Honda Prelude by Fnick - Aoshima 1:24

[Fnick]

Hi all 

 

Straight onto the next one!

 

 

I used to own a MK4 Prelude. Loved that car. After seeing John's Prelude build it got me thinking was there a model of the MK4 and there was!

 

Have to admit the first one I managed to win on eBay was this one which is exactly what my car looked like.

 

 

Now I know the tyres were missing but unfortunately so were a couple more bits and the model itself was not in very good condition. So when I saw the Aoshima version come up I snapped it up!

 

Good thing about that is that the model is in excellent condition and with tyres! 🙂. It also has the boot spoiler that my Prelude had but which isn't part of the revell kit so that was a welcome bonus. It also gives me a spare body ton practice on. Two reasons. One I could not find a spray can to match the Brittany blue green colour but I did find the following:

 

 

Which hopefully can give me the right colour. 

 

Second reason is I bought these to replicate my number plate

 

 

And if you look at the rear of the model

 

 

And compare it with a UK car

 

 

You can see that the number plate area is too tall and not wide enough so I need to do something like this

 

 

Widen it to the red lines and lower it to the blue. Surgery is required! Thus the good thing about having a spare body to practice on! 😉

 

Question : what can I use to fill the gaps? I do have some putty but trying to sand it down and make it straight in such an awkward area is going to be tricky...

 

So until I solve that problem I'll start on the colour testing.

 

Sorry about the essay! Thanks for looking.

 

Nick

[galaxyg]

If the area is shallow enough, you'll be able to more-or-less shape it whilst the filler isn't solid. And when I did my 350Z, I sanded it OK after. It's not as clean as if moulded but not bad at all. One of those Tamiya sanding sheets that is attached to a thin sponge is quite useful also.

 

[Fnick]

Wow that is stunning! Thanks for looking the advice. What did you use for the back. I'm guessing some kind of plastic?

 

Thanks, Nick

[johnlambert]

Hi Nick,

 

Looking forward to this build.  I'd be tempted to use some styrene sheet to fill the bulk of the gap, with a bit of filler or putty to deal with smaller gaps and do the final shaping.

[galaxyg]

2 hours ago, Fnick said:

Wow that is stunning! Thanks for looking the advice. What did you use for the back. I'm guessing some kind of plastic?

That's right yes, white plasticard, about 1mm thick. I also used it to build up depth and reinforce the inside too, as on the image below.

 

[Fnick]

Thanks gents. Guess I need to get some styrene then! 🙂

[MR2Don]

I had the same issue with my Mk2 MR2 Fujima kit. Approached it in much the same way with a strip of plasticard across the back.

BTW, it's the easiest way to tell an imported MR2 from a UK one, square number plate recess versus rectangular.

[Spiny]

Always good to do a car which you have some sort of connection to, which is why my stash contains a Nissan Micra...

 

You're braver than me attacking the number plate so I wish you all the best with it. I hope you get the paint colour sorted well from mixing the ones you have - if it doesn't work out and if you know the colour code Halfords or another shop selling car paint could mix it for you but in that case the flakes are likely to be a bit big.

[Anteater]

Yep, what they said regarding the plate recess.

 

I'd use the japanese panel lines as your guide but vitally, I wouldn't cut straight around the panel lines; I would a drill hole inboard of each corner and join them to cut a rectangle a mm or so smaller than the hole you need. Then sand the edges smooth, enlarging the hole to the size you require. As above, a strip of styrene will then fill the recess. Remember, it's easier to remove material than build it back up again.

[Fnick]

Evening all

 

Thanks for the tips! Here is the result of the trial.

 

 

Not perfect but then again I just wanted to prove out the method. I'll be about more careful on the real thing. Surgery on the better body has started.

 

 

I also found the proper colour mix (I hope! 😀)

 

 

On the right is Mr hobby blue green metallic paint. On the left is 3 parts blue green and 1 part blue metallic. I always felt the Brittany blue green from Honda was blue with a green tint rather than that other way around. Photo is not great from a colour point of view but not bad either.

 

So mix of the the two it is. I'm hoping to get away with 4 coats. 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Nick

[johnlambert]

I think you've nailed the body modifications, the trial run is acceptable and the actual one should be better.  The colour, it's hard to tell from photos, especially comparing a photo of a real car in natural light to a model in artificial light.  I'd say the colour looks good and if you're satisfied with the match, then that's the main thing.

[Fnick]

Thanks John

 

Yes trying to show the actual colours is very difficult with my phone camera. Paint being metallic doesn't help either.

 

Nick

[Fnick]

Evening all. 

 

Work on the rear is done but as you can see the first attempt wasn't as good as I wished and I didn't see this before starting painting...

 

 

So I had to refill,resand and repaint...

 

 

Better and good enough.

 

So now it's building up the layers on the body. After three the blue is not pronounced enough so I've started to add more blue for the fourth. 

 

I'm trying to reduce the brush strokes by very light sanding with 3k grit between layers and painting layers at 90 degrees from each other. Think it's working...

 

 

Probably got another two layers to go before the clear coat goes on.

 

Thanks for looking, Nick

[Toftdale]

17 hours ago, Fnick said:

Better and good enough.

 

 

As I'm not at all familiar with the car I wouldn't have known you'd modified it with out seeing the rest of your thread......Just to clarify I mean the quality of your work makes your modifications look like that's the way the body originally came like 😉 

 

Definitely a case of being your own harshest critic .

[Fnick]

Evening all

 

Body finally painted. Ended up doing 8 thim coats in the end. There were some visible brush strokes but after three coats of TS13 clear they are hardly visible.

 

Clear coat is curing and I will start the sanding and polishing phase at the weekend. If I get some modelling time in between I'll crack on with the underbody.

 

Here the latest pic

 

 

Thanks for looking

 

Nick

[keefr22]

Excellent hairy stick work Nick! The rattle can clear has given it a very nice shine already!

 

Keith

[Fnick]

Thanks Keith! Yes it does have a nice orange peel sheen to it! 😄

 

Nick

[Spiny]

That looks as though it will look fine with a bit of polishing work - very good indeed for work with a brush. And if you find that you've gone through the clear, you can always easily add another coat on top of that to give you some more thickness to work with if needed. Just be wary when polishing of the corners and edges in case of burn-through. But that is a very good shine for straight out of the can - I wish I could get it that shiny without having to spend ages polishing.

[keefr22]

32 minutes ago, Spiny said:

I wish I could get it that shiny without having to spend ages polishing.

 

Ditto!

 

K

[Fnick]

Thanks Spiny! I was surprised by the sheen as I didn't get that with TS13 on the Chrysler. Guessing it must be the metallic paints as they are quite shiny by themselves. As an aside I did change the paint ratio to one part blue green metallic and one part blue for the last three coats. Much closer to the colour IMHO.

 

Technique wise all credit to the scale modelling channel as he's got a few videos on how to use Tamiya spray cans. I just tried to do what he was doing.

 

Cheers Nick

[HoolioPaulio]

Ooo I do love a Prelude.  Ace colour choice, and nice work on the rear mod  

[Fnick]

Afternoon all

 

Some progress. Clear coat sanded back and polished. Managed to burn through in a few places...😟. Also masked and painted all the black trim. Couple of places with bleed through. Clearly I need more practice! 🙂

 

The merciless shots as per usual.

 

 

 

 

Getting rather annoyed with the poor colour matching between the real thing and my phone... Birthday is in a couple of months so I may ask for some contributions towards a WiFi connected camera. Or maybe more modelling supplies! 😄

 

Thanks for looking

 

Nick

[CrazyCrank]

Just a superb color for this car, and imho, despite of your misadventures while polishing, a good result

 

[johnlambert]

The colour and finish look great to me.

[Fnick]

Thanks for the comments gents. As Toftdale said probably me just suffering from Harshus Criticus again. 🙂