About Axel's corner

Since the beginning of 2007 I have been maintaining and updating this site on and off.

Updates have been far and few in between the latest years, partly due to the fact that I've become a father (twice) and partly due to the fact that I couldn't be bothered battling through the html instructions/commands because that was stealing costly and scarce modelling time.

Finally I've discovered another way of maintaining this site.
So since December 2014 I transfered my site to blogger which for me makes it a lot easier and quicker to update my site.

My intention is to post more and frequent updates.
The coming weeks will be a bit chaotic as I'm still figuring out how to set up everything and I have quite a backlog of updates which I will tackle first.
I hope to have this site up and running the way I intend it to somewhere near spring 2015.

Thank you for your patience and I hope you'll enjoy my renewed site.
Feel free to leave comments or ask questions.

Happy viewing,
Axel.

Citroën Xsara WRC - Francois Duval, ADAC Rallye Deutschland 2007 (part 6)

Welcome to the next part of this build report. I left you last time (or should I say long, long ago...) with the images of the primed body, floor and roll cage, showing that there was some work to do to get everything ready for some color. In this update I will show you how far I got with these parts. I'll start with the body and floor. Sanding everything back turned out to be quite a bit of work. And of course there were several areas still in need of attention. Especially around the wheel arches there was a lot of additional work left. Luckily, with the car in tarmac setup, there's not much room left to see the remaining rough spots that have survived the clean up process... Which leads me to the conclusion that I could have cut some corners in this particular area by only cleaning up the most visible sections. It's a good lesson to check beforehand what is actually visible when the car is built together. I'll definitely be cutting some corners for the other two ...

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...

Citroën Xsara WRC - Francois Duval, ADAC Rallye Deutschland 2007 (part 5)

As promised in the previous part in this update I'll show what I changed on the roll cage. The roll cage as included in the kit is far from complete. When looking at on-board footage and reference images found on the internet the roll cage needs some extra tubing added. Over the years the roll cage of the Xsara WRC has had several variants as I've noticed studying my reference images. Which isn't that strange as the crash test and safety regulations have changed over the years. The reference images I have of the specific chassis (#28) which Duval raced during the 2007 ADAC Rallye Deutschland are sadly inconclusive about which version of the roll cage was fitted. Which means that the adaptations I made are at best a good "guesstimate"... As long as it looks and feels right, it is right I guess... I used Evergreen styrene rod of 1.6 mm in diameter for the added sections for the rollcage. The added sections are highlighted in the images below. Another section I...

Axel's corner

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