pig. Even although it was brand spanking new, I ended up with tiny little dots of dried paint inside the cup when I had finished. I did my best to remove them but there are still one or two down in there.

You would think that if you spend almost a hundred dollars on an airbrush, they could at least include a cleaning kit for the thing. Nope. You gotta go and buy your own.

My little foray with airbrushing has taught me that I shall need a lot more practice with it before I am anywhere near competent.

In other breaking news....

Here's a shot of the front of the car all primed. There is still a load of work to be done here to blend in the openings and bring it up to scratch, but it certainly looks a lot more like a DB5 now than it did before.

what's next on the agenda now......

[Pete in Lincs]

I was watching Fifth Gear (Top Gear rival) on TV today.

There is presenter Jason Plato at Aston Martin.

Oh look, There is the DB5.

Turns out, this was a customer car awaiting restoration.

It got rebuilt as the James Bond car for the latest Bond driving sequences.

The chassis number, believe it or not, Ends in 007.

Anyhoo, You may be able to find the test drive on youtube.

There were some good detail shots.

Or Vicky B H drove the real one in an earlier series.

It's the 2013 series of Fifth Gear.

[hendie]

I'll look out for that Pete.

I actually found some good reference shots on a couple of web sites - as much as I think I'll need for this build

[Nigel Heath]

I need a TARDIS for the basement.

I have a couple going spare if you want to make me an offer.

This looks incredible compaired to what you started with.

You would think that if you spend almost a hundred dollars on an airbrush, they could at least include a cleaning kit for the thing. Nope. You gotta go and buy your own.

You Americans want everything done for you.

Using the airbrush was fun but cleaning it afterwards was a real pig. Even although it was brand spanking new, I ended up with tiny little dots of dried paint inside the cup when I had finished. I did my best to remove them but there are still one or two down in there.

What solvent were you using to clean the airbrush and what is the chemistry of the Testors paint? This sounds odd.