Axel's corner

Preparations After so much time, there is still not a single part of this kit that has been painted. First job has been to eliminate the hardly visible mould lines and deepen the panel lines (orange arrows in images below). Apart from that, I also had to remove the incredible convenient borders that were on the monocoque to mark the borders of the different colors. Sadly those borders only apply for the 1990 livery of the car, so could not be used for this version. Removing those lines wasn't much work, but it had to been done nonetheless. However most of the work has gone into filling all the sink marks on the various parts. The parts shown below are only a selection... As you can see in the images above, I only bothered to fill the sink marks that are visible once the model is fully assembled. Lazy me, huh... Apart from all the filling and sanding I also managed to do some fun work (well, at least that's how I see it). As this kit is from Hasegawa, the ...

Spick and span When looking through the pictures of this project, I noticed that there had been no work done on this project since March. So it was about time to do something. As can been seen in the previous update, there seems not that much work left to finish this build. But looks are deceiving. Because the layer of clear that has been put in this car has quite some orange peel to it, so I had to sand it all out. This process took me already a few hours, and I'm not finished yet. As with the Peugeot 307 WRC, I used MicroMesh polishing clothes in the roughness 4000, 6000, 8000 and 12000 to sand out all the orange peel. To protect the most delicate parts, where the expected layer of clear is thin, I masked them with masking tape before I started the sanding process. But sadly, all these precautions couldn't prevent me from slightly damaging the paint layer. Because when I tried to clear the panel lines of the trunk from the sanding residue (with a wooden toothpi...

the finishing touch After a considerable amount of time not working on this car, I've taken it up once more. At first I was thrilled after I sprayed the clear lacquer onto the body. But after the excitement had been subdued a bit, I noticed that there were several spots on the car where the finish was quite rough. So out came the ModelMesh sanding/polishing cloths, and after that the Tamiya polishing compounds. And after the whole car had received this treatment, it finally looked the way I wanted. The layer of clear is pretty hard (which is only good), and it took quite some time to reach the current state. But I'm very happy with it, although, on a few spots I managed to sand/polish through layers of clear and paint, so these spots need to be touched up. With all the sanding and polishing, I also had to redo the window trim. But as my first wasn't so good anyway, this was no problem (in the image below, the window trim still needs to be done). Mirror,...

The Story: After two unsuccessful years at Lotus, Piquet had signed a contract with Benetton at the end of 1989. After a (according to some people surprisingly) successful 1990, with 2 wins in the last 2 races of the season, Piquet was offered a contract for 1991 by Benetton. The car I'm going to build, the B190B, ran for the first 2 GP's of 1991 while waiting for the John Barnard drawn B191. The B190B was in fact more or less the same car as Benetton had used the previous year. Only the livery was changed. Although the car wasn't new, it still was relatively successfull during those first GP's of 1991. Nelson Piquet scored a nice third and fifth place during those 2 GP's. The Project: This kit is the fifth project I'm taking on since restarting this hobby. It will be the first Hasegawa kit I'll be building. And on top of that, it will also be the first F1 kit I'm building in the "unholy" 1/24 scale. This build will be the secon...

Continuing work on the chassis After the glue on the exhaust had dried, it was time to paint the part aluminium colour. I used the aluminium paint from the Revell Aqua Color range. After the paint had dried, I glued the exhaust to the car. I also put the wheels on the car, otherwise the exhaust might get scratched. And as I'm not intending on doing further work on the bottom of the car, it was as good a moment to put the car on it's own feet. Only thing I still have to do concerning the wheels is touch up the hubcaps. Because part of the chrome layer has been removed where I had to cut the hubcaps from their sprue. Now that the car has been put onto it's wheels, it was time to put together the interior of the car. Next up were the side panels. But before I could glue them in place, I had to scratch build some seatbelts. Although the original car had only 2-point seatbelts, the car Inspector Morse drove had in fact 3-point seatbelts. So I had to make...

Clear ! It was about time that this car would get a layer of clear on. But before I could do that, I had to touch up a few spots with "Pirelli red". When I applied the decals I made some minor mistakes in positioning them. So a few spots needed some extra attention. Although I have about 6 or 7 shades of red in my paint collection, the right one wasn't there. So I had to mix the correct shade of red. That took some time, but I in the end I managed to find a shade which looked good enough. After the spots had been touched up, I let the paint dry for some more days. After that, it was time for the clear. I used the same 2K clear I used on the Ferrari F430. Thanks to my new fan (higher capacity) there were considerably less fumes inside the cabin and the room. After I cleared the car I put a cover in front of the airbrush cabin (leaving only a small opening for the air) to prevent dust from settling on the model during drying of the clear. This, the cover,...