shaunmza

I lurk a lot here on the forums, admiring the level of detail and craftsmanship that get put on display. This post has none of that, so I find myself wanting to justify why I am adding it. Suffice to say I am by no means an accomplished builder and am so anxious of messing up a kit that I have a few still in boces that have been that way for well over a year now. I thought, instead of messing up a kit, let me print out a car and practice on that instead. At work we are under pressure on a project and I find the process of putting something together helps me relax a bit. I say 'interpretation' of a Camaro, because I sanded away so much detail that its not really true to form anymore. I started with a 3d model that I downloaded from Thingiverse, scaled it to be roughly 1/24 scale, then printed it on a low cost 3d printer, again I bought it over a year ago. I chose to print a Camaro because my father has one, I have never seen it in the flesh and only seen a single photo of it, in which it is not complete. The model is meant to be a 1967 Camaro, I don't know what year his is, so there is no point being too picky on details. Here it is after a fair amount of sanding already, and some cheap rattle can paint. I found this paint did not try and melt the PLA in the same way it melts the plastic that model cars are made of. There is no grill, because it broke out while I was removing the supports. I am to remedy this sometime in the future when I build up enough courage to cut the styrene sheet I have I decided to use different wheels to which the model came with, but printing the wheel out at this scale showed how it was not designed to be 3d printed! I set about learning a bit of Blender and created a rudimentary copy of that wheel. I split it into 3 components, so that I would not need supports, these proved to be very ugly and hard to remove on the original wheel. 2 of the 3 parts are identical, the outer 'rim' and tyre, of which I print 2 and glue them back to back. Then an inner rim, which is pushed into the glued up outer rim. As you can see it took a few attempts to get something passable. I want to highlight that I am aiming to have something to do and to 'complete' and that I am not shooting for perfection... I first hand painted the wheels, but I could not stand the way they looked, so I redid them with more of the model kit plastic melting rattle can paint that I have. I used some of my kid's play dough to mask off the wheel. Not as clean as I had hoped, but I did not see chance to cut out tape, so this is as good as its going to get. I comparison with a 1/24 scale Ford Mustang that my wife bought me years ago for my birthday, or Christmas? Who cares... she gets me As you can see, not many completed models... I am still going to paint the windows matt black, maybe do silver trim around the windshield, and paint the tail lights. The final job would be that grill, for now I have something to mess around with though. Something I learned from this is that its possible to 3d print a car, but the prep work that goes into getting it ready for paint is so much more than a kit. The photo's do not show it but there are many angles where you can see a wavy pattern from the infill and the roof still has the pattern from the printing process. Despite this I am learning more and more of Blender and am planning to print this again, but as a shell, with no windshield, back / side windows etc, so that I can try do a chassis and interior too. Thanks for looking!

That looks very cool!

This looks to be a really cool build! Interested to see how it turns out.

And to think I was anxious to ask this question... Appreciate all the replies, this forum is a gold mine when it comes to information!

Yeah, I take it it is an American thing? We never had new cars, but event then I don't think such things existed in South Africa while I was growing up. It really is eye opening some times to see the differences between countries.

Thanks for the replies! Appreciate it, now I know what you are all on about in the threads

I am showing my ignorance here, so please bear with me. I see posts in the workbench section where people refer to a model as a 'promo', but have no idea what this refers to. The kits looks like any other to me. Can someone please clarify this for me?

Thanks!. I have 2 on the go. One is a F1 Alfa 159 F1 car from the 50's, I need to take photo's of that. The second is a Camaro that I 3d printed, also need to take photos.

I actually managed to finish this, well, finished for now... Getting the roof to fit and fold down properly was the straw that broke the camels back. It frustrated me so, that I stopped enjoying the process of building and eventually packed it all away. It took a good few months before I took it out the box again, this time I was seeking to relieve frustration (ironic I know) Giving the parts a quick once over I realised how close it was to completion. I started getting excited about it again and all the issues I saw before seemed so much less significant. I was going to finish and get it done quickly. Now getting things done quickly, generally means badly, keeping this in mind I did try to do the best I could. When a choice arose I still took acceptable over perfect though. This sounds silly, but as I work I have all my completed and incomplete models on a table next to my computer. Every now and then I will steal a glance and the visual change, from a screen to something I did with my hands lifts my spirits. I had this model, unfinished, waiting for me to get it done so that it could become the centre piece. So going for done as opposed to perfect made ... prefect sense. Perhaps you have a keen eye and have noticed some of the many faults? Thats ok, I see them too. I also see how the paint shimmers in the light, particularly sunlight. It's a great colour. I am really glad I got it done, and now I can move on to the next project.

That looks great!

That was a nice writeup, thanks for the link

I live in Portugal, so this is a release by Revell Germany It is to celebrate 50 years of Revell, I do believe it is different form the US reissues in a few ways, but not sure on the exact details. Hope this helps

That is such a beautiful car, good job on recovering the paint.

I recently got 2 kits from the seventies as well, a BMW R75/5 and Norton Commando by Heller. It's like a piece of history in your hands, looking forward to seeing how this build progresses

I did end up taping the body to the chassis, then using the chrome bits on the rear fenders to try and keep the rear fairly square. It was a bit of a battle as the body kept moving around on me. I ended up using CA glue as it dries quick enough. That meant I could glue a small piece and hold it firmly in place while it dried, then move on a bit and glue some more. I started on the one front fender, when i had that in place I moved to the other side, then finally the rear, with the trunk lid held in place with masking tape. I also put some tape on either side of the trunk on the edges, to act as a spacer. I think this worked, I did not want to glue it up so close that the body caused the trunk lid to bind. There really was quite a bit of flex in the body and some parts did not fit very neatly, but I got around that gluing small lengths at a time. 'Twas a battle, but I saw it through and am so happy that I can look at the car without it being held together with tape Well, almost no tape... Starting to look like a car now. The hood is going to give me a hard time, I can see it. It refuses to stay down. Otherwise it is looking good I think The joints are right where the doors shutlines are, very clever. I was gluing it from the outside as its impossible to get the glue in underneath when it is on the chassis. This is after sanding the glue down, and my amateurish attempts at scribing. Still some work to do as this side there is a marked difference in heights between the fender and door, even after I put a great deal of effort in to get them to match up when gluing. Even with all the extra work, I am glad I am building this kit, I am learning a lot and I think the next one will feel like it is falling together, with any luck I will have another update soon.

I was thinking of adding heater hoses, battery wires and radiator hoses too, then just got tired of fiddling with the motor. Seeing that though I may just give it a stab, going to be eyeing out every wire I see

Looking good, can't wait to see more

That looks super smooth for the scale! What printer did you use to print it?

Good looking build. I think the exhausts would look great in grey, they disappear a bit in black.

I have a bit of a conundrum. I plan on gluing the body together, using the chassis to make sure if fits ok. That is I am going to glue it around the chassis, than pop it off when it is dry. Then fill, sand, paint etc. Does this sound ok? Should I glue it up off of the chassis instead?

So I finally have an update, much has been done, but have been sneaking it in every now and then. Took some time today to photograph progress and so on. I am calling my motor done, will be the first to admit it is not perfect, but considering it is the first and only motor I have ever done I am quite happy with it. You will see there is paint on the other parts, I was jumping around quite a bit before I decided to do one thing at a time and finish the motor off. With that done I am moving on to the chassis / body. Because I love pictures in other threads so much, here are a bunch! Motor in the chassis, the fan is one I scratch built from a soft drink bottle top after I though I had lost the original. I cannot tell you how much time I spent on my hands and knees looking for that on the floor. Then one day I move my chair and heard something fall to the floor, lo and behold, the original fan! Decided to use the one I made, just because I made it Just a different perspective With some flash A lot of that was brush painted, definitely a skill I need to work on. You can see above how close the air cleaner is to the firewall now. Originally it sat about 3 mm forward, as did the motor. I worked on both of them to get them to sit further back, this looks more like the photos I have seen. You could see a fair bit of the gearbox originally. Under the car, with the body kinda taped on So much effort has gone into getting these wheels to tuck in under the fenders and not push the body out. They still touch, but don't force it open anymore. I worked down the shaft, on the differential, filed down a lip on the wheels to get them to go further in. It's the best I can do without cutting on the chassis. The front wheel seems awfully far forward. Going to have to work on this too I think.

Great update, enjoyed the video. You do amazing work and I am learning a lot from this thread

I love what you did, very ingenious!

A common place for mischievous distributors to hide

Sounds great, looking forward to see how it looks when you get it!