Yet another Gullwing Mercedes

[Spiny]

It does feel as though we've had a load of very nicely built and modified Mercedes 300SLs on here, especially from Crazy Crank. So time for me to redress the balance with a not-so-well built and barely modified version of Tamiya's kit.

 

First impressions of the kit are that there is a lot in here compared to your standard 1/24 car. I've not done a sprue shot before, but here's what you get:

 

 

Nice to see plenty of bracing for the body, but it did mean quite a bit of cutting and filing to get all of it off. Once that's all cut off the bodyshell doesn't feel anything like as stiff as it did so definitely a good move on Tamiya's part putting that in. I gave it a guide coat a few weeks ago just to show the mould lines (there is a prominent one on the top of each wing running front to back plus some smaller, but more annoying ones, front and rear. It looks as though I've got them all sanded off now, so it sits here awaiting the start of the proper painting process.

 

 

The bonnet has also had a start made to it. First job is to  remove the ejector marks on the underside. There's quite a few, including some in the middle part. For these, I chose to sand them out rather than fill them as I've heard that clearance under the bonnet is minimal at best, so I figured it was worth grabbing myself a little bit more space, even if it is just a fraction of a millimetre. I've also sanded the inside of the bonnet bulges as far as I dare for the same reason, and I'm going to give the underside of the bonnet minimal coats - it doesn't matter if this part of the car looks very slightly different to the rest.

 

And the other bit which I've started painting is the interior tub. Lots of masking here, some such as for the interior you can see, and some such as inside the wheel arches is less visible. Again, quite a lot of ejector pin marks and these were also sanded flat. Unfortunately, because this part is moulded in the silvery plastic, the ejector pin mark stays visible long after it's sanded flat, so you just have to hope you have them when primer is applied. And in case anyone is wondering, the barbecue skewer is just there to hold it up for painting.

 

 

So that's a start. The hope is that I can get this painted well before winter as I'd like to get another bodyshell done too before the weather turns. Thanks for looking.

 

[johnlambert]

Great choice, I've got this kit so I'm interested to see what you make of it.  What colour will you paint the body?

[Anteater]

19 hours ago, Spiny said:

 

So that's a start. The hope is that I can get this painted well before winter as I'd like to get another bodyshell done too before the weather turns. Thanks for looking.

 

 

A man who plans ahead. The nights are drawing in...

[Toftdale]

12 hours ago, johnlambert said:

What colour will you paint the body?

Fortunately I don't think Brown was ever an option .   Also watching with interest -Andy

[Spiny]

14 hours ago, johnlambert said:

Great choice, I've got this kit so I'm interested to see what you make of it.  What colour will you paint the body?

 

Fortunately for both you and Andy, I've always felt that the classic/cliched silver is the colour which best suits the 300SL, so this will be following the recommended colour scheme in the instructions (I also prefer the red leather to tartan cloth). However, now you mention it brown would be something different...

 

3 hours ago, Anteater said:

 

A man who plans ahead. The nights are drawing in...

 

Too true, one of the perils of doing the spraying in an unheated en-bloc garage at the bottom of the garden is that winter is definitely not good for painting. As for what the follow up car is, there are three VERY different options on the table, and I suspect which one I go for will be determined by which one I can get hold of all the paints for.

[Windy37]

5 hours ago, Anteater said:

 

A man who plans ahead. The nights are drawing in...

Be Christmas before we know it 🙄

Gary

[Spiny]

Noooooo. It's only June and you're already using the C-word!

[Vesa Jussila]

There is never too much these built. I need to get one too and I definitely follow this build.

[Spiny]

A little bit more done on this. First up, the body - while I had thought I had got all the mould lines, while checking the doors fitted into their holes I noticed a slight groove left from the mould lines on each side. A little bit of Humbrol filler and sanding did away with that, as can just about be made out in the photo below:

 

 

It's had its proper coat of primer now so hopefully that mould line is nothing more than a not-so-distant memory. (No point putting a photo up, it will just look like the shell in the original post).

 

I've also got a few other bits painted, including the doors and bonnet, not to mention getting satin black on previously primed parts:

 

 

Most of you will also notice an unpainted part in there. The dashboard had a day spent in warm, but used, bleach and is now free of the kit chrome. I doubt I will strip anything else on the kit, but as this part only needed the chrome for a strip across the dash I figured BMF was probably a better bet than losing detail painting over the kit chrome. It's a strange translucent plastic under the chrome, so let's see how it covers in the next few weeks.

 

And that's it for this update. Thanks for looking.

[Spiny]

Been a while since I showed much on this, so here's a little update. Pretty much all painting and masking though, so not particularly exciting.

 

First up, the tub which was initially sprayed Halfords Satin Black with the interior and inner wheel arches masked off.

 

 

The worst bit about this is that there isn't really any piece of the part which isn't visible so no gluing the bbq skewer in place, had to tape it instead. The skewer came off this weekend and, having unmasked the arches, I covered over all the other bits ready for primer. This is my highest priority piece as I had to do 5 layers in total (two for the black, 3 for the silver). Same story with the rear wheel arches which are also in shot.

 

 

Finally the first view of the body colour, although not on the body yet. The dash has had the bottom masked off as it will be another colour, the masking is purely to stop excess paint hiding detail. The hub caps are a tad more difficult being already chromed, so I masked over them before trying to cut out the centre for spraying body colour. Not sure that my circle cutting is the best ever (it's too small for my circle cutters) but it will have to do. Another couple of weeks and these will have cured enough for me to clear coat them.

 

 

And that's it for now, thanks for looking.

 

[Spiny]

Just a little bit of an update on this one, but the body has the colour coat on so you can finally get a feel for how it will look when I get around to building it. As you can see in the photo, I set up a bit of a barbecue-skewer-based jig to get the main body parts painted in one go - trouble is now I'm struggling to get the long pieces released from the body, not to mentioin the CA seems to have seeped through 3 layers of masking tape to leave marks on the underside of the bonnet. I will need to sand back and respray the underside once the top has cured for long enough to withstand being masked over.

 

 

I've also got the inside of the wheelarches (as seen primed in the earlier post) done in silver so things are progressing, albeit slowly.

[Windy37]

Ah the joys of masking tape and spraying  !  

Looks good though 

Gary .

[Spiny]

Got a little bit done on the Gullwing over the weekend too, and this was very definitely a case of masking tape and spraying. Although the masking tape was still on covering up the black and bare plastic areas so I could spray the wheelarches silver. Having cleared that, it then took about quarter of an hour to remove all the masking tape. Generally it seems to have covered ok, just needs a bit of sanding as there are some frilly endges of paint where it partly stuck to the masking tape along edges. Think I only have one bit of overspray though which is a bit of a result. Starting with the Halfords Satin black then moving onto the body-coloured wheel arches was probably a good move though as the Halfords paint is pretty robust and able to withstand the tack of the masking tape, even when left on for a month or so!

 

 

Thanks for looking.

[Spiny]

Not a big update today as all I did was add the clear coat. Not normally something to make a specific post about, but for metallics (including silver) it can make a surprising difference to the ppearance. As an added bonus, the clear (Tamiya TS-13) has laid down surprisingly well so hopefully not too much polishing, which is a good thing because this is the sort of shape I can imagine polishing through on.

 

 

Thanks for looking.

[Anteater]

Your paint finish looks good, even better now it's got the clear coat for a bit of depth. Straight from the can or airbrushed? 

[Spiny]

Thanks, hopefully it'll improve again once I polish it.

 

This one (as indeed have all my final coats) has been done straight out of the can. My airbrushing skills are very much lacking so I tend to stick with the cans as I find it much easier, less hassle, less cleaning up required, and I usually end up with a better end product. There is a rally Focus in the stash which will need airbrushing - I am slightly dreading that one due to the airbrushing, even more so as it's out of production and made by a defunct maufacturer to pretty much no chance of a replacement if I mess it up.

[Fnick]

45 minutes ago, Spiny said:

I am slightly dreading that one due to the airbrushing, even more so as it's out of production and made by a defunct manufacturer to pretty much no chance of a replacement if I mess it up.

 

Sound like a perfect excuse I mean opportunity to buy a cheap kit to practice on! 😋😄

 

Nick

 

Ps and that is a very good finish for a spray can. 

[CrazyCrank]

On 8/30/2022 at 10:07 PM, Spiny said:

Not a big update today as all I did was add the clear coat. Not normally something to make a specific post about, but for metallics (including silver) it can make a surprising difference to the ppearance. As an added bonus, the clear (Tamiya TS-13) has laid down surprisingly well so hopefully not too much polishing, which is a good thing because this is the sort of shape I can imagine polishing through on.

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Excellent result Spiny 👍

[Anteater]

I'm the same; I haven't bought an airbrush because I only build 3 or 4 kits a year and it seems a disproportionately big investment. That is a very good finish from a can though, lots of polishing, I'm sure. I do think it would be a benefit for weathering, but am yet to take the plunge.  

[Spiny]

53 minutes ago, Anteater said:

I'm the same; I haven't bought an airbrush because I only build 3 or 4 kits a year and it seems a disproportionately big investment. That is a very good finish from a can though, lots of polishing, I'm sure. I do think it would be a benefit for weathering, but am yet to take the plunge.  

 

Same story here, 3 kits a year is typical. I did get a cheaper one, but haven't really got on with it that well. Maybe because I bought a cheaper one, but like you I can't justify a big outlay for that. Unfortunately I'm sure you are correct that "lots of polishing" is something I have to look forward to down the line.

 

10 hours ago, CrazyCrank said:

 

Excellent result Spiny 👍

Thank you too, but I very much doubt I will even get close to how yours ended up. Just to be in the same ballpark would be an achievement for me.

[Neddy]

It's good to find others with the same mindset as me regarding airbrushes.  Like both of you, my output is too small to consider investing in one, although I still have my trusty old Humbrol airbrush kit tucked away in the back of a cupboard somewhere.  Meanwhile I'll continue with Tamiya's excellent rattle-cans until my skills and output improve, I think!

 

I've long pondered building a 300SL Gullwing and may consider a large-scale one for a future build - there's just something about them that is "right".  Beautiful car, it'll be great to see how this one turns out.

[Spiny]

With the VW finished and this falling down to page 3 it's time to make a proper start on building this one up. But first of all, more painting. I had a bit of an issue with the bonnet in that I went a bit too heavy with the mist coat of the clear and reactivated the silver leading to a patchy finish. It's since had another coat of silver on top and I'm letting that cure before giving it another top coat, this time with lighter mist coats! On a bright note thought, I got the one and only panel line on this body done - Humbrol dark grey wash around the boot, left it for 4 hours or so then ran over it with a cotton bud dipped in clean IPA. Happily, this is one pleace where things have gone to plan and the panel line has ended up with a good solid and clean line, and even better the IPA appears to have had no impact on the clear coat. I still have to polish it up, but at least I don't need to do that to get rid of any residue.

 

 

First bit of building is the spaceframe. Seeing as it's basically two big pieces with interconnecting smaller pieces, I figured it was better to approach this with some sort of plan to make sure things aligned, rather than do as the instructions  suggest and fit the smaller parts to each large piece before sticking the two halves together. Instead, I've joined the two halves together with food bag ties, which holds things reasonably tightly but also allows specific areas to be loosened enough to fit the smaller pieces in the right place and ensure reasonably correct alignment. (I should also say that after taking this photo, I added a tie front and rear too to hold it more firmly in place while adding pieces).

 

 

These were a real pain to prepare, I must have spent close on an hour removing mouldlines from each large piece just because of the complexity of the parts. And there were still a couple more I found as I went along. I also managed to snap one of the longer rods on a small part, but fortunately by having the two halves held together I was able to glue it back together without knocking things out of alignment. The plan is to get the two halves assembled as in the instructions, then undo the ties, separate the two halves, paint each one up then put the two halves together. Still a bit more part removal and assembly before I get to there though...

 

Thanks for looking.

[JeroenS]

Nice shine!

[Spiny]

Good of you to say so, but I haven't started polishing it yet so (provided I don't burn through the paint) there should be more to come on that score. It's the ribs over the wheels which I'm most concerned about, guess I just have to take extra care there.

[Spiny]

Bit of a race to get the last bits of paint on this. I also started the polishing, all was going well until I managed to burn through the paint. Fortunately, that was on the underside of the sill so I was able mask up and give it another clearcoat without too much difficulty - the edge of the colour layer is pretty much on the outer edge of the underside of the sill so not obvious. And then I will clearcoat it a bit higher so there isn't much of a step - in fact the plan is to put the edge of the clear part way up the side so the edge will be hidden by the trim. I'm hoping I've managed to dodge a bullet there.

 

So onto better news. The plan with the spaceframe appears to have worked ok - these are the two halves after gluing all the pieces on. I am aware following @CrazyCrank's excellent build of last year that there are other bits on the real spaceframe, but as usual I'm doing this near enough out of the box.

 

 

The reasoning behind leaving the spaceframe as two halves was that I figured it would be easier to paint that way. And when it came to painting I was glad I did as still some mildly awkward places to get around other members. I think it would have been much more difficult if I'd fully assembled the chassis before painting, but all painting is done now and the method of assembly meant that the two halves joined together with almost no adjustement needed.

 

 

Next steps are the diff, which is easy - remove from sprue, sand, paint - and the coil springs which are a bit more of a pain. Unfortunately, the parts have an ejector pin peg halfway up each spring as shown below in the blue circle. I guess the idea is that it will be part hidden, but I'll probably end up putting it in the wrong way so I decided to get the PE saw onto it. With the peg sawn in half and sanded relatively smooth, it ended up like the coil in the yellow circle. Not perfect by any means, but with some paint on and hidden in a dark wheel well it shouldn't be too visible. (Not the best pics I'm afraid, these are touching the camera lens so as to be visible, but that does reduce the amount of light on there)

 

 

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