TOPIC:

Also should of mentioned the part count - not including the chassis or driver, so far I've cut out & stuck back together 969 bits of lexan , brass, but mostly styrene

really fast project Jonny. Tip top

stingray-63 wrote:

really fast project Jonny. Tip top

I really don't know about that, 6 weeks build time so far, + more than 4 months thinking time before that ...

in 6 weeks, including your job and family life, you made a scale. Less time that to do a Pocher... And you made all the 969 pieces... It s really fast for me

I've said before that if I buy & restore an old car, there's a very high (2/3+) chance of Tamiya re-releasing it very soon after, sometimes with a few weeks - this definitely happened with the Sand Rover, Holiday Buggy, Fox & Pajero wheelie, probably others, and now with the Wheeler - though I finished that in April 2013 so it can hardly be called "soon after", and by way of balance I should mention that the phenomena completely failed to happen with the Bigwig & Monster Beetle.

However, did anyone else notice this among the release lists?

58609 Mercedes-Benz Unimog 425 (CC-01)

I'm afraid I did use a b-word ("son of a ..." variety) when I read that - the 425, not to be confused with the earlier curvier 406 that all previous Tamiya releases have been - is a later, angular model - like I've been working on for the last couple of months. This is the first time Tamiya have released something _before_ I've even finished.

If it turns out it's a detailed styrene version then someone had better call Norris McWhirter because it's likely I'll break the world record for the number of uses of the F-word (and C-word, and probably a few M-words too) in a single verbal tirade

Tamiyablog have pics of the new Unimog, ATM it's claimed to be a prototype but I can't see anything on there that couldn't make it into a production kit.

It's a lexan body but the cab is actually pretty detailed, considering ... and the chrome light buckets & 3 pointed star do look good. On the other hand, the load bed looks pretty lame & there doesn't seem to have been any real effort to hide the uglier bits of the CC-01 chassis.


Overall, and at the risk of sounding like a wuss, I can't help but feel it takes something away from my efforts

Jonny are you sure that MrT doesn't spy your resto or productions????
Or maybe, YOU are the tamiya s bodies creator

Jonny wrote:

Overall, and at the risk of sounding like a wuss, I can't help but feel it takes something away from my efforts

Tamiya's piece of Lexan is not even close to competing with your beautiful creation.

larbut wrote:

...
Tamiya's piece of Lexan is not even close to competing with your beautiful creation.

Hmmmm ... I appreciate the sentiment, but to me it's _very_ close - it's an angular Unimog; it has detailed wipers, mirrors, handles and grille; the Unimog badge, Mercedes star & headlamps are better/shinier than I can make them; it has a snorkel (which I didn't attempt) ...
it's even orange, for Frigg's sake


If mine has anything over the Tamiya one it's the load area being more detailed - but I can't help thinking that taking mine out would result in the question "why's you Unimog got the wrong wheels, tyres and back on it?"

I felt a little cheered this morning when I noticed how poorly the door & bonnet (hood) shut lines are defined on the lexan body ... but moving on, I did do a test panel of various mixes of orange paint - I might not be able to paint for some weeks yet thanks to the weather, but I can certainly think about it ...


What I'm after is the look of a truck that's been out in the elements for a long time getting bleached my the sun, no doubt regularly hosed down & maintained properly, but having never seen a hint of polish or wax...

Flat (not metallic, pearlescent & whatnot) red cars (especially from the 1980s do this, effectively turning matt pink, the top of the paint seems to lose its pigment and shine & turns a semi-translucent white ... it's possible to polish that off & restore the red underneath, but fail to seal it properly & the process starts again, until you rub all the read paint off & reveal the colour underneath (often white), especially on edges. Different panels can age at different rates due to slightly different painting processes being used on different parts - bodyshell (& therefore roof) being different from the bonnet, bolt front wings (fenders), doors, rear hatch etc - red mk.2 Golfs seemed to be particularly prone to being 5 different shades of red after a few years, but I'm not singling them out - I had really bad fade on an 80s Ford too (which wasn't apparent until the first time I washed it after I'd bought it ), I've seen photos of the same phenomena on Porsches as well ... come to think of it, maybe it's German red cars that are the problem - my Sierra Sapphire was a German built one, a British built one would have rusted out before the paint could fade ...



Anyway, I seem to have got distracted, orange paint also turns matt in time, but the fading is a bit more even than the way red goes. So back to my test card - uppermost is Tamiya X-6 Orange, which is a gloss colour. Mixing it half & half with X-21 Flat Base does lose a bit of density, but the colour is still good. Adding an equal part of XF-2 Flat white lightens it up, and increasing the proportion of white continues to do it in a predictable way - though it's potentially very heavy on the white, maybe I should have stocked up on that rather than the flat base & orange I actually bought

I am going to attempt some variation in the shade rather than one block, but being completely unpractised with the airbrush kit, out of necessity it's going to mean sticking with shades close together, probably starting with 1:1:2 (Orange:Flat Base:White) all over, 1:1:1 starting part way down, then 1:1:0 for the lowest/most recessed parts.

Then maybe some dry brushing of 1:1:10 or thereabouts on the most exposed edges, and a red-brown wash to bring up the details & that'll be it for the main colour.



I'm looking forward to using masked flat base on the windscreen, but I also need to work on the technique for the rest of the windows - which I want to have the look of windows that have only ever been cleaned by hosing down, then maybe the occasional polish with the sleeve of someone's jacket - i.e. cloudy around the edges. I'll experiment with sponging & the like, but maybe I'll just have to get brave & spray them, unmasked



Cold weather has also given me time to have a look at the two airbrushes in the kit. I don't think the gravity fed one will offer any real advantage for me for this application at least so I've put that to one side, but I had a good look at the siphon feed one. This I think has the advantage of a bigger and more leak resistant paint reservoir, and also has a trigger preset screw - one less thing to worry about for me, this will make it behave for like a regular paint gun or aerosol.

Knowing I'd have to clean it after use, I completely dismantled it ... I won't say that was a mistake, but it didn't go back together that easily. The "rocker", which fits behind the trigger & bears on the needle chuck (thus moving the needle back, and because of the taper on the needle, increasing the amount of air going through the paint nozzle, and therefore the vacuum, and therefore the amount of paint sucked up & sprayed out) isn't fixed to the chuck as on some more expensive airbrushes, and would not co-operate in going back in & orienting correctly - in through a small slot, turn 90 degrees across the, angle forward at 45 degrees with the bottom/back edge locating correctly behind the air valve assembly & the top stick out the correct amount ... predictably enough there's a webpage that explains the problem succinctly, but had to work out the nomenclature, identify the problem & work out how to install it correctly for the explanation to make sense. Still, I'll know how to do it next time - and TBH I shouldn't have to do it too often as no paint should ever get in that area anyway.