24145 Nissan Skyline R33 GT-R [COMPLETE]

[SnøMotion]

1 hour ago, ToE1984 said:

Hi Martin, 

 

the purple looks great and I love the thuggish look! The interior also looks good and I really like the "NISMO" logo on the cooler! Very nice finish on the back box as well!

 

Cheers

Thomas

Thanks, Thomas! Glad you like it! 

 

Martin

[SnøMotion]

Okay, here's where I left the interior before going on holiday. The only thing I've added this morning is a bit of Molotow chrome on the Nissan Badge on the steering wheel from a cocktail stick.

 

 

Not sure I'm particularly keen on the purple gear knob but, hey 

 

As you can see, I discovered the effects of being heavy handed with 'hot' paints on the driver's seat. It's a bit wrinkly, but maybe it's just been well used 

 

I need to pick out the vents and the speakers on the rear parcel shelf (and get rid of all the dust!) and then the interior is done! I wasn't bothered about the pin marks on the seat backs, I doubt they'll be visible once it's in the car.

 

And here's a shot of the body, interior and floor pan clipped together...

 

 

I think I'm going to leave the wheels... I kinda like how it looks 

 

The main thing now is attempting paint correction! 

 

Thanks for looking, reacting and commenting!

 

Martin

Edited September 25 by SnøMotion
Extra photo

[wimbledon99]

That looks so cool. If the 'Muscle Car' GB gets through next year, I have a similar colour I think I may use. Lovely work. Holiday well earned! Safe travels

[SnøMotion]

3 minutes ago, wimbledon99 said:

That looks so cool. If the 'Muscle Car' GB gets through next year, I have a similar colour I think I may use. Lovely work. Holiday well earned! Safe travels

Thanks, Nigel! Yeah, the colour looks fantastic in the flesh 

 

Martin

[Col.]

In my personal opinion the purple cap of the gear stick doesn't look out of place and the distressed driver's seat is ace. Nice touches Martin.

[SnøMotion]

8 minutes ago, Col. said:

the distressed driver's seat is ace

Thanks, Col! It absolutely wasn’t intentional! 
 

Martin

[Col.]

1 minute ago, SnøMotion said:

Thanks, Col! It absolutely wasn’t intentional! 
 

Martin

A happy accident is still a happy event

[Keeff]

Purple gear knob..... looks fine and should remain! 

 

Seats look good and the slight error actually gives a bit of texture/wear 

 

Almost build shot looks superb .... if it was a real car, I'd want it!! 👌

 

Keith ☺️ 

[SnøMotion]

8 hours ago, Keeff said:

Purple gear knob..... looks fine and should remain! 

 

Seats look good and the slight error actually gives a bit of texture/wear 

 

Almost build shot looks superb .... if it was a real car, I'd want it!! 👌

 

Keith ☺️ 

Thanks, Keith, much appreciated! 
 

I started on the paint, yesterday… So far, it’s working well… 

 

Martin

[Colin W]

This looks great.  Im really looking forward to the final finish 

[SnøMotion]

1 hour ago, Colin W said:

This looks great.  Im really looking forward to the final finish 

Thanks, Colin! 

 

Well, I finished with the Micro Mesh pads today! I went 2400, 3200, 3600, 4000, 6000, 8000 and finally 12000 grit to get rid of most of the surface texture. Turns out 2K clear can take quite some punishment! I then used a small polishing sponge with Tamiya polishes in Fine and Finish compounds, by hand, and it looked okay... But it could have been better...

 

So, I pulled up my big boy pants and dug the Dremel out of the garage, along with some ZoomOn polishing pads I'd bought ages ago and been to afraid to use. I re-applied the Fine and Finish compounds with the Medium and Fine pads, respectively and...

 

It turned out pretty good!! 

 

I mean, it's not perfect. But it is so far from where it was two days ago that I'm absolutely delighted with it.

 

So, now I need to mask it up and spray the semi-gloss black window surrounds and front lip and then move on to adding the detail for the lights etc. I'm feeling so much more positive about this car, now.

 

Thanks for looking, reacting and commenting!

 

Martin

[wimbledon99]

Wow!! You’ll be able to see yourself in that finish. It’s fantastic. Bravo

 

Can’t wait for the completed build. It’s going to be rather special!!

[SnøMotion]

30 minutes ago, wimbledon99 said:

Wow!! You’ll be able to see yourself in that finish. It’s fantastic. Bravo

 

Can’t wait for the completed build. It’s going to be rather special!!

Thanks, Nigel! Nobody is more surprised than me! 
 

Martin

[Col.]

Oooh, shiny  Nice polishing work Martin. The bodywork looks great now.

[Keeff]

Blimey! That's shinier than my car ..... and that's pretty shiny I can tell you! 😎

 

Love the colour .... it's looking fantastic now! 

 

Keith ☺️ 

[SnøMotion]

27 minutes ago, Col. said:

Oooh, shiny  Nice polishing work Martin. The bodywork looks great now.

15 minutes ago, Keeff said:

Blimey! That's shinier than my car ..... and that's pretty shiny I can tell you! 😎

 

Love the colour .... it's looking fantastic now! 

 

Keith ☺️ 

Thanks Col and Keith! I’m amazed that I managed to correct it to this extent. I think I could have gone further, but I didn’t want to make mushy, wet lemons out of lemonade  This might end up being my best paint job yet!

 

Martin

[SnøMotion]

I'm getting to the end of this, now! This week I've been doing little detail bits on the body shell, starting with the semi-gloss black around the windows, infilling the headlights and the front lip. One of the things I noticed when I started this kit was that the sidelights were missing. On this car, you have twin headlights set into a black surround with this sidelights on the corners, where you might expect to see the indicators. In this kit, that's just a blank space, without any moulding mark to show you where to paint the silver lens. This was bothering me, along with the chrome headlight lenses. It's just not very Tamiya!

 

If I build this kit again, and I might, I'd model new headlight binnacles with separate reflectors for all three lights and a mould to make the clear lenses. But in this instance, I decided to invest in a vinyl cutter - a Cricut Explore 4. I'd already bought some 'mirror' vinyl that I was going to cut by hand, but I thought being able to precisely cut a mirrored pair of sidelight shapes would be really helpful. So I knocked out a quick .svg file of something about the right shape and it was the first thing I cut, to test the cutter. You can just about see the driver's side sidelight in the next two photos.

 

You can also see the front indicators - a clear lens and plastic grille painted clear orange and semi-gloss black respectively - and the side repeaters - a moulded shape on the main body shell painted flat aluminium and clear orange. Next were the reversing lights and rear indicators. These were a single piece, along with the 'Skyline' centre, as I showed on page 2. I glued the centre into the body before paint and painted clear orange to the outside portion. I painted the clear orange on the inside because, on the real car, there's a clear lens over the orange. I'm not sure I've achieved the look, here, but I'm okay with how it's come out. I also 'chromed' the recess on the body with a Molotow pen.

 

I also use the 'mirror' vinyl to create new door mirrors. The 'chromed' plastic kit mirrors always stick a bit proud of the main unit, so I thinned them down quite a bit before sticking the vinyl to the front.

 

And then the main rear lights, that I chromed on the inside with a Molotow pen and painted clear red on the outside. I just want to give these a bit longer to cure before fitting.

 

And, finally, I fitted the outer lens covers on the front. I used a black Staedtler Lumocolor permanent pen in medium to 'colour' in the edges of the covers. I think it makes them look 'thinner'. I gave them a quick polish with some Tamiya Finish compound and stuck them in with some Micro Kristal Klear.

 

That's it for now! I need to mask and paint the glass in semi-gloss black, and cut some Aber mesh for the front grille, that also needs painting semi-gloss black. Then... I'm finished except for badges... and I'm waiting for them to come into stock at Hiro Boy. Should be in by the end of October 

 

Hopefully I'll get everything done this weekend and I'll stick everything to the body shell. Then it'll just be a case of waiting for the badges before I can mate the body shell to the floor pan.

 

Thanks again for looking, reacting and commenting! 

 

Martin

 

[Keeff]

Lovely work on the lights and bling there Martin! 

I like the mirror lenses ... clever work on the Cricut. I might have to learn this sort of stuff and abuse Mrs K's posh Cricut machine .... 

 

Almost there?  Looking forward to the finish! 

 

Keith ☺️ 

[wimbledon99]

Wow. Those 'little' details make a BIG difference. Lovely

[SnøMotion]

18 minutes ago, Keeff said:

Lovely work on the lights and bling there Martin! 

I like the mirror lenses ... clever work on the Cricut. I might have to learn this sort of stuff and abuse Mrs K's posh Cricut machine .... 

 

Almost there?  Looking forward to the finish! 

 

Keith ☺️ 

Thanks, Keith! I tried a couple of things on the Cricut: this and some lettering for another project. I wasn't expecting the other lettering to work, and it didn't, because the letters were only 2mm high. There are limits to the accuracy at that level of detail but, at this price point, it doesn't surprise me. The main thing I want it for is cutting masks for liveries, but I'm also hoping I might be able to cut styrene sheet. That would be amazing, because I can model stuff in Fusion to 3D print and also use the 'sheet metal' function to combine with cut styrene. I've got a few projects in the pipeline that will require me to model full space frames and it would be perfect if I can then repeatedly cut matching styrene parts to build corresponding floorpans that can locate on the tubework.

 

15 minutes ago, wimbledon99 said:

Wow. Those 'little' details make a BIG difference. Lovely

Thanks, Nigel! Yeah, once you start adding the lights and window surrounds it completely transforms the body, I think!

 

Martin

[Col.]

Tidy work on those small touches Martin. They're the type of thing that goes a long way to lifting the overall quality of a finished model

[SnøMotion]

Thanks, @Col.! Yeah, definitely! 
 

I've just realised I haven’t made any mention of the rear wing blade! Stuff’s happened with it. I’ll address that next time 

 

Martin

[SnøMotion]

Some more progress!

 

Firstly, the mesh for the grilles. Here's a comparison of the kit mesh (left) and the Aber mesh (right). This isn't two photos comped together, that's 1:1 side by side! Also, the real car mesh is diamond, so the kit stuff isn't particularly accurate.

 

 

There are a couple of squares printed in the instructions as templates for the upper and lower grilles. So they got cut and painted Semi-Gloss Black. I was a bit concerned that the larger grille would obscure the Nismo logo on the intercooler, but it's still plenty visible! 

 

 

I also masked and painted the glass in Semi-Gloss Black. It was my first time using ZoomOn window masks, and I'd say they may be easier to position that the Tamiya ones I've used in the past. Slight issue is that I scuffed the bottom of the windscreen when I was trying to clean up the sprue attachment point. This is mostly obscured by the wipers, once installed, so I think I'm just going to leave it. It's not the worst defect on the glass, either: there are flow lines on both the rear quarter windows, so I'm not overly bothered.

 

After giving the main rear lights a bit of time to cure, I fitted them with a little Micro Kristal Klear.

 

And, lastly, here's the rear wing blade I mentioned in my last update. I painted this with Mr Surfacer 1500 Black and then used some ZoomOn Carbon Decal (A)...

 

**

 

Pretty happy with how this came out! The black dot in the middle is where a little bit fell off, so I touched it with a black pen. I then gave it a coat of Semi-Gloss Clear, to give it that 'dry carbon' look. This is my first time using carbon decals and also the largest decal I have applied, probably, since I made the Monogram Bad Actor in the vert early eighties (a car I'd love to re-make now). Not sure I want to shell out over £100 for the kit, though. 

 

All that's left to do, until I can get the badges, is attach the glass, wipers, mirrors, grilles and wing blade! I should get that done before the weekend is over!  (for clarity, my weekend includes Monday)

 

Thanks again for looking, reacting and commenting, it all helps the mojo! 

 

Martin

 

** I have massive respect for Kazushige Sakamoto (in the video above), the owner of Garage Active, his GT-Rs are second to none. And, if I had a spare million or so, I'd definitely order one. He's also a very good sport and enjoys a laugh, and also knows how to create a viral video! 

 

[Col.]

More nice and tidy work Martin. The Aber mesh is a massive improvement on that's come with the kit.

[SnøMotion]

3 minutes ago, Col. said:

More nice and tidy work Martin. The Aber mesh is a massive improvement on that's come with the kit.

Thanks, Col! Yeah, I only happened to have the mesh 'in stock' because @Fnick had used a different Aber mesh on his Chevelle. I grabbed some of that, and thought this one looked like it might come in handy, too. And here we are, it did!

 

Martin