Nacho Z

I would like to share my recently completed Fujimi Ferrari F355. Overall, not the greatest kit ever produced. The fit of the side scoop inserts and the panel on the rear of the car was not good. A lot of work was needed to make them presentable. The glass flat out sucked, poorly molded and the fit of some pieces was enough to make you want to leave them off. The interior is for a 348 and not a F355. The window trim molded to the body is incorrect for a F355. However, at the end of the day it makes a nice shelf model if you take your time and put the work into it. I have added a link to the WIP thread. Here are some bullet points of the build. I hope you like it! Thanks for looking! Painted in OPI "Chopstix and Stones" fingernail polish. Cleared with Tamiya TS Clear Blue Splash Paints Interior Tan Photo-Etch from Acu-Stion Badges from T2M

Thanks, Ryan, I appreciate it! You are correct about the kit’s lineage. I didn’t realize that when I started it. Kind of a bummer but I think it is all that is available in plastic.

Jim, you are absolutely right. I can airbrush all day long and not slip or begin the paint flow too soon, but that one time I try to lay down paint in a tight area is the time that I will screw up and paint everything within a 2 foot area…lol. Do you have the kit in your stash? I’m not sure how easy they are to find. I found mine at a model show for $20, I believe. I sure would love to see more of these built.

Thank you, Dan, I appreciate your kind words. Overall, I am pretty happy with it.

Ooohhhhhh yeeeaaaahhhhh! Very cool! You just have to love these WW2 prop jobs. I recently built an Academy version. As a car guy, I really do get why the airplane guys are airplane guys…lol. Thanks for sharing!

Absolutely a great place to order from. I normally use Hobby Link Japan just because of their “Private Warehouse” option, but I’ve ordered from 1999.

Fandamntastic!! That is just one good looking model!

Another Monday night update. I think this will be the last one. As stated at the end of my last post, I will be showing you all the interior. I will also show you the masking and painting of the trim. Let's get to it. As has been pointed out by others, the interior is from Fujimi's 348 kit. The sprues even say 348 on them. I Googled pictures of the interior of a 348 and painted mine to match. I bought two colors of Splash Paints interior colors. One was creme and the other was tan. I used the tan and it is just a little too light for my liking. I am thinking a darker primer would have gotten me closer to the color that I was hoping for. The kit decals were severely cracked and yellowed. Toast. I didn't have any spare gauge decals that I thought looked right so I just left them off. I also could not use the center console decals and left them off as well. Anyhow, Splash Paints Tan, Tamiya LP-5 Semi-Gloss Black and lots of Tamiya tape were used. All of the kit glass in this kit sucked. Sucked badly. Sucked canal water, as we used to say. I couldn't use the driver's side glass due to a massive defect in the glass. Not on the surface, but rather inside of the glass. I ended up cutting the door portion off and using the rear quarter glass. I ended up having to do the same thing on the passenger side. The windshield glass did not have a positive fit and there was very, very little wiggle room with the fit. If you did not get it centered perfectly you would have gaps. I taped it into position first and then applied glue. The rear glass just plain didn't fit properly. Too much to explain. Very disappointing. The last pictures have to do with the masking of the body in order to paint the window trim, (which is also incorrect for a F355). The point I want to make is that I use Tamiya masking tape and I use a lot of it. I have already gotten the comments about how much masking I do and how much tape I've used. Car modelers, generally speaking, are cheap. A roll of Tamiya tape is about $5. I don't think $1.50 in tape is excessive...lol. I had to paint black on the back panel, the front grill, the windshield and both side windows. With the way I mask with Tamiya tape, I don't worry about overspray, paint bleed, tape residue and pulling up paint. Well worth the few pennies worth of tape that I use. That is all I have for the WIP portion of this build. I will be posting pictures of the finished model in the next week or two. A good amount of work went into all of the badges and detail painting. I did the best that I could with what I had to work with. This was supposed to be a relatively quick build and an exercise in shooting fingernail polish. It turned out to be a rather troublesome project. Thanks for following along and commenting along the way. See you over in Under Glass soon!

She is looking great so far! I’ll be following along on this one.

It is the Three Rivers Automodelers show in Castle Shannon on Sunday.

Welcome to the forum, Barry. I am located just South of you, near Morgantown, WV. Did you know that there is a model contest in Pittsburg this weekend?

Dennis, while doing research on this car, (I really didn’t know very much about it), I noticed that the wheels were a dull aluminum(?). I’m not crazy about them. I decided to leave the kit wheels as they are. I know that they are not prototypically correct but I like them. I truly do appreciate the input on them, however. I’ve got a lot more Ferrari kits and you can count on me hitting you up for help and information! Curtis, I really struggled with the choice of creme, (their spelling), or tan from Splash Paints. I went with tan. Thanks, Atin! The clear blue is TS shot straight from the can.

Simply gorgeous!!

Thank you, Sonny! I was very happy with the stance right out of the box. The tires are also centered in the wheel wells which isn’t always the case. I don’t have to do any work on the stance and that is a good thing! Thanks, EMRE! Honestly, the reason for the picture of each coat was to help me keep track of how many coats I laid down…lol. And yes, I’m pretty darn happy with the paint job! Very much appreciated, Justin!

Wow!! That is just fantastic! A really great looking model.

Time for my Monday night update. My last post I showed where I painted the body in OPI fingernail polish, polished it out and then shot Tamiya Clear Blue over that. I let the clear blue cure and then set about polishing out the body. I use Micro Mesh cloths and then Tamiya polishing compounds for this. I'll spare you all of the in-progress shots and go straight to the mock-up of the polished body. I should point out that there is no actual clear, clear on this model. Clear blue, yes. Clear clear, no. Here are the 3 polishing cloths that I used, one for each stage, or grit, of the Tamiya polishing compounds. I also use Q-tips for hard-to-reach places, places that my fingertip will not fit into. I have actually been chided, (there's a word you don't see every day!), for using Q-tips but I find them very useful. I do not use any type of rotary tool for polishing out my paint. I actually enjoy the process of doing it manually. My kitchen light fixture. My Alclad paint on a shelf above my bench. Next update will be the interior and another mockup with the interior installed. Thanks for checking in. Comments, suggestions and advice are always welcome.

Thank you, Dann! It is such a pretty color and it was just about exactly what I was hoping for! Thanks, Jim! Patience is probably my weakest point in model building. I mean, I suck at a lot of things modeling wise, but patience is my Achilles heel. ? I appreciate it, Sonny!

That is one beautiful Oldsmobile!

I do this every single painting session.

You did a wonderful job with this! I’m like you in that I love doing decals. Truly my favorite part of modeling. I imagine that there was a good bit of applying decals on top of other decals with this kit?

That is fantastic, Robert! It is great to see you posting your work over here on MCM. I’m looking forward to seeing more of your work.

My hat is off to you, you nailed this!

Great looking ‘57! This one just has “that look” to it.

Very cool, Matt, very cool indeed! I’ve never seen this before.

My first update from my original post. This update will be all about laying the fingernail polish down. I took a picture after each coat. I tend to very slightly over thin my paint and polish, it is just how I like to do it. I feel that I can lower the air pressure and get into tighter spaces without excessive blowback. This was especially true when painting the side scoops. Anyhow, I git a kick out of seeing the model get a little darker blue with each successive coat of paint. I always test my colors on spoons, usually white and black. This is NOT to test how hot a paint is. Spoons and models are made of different material. It is just to see how base colors affect the final color. I went with a white base for the F355. If you scroll up to my last post you will see that I laid down a white base coat. My wonderful wife is always willing to help me with my hobby. She found some small Ball jars that are perfect for mixing up larger volumes of paint. I thin my fingernail polish with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner. Here we go! I shoot thin coats so that I don't have to worry about crazing the plastic. I wait 10 minutes between coats. I'm in no hurry when I do this. I have screwed things up in the past by being impatient. The finish was just about what I was hoping for but in the back of my mind I thought I could make it better. After the fingernail polish cured for a week, I polished it out and shot 2 coats of Tamiya Clear Blue right out of the can. I laid it on fairly heavy as I would be polishing it out. I am pleased with the results. The pictures do not do justice to the color. Next update will have the body polished out and a quick mockup. As always, comments, suggestions, etc are welcome!