Rich Chernosky

Progress report. Paint has hit plastic. That means this project is really under way. Some other preliminary construction has also been done. More info in the picture captions. Fiurst thing I always do are the body pieces. Upper cowl has been fitted with tabs to seccure it tightly to the side body panels. Panels were given a good scrub down with a soft toothbrush and scouring powder. This removes all the oils and dulls the finish slightly. Put a new liner in the paint booth and gave it a good cleaning. Then some masking tape to the panels to remove allthe dust and fine particles. Four light coats of Tamiya LP21 Italian Red with each coat getting heavier and thinned out until the final wet coat. I was a little surprised at how much I had to thin ( MR Color leveling thinner) the LP21. Mine must have thickened up in the bottle. I have sprayed the LP line straight from the bottle with little or no thinning. I will let this cure for about 10 days and then polish. Paint came out nice and smooth. Scraped the seams and assembled the exhaust. There were 16 seperate pieces. Tamiya was thoughtful to include the yellow piece which is a jig to locate this assembly to the pan. It is not used in the kit. This has to sit overnight for the glue to get nice and tight. The engineering on this was fantastic. This will later be sprayed Alclad polished aluminum and then heat stained.

Helmut...thank you for the correction and extra information. OH MY....that is one gorgeous piece of automotive sculpture. Almost sorry I painted mine silver with black accents.

Ken....that's about what I paid for mine when it came out. Price hasn't gone up all that much since. I see them for around $170-$200. Like you, I thought at the time that $100 for a kit was something I was never going to do. But as a 1/12 and Ferrari fan....it was a gotta have.

Dave...I have the Otaki 1/16 scale version of this car. Kit is fairly rare. Mine was painted a couple years back and awaiting polishing. (paint might actually be cured by now....<G>) Its a very interesting car and I believe only 3 were ever made. Your post will help me along greatly when I get back to this. Will follow. this will be an interesting project and I am sure you will turn it into a fine model.

Thanks Helmut. It takes some time initially, but in the long run it speeds up the building process and makes it more accurate.

Very nice build Anton. Looks like some very tricky decal work. I take it this is the Revell kit.

My first update. This is the culmination of a couple days work. This will give everybody a little insight into the method of my madness. More explanation under the pictures. All of the parts sorted into painting bags and the trees removed. Not a lot of modelers I have talked to do this but there is a very good reason. Number one I have to go all the way through the instructions and make notes along the way. This familarizes me intimately with the kit. Number two with all the trees gone the kit looks a lot less intimidating. Number three it really speeds up the painting process as all these parts will be sprayed with the airbrush and some rattle can. Anyway this works for me. Note the red box. These are oddball parts that won't need painting. The boxes and sealable bags are much better at keeping parts and keep the loss down to a minimum. It still happens but if you are careful during this process its worth it. I don't lose very much. I aquired these samll parts boxes from a machine shop. I believe you can still buy them. They are handy dandy for keeping all those tiny screws and metal thingies organized. And stuff doesn't fall out of them. I know some of you may have been horrified when I said I remove all the trees. Here is how I keep track of the numbers. I leave the number section of the tree still attached. Most of the parts are either silver or black so I keep a silver and black marker handy to touch up when these are removed. They also provide something to hang onto when these parts hit the spray booth. These are two of the six water pipes. Before painting all the seam lines will be scraped down and the molded in connectors ground off. They will be replaced with tubing and photo etch pieces from the Perfect Parts pack. Color on these will be Testors buffing Stainless Steel which comes close to the really thing. ( I hoarded a bunch of the Testors metalizers when I heard they were being discontinued. I might have another five years worth of supply)

Glad to have you along Helmut. I have been modeling continously since 1963. So that's 61 yrs worth. (its only 16-17 a year) My son says he knows of no one who has ever had a hobby this long. Not trying to brag here. I know of a few others who have finished more than I have. The point is...why is anybody going to aquire 100's of kits if they have no intention of building them. ( I know a few actually) But not me. The owner of Scale Motorsports (met him can't remember his name) told me to "live long...build em all" I guess that has always been my goal. Numbering them just keeps me focused. It is my hope that we are still here 5yr from now when I hit 1000. See ya then...!

Tghis will be my very first post in the WIP section. This kit is special to me for a reason. A long time ago (35+ years) a fellow modeler asked me how many models I had completed. I told him about 300 or so. Since I had kept almost every one and they were all in display cases it would be easy to count. I came up with 298. This won't do. That weekend I finished two, one of them was a Mercedes 300SL. Since then I have kept all the box tops and numbered them. This particular build happens to be number 900. Not bad considering I have been building since 1963. Below are 3 pictures of what I will be up against and some more info. Da kit. Purchased this one as soon as it came out. As a Ferrari fan it was a gotta have. Started it right away and di a little pre4liminary construction with what I could at the time. then got discouraged. Next pic and you will see why. This is the Perfect Parts pack I purchased form F-1 Specialties around the same time. Tons of photo etch and extras. some very tiny and at the time way beyond my skill level. Here is all the rest of the parts all laid out. You can see some of the things I started. Wheels and tires, front nose and some of the metal suspension. Next up will be some serious parts sorting and notes. Should be interesting.

This is a great kit. Your WIP makes me want to finish mine. Your engine and chassis are real sharp. This will be a great finished model.

Mark...despite all the problems this one came out real sweet. Those chassis were awesome too. Great job. Can't wait to see the other two.

Doug...this was time well spent. You did a great job. I especially liked the interior which matched the outside color (also great) to a tee.

What REALLY should be at the end of the rainbow.

I remember these kits as a kid. Never built one. Its cool to see one done. Thanks for the post Emre.

Very nice build. I am a big fan of red Ferrari's and this one just hits the spot. The Fujimi Enthusiast series are great kits but not for the faint of heart. You proved you have what it takes.

Very Nice build....t hat color rocks.

Really like this project Dave. I am always amazed at how you end up with such beautiful models compared to what you start with.

This is my first 3d printed resin kit. It is made by a company called Micron and I believe they are located in Bulgaria. Purchased this off Ebay but they have a FB site. Took almost 6 weeks to arrive but that OK...I had plenty of other things to do. A very simple kit with few parts but the quality was very good. Instructions left a little bit to be desired but I managed. Body primed and sanded with little effort. Coloer is Tamiya LP2 white (50%) and LP39 (50%). Build details and note in the picture captions. Thank you for looking and comments welcome. Interest shape. This is the only model of this very early Chaparral that I know of. Decals were minimal and not very good. I made my own roundels abd the numbers came from extras. Wheels did not steer in this kit but I fixed that. Interior was pretty stark. I had to find an extra seat as the kit only had one. Added a few other details as well including the mesh screens on the hood. Front end view. Note the chin spoiler. Hall's earliest attempt at aerodynamics. Car is not as pretty as the later Chaparral 1's but it was a start. Not much reference on this model and few pictures. Whats here is fairly accurate though.

Some impressive modeling skills there Ken. Not many of us have the guts to take a block of anything and turn it into a model. And have it turn out to be as sweet as this. Congrats.

Pierre..this BMW is a favorite of mine. I have a picture of my two children taken at the Watkins Glen Historic races many years back , of them standing in front of the real car. So this is special to me and I have a whole section in my case of these kits completed , mostly box stock since they were done so long ago,. Will be interested to see what magic you perform on this one. Your WIP's are always a treat.