Axel's corner

Mirror mirror on the car... The mirrors that are provided in this kit don't really resemble the mirrors on the Inspector's car. Actually, I wonder how Tamiya decided which type of mirror to include in this kit. Because looking through the original car's brochure I can't help but notice the absence of any kind of mirror in all of the pictures and drawings. I find it hard to believe that the car would leave the factory without any rear-view mirrors. But apparently it did... And when mirrors were finally mounted on the cars (by the owner or by Jaguar, I don't know), they were mounted all over the front of the car. Some were mounted close to the driver. Others were mounted almost at the front of the hood. Pick one : Luckily I had a few nice pictures (images from an episode) depicting the shape and position of the mirrors on Inspector Morse's car. Sadly I thought I'd have to scratch-build the mirrors... Not my strongest point I'm afraid...

What's the colour of money ? I should know by now. I've spent more than enough of it on the colour for this car. In my previous update I was very optimistic about Tamiya X-8 for this car. But sadly, this colour was also too dark. Next was the runner-up, the Revell yellow. But, you might have guessed it, it was too light... Luckily I had to go to the nearby city of Roermond to pay a local hobby store, who stocks Revell Aqua Color, a visit. Thanks to the mass painting shown above I was running out of semigloss black, so re-stocking was needed. But alas, no semigloss black in stock... But, he did have a spraycan of Tamiya TS-16. Which I bought. One more different tone of yellow wouldn't hurt I thought. And it didn't hurt indeed. Because this was the yellow I've been looking for from the beginning. I really don't understand that Renaissance recommends TS47. That colour is really way too dark. Anyway, I finally got THE colour, so off spraying I went (a...

The Interior, continued Work has been going on with the interior of this car. And I must say that I am quite happy with the results so far. After I had painted (most of) the interior in the previous update, it was time to start with the decalling. As I have shown in the last photo of the previous update, there are a lot of decals that have to be applied onto the interior to simulate the wood that's been used in the real car. I started with the sidepanels (or doors actually). After I had painted the levers for the doors and the windows I started with the decals. I really wonder how I could have managed that without Micro Sol and Set, to get the decals to conform to the shape of the door. After applying Micro Sol I thought that nothing happened. Than the decals got all wrinkled. But after some time they smoothed out nicely, as can be seen from the picture above. Strengthened by the results from the doors, I started on the dashboard. A bit more work, as the dashboard...

Preparing the body (once again) As can be read at the top of this page, I wasn't happy with the way the colour of the car turned out (Tamiya TS-47). After bathing for several weeks in brake-fluid, the paint just didn't want to come off. So I decided to help a bit. With the aid of an old (...) toothbrush and an even older scotch brite pad I managed to get most of the paint off. The reluctant bits I attacked with a bit of sanding paper, and after I had washed the body in some lukewarm water with a bit of dish-washing soap, it looked like new again. Well, sort of. After this laborious process I decanted a bit of Tamiya White Primer into a jar (and spilling half the jar in the process), and sprayed the body with several layers of this primer. Firstly, because I wanted an even white finish for the yellow to go onto, and secondly because it gave me a nice opportunity to see where I had to do some reworking... And reworking I had to do. Because I always intended t...

Painting the body And what a body it is. After glueing the PE parts to the body, I coated the model in a few thin layers of primer to create an even underground for the paint to adhere to. The primed body can be seen on the first page. I decided to give this Ferrari F430 a black color. Red Ferrari's can be found all over the internet and forums. I just wanted something a little bit different and I also think that black is a very cool colour for this car. Gives it a bit of a menacing appearance. After spraying a few light coats, I then proceeded with adding 3 wet coats to build up a nice layer of paint. Which will probably be necessary as I'm going to use polishing compound and wax on this model. And as it is the first time that I'll be using those materials, I suspect that a sturdy layer of paint might come in very handy. Below are several pictures of the current state of affairs. When you look closely at the pictures, you can see that there is so...

This will be my build report for the Jaguar Mk. II Saloon that was driven by chief inspector Morse in the TV-series of the same name. My intention was to build this car for my fathers 50th birthday, as he is a great fan of the TV series. Knowing that my father was born in 1948, I think it is safe to say that I am a bit late with this build. But that doesn't prevent me from starting it (finally). This will be my first build after my period of absence from the hobby. And that's why my first intention was to build this car out of the box. I figured that it would be a challenge enough just OOB, without adding extra details and so on. But extra details would make the car look much nicer. Just look at all those great examples on the forums. And thus I decided to add some extra detail, to spice things up a bit. The Kit: The kit is from Tamiya, item no.: 24151, scale 1/24. The engine I started this build with the engine. The detail on the engine in this kit is q...