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Revell Trabant Universal


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Another small step forward this weekend. When I started the build I was hoping to be finished by the end of the year, but it looks pretty certain that won't be happening unless I speed up very rapidly. So I'll only have two completed models for the year.

 

This weekend the main work was on the rear seat and lower dashboard. The rear seat looks (and is) much simpler than the front seats, particularly in terms of painting. But unfortunately, the instructions have the legs on the front of it the wrong way around. Fortunately I noticed before the glue had set properly so it was a fairly simple change, but it does seem a shame that what is a very good kit shows signs of being let down by the instructions. The lower dashboard is another part where the instructions are wrong, and this was the part which I initially sprayed body colour before stripping. It's had new paint this weekend and has also been fitted along with front and rear seats.

 

So, this is the rear seat. I tried to show the legs (which should angle towards the side fo the car rather than the centre), but couldn't get a good angle with the camera:

 

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Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a photo of either part before I fitted them to the interior, so you'll just have to make do with a rather shadowy view of the interior as a whole which shows the current state of play.

 

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Next week's job will be to put together the sides of the interior and move the tub close to completion.

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A reasonably good weekend this weekend means that the interior is almost done on this one.

 

The sides of the tub were sprayed over summer, so I already had them in the grey of the body. The finish wasn't particularly good, but after a quite a bit of polishing I did at least managed to get a decent shine to the top of the panels. Then it was a case of painting on the vinyl - it's not quite perfect as there are a couple of places where the paint ended up in the line around the vinyl panels, but it's not too bad for somewhere which won't be too visible. Then it was a case of detailing up the various add-ons, including the seatbelts which are a separate item to the panels. I think this is the first of the models I've built since my return which has seatbelts - seems wrong that a plastic 2-stroke estate comes with seat belts but a 200mph Porsche doesn't! Then again, the Trabi is more likely to spontaneously combust than any of the others. The small runners at the back will support the parcel shelf, and are quite fragile. I managed to snap one getting it off the sprue, but luckily managed to get a decent (my best ever) repair on it and now I've forgotten which one I broke - I doubt I'll ever be able to do that again.

 

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After that, it was just a case of fitting them to the interior tub, and as with pretty much everything on this kit (so far...) it went on beautifully. There might be quite a few mould lines on the A-sprue in particular, but this really does seem like a well-engineered kit.

 

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Now the instructions have you put this to one side along with the chassis while you move onto the body, but as the chassis and interior will be stuck together as they are at the end, I figured it was worth doing that now. So here she is at the moment, and looking much more car like :)

 

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There's only the parcel shelf left of the interior, which will just sit in uncemented as does the spare wheel. Unfortunately, there were a few ejector pin marks on the underside (admittedly where it will not really be seen), so I've filled the sunken ones with putty and will leave it to dry until next weekend.

Edited by Spiny
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Thanks all three of you - although I think you're all being too kind. Either that, or the camera is lying :)

 

23 hours ago, Homerlovesbeer said:

Really tidy work mate. The brush work looks very clean, better than what I'm doing at the moment.

I really can't recommend a cheap set of jeweller's glasses highly enough, they're probably my most used tool in the hobby. I found that having ended up the wrong side of 40 it wasn't as easy to see close-up, and they really helped, particularly when it comes to painting detail such as those seat belt buckles. Unfortunately, I still haven't mastered the art of getting rid of brushstrokes as can be seen on the back seat...

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After last week's really obvious progress, it was back down to earth with a bump this weekend as I hit one of the slowest parts of any build - the dashboard.

 

But first up, I got that parcel shelf painted up and fitted (although this is a part which doesn't glue in place). So that's the chassis and interior completed.

 

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Then it was onto the dashboard. The steering wheel and column were relatively easy to complete and are done now:

 

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The rest of the dash is lurking in the background and I have at least got it painted - it might look all one colour, but there is semi-gloss black as well as the plastic-looking grey on there, not to mention the red, green and yellow for the rocker switches. I'd have got it painted quicker if I had more than two 10/0 brushes! Next step will be to get the decals on, which I'm hoping will be relatively simple - the decals seem strong on this kit although unfortunately the same can also be said for the glue holding them onto the backing paper...

Edited by Spiny
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Really loving this build.

You are doing an amazing job on this little car.

Just because the real thing is a bit crap, doesn't mean that it's not worth modelling. This car is a piece of history.

Keep up the good work.

 

Cheers, Alan.

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4 hours ago, Alan R said:

Really loving this build.

You are doing an amazing job on this little car.

Just because the real thing is a bit crap, doesn't mean that it's not worth modelling. This car is a piece of history.

Keep up the good work.

 

Cheers, Alan.

Thankyou, I'm glad you like it. It's always heartening when someone likes what you're doing (sideways thought - how disheartening must it have been to work at the Trabant factory in that case???)

 

I must give a lot of the credit to Revell though - this is a really good kit which goes together easily and means I can concentrate on detail rather than just getting the thing to fit together. Personally I'm glad that Revell chose this subject, I like the 'normal' cars just as much as the supercars so this is a good topic for me - much as I love the supercars wouldn't it be dull to build nothing but?

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Hi Spint,

I agree. I love doing "ordinary" cars. As a kid I used to love making the Airfix 32nd scale cars. Ordinary cars are important. They aren't glamorous, but many make history.

The beetle (well provided for) was one of the first affordable cars, and a bit notorious.

The mini was the first really practical small front-wheel drive car, and so-on.

I do love the exotica. Just look at most of my car threads for evidence. It's just that I miss the 'normal' stuff.

Come on Airfix, Tamiya et al. Let's have some more stuff that we the motoring public drive, please...

 

Cheers, Alan.

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On 18/12/2018 at 08:18, Alan R said:

Hi Spint,

I agree. I love doing "ordinary" cars. As a kid I used to love making the Airfix 32nd scale cars. Ordinary cars are important. They aren't glamorous, but many make history.

The beetle (well provided for) was one of the first affordable cars, and a bit notorious.

The mini was the first really practical small front-wheel drive car, and so-on.

I do love the exotica. Just look at most of my car threads for evidence. It's just that I miss the 'normal' stuff.

Come on Airfix, Tamiya et al. Let's have some more stuff that we the motoring public drive, please...

 

Cheers, Alan.

Can't disagree with that - I wouldn't mind being able to make one of my own cars (past or present), but as it stands I'm either looking at a completely different year and/or the rally version. Of course, that's not to say that I won't (or in the case of the Fiesta haven't) buy those...

 

Back to the Trabant, I finally got the dashboard done. Unfortunately I had a bit of a snafu with the speedo which stuck down on contact and absolutely refused to move, so it got a little torn (sort of corrected) and is a bit skew whiff (still the case). The decal for the radio took a lot of Microsol to get something like, and isn't perfect, but is as good as my meagre skills can manage.

 

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Meanwhile, in parallel with the decalling, I set about completing the bonnet. It was sprayed back in the summer, so all I had to do was give it a brush coat inside with matt grey and add on the hinges. I'm not sure whether the hinge should be gloss compared to the matt of the underbonnet, but with no evidence to the contrary I just left it as is.

 

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Fitting the dashboard proved surprisingly challenging as the paint made it a very tight fit with the body, much tighter than the dry fit last weekend. I think a large part of that was down to the dashboard being used to retain the hinges for the bonnet, which made the install that much harder, even with the bonnet masking-taped onto the body first. In the end, I removed the steering column to allow me to apply more pressure to the dash, then reapplied the column once the dash was in place. At which point the steering wheel fell off (probably not that much different to the build quality of the real thing I guess!), so I had to refit that too. But I got there in the end, and this is how it stands at the moment:

 

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The bonnet looks as though it stands a bit proud of the body in the photo, but there are some really fiddly looking strips to fit along the side which should make it look right. That's it before Christmas now, but I did also get all the mirrors and reflectors done with the chrome pen so hopefully they will be nice, dry and solid when I get around to fitting them. This doesn't show everything, but it should give an idea. I also got the bumpers polished, so hopefully they just need plastic bits painting before fixing to the body. (If anyone looks too closely at the bumpers, there are mould lines near the lights and I am aware of them. Unfortunately, I didn't have anything suitable to get rid prior to painting - I do now but it's the wrong time of year to be spraying so I've decided to just live with them as they are).

 

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MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Edited by Spiny
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I couldn't suppress a grin at your remark on the steering wheel 🙂

 

I hope your troubles are over and the marriage of chassis and body will be smoother! Have a nice Christmas.

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Thanks, hope you had a good Christmas too. Now Christmas is out of the way I can go back to adding all the bits of trim to this one, hopefulyl I can complete it before January is out. The good news is that I've done a test fit of the body and it goes on relatively easily. I think I have the boxy body to thank for that - there is a Countach lurking in the stash which looks as though it may be much, much harder but that's in the future.

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And to finish the year, it has eyes! Well, lights to be more precise. No real drama with these, other than the usual thing of trying to get the clear parts in snugly without getting glue all over the place - even though it's Clearfix I'm still more than capable of gunking up the parts.

 

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Hi Spiny,

One of the things I like about ClearFix is that you can 'gunk' it up a bit, but as long as it's on the inside of the lens, you can't see it when the glue sets.

I had a similar issue with a Fujimi Porker. I had to slather the glue around the 'location' and just push the lens into place. It looked a bit of a mess before the glue dried, but I can't see the glue now it has set.

Hoping to post pictures this week...

 

Cheers, Alan.

Edited by Alan R
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7 hours ago, dbostream said:

Looking good, I really like the interior with the seat belts and everything.

 

4 hours ago, kpnuts said:

Superb modelling, love it

Thanks both of you, very kind comments. However, I must admit that this one has pretty much been a case of following the instructions with only a few changes to paint colours where Mr. Google suggested otherwise. Extra bits on the model extends no further than a bit of putty to fill in sink marks and ejector pin hollows. This one is probably the most detailed kit I've attempted to date, which probably explains why it's taking a while to complete. I'm glad you consider I'm doing it justice.

7 hours ago, Alan R said:

Hi Spiny,

One of the things I like about ClearFix is that you can 'gunk' it up a bit, but as long as it's on the inside of the lens, you can't see it when the glue sets.

I had a similar issue with a Fujimi Porker. I had to slather the glue around the 'location' and just push the lens into place. It looked a bit of a mess before the glue dried, but I can't see the glue now it has set.

Hoping to post pictures this week...

 

Cheers, Alan.

You have gone through the same experience with it as me then ;) I'll look our for your Porsche. My main issue with the ClearFix is that it doesn't seem particularly strong, but it's invaluable for those bits where you just can't hide the glue - the left hand (right hand side in pic) auxiliary headlight in the photo being a case in point where for quite a while today it looked as though it had a cloudy ring around the outside.

 

...Which brings me on nicely to the current state of affairs. I'm pleased to say that the front end of the body is complete now, so it's onto the back end. I managed to sand off the seam line on the plastic ends to the bumpers, but as mentioned earlier there was no way that seam was going on the painted part short of a respray, and that just isn't happening this time of year - guess I'll just have to live with it. I should also say that I'm very pleased with how the grilled turned out - one of muy more successful efforts :)

 

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Hoping to get that finished tomorrow, but why are so many coats of clear red needed to get a decent amount of colour on the glass? [As an aside, I've been painting the outside of the glass as it seemed to give better results than painting the rear, especially where the light stands proud of the body.] Another thing I'm not looking forward to tomorrow is that I will be entering Masking Central - yes, it's time to add rubbers to the windows prior to installing them.

 

Thanks for watching.

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First of all, a bit of numptiness from yesterday's post. No doubt someone was wondering what the point was of the bit in the square brackets:

On 02/01/2019 at 20:29, Spiny said:

[As an aside, I've been painting the outside of the glass as it seemed to give better results than painting the rear, especially where the light stands proud of the body.]

If my brain had been working properly, I would have asked whether it's best to paint the outside or inside of the 'glass' on indicators and taillights as I can't decide. Painting inside gives a better, sharper finish than painting the outside of the clear plastic, but at the expense of the clear of the plastic showing up. At the moment, I'm tending towards painting the outside of the plastic, but if there are any tips/advice, I'm all ears for the next build (too late for the Trabi).

 

Speaking of which, good progress today, mainly down to prep work done over the last couple of days. You can certainly make better progress when work doesn't intrude... So, after 8 layers of clear, I got the taillights installed on it:

 

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And at the risk of seeming a bit repetitive, got the bumpers and C-pillar vents added too. The vents were slightly too large for their hollows, probably down to excess paint from the spraying, but were easily sanded down to size to fit - much easier and less risky than trying to remove paint from the main body.

 

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Unfortunately, as can be seen in this photo I've managed to break off the end of the left hand side hinge bracket which may have an impact on the tailgate install (but hopefully not). Speaking of the tailgate, that has been a small side project and the interior was also completed today:

 

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Not a lot to it, but that wiper motor was a little fiddly. I've also made a start on masking and painting the windows - hopefully they'll be in over the next couple of days.

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It all looks really neat Spiny, including the tail lights. Painting the outside seems to work out fine. I've only done 2 cars up to now, where I've painted lights outside on one (the VW, where the "glass" was quite thick) and inside on the other (the Impreza, where the glass was way thinner), both look good to me. 

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I used to paint the clear parts on the inside, but as you have observed, it all looks a bit artificial because of the thickness of the plastic. My issue is that it can still look a bit patchy. I might try spraying the clear on to see if that makes a difference.

 

 

Cheers, Alan.

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22 hours ago, dbostream said:

Have to say I am pleased you chose a gray body color, don't think you see that very often and it suits this car very well.

You should see my builds! This is the sixth car I've done since returning to the hobby and only one (the Cuda) hasn't been monochrome - this is the third grey one. I need to get some colour on the shelf (don't worry, the next build does have a bit of colour to it). Glad you like the grey, the Trabant colour options are not exactly exciting but I also felt the grey went well with the car, as well as reflecting the smoke which comes out of the back.

8 hours ago, Alan R said:

I used to paint the clear parts on the inside, but as you have observed, it all looks a bit artificial because of the thickness of the plastic. My issue is that it can still look a bit patchy. I might try spraying the clear on to see if that makes a difference.

 

 

Cheers, Alan.

Thank you, and the same to Jeroen too. Good to see that I appear to be on the right track. I know what you mean about it having the potential to look patchy, and I tend to try to get around that with lots of thin layers. I also tried continuing to brush the 'glass' on this one until the paint was drying (I guess it's almost drybrushing) which seemed to help too. I have to say that I'm not a big fan of the Revell red clear paint - it comes out looking a bit pink and doesn't seem to have much of a tint to it. To give an idea of what I'm getting at, the red on the taillights on this one is made up of 2 layers clear red, then one layer clear orange to minimise the pinkishness (I think another orange layer later on might not have gone amiss) then another FIVE layers of the red clear.

 

As for today, it started badly when the frame snapped on my jeweller's glasses :(. So they're superglued and masking taped together for now but a new set is hopefully on the way soon. But I did at least get some progress on the windows. I deliberately tried to do one side before cutting the other side from the sprue as I know if I don't do that I'll end up mixing things up. But the windscreen and driver's side window is in, the rear driver's window is close to being done and the tailgate window is masked up. Don't ask me what the clear things inside the door are - my best guess would be some sort of wind deflector for when there's a headwind.

 

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After the windows it will be time to deviate from the instructions as I've just registered that the final step is to install the tailgate strut. That will make access a bit difficult if you're building with the tailgate closed as I am, and there's a few other bits of trim I think might be easier to install in a different order. Of course, I could be about to make a complete prat of myself...

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5 minutes ago, Spiny said:

I have to say that I'm not a big fan of the Revell red clear paint - it comes out looking a bit pink and doesn't seem to have much of a tint to it

I have only used Tamiya clear colours so can't comment on the Revell paints. I would recommend the Tamiya clear paints. But as I said earlier, I am going to try spraying them.

 

Cheers, Alan.

 

P.S. Looking really good.

Edited by Alan R
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