TOPIC:

I love it

Started on 1 1:10 version of "Snowy", my 1977 1098cc Austin Mini from back in the day ... I don't have a chassis for it yet but wanted to get the bulk of the painting done while the weather is still warm.

I don't like the bodykitted look of the shell I bought, or the silly wipers, but Tamiya kits & bodies cost more than I want to spend.

I left about 1cm below the front bumper on the scrap I cut off (keeping the front number plate support, but a combination of the polycarbonate being very thin there + a bit too much pressure on the scalpel meant the cut wandered

I marked a new bottom line with tape & recut, it almost looks like I intended it from the start, especially as I also trimmed a little more off the sills & rounded the bottom corners of the spats.

After masking I hit the inside with Tamiya PS-1 White, being a pretty decent match to the Ford (really) Diamond White the 1:1 version was painted with.

bumpers and grill are moulded now??

stingray-63 wrote: bumpers and grill are moulded now??

This is a "matrixline" "branded" shell, but Tamiya haven't exactly covered themselves in glory in that department - while the 58149 Rover Mini Cooper & the 58163 monte Carlo (M-01) might have separate chromed parts, the 58211 "Racing" (M-03) version at least doesn't, IDK about all the other versions.

PS-whatebs Silver sprayed (it got very splatterey at the end ) + masking removed, I've also got a chassis for it - the cheapest M-05 I could possibly find. It's an NSU TT Jagermeister, which with the ESC removed & cashing in my saved points was just over 7 GBP (really) from Fusion Hobbies

The wheels are vaguely like the one on the original "Snowy", but will require modification to look a bit more like the 10" size & higher profile tyres.

In the interests of squeezing every bit of fun/experience out of the kit, I do want to make the Lexan TT body a lot more like the NSU Prinz 4 it's based on before selling on, my plan so I don't forget is to:
- sort the silly boot/deck lid shenanigans;
- lose the front valance, narrow the wheel spats if possible;
- no smoke on the windows, lose any decals that have racing/sponsorship pretensions;
- I do have most of a can of PS-7 orange, but would like to paint in a more subdued colour, possibly PS-32 Corsa Grey;
- add styrene bumpers
- possibly add a basic interior at swage line level (flat sheet with hints at dash, steering wheel, seat backs)

I hadn't touched this for a long time, but at the weekend I felt inclined to do a bit of work on it. I've cut out the tinted (solid, I think) part of the windows & put the decals on, deformation (even with a hairdryer) and bonding is very poor, I'm really glad I painted the bumpers rather than used the supplied decals for them.

I want the wheel to look like the period 10" items (with high profile tyres) rather than the modern looking 15"/16" (?) wheels & low profile tyres that came out of the NSU TT kit so will modify the wheels & rely on paint - first step in that was adding a 2.5mm square strip & 0.75mm flat strip to the wheels, so I can turn them to the desired shape once they've regained their hardness.

I also started on the (M-05) chassis - first double page spread of the instructions deals with the chassis spine halves & the gearbox, 2nd spread is mostly the steering & front suspension.

Nice idea for increase tires profil Jonny.

More build pics:

There were no holes in the body so it worth trying to preserve that, by using magnetic body post fittings - but even with the front posts cut down to their lowest extent (and the rears cut down to match) it looked stupid:



I removed the bottom part of the front mounts, then turned off a section of the upper, removing all evidence of the through hole - then tapped M3 all the way through from the top. Before pic:



I also removed all of the vertical part of the kit front posts & drilled through 3mm:



I could turn off the last few mm of the square part of the top mount to go down a little further, but I'm fairly happy with the body height now