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Revell Trabant Universal


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5 minutes ago, Spiny said:

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.

I don't think the word exciting should come to mind when looking at a Trabant, so the gray is perfect. :)

Just now, Alan R said:

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.

Thanks for the tip, I also don't like the Revell clear paint will try Tamiya.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Quite a few photos in this update I'm afraid, but the end is in sight :)

 

I'll start off with completing last week's job - fitting the windows. Apart from being fiddly with the masking, these were a nice easy job. The fact that the roof isn't fitted yet made this (and other jobs) much easier than if the roof was in place.

 

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The next job was fitting the body to the chassis. On just about every other job (Cuda excepted), this has been one of the more nerve-wracking moments in the build, but the boxy shape of the Trabi meant that it was almost (almost!) easy. One up for the 'normal' cars over the exotica. And once the body is on, it's unmistakeably a Trabant.

 

46677955342_0bc085558a_c.jpg

 

The instructions would have you fit the body almost at the end of the build, but I decided to mate it to the chassis a bit earlier before I fitted all the trim. At the moment I'm glad I did as I'm sure I'd have something fall off along the line, but the proof will come when I have all the trim on. One bit of trim I haven't been looking forward to is the aluminium and rubber strips which run along the top of the wings on a Trabant - little more than 1mm wide and they need to be painted aluminium then a black line painted along the top. As I didn't trust muself to get a good line freehand, that meant masking - quite tricky when the masking tape is wider than the bit you're masking. In the end, I stuck the ends down onto some card from a new shirt with 6mm across the trim to keep it the right way up, then ran the 2mm masking tape along the edges of the black (which also stuck the trim to the card. Once that was done, I unstuck the 6mm tape and ran the 2mm tape to the end. A bit fiddly, but this was what I ended up with prior to painting:

 

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The end result wasn't perfect, but it did only need minor touching up where the black had bled under the tape, and after touching up this was the end result:

 

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Just a shame that when I came to fixing it I realised I'd misread the instructions and painted the side of the middle piece of trim rather than the top :doh:, so that has been stripped and I only have the front trim on at the moment.

 

And then onto the last stage of the instructions - fitting the boot floor and tailgate struts. As with so much else with this hobby the bit I expected to be easy (boot floor) turned out to be a right pain - the floor is slightly wider than the boot opening and I had to file approx 1mm from each side to get it in and even then popped out the rear side window getting it fitted. Fortunately the sanding doesn't show, but if anyone reading this is planning to build one of these models, I would definitely recommend ignoring the instructions and installing the boot floor before adding the body.

 

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Meanwhile, the struts which I expected to be painful were actually quite easy, mainly because I held off fitting the back window until the struts were installed. That allowed me to connect the struts to the tailgate through the window aperture - I would expect it to be much harder trying to fit it through the roof. The worst thing about the struts was a red band on them which is meant to be done by a decal. I tried adding the decal and once I'd managed to stop it rotating 90 degrees under its own steam I found out that it didn't want to fold around the strut. Adding Microsol didn't really help much, then when I tried to help it the decal disintegrated. In the end, I just painted it - much easier and it's not something you notice anyway. And so, that brings me to the end of the weekend - this is the current state of play:

 

46677950422_9120ef7863_c.jpg

 

As far as I can tell, there's just trim and the roof to add now - nearly done!

 

 

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12 hours ago, JeroenS said:

Niiiiice!!! The body colour is perfect for it. 

Thanks, glad you like it. This was the first time I've tried clear-coating a matt finish, and generally I'm pleased with how it's turned out - even more than the photos show, it really give the impression of that 1950's grey which manages to look dull even when polished up to a shine - just what I was aiming for.

 

I'm hoping that the next update on this one will be completion.

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Thank you, and at the risk of pride going before a fall (since I haven't finished it yet), I am pleased with how this is turning out. A large part of the credit must go to Revell though - this is a beautifully designed kit and I can't think of any design flaws on it. Sure it needed quite a bit of cleaning up on the A-sprue and there are a few issues with the instructions at times, but the kit itself is a 10 out of 10 job - I definitely wouldn't hesitate it to anyone that wants to build the polar opposite of a muscle car or piece of Italian exotica.

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3 hours ago, dbostream said:

You have done a great job with this one, you have made me want to build a car I have never looked twice at in the past.

Thank you, I'm delighted to have swayed attention towards this kit as it really is a good one - now to get Revell onto kitting the Reliant Robin :D

Edited by Spiny
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Just seen and read this entire build thread.  Some great work there.  

 

As a thought, you said you needed lots of layers on the outside of clear parts, and inside looks a little {false}, how about just one layer outside and a couple inside, this may give colour depth and remove the false look.  [this is something I may try in future]. --I recently used an Edding permanent marker for ease on a 1:32 scale triumph with pleasing results. --

 

I look forward to the finished article.

 

Coops

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9 hours ago, Alan R said:

How about the Bond Bug?

Funnily enough, I do have something orange and wedge-shaped in the pipeline, probably not until the end of the year though. And it does have 4 wheels!

11 hours ago, Cooper645 said:

Just seen and read this entire build thread.  Some great work there.  

 

As a thought, you said you needed lots of layers on the outside of clear parts, and inside looks a little {false}, how about just one layer outside and a couple inside, this may give colour depth and remove the false look.  [this is something I may try in future]. --I recently used an Edding permanent marker for ease on a 1:32 scale triumph with pleasing results. --

 

I look forward to the finished article.

 

Coops

Thanks for the idea, that's something I will give a go at on the next model. To be honest, I've needed a lot of layers with the Revell Clear Red whether it's on the inside of the 'glass' or the outside, but a single layer around the edge of the rear fog light on the Trabi did tint the clear sufficiently to get rid of that 'fake' look. I'm thinking it could be worth a try with a single layer on the outside as you suggested then build up the layers on the inside until I have sufficient tint.

12 hours ago, Chris1886 said:

Great build, Spiny, and a super thread detailing how you got there, as a new member and interested in car building a great read, thank you for sharing 

I'm glad you've enjoyed reading it. Like you, I'm still fairly new at this (this is only the second build I've documented here) so it's great to hear that you like the thread. I've always wondered whether I was being a bit too basic, particularly given how amazing many of the models on here are. But, when I got back into the hobby and was building the first car, I had a good look around to pick up some tips and hoped I could apply them to my builds. It was even better if I could find threads relating to a kit I was building as they often showed up some of the potential pitfalls to look out for - that was one of the reasons why this one may appear a bit basic at times in the description of what I'm doing, but it's the sort of thread I look for when starting a build so I figured if I want to see it, there's a reasonable chance someone else does too. This one is my 6th model, and while I can't necessarily see an improvement when I look from one to the next (say 1st to 2nd), if I look at one three ahead (i.e. compare 1st to 4th or 2nd to 5th) I can see that I have got better - probably moved from beginner to novice level I hope.

 

As for progress on the Trabant, no photos this weekend I'm afraid. That's mainly down to not having lots of time this weekend, and also due to the fact that all the work I have managed to get in is just getting paint onto the remaining parts. The only new bit on the car is the rear wiper... so it doesn' really look any different to the pics above.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This one is finally complete. The last couple of weekends have just been painting and fitting various bits of trim, so nothing really to write home about as it's pretty much dealt with in the few posts above. I have to say that this is a very well engineered and detailed kit and well worth putting some effort in, provided you aren't put off by the subject.

 

The completion thread is in the link below:

 

But I figure I might as well include one teaser pic of it finished (the roof isn't cemented on so you can lift for a better view of the interior if you want)

 

39932679473_5e4f338df9_c.jpg

 

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On 28/01/2019 at 21:17, modelldoc said:

If you like to check it with an original,

 

The IWM North in Manchester has one in the exibition.

 

modelldoc

Thanks for the tip, but I was 'lucky' enough to see one earlier this month :), not to mention a couple of the saloon versions too. And yes, I did have a good look to check a few things for the model!

 

46583286522_6a582d0039_c.jpg

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