GeeBee

And yet another one of these, this one will probably be converted to a van ....

Beautiful, just beautiful ....

And another one of these ....

Yes, another one ....

Don't use brake fluid anywhere near resin, I use Fairy Power spray,

Today I started on the trim at the top of the wings and doors, in real life this is a aluminium channel with a rubber strip inserted in the middle, I'm doing the trim using BMF aluminium foil, when it's finished, I'm going to mask off and touch in the rubber trim using a black art marker ....

You would think so, but in truth the paintwork was pretty good from the factory, they used an acrylic enamel that was put through an oven, the shine was pretty good, I'll have to dig out the film I have that shows the Trabant being built.

Well after having to sand the bootlid back to bare plastic, and repaint the lower body, I finally have the body and body panels finished, wet sanded and polished, the body was wet sanded with 4200, 6000, 8000 and 12000 sanding pads, and polished using various grade of polishing compounds#

I have plenty of reference material and video on the Trabbi, I'll see if I can post the link to the video's I know of on the internet

Duraplast wasn't glass reinforced, it was a mixture of cotton or wool mixed with a resin, both were recycled materials, while the roof panel, bootlid , bonnets, door panels and front & rear wings were made from Duraplast, the monocoque was made of steel, the rear panel and front panel, A pillars, B post and C pillar are all steels along with the inner wings, floorpan, bulkhead and door frames were all steel, so yes, you will and do see rusty Trabant's.

Yes, I've had a few parts request off Revell in the past, but if I get stuck, I can use the part out of the Universal kit I have, just had a look at the instructions and those parts are the same as the saloon version ....

Really not sure what kind of paint it is, if you leave it in a small container on the side without covering it, it will start to skin over in no time at all, has a slight funny smell, rather like an enamel, after decanting the paint, I did have to filter it, as I left it on the side to gas out, and it started to skin up in the glass jar, and because it started to thicken up a little, I had to thin it out slightly with lacquer thinners, which it did without any problems. At least when I come to build the other Trabant's I have, I will know how to handle to paint better

This one is the 1967-'74 version, the earlier 1961-67 model had a much smaller front grille,

Got the body and body parts primed and painted in body colour (champagne beige), not sure exactly what the paint is, although it does say acrylic on the an, took a while to go from the tacky stage to dry it will need a good wet sand and polish,

Looking good, I'll be following this one with interest, I still have one on order, not sure if there's a problem with the UK importer ...

I'll second that, if I hadn't seen the second lotf photo's I would have swore it was the real deal ....

Just won this off eBay, not my usual thing, but it looks kind of neat,

The colour you needed was RAL 7045

This is coming along nicely, how do you intend to fill in the rear panels were the windows would have been ? as you see from the photo, the infill is flush with the body ...

Yes, that's the wiper motor, I have a few of them in the spares box if your short of one ....

Looking good, these old Esci kits can be made into nice models with a little bit of extra work ....

Yeh, like a gloss blue fuel tank ? all the photo's I've seen there done in gloss black, here's a good site for info' I found on the Trabby http://www.trabant-original.de/

No sign of any broken part, they way the part is, it doesn't look like that part has been snapped off, just looks like it was never there to start with, I've only had to order spare parts off Revell on the rare occasion, there pretty good with there service. At least the part doesn't stop me building, I'll just have to prime and paint it when it comes, I've spent most of the day fixing smaller parts to wooden cocktail sticks ready for primer and paint.