SPA Modeler

I hear ya about borders, border crossings and just the general Checkpoint Chuckiness of moving paint from one country to the next. From what I have seen you and your countrymen have their silver down—gleaming or sucking up light waves your color coats are phenomenal. What a beast that Dodge is, too.

Wow, that's a tight paint job! Most impressive.
My plan for tonight was to lay down a few coats of Aqua Gloss. But when I reviewed my work from the last weekend under good light and a magnifier I discovered some rough spots and a few nibs. So the initial plan was dropped, super fine silicone wet sanding paper got pulled out of the drawer and the iteration began. Two thin coats of Aluminum to cover the unveiled primer spots and here we go again: Waiting for things to dry.

speedgraflex wrote:I hear ya about borders, border crossings and just the general Checkpoint Chuckiness of moving paint from one country to the next. From what I have seen you and your countrymen have their silver down—gleaming or sucking up light waves your color coats are phenomenal. What a beast that Dodge is, too.

Oooo... shiny!

mostrich wrote: the Atlantic seems to be a hard border, even in the time of the interwebs. And that counts for both directions.

I'm with you on that, even in getting something as simple as some Model Master paints. It's actually easier (and quicker) to buy stuff from Japan.

That body shell looks amazing - kudos to you my friend!

After beeing sick for a couple of days I finally crossed a border and started decaling.

Looks extremely cool !!

- Kari

Very cool (nice) job of that decal!

Thank you, Stuart and Kari!
Had a big setback regarding the metallic paint job last weekend. I put on two dry coats of Gunze clear coat with an app. ratio of 60:40 thinner to paint. Followed by two further wet coats with increasing thinner ratios. Looked good and shiny at the end. But a few hours later I realised that the thinner ate through the several weeks old Aqua Gloss and caused the Alclad pigments to move and rearrange in little spheres. To be honest, I knew about the fragility of Alclad metallics but I underestimated the permeability of their water based gloss. Welp, you live, you learn.


Stripping the paint wasn't an option because the decals were already on and this is a training kit after all to improve my car building and painting skills. So I polished the whole body (of the car, not mine) with Tamiya compount and moved on to masking.


Unlike Mr West masking is not one of my favourite parts. But here we go: Windows, bumpers, spoilers and the recessed areas on the front and back are waiting for their treatment.




Maybe three more hours and this one is finished.

Dammit Torben!!! My sincere apologies for NOT catching this build. This is INCREDIBLE work so far. My eyes are glued to the set from here on out.

Thanks, Joe. This build was quite unusual in many ways. The beginning went smooth and without any trouble, but the further I get the more troublesome it became. I don't know how you car guys keep that windows clean - especially from the inside! - and how it's possible to not completely f**k up those shiny paint work. I gave up on it ant the end and called it a day. But I won't call it a failure cause I learned a lot on the way. The kit itself was, how could I say, Revellish? Some clever engineering right next to pure dumbassery. One clean sprue next to one covered with flash. I feel I need some Tamiya now.

Some rubbish phone pics to prove my success in finishing this mixed bag of a kit.