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799 - 1/8 Citroën 15 Six Traction Avant


Bengalensis

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14 hours ago, Jinxman said:

Lovely stuff. Also a fan of Meguiar's - their glass cleaner is my go to, though I have never considered using their polish on kits - I use White Diamond for clear parts which gives a decent finish, and it smells nice as well. 

Meguiar's was the answers to all prayers for after-spraying-fixing and polishing in the late 80's, and I've stuck with them since. I've never tried White Diamond, might have to do that.

10 hours ago, JOCKNEY said:

You could keep the TS in the glovebox of the Citroen :like:

Haha, you have a point there!

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The body was masked off for more spraying, first the boot interior and then the rear wheel wells. The B-pillar interiors will also get a coat of black on their reverse side, just to make sure there will be no hint of white plastic showing through the tiny edges around the trafficators later on. Lot's to think about...

 

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The boot and fuel filler pipe sprayed in a semi gloss black. This will have to dry before masking more to spray the wheel wells and the fuel filler pipe rubber grommet. I wonder why those fuel pipe pieces were not made as separate parts?

 

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Some more masking was done for the wheel wells and rubber grommet.

 

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Fresh from the spray booth. I made a similar mix of flat grey-brown for the wheel wells as I used on the underside of the floor.

 

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When this has dried thoroughly it is still not over, instead there is a bit of unmasking around the doors, and more masking of the door edge trim to be sprayed... Right now I'm just feeling stuck and working in circles on the body shell...

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2 hours ago, Norman said:

Fantastic work ! enjoying this build very much.

Thanks a lot, glad to hear you find some joy in my work.

 

2 hours ago, Moa said:

Monumental, pharaonic, epic, doesn't quite describe your work, for the joy and amazement of us all.

Cheers!

You are too kind Claudio, I'm just trying, getting more and more wound up in masking tape and plastic film, until I find no way out...

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More hours of masking... but this should be it for the body, I hope.

 

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A few minutes in the spray booth and some careful unmasking later it's a relief to have the body fully cleared from everything. I look forward to doing something else; the headliner, dash board, seats... Or I'm actually not sure the headliner is something to look forward to when I think of it. It rarely is in 1/1 scale, and probably not in 1/8 scale vac form either.

 

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TheB-pillar interiors got some colour as well.  This is also my chosen colour for the doors and some other panels.

 

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2 hours ago, JeroenS said:

That makes for a nice contrast with the black. Well done on the masking. 

Thanks Jeroen, I think it could look OK with various brown toned shades. I have seen a few cars that I'm taking inspiration from. We'll see.

 

1 hour ago, Moa said:

Nice color choice.

These last few days it looked as what you had there wrapped was the body... of a mummy! Glad to see it's a car body!

 

Thanks a lot. You know Claudio; I'm very glad it was a car body too too... I'm not joking now, but when I did all the unmasking work tonight I listened to a scientific history radio program, in the old Luxor Royal stereo radio I recently found, where they told the story of using unwrapped and ground up Egyptian mummies as medicine ingredients some time in the 17-th century... Uhmm... Not sure if I should stop masking models for paint, or stop taking medicines now...

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The trafficators where painted their orange colour. Why I don't know as the chance of anything being seen is null and zero.

 

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Here the B-pillars are completed so far.

 

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The next major step will be to get the headliner in place with all associated parts. I continue further in the instruction pages, but I'm waiting a little while with the seats.

 

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Windscreen assembly. Two chromed frames are glued on each side of the glass, and an inside frame to be fitted as well. I'm gluing the frame so that it can still slide on the glass to give some possible adjustments during the fitting.

 

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Most parts involved have been painted their basic colours. I made a mix for the inner window frames and instrument box that is slightly reminding of the colour I've seen in real cars with brownish interiors. I'm very impressed by true paint artist, several seen painting their models here on BM, that can interpret colours and understand what to mix to give a result they want. Nothing of that come natural to me, and I don't understand what to do, what to start with or what to add. I know mixing basic blue and yellow gives purple, or, errh, green it should probably be, but beyond that I never seem to learn...

 

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The rear lower panels of the vac formed headliner are ridiculously thin and very wrinkled in my kit. Not possible to use as they were. First I thought about cutting them off and making new ones, but I now changed my mind to trying a repair first. I spread a thin coat of Methyl Acetate onto the back side of the panels and quickly pressed them to a sheet of 0,13 mm thick styrene and smoothed them out. After cutting off the worst excess and sanding the inside lightly it didn't look to bad. Maybe it could work, we'll see...

 

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The vac form was cut according to the outlines. Here it's just resting on the roof, but it should be suspended slightly below the roof. It's not possible to test fit well at this point.

 

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Somehow the thin and floppy piece must be painted. I'm trying to fix it to a piece of cardboard with two supports, using blue tac and tape, to be able to work with it.

 

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First the rear panels are sprayed, and some black at strategic areas on the back. When this is dry the panels will be masked to spray the headliner itself.

 

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The inner wind screen frame and the box covering the wiper mechanism are glued in place.

 

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The rear window and the rear shelf are also glued in place. Now waiting for the headliner to be finished...

 

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While waiting for paint to dry I started on the seats, cleaning up the lot of parts that make up the frames and assembled the bases.

 

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Then it was time for all the seat upholstery parts. Unfortunately they are moulded is some harder vinyl. Needs a bit of work to clean up decently, and there's deformations that needs a bit of attention. Probably more than once... The front seats had some mould problems with thin surface layers peeling off. I have tried to make repairs with CA and sanding, I hope it will be OK.

 

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The rest of the parts for the rear seat are made in styrene. Gluing the vinyl and styrene proved problematic. Ordinary cement does nothing with the vinyl and even CA has problems getting a grip. It seems sanded surfaces, CA and long drying time may work, at least if handled with care. I think these seats will not be the most pleasant part of this build... Why didn't Heller make them in ordinary styrene?

 

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It might even be that the headliner will not be the worst experience...

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The base colour of the headliner has been sprayed.

 

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Then I had to continue working on the back seat.

 

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Actually Heller first wants me to build the rear suspension, but it does not make sense right now so I'm waiting with that, I need to join the body and floor first.

 

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The back side and underside of the rear seat were finished in the end, and ready for paint. It's problematic to work with the seat parts as all glue joints cracks easily and the vinyl doesn't sand terribly well, but I'm trying to carry on.

 

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The seat frames were finished off and got a coat of semi gloss black.

 

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The back of the rear seat parts also got a coat of black.

 

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The vac form sheet comes with parts "B" which are the pockets for the seat backs. They are not mentioned anywhere in the instructions or the parts list, and they are also moulded into the vinyl seat back parts. They do look a bit dull moulded in one piece, but since working on the seats leaves a lot to be desired I wasn't going to bother.

 

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As I started rigging the parts for paint I changed my mind. I could always try and make new seat backs from 1 mm styrene sheet, they would not be a worse fit than the original parts and equally difficult to glue, but probably with better defined pockets. A few minutes later the new parts were ready. They will be painted separately. I think this will be better.

 

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Again I found myself waiting for paint to dry, so I continue preparing parts. The dashboard is a small project in itself.

 

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Remember I added some small reinforcements on the inside where the body wants to crack in the joints? Now it's time to pay for that as they interfere with the lower front side panels.

 

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However the price is small. A minor cut in the side panels. Never to be seen as it's up behind the dashboard.

 

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The last vac formed parts are the pockets for the driver and passenger. They were not fitted to all cars it seems. They are quite large in all directions, and I found them way too high when compared to real cars, so I cut them down to be able to fit them more according to real photos. However they are still way too deep. I'll have to dwell on that for a while.

 

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The glove box has hinges and can be opened. The bottom has ugly ejector marks that are low...

 

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Rather than filling and sanding down there I decided to sacrifice 0,25 mm depth and add a carefully cut bottom of sheet styrene.

 

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There will be more parts in the dashboard alone than in the complete Renault 30 I'm also building...

 

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This morning work continued on the headliner. I first masked off the channel seams.

 

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Then I sprayed an overall thin splatter coat of a slightly contrasting colour, followed by light free hand coats at the centre of each field with a darker shade. I'm doing what I'm doing as I'm drawing heavy inspiration from photos of very nice 1951 car with what appears to be an all original interior.

 

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Some dry brushing of Raw Sienna oil paint.

 

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Unmasked the channel seams and sprayed around the edges free hand with a darker brown.

 

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The side panels were unmasked and an overall flat cote finished off the work. This will need some rest before (attempted) fitting.

 

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All the seat parts have been given their base colour coat. They continue to be an annoyance...

 

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The areas where I had to sand and repair, due to the vinyl shearing off in thin layers, continue to be rough and problematic. These two offenders can with a bit of luck be beaten into submission with light sanding and repeated painting.

 

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The third one is another matter. On the inner section the paint makes new thin layers of vinyl cracking up and lifting, apart from similar issues as on the first two. This will require much more work...

 

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I changed my attention to something else. Two small additions; first a piece of protective leather around the accelerator pedal that I see sewn onto the carpet in some cars and second is the piece of floor mat that covers the lower section of the pedal box.

 

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