Ferrari F430 (part 10)

After the better part of an afternoon I had polished the body.
I started with MicroMesh cloths, using 6000, 8000 and 12000 grit. Next I used Tamiya compound (fine and finish) to restore the shine.

Once again I can state that the Aqua Gloss from Alclad can be polished quite nicely and the layer is quite tough.
However, after washing the body there were some tiny scratch marks evident.
Seems to be my own fault as I used an old cotton t-shirt to apply the compound to the model. It appears that cotton is still too coarse for polishing (also stated on the Hiroboy website).
So off I went and bought me some polishing clothes from Zero Paints and from Tamiya.

After another round of compound the scratches have been removed, so I could (finally) continu with the final details. Or so I thought.

For some reason I couldn't get the shine back on this paint. I don't know if it's because I used Zero Paints compound or that there's something else going on.
I was a bit reluctant to give it another round of compound, feared of going through the clear layer. In some places I suspected the clear was almost completely rubbed away...

Time for a new layer of clear, to be on the safe side.
This time I went for ZP pre-thinned 1K clear.

And what do you know. More clearcoat equals more problems.
When spraying the first mist coat I noticed a lot of webbing in the layer of clear. When it had dried a bit, I rubbed the layer with a tack cloth and the webbing mostly disappeared.
In the image below, the webbing can be seen on the inside of the model.

I figured that the next wet coat would get rid of the remaining irregularities.
How wrong I was.

I don't really know what went wrong here. I used a 0.6 mm needle. The clear was sprayed at a pressure close to 30 psi (20-40 is recommended).
It looks like shit.

The bottle of clear wasn't new, so maybe that could be the problem.
Or maybe it was a faulty batch.
I already started to sand back the layer of clear to get rid of the structure. But the clear is very durable and it's taking a LOT of time to get to something halfway acceptable...

Upon searching on the internet I came across a few people who also had experienced similar problems.
Although, there are also modellers who never experienced problems with this clear.

I will have to sleep on this for now. I'm close to binning this one... I came this far and it would be a shame to give up now, but I'm not sure if and how I can save this one...

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Citroën Xsara WRC - Francois Duval, ADAC Rallye Deutschland 2007 (part 2)

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Citroën Xsara WRC - Francois Duval, ADAC Rallye Deutschland 2007 (part 1)

And off we go on another project. When modelling WRC subjects, you cannot ignore the Citroën Xsara WRC as it is some kind of legend. Especially in the hands of a certain French driver. That's why I have 3 Xsara kits in my stash. None of said driver, that is. But rest assured, he is also present in my WRC collection. With this particular build I'm going to build the car that Francois Duval drove so expertly to the runner-up spot in the 2007 ADAC Rallye Deutschland. Sadly, where the Citroën Xsara WRC is a bit of a legend, the same thing can not be said of the only injection moulded kit if the same car... As said, there's not much choice, as Heller is the only kit manufacturer for this car (although the same kit has also been released by Airfix and Italeri). For this build I'll be using Heller kit no. 80769. Let's just say,it's not a Tamiya kit... By far. For several reasons I chose this particular car because I like the livery and I like Francois Duval too beca

Euro Model Expo 2015

Last weekend I went to the Euro Model Expo event in Heiden, Germany. The event was spread over 2 days. I visited on the first day, Saturday March 28th. Just like last year the location was packed with stands occupied by a good mix of vendors and modelling clubs. The quality of the models on show, it being on the club stands or the competition area, was once again very high. During the day members of the Belgian modelling club KMK-Scaleworld were giving demonstrations of several modelling techniques. I decided to visit the demonstration of Jeroen Veen who showed the public several aircraft painting and weathering techniques. For me, as a n00b on aircraft, it was a very interesting and entertaining demonstration and I hope to apply some of the techniques I saw to my coming build of the 1/48 Tamiya Lancaster I got waiting. It was also a nice occassion to talk to some fellow modellers. Amongst others I had a nice chat with Sascha Müller who had a stunning diorama of a Le M

Axel's corner

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