Axel's corner

Primer approach As can be seen in the previous update, the fitment of (especially) the rear bodywork left something to be desired. Below are several pictures displaying how I have tackled that problem. First picture shows a spacing bar in the front of the body. This was necessary because I'd removed the mounting pins from the nosecone. And to get the sidewalls of the nosecone and the bodywork properly aligned I chose this solution. On top of that I glued in a small piece of styrene to the bottom of the body to prevent the possibility of looking through the car as the bottom didn't close up this area enough in my opinion. The second picture shows the styrene strips I glued to the front part of the sidepods. The third picture shows the rear bodywork and a few styrene strips I glued onto the bodywork, to push the bottom parts to the outside, when fitted over the front bodywork. In the fourth picture the result of the modifications can be seen. As can be seen

Finally, more progress As I already mentioned on the what's new page, becoming a father has disrupted my modelling activities somewhat. But nevertheless, progress has been made. First thing I did, when I had cleaned the body, was fill the vents in front of the front wheels and blend them in with the body by using some standard Tamiya putty. I also made a new front lip, because the original kit one wasn't correct for the car Gigi drove in this particular rally. I made the new lip (using the body as a template) out of a .5 mm Evergreen styrene sheet. It has to be said that the lip in the picture below is still a bit large. I sanded it down in the meantime to better match the original. Also shown in the picture is the original lip from the kit. To bridge the gap between the new hood and the body I've decided to glue tiny strips of styrene to the sides of the hood and sand these to size, filling the gap. In the dry-fit with the xenon light pods and the glass

Out with the old, in with the new... The final sentence of the previous update couldn't be further from the truth. Finished it is definately not. Well, yes and no actually. The car is not finished, but the body is. And had already been sent on a one-way trip to garbage-ness... When trying to sand smooth the various spots left in the layer of clear and smooth out the clear in general a problem occured. Something which I haven't encountered with the Peugeot 307 of Gigi Galli. For some reason I wasn't able to smooth out the layer enough and worst of all, I seemed to have damaged the clearcoat. I've sanded and compounded my hands sore, but for some reason I couldn't get the shine back into the clear. Very strange. On top of it all the roof finally cracked for good after the plastic had already been weakened when stripping a previous paintjob. The sad result can be seen in the picture below left. I placed a message in the classifieds section of Automot

On we go It's been almost 2 years since I last updated the build report of this particular build. Shame on me. Being a father takes up a lot of time (and not to forget energy). Not to say that I've been doing nothing at all the past years. Although the progress isn't mindblowing, there's still some progress to report. And it's about time too. Back in 2008 I'd painted almost all the suspension and engine parts. But being just unassembled parts, they were not very interesting to show. In the meantime the engine has been painted. It still needs a bit of a wash, as it looks way too clean and I want it to have a slightly used look. Some mold lines are still visible on the pictures. But they don't bother me in this case, as they can't be seen once the engine is buried inside the car. And as I plan to glue the engine window shut, there's no chance anyone will ever know (unless they read it here of course). I drybrushed some chrome silver on