799 - 1/8 Citroën 15 Six Traction Avant

[Bengalensis]

2 hours ago, JeroenS said:

No... you should build a bigger spray booth 🙂 

 

This is starting to look good, you've obviously done well on the preparation as that surfacer coat looks very smooth. By the way I thought these would be rare kits but they seem to be reasonably well available, and not that expensive either, considering the amount of plastic and the detail. 

 

Haha, well, I need some boot in between 1/24 and 1/1 in size...

 

This kit has been issued several times around, and apparently it's to be reissued any day again now, if it's not already out, so should not be to hard to get. Good value for money I think.

[TonyW]

This really is like watching a 1:1 car coming together.

 

Heller certainly pulled out all the stops with this one, I can feel the start of a need growing in me. A front wheel drive European car would be a full 180 degree turnabout in my car modelling, but the kit is just so tempting.

 

Tony.

[Bengalensis]

9 hours ago, TonyW said:

This really is like watching a 1:1 car coming together.

 

Heller certainly pulled out all the stops with this one, I can feel the start of a need growing in me. A front wheel drive European car would be a full 180 degree turnabout in my car modelling, but the kit is just so tempting.

They were indeed very ambitious with this kit. As a 1/1 scale car boffin as well, I'm feeling quite at home.

I read somewhere sometime that the tooling for this kit strained Heller's economy a bit too far.

Time to widen the car culture; go get the kit, you know you want to...

[Bengalensis]

The floor section was masked off for some paint. I also cut the floor mats from their hard vinyl sprue and prepared them as well for the same session. Not sure if I will use them yet. Heller suggests a single uniform greyish colour for the whole interior, with some very dark maroonish as an alternative. but quite a few of the preserved 1951 cars I have looked at have a brownish interior with lots of colour variation between all the parts involved. I will aim for that.

 

 

Here is after the first session. I started with a medium brown base, followed by a light distant low pressure coat with a more yellowish brown and finished with an even lower pressure splatter coat of medium grey. Will see how glossy/flat this dries before deciding of it needs an additional flat coat.

 

 

It looks just a boring brown here, but it's not that bad in real life.

 

 

 

The sanding of the body has started with going over all visible imperfections. It will rest a little more before working it over with 600 and 1200 grit.

 

 

Preparation of all small parts for the engine bay has also started. A good deal of mould lines and ejector marks need to be taken care of, and more spring fabrication. This is the hand brake linkage.

 

 

And we have throttle linkage and engine mounts, and there's much more to follow.

 

[wimbledon99]

15 hours ago, Bengalensis said:

 

Haha, well, I need some boot in between 1/24 and 1/1 in size...

 

This kit has been issued several times around, and apparently it's to be reissued any day again now, if it's not already out, so should not be to hard to get. Good value for money I think.

 

There's currently one on eBay but it's £150!!!! 

[JeroenS]

6 hours ago, wimbledon99 said:

 

There's currently one on eBay but it's £150!!!! 

I think that's cheap, for a 1/8 kit... They seem to be about €200 new. New 1/24 truck kits will set you back €50 or more; the older, rare ones even more, and truck kits are not that well detailed at all. So if you want one of these kits, I think 150 GBP is a bargain. 

[fightersweep]

Echoing other comments, this really is like watching the restoration of a full sized car (having done it once myself). This thread is a testament to the quality of the kit and the building and finishing skills of @Bengalensis. I have a feeling that it's going to be difficult to distinguish the finished model from the real thing.

 

Steve

[Bengalensis]

1 hour ago, fightersweep said:

Echoing other comments, this really is like watching the restoration of a full sized car (having done it once myself). This thread is a testament to the quality of the kit and the building and finishing skills of @Bengalensis. I have a feeling that it's going to be difficult to distinguish the finished model from the real thing.

 

Thanks, you are most kind Steve. The kit is very impressive, especially given its age. It's a rewarding build to go through. A fitting celebration to the greatness of Heller in the good old days.

 

[Bengalensis]

I hoped for more progress this weekend, but after another too many hours work week from hell there's more than the modeling work bench calling for attention... And cleaning up and preparing the many small parts for the engine bay and surroundings takes a lot of time.

 

The pedal box has been assembled, and also the master brake cylinder and clutch linkage. The actuator rod for the clutch is another of those nylon parts that are warped and difficult. As with the gearbox linkage alongside the engine I cut off the ends and drilled them out to take a suitable Evergreen rod.

 

 

More engine bay parts undergoing clean up and parts assembly.

 

 

The battery is built up from six parts with a good deal of glue being used. As it becomes a closed space inside I drilled a hole in the bottom to hopefully aid the drying.

 

 

The floor section was masked yet again and the underside was sprayed with anthracite black with some medium brown mixed in.  There will be some dry brushing and weathering later on.

 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

I am still amazed at the level of detail this kit has. It's just beyond.

I know many have said it before including myself, but it's truly out there, a class on its own.

Any other kit will look forever to me a children's toy with a few parts to put together.

The speed you are working on it is also astonishing.

[Bengalensis]

Thanks Claudio, you are most kind as always.

I'm just trying to work away on this as much as I can under my current circumstances.

I have some hope the situation will improve in December.

 

9 hours ago, Moa said:

Any other kit will look forever to me a children's toy with a few parts to put together.

If the parts are not very many (relatively) or very large as in this case, but instead all small works of art, they will go just as long a way.

[Bengalensis]

Another week vanished... I continued to clean up and assemble engine bay parts in what little tile I had.

 

I didn't quite like the fit/look of the clamps around the brake fluid reservoir and ignition coil. They are made with a smaller diameter mid section to allow the over-thick clamps to sit well around them, but the tolerances are so coarse that the compromise becomes very visible.

 

 

I got away with the reservoir using some CA as filler and some sanding, but the coil needed some extra material glued in from some Evergreen stock. This felt much better when finished.

 

 

There is a vinyl squid part supplied for the choke and starter control wires that wasn't very convincing to my eyes. I got a set of discarded strings from a guitar playing friend as a possible rescue, and found a suitable size that allowed a much better solution, together with a scratched base. My blurred picture doesn't give justice.

 

 

Friday night I had this lot of parts ready to be painted in mostly various shades of black, that still has to happen.

 

 

Yesterday I didn't get much done, except sanding the body surfacer ready for paint. Not a small task in this size though...

 

 

 

This morning the black base coat was sprayed. It now needs fine sanding of a few small issues after coffee, and hopefully I will get the clear coat sprayed in the afternoon.

 

[Jinxman]

41 minutes ago, Bengalensis said:

Another week vanished...

As you get older those weeks turn into months, and then years....

 

Great work, and that is what I call a spray booth. 😃

[Bengalensis]

1 hour ago, Jinxman said:

As you get older those weeks turn into months, and then years....

 

Great work, and that is what I call a spray booth. 😃

 

I'm afraid I'm already there experiencing that...

 

Thanks, it does provide quite a bit more room than my modelling spray booth...

[Bengalensis]

The clear coat has now also been sprayed. All went well, there are a few small specs of dust to be sanded and polished out, but nothing unexpected and will be dealt with in due course. Unmasking tomorrow and then it will get a good week's resting before anything else is done.

 

 

Given the relative complexity of joining the various body parts in the rear area, I especially like this view.

 

[fightersweep]

Wow! That paint finish is stunning! I'm speechless! (and that's a rare thing 🙂)

 

Loving all the extra detail work you are doing too. This is a masterclass.

 

Steve

[TonyW]

This thread gets better and better! That's a very nice shine on the body, not even buffed out and already it looks finished.

[Bengalensis]

4 hours ago, fightersweep said:

Wow! That paint finish is stunning! I'm speechless! (and that's a rare thing 🙂)

 

Loving all the extra detail work you are doing too. This is a masterclass.

 

2 hours ago, TonyW said:

This thread gets better and better! That's a very nice shine on the body, not even buffed out and already it looks finished.

 

Thanks a lot Steve and Tony for the kind comments.

 

I wasn't going to do much extra detail work, but the kit really asks for a little bit of extra care here and there. It's rewarding work.

 

Regarding the black body paint; I'm using professional automotive products here, sprayed through an Iwata HP-SA airbrush at about 2,5 bar pressure. The black is a thin base paint that dries quickly to a semi-flat finish, in this case from a can of 30(!) year old Dupont Centari 600 base black I have left over. I bought way too much for that project back then... This is followed with 2K clear from PPG (of current date I might add), thinned down a bit more than usual to spray nicely through the airbrush. This is all rather nasty stuff, and before using one should be acquainted with the right protection procedures. There are other ways to get a good smooth finish, it's just that I'm used to working with this.

[Bengalensis]

Another session in the modelling spray booth has given all the engine bay parts their basic colours. More detail painting will follow.

 

 

And finally I managed some real assembly work, the front cradle and suspension unit has been glued to the floor section. It was a bit tricky to get in place but once there it fitted quite nicely.

 

 

[JeroenS]

Nice work Jörgen and wowww that body looks good!! It's like liquid. 

[Bengalensis]

4 minutes ago, JeroenS said:

Nice work Jörgen and wowww that body looks good!! It's like liquid. 

 

Thanks a lot Jeroen.

 

It's perhaps a bit too shiny. In my usual scales, 1/24 and 1/43, I never paint this glossy a surface as it becomes far too much, but in this large scale one might get away with more like 1/1 scale, especially as my aim is probably a restored car of current times, or something like that.

[JeroenS]

7 minutes ago, Bengalensis said:

It's perhaps a bit too shiny. In my usual scales, 1/24 and 1/43, I never paint this glossy a surface as it becomes far too much, but in this large scale one might get away with more like 1/1 scale, especially as my aim is probably a restored car of current times, or something like that.

I agree the shine is not period correct, but if you were to restore one of these beauties up to current standards you would certainly want this!

[Pete in Lincs]

Beautiful liquid black finish. And, how about presenting it as a resto?

An information sign leaning on the bumper and a best in class rosette on the screen?

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

And yet again a super-professional result!

What a pleasure to see this level of modeling prowess.

 

[Bengalensis]

On 22/11/2020 at 21:19, Pete in Lincs said:

Beautiful liquid black finish. And, how about presenting it as a resto?

An information sign leaning on the bumper and a best in class rosette on the screen?

Thanks a lot Pete. Indeed I am regarding this is as a restored car, a very well restored and looked after car, but one that is driven in the summer by an enthusiastic driver. Could be myself...

 

On 22/11/2020 at 21:20, Moa said:

And yet again a super-professional result!

What a pleasure to see this level of modeling prowess.

 

Thanks very much Claudio, I'm glad you like it, and it's good to give something back.