VW T1 Panel Van - Jaegermeister

[JeroenS]

Mr Hobby has a gloss coat in a can, maybe you could give that a try as an alternative for the revell stuff.

[Windy37]

15 minutes ago, JeroenS said:

Mr Hobby has a gloss coat in a can, maybe you could give that a try as an alternative for the revell stuff.

When I got back into modelling about 3 years ago I had trouble with Tamiya clear coat melting decals and , like Jeroen suggests ,  tried Mr Hobby gloss clear and have never had a problem again  . Maybe something to try . 

Gary 

[Fnick]

Hi Spiny

 

Sorry to hear about your humidity issues. When that happened on the Eldorado I gently sanded the cloud back and then another single coat of clear was enough to cure the problem completely as if it hadn't been there in the first place.

 

Nick

[Spiny]

Thanks for mentioning the Mr. Hobby Clear. That's something I had thought about,  but must admit that I had expected it to be very similar to the Tamiya spray only harder to get hold of (in the same way that their acrylic paints are similar). So to hear that it's gentler on decals than Tamiya means I will have to give it a try if it's available when I make my next kit purchase. I'm particularly drawn to their UV protective clear so may give that one a go if I can get it.

 

But for this build I'll be doing as @Fnick said above, only without the extra clear coat. I had a similar issue with the chassis and another clear coat got rid of the cloudiness, but I also found from both the spoon and wheel hubs that polishing alone can get rid of it and give a good shine - that's the plan for this and if it doesn't work I'll just give it another clear coat. It's not as if the roof has much detail anyway

 

[bigbadbadge]

Great to see the orange and green front end

Sorry to see the issues with the vloudy clear coat and hope you can sort out easily. 

Chris

[Spiny]

My experience of the Humbrol Gloss on the wheels and spoon is that although it goes cloudy far too easily, that cloudiness appears to be a result of it forming a decidedly non-glossy surface texture. I'm about 80% sure thatmy usual process of spending far longer than is desirable on polishing out my rubbish clearcoating will yield semi-acceptable results. 🤞

[Spiny]

Normally I wouldn't bother putting up photos just for a bit of clear, but here goes:

 

 

This weekend, the main paintwork has been to clearcoat the primer on the inside of the van panels, I'm pretty pleased with the way clearcoating Halfords Grey primer has come out in the end. And with no colour coat, it saves both time and money You may also have noticed a certain van roof in the background too. I tried sanding a test area towards the back which confirmed two things - 1) sanding the roof does get rid of the cloudiness thereby confirming my view that it's just a case of a rough surface than anything catastrophic, and 2) while it is sandable, those drip rails will be a pain to sand back and lots of risk of burning through the colour. So as a result of the clear going down so nicely on the engine cover lid, I did half of the work @Fnick suggested above, no further sanding but it did get a clear coat. And the difference between this photo and last week's photo is the difference between spraying at 50% and 65-70% relative humidity. (Less difference in the temperatures, 21C last week and 22 this suggesting it's definitely the humidity which has caused the problem). So lesson learned here is that Humbrol Clear will only be used below 60% RH from now on, other manufacturer's seem to be ok at 70%.

 

Other than painting, I can also report that the chassis is completed now, so I can move onto the interior. Just a couple of layers more paint, then ready for install including that exhaust I did a few weeks ago. It's not easy to see, but I drilled out the exhaust (which in the kit has a flat end) and painted the interior flat black. Next time, even with such a small piece of plastic, I think it will be worth me drilling an even smaller pilot hole to try and get the hole centred as it's a bit offset on this build.

 

 

Everything went together pretty well. The trailing arms needed a bit of a push to fit to the struts, but no real difficulty there. So far, this kit appears very well designed and is fitting together nicely. Long may it stay like that.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

 

 

 

[Windy37]

My next build has the underneath of the engine on show and it is suggested to paint it burnt iron , which I don’t have . But seeing yours in aluminium/ silver looks ok to me . Coming on nicely.

Gary .

[Spiny]

If it helps, all the paint you see on the engine/exhaust is from Revell's Aqua range (my satin black is starting to go bitty, hence the texture ). The exhaust section is Aluminium, while the central bit which I guess is the gearbox and engine is in Steel with a black wash on which brings out the fins some more.

[Windy37]

1 hour ago, Spiny said:

If it helps, all the paint you see on the engine/exhaust is from Revell's Aqua range (my satin black is starting to go bitty, hence the texture ). The exhaust section is Aluminium, while the central bit which I guess is the gearbox and engine is in Steel with a black wash on which brings out the fins some more.

Thanks for that . I know you use Revell paint , might have to give it a try . 
Gary

[bigbadbadge]

Looks good, glad you managed to get the glossy surface back.

Chris

 

 

 

[Spiny]

On 23/05/2022 at 21:59, Windy37 said:

Thanks for that . I know you use Revell paint , might have to give it a try . 
Gary

 

If you have the required bits it's always worth a try. And if it doesn't work out you can alway strip it and start again.

 

53 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Looks good, glad you managed to get the glossy surface back.

Chris

 

 

Still got polishing to do, but at least the bits I can't get at (such as inside that drip rail) won't be cloudy. I'm thinking I'll do this as a promotional van from today rather than as a works can from the 1960s, so a good shine should be appropriate. And it doesn't matter if there are any anachronisms in the finished build - I can just say that they appeared over the last 60 years or so

 

[Spiny]

This weekend has been all about the decals, well apart from cleaning up mould lines on the next project. The only other work has been painting the spare wheel and getting some paint onto the seats (which still need another coat or two before I can call them done). So this is the only picture for this week:

 

 

Not my best decalling of all time, I'd probably give it about a 5/10 at best. For starters I seem to have got the text on a bit of a slant. And it also seems that when I clearcoated the inside of the panels, some of the clear sneaked around the back (i.e. onto the green and orange sides) and gave a slightly rough texture which meant there was a bit of silvering to deal with - I think I've drowned the big decals particularly in Microset, Microsol and UMP Extra Strong and it looks as though I'm finally getting there. At least the doors should line up as I fitted the left hand one and taped the right hand one to that so the text runs reasonably smoothly across the doors.

 

Next time I'll be looking at the other pieces (the interiors of which were clear coated yesterday). At least now I know to give them a quick rub down before decalling!

 

Thanks for looking

[Toftdale]

20 hours ago, Spiny said:

Not my best decalling of all time, I'd probably give it about a 5/10 at best

Thats harsh...looks good to me from your photos and the decals really bring this to life - Andy 

[Spiny]

Kind of you to say so, I don't think I've helped myself by looking at them decals under magnification so much over the weekend so every crease and air bubble shows up badly. Fingers crossed they'll disappear when I get the clear coat on them. As you say though, the decals do add a bit of life to the panels.

 

One way in which the decals have impressed me is the way they've conformed to some of the tricky bits with solution added. The bits of the big Jagermeister decal over the side grilles was impressive enough, but I was very pleaseantly surprised at the way the decal has sunk into the handle recess of the side door (n & k of the right hand side of the side doors). Just fill the hollow with solution, leave it alone and let it sink seems to have worked pretty well.

[Spiny]

Spent a bit of time this weekend on prep for the next project as I've almost got the spraying done on this. The front four pieces in the picture below had their decals added, but apart from clear-coating those all spraying is done on the van now. This weekend's clear-coating was all those bits I decalled in the last build post - I know I've criticised Humbrol Clear Gloss in the past but this weekend it went down nicely and really seems to have brought out the vividness of the colours. If it wasn't so humidity sensitive, it would be a good clear to use as it doesn't seem to attack decals like some clears, yet dries much tougher than Revell's which is my preferred clear when there's a lot of decals to cover (if I can ever get hold of it again!). So this is where I am on the body:

 

 

Can't say that the decals went down great at first, but as with most Revell decals they do seem to work very well with decal solution - applying a good load of Microsol meant that they conformed to what initially looked like some pretty tricky contours. I had been concerned I was going to hit a stopping point soon as it won't be long until I start adding body parts to the chassis and for a while it was looking as though it might have been a bit tight as to whether they'd be ready or not.

 

One of the things which helped hold up the chassis was the seats. I must have been on with painting the seats for the best part of a month now, the delay being entirely down to me deciding to do some white beading. The good news is that the passenger seat (for two normal people or one very fat person) is done at last, and the driver's seat just needs a little touching up on the bead to be done. Of course, I'm half expecting the beading to be out of sight once I've finished it, but hopefully it will be visible even when the doors are closed and add a bit of interest (or I just wasted a lot of time painting that bead!).

 

 

There's also the spare wheel to be done at this stage. Unlike the main wheels, this is just a simple case of painting black as can be seen above.

 

The final bit of progress this weekend was just a small bit of assembly. What I assume is a fixing rail was installed on the floor of the van, while the bulkhead was glued in place and the spare wheel slots into the hole quite nicely - you don't need to force it in but it goes in with enough friction that it won't end up rattling around. The grey is clear coated Halfords Grey Primer and the rubber floor is my first use of Tamiya TS-18. Unfortunately, I added thinner to it and it does seem thinner straight away than most Tamiya paints so took a few more layers than I would have liked to get a decent covering.

 

 

And that's all for this week. Thanks for looking.

 

[Spiny]

A little bit more on the VW this week, although I probably spent as long sanding down parts for my next build (for spraying) than I did on this.

 

In terms of parts added, the only real additions were the controls - gear lever, handbrake and pedals. It seems odd to my way of thinking having white levers, but looking at photos online this seems to be what they had so I've done with that. Pedals are just anthracite for the pedals, with gloss black for the metal parts. Nothing really technical here, but it does make it look a bit more like a cabin.

 

 

After that it was time to fit the floor onto the chassis. Dry-fitting this it all felt a bit tight, but as often happens adding a bit of cement to the pegs melts things enough that it just slid in. As far as I can tell this is all setting well together, but I figured it was worth fitting the clamps just to make sure nothing slipped out of alignment while the glue dried.

 

 

Since I took this photo, I've loosely fitted the wheels and the body and it's looking promising for fitting those on. According to the instructions my next step should be to start fitting body panels, but before I can do that I will need to do quite a bit of polishing. And I will probably bring forward some things too.

 

But for now, this is where I'm at with it. Thanks for looking.

[bigbadbadge]

Those decals look good, great job on the seat too with the piping.

Chris 

[Spiny]

Thank you, although it has to be said that so far the decals have been quite kind to me with the exception of the beige strip which wasn't too keen on following the bulge around the body - it has drifted off on the rear corner but responded well to decal solutions and everywhere else fell into place with the exception of around the sticking out bits which put up more of a fight.

 

Trying to work out if I can get away with putting the wheels on permanently now (which will help at the back particularly where putting them on later will mean manouevring around the body panel) or whether there is some other eason why the instructions hold off putting them on until near the end.

[FunkyChiken]

The beading is also impressive, did you mask and spray, or hand paint? 

[Spiny]

Thank you, glad the beading is getting a good reaction as it felt like it slowed the seat down quite a bit and there were times I wondered if it was worth it. I think there's no way I could mask and spray to anywhere resembling a decent standard (my airbrush skills are not great) so this is very much hand painted:

 

1) Started with the white paint for the beading. I didn't worry too much about going over onto the seat material, just had to make sure I didn't cause too much of a paint build up and lose the texture.

2) The next bit is the bit which matters as I had to take a fine brush and brush the grey up to the beading. I can't imagine trying to do the beading with the white following the grey - I always find it much, much easier to paint up to an edge rather than over an edge. As it was such a fine brush, I only came a couple of mm out from the beading at this stage.

3) The rest of the seats were painted with a flat brush - easiest stage of the lot here.

4) Finally, using a very fine brush (Army Painter Psycho) I touched up any bits where grey paint had got on the white.

 

Hope that explains how I did it, other people probably have quicker, easier and better methods but this one works for me. And I am pretty pleased with how it turned out in the end

 

[Toftdale]

Got to agree with everyone else those seats look fantastic and thanks for the explanation 👍 - Andy 

[Spiny]

No problem, if even just one person finds it useful it was worth it.

 

As for the build, I'm really not sure what Revell were on when they wrote the instructions because the order doesn't seem to make much sense. For example, at this stage I should be adding the main rear body panels and back doors. But then I would have to come back later to fix various windows and bits of trim. To my mind, it's going to be easier to fit those now before they're fixed onto the chassis, so I've been getting the trim ready. That's only been a number plate, handle and rear window trim though. Number plate was done with Tamiya Satin Black as it goes on a bit smoother that the Revell on large surfaces, but it doesn't cover as well so the Revell was used for the window trim. Edges were done with 1mm masking tape which personally I find much easier than the masking cut-outs you get on some kits.

 

And as for the wheels... they're not meant to go on until later (in the instructions) but I can't for the life of me see why not. What I can see though is that if I put them on after the body panels it will be a real pain getting the rear wheels onto the axle stub while sliding them up behind the body panel - something will fall off if I try that. So I added the wheels this weekend instead. Initially I thought it was tripoding, but once I'd got all wheels on properly it sat 4-on-the-ground. The only problems are the wheels don't turn (not a big issue) and the wheels are a tad too large for the wheel wells so there is very little steering lock.

 

 

Suddenly it's taking shape. However, most of my VW time this weekend has been spent polishing various panels. I've done the Tamiya Coarse rub over, just starting on the Fine. Hopefully I'll have a bit more to show you next weekend that this.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

 

[JeroenS]

Getting the wheels on with the panels in place is almost possible to do without trimming the axle stubs so you made a good call. Those panels will probably need some manhandling to get them (and the roof) in place though, so I'm not sure you should be fitting all the trim before that. Just a thought 🙂 

[Bengalensis]

Looking very promising on its wheels!