Pete75

Great job. Really nice paint color & finish!

Hi. There's a discussion about it here 👍

Small interlude. Haven't been in a modelling place for a while, but am now returned! Actually, I've started to get into die-cast models recently, which led to tweaking/modding them, which has led me back to the plastic. I've started back the interior on this 944, but not much to show yet. However, the exterior has progressed quite a long way. After sanding & polishing the clear coat, it turned out there's quite a lot of black trim on this thing. Getting a clean line between the tailgate and the body proved surprisingly time consuming. You can't see very clearly above, but the indicator repeaters are actually separate clear lenses that have to be colored on the backside, then glued in from the inside. They are so tiny and tricky - at one point I spent 30 mins trying to find one on carpet! Additional pain came courtesy of the fact that they didn't fit. They would've been a snug fit even if I hadn't have put extra paint on the car body, but in the end I had to slice the edges off. When I stood back to admire the final result, I discovered the effect was much like the photo above: dark and underwhelming! I realized that, unlike all other models I've done, there was no silver behind the lenses to reflect the light. This was solved by lining the lenses with Bare Metal Foil (also required for the front lights), and they do actually pop now from some angles, although you'll have to take my word for it! Above, you can also see that I've added PE locks - a process that scares me witless, owing to the need for CA glue in the proximity of finished body work! I like the effect, but I'm not sure it's really worth the stress. I elected to fix the pop-up light covers to place because I'm not crazy about how they look in use on 944s, plus the fit isn't great on the kit, so I'd rather just set them as good as they can be and have done with it. (Also, it saves me messing about with more lenses!) The road-going license plates were included on a sprue in the kit, but not the decals. I got these from a spare 1990 BMW kit, so they'll be about right. It'll just have to be registered in Munich and not Stuttgart! The back end of this car has caused the most stress. I was always concerned about how I would color the embossed "turbo" lettering. In the end, I ended up using a Sharpie, then going over it with a fine brush in semi-gloss black. I removed mistakes with micro mesh and polish compound. It came out okay, although looks a bit blurry above because of poor focus. I always like to line lights with black marker - only that's a lot of dividing lines! The only way I could do it was by painting in the clear red & orange, then doing my best with a fine point Sharpie. I found than mistakes could be repaired by scooping out the unwanted black ink, which was sitting on top of the clear paint, then patching in with more paint. Tamiya clear pots are pretty forgiving in this regard as they don't seem to ever really fully dry. Neither the black bumper, nor the lights were a great fit. The bumper was too tight (perhaps because of excess paint, again) and ended up not sitting as far in as it should go. The light covers were too small (perhaps because I'd been over zealous in cleaning the edges with sanding sticks) so I had to brush black paint down the joints after they'd been set in place to cover hairline gaps. Not textbook, but hey. Just the mirrors, rear valance, and the glass to attach now. Then a couple more panel lines, and on to the interior...

Thanks for your interest! I'm just getting ready to start up on it again...

Thanks, Anton. Will bear it in mind for the next one, whenever that might be - I haven't been building for a while 👍

Great looking car. Came out nice! ?

Made a good start on the backseat build. This is what I'm aiming at: I drew up a mental plan, which I stayed essentially true to, although some of joints were improvised. I figured it would be easiest to create one bench, then just add the central cushion afterwards: I started by making the top four rows of stitching out of a single piece of 1mm styrene (stuck onto a backing piece, for strength), and scoring the lines with a scriber. Next I softened and rounded everything with sandpaper; I also added subtle indentations (not really visible here) which I hope will contribute to the finished effect. The same process was used for the next two rows, although each was cut and angled separately. As you can see from the underside (above), I felt my way through fixing the seat into the aperture. I built angled stacks of styrene pieces to set/reinforce the angle I wanted, and welded everything with glue. I soon discovered that the bottom of the bench was fouling the wheel arch tubs when lowered into the chassis, so, when the structure was solid enough, I used the multitool to grind off the corners. The side gaps were patched up to provide a solid backing for the filler that will give the shape for the carpeted sections. For the front edge of the seats, I've made a cushioned lip from styrene tube; this too will be blended in with filler. That's all for now. Thanks for looking!

Wow - great job! Love car and the show ?

Made a start on the scratch building. On the centre console, I added the appropriate arm cushion, plus a very basic ashtray. Also, I had a stab at making a car stereo using some photo-etch bits and pieces; I didn’t really want a blank panel there, and it’s more a more a matter of suggestion than accuracy: The floor has now been filled with Milliput and sanded, plus I made a matching base frame for the passenger seat. In the boot, I fashioned the shape of the spare wheel - which will be eventually carpeted - using a tyre as a template to cut several styrene pieces, before gluing them together, then filling and sanding. From my reference photos it seems the amount that the spare wheel protrudes varied a lot, but I opted to put mine on the more prominent end of the spectrum for the sake of interest. Whilst researching this, I noticed another little feature I can add in due course: a retractable parcel (below). Lastly, it was time to bite the bullet and cut out the section for the rear seats. It was the first time using the saw disc on my multitool, and my biggest surgical procedure to date... and I loved every second of it! After removing the bulk of the material, I refined and tidied the edges with a scalpel and files, and found the whole process to be surprisingly quick and drama free. Not often I can say that about modelling! (Edit: the photo shows cabin sat on the wrong end of the chassis - seemed to fit at the time!) Now I’m on to designing a structure for the seat. Doing some pencil chewing…

Thanks Wizzie. Lucky you! I've amassed quite a few pics lot already, but feel free to share your pride and joy! ?

Made a start on the interior... The top section of the 2+2-style rear seats is included as spare in the kit. This little extra is key to me attempting to add the rest of the seats at all, as it provides a valuable guide in addition to halving the work required. Being able to dry fit this will be key to working out everything else, so this was the first job. There are tabs on the underside which evidently should slot into the recessed lip to help locate/fix it in position, so holes for these needed to be drilled and filed. Additionally, I decided to delete some the extraneous mouldings in the boot space associated with the race interior: Having the top of the seats located will be a big help when the major surgery begins. However, that’s best left until later, as the inevitable loss of overall structural integrity won’t help whilst cutting/sanding the rest of the raised mouldings out of the cabin. I marked out the various unwanted plates/panels, cables which don’t feature in the road car; there are also a multitude of rivet heads that aren’t really visible in the photos. I’ll use a chisel blade, multitool and sanding sticks to flatten everything. Unwanted features removed, it’s time to start building back. The floor was a patchwork of different levels, so I used styrene to fill in and make it more uniform. The area forward of the front seats remains slightly raised, but it won’t be noticeable. Next, I’ll go over everything with Milliput, then sandpaper, and begin some scratch building.

Thanks JC. I had seen the Italeri 944 Cabriolet but was unaware they did a hardtop. You would certainly be the guy to know! Thanks for the info Sonny. Yep, I did actually look for some pink primer, but I couldn't find anyone stocking Tamiya rattle cans at a decent price. I haven't used it before; what do you think of it? I sure do Dennis! Thanks for checking in.

Before chopping anything, I wanted to get the body sprayed while the weather still allows. I don’t have an airbrush or spray booth, so rattle cans in the front porch is my body shop! This one will be joining 3 other painted shells from other kits I’m planning to work on over the winter. The kit is pretty cool, and comes with a detailed engine and pop-up lights. Body prep was fairly standard: a few mould lines & dimples to remove, but nothing bad. The sunroof lines needed opening up as they were only half present, presumably because the mould serves a dual road/race function. I used Dymo tape as a guide, but still took a couple of goes to get the curved corners right, hence the putty: I had a couple of issues during the painting process. There was a false start after the first coat turned out to be the wrong colour. That was easily remedied, and a more appropriate choice for evoking Porsche Guards Red turned out to be Tamiya TS8 Italian Red – despite the name! A bigger problem was the unpleasant surprise that is “white line syndrome”, due to inadequate prep on the panel lines. I tend to go heavy on the scriber, so I really should remember to properly key the grooves with sandpaper, but alas. It was particularly prevalent in this instance because I used white primer onto white plastic, whereas grey primer might’ve shown up the oversight sooner. Another lesson learned. I’ve previously developed my own fix for this issue, although I had to use it here rather more than I’d like. I had read that clear coat can serve as a primer – it does seem to work – so first I brush Vallejo acrylic varnish into the panel lines. The varnish is water soluble and easy to wipe off any excess but, after it’s dry, I run a 1000 grit sanding sponge over the line to make sure there are no raised bits. Then I mask off the rest of the body, leaving just the lines exposed, before spraying 2/3 coats of colour into them. Lastly, I sanded the whole body with the 1000 grit sponge and put another couple of coats of colour over the whole thing. The net result is thicker paint than would be ideal, but the colour’s good and I’m happy enough. (The flash makes it look more orange than it really is). Finally, I put 3 coats of TS13 clear on everything and it can be left to cure while I start work on the interior.

I've wanted to do a 944 for a while. The Hasegawa 1/24 kit caught my attention, although it is most commonly found in racing versions, whereas my inner 80s kid only sees the 944 in either in ether plain red or black. I had seen a finished model here at MCM where the builder had omitted the racing livery to create a track day car, and this struck me as a decent compromise; so when such a kit crossed my radar recently, I picked it up thinking I might to do something similar: The kit was first issued in 1987, and everything about it suggests that’s exactly how old mine is! However, everything seems present and correct (enough) now I’ve bleached the somewhat yellowed decals with sunlight to get them more presentable. They’re still not perfect, but I was never going to be using most of them. Whilst mulling over what I wanted my track day car to look like, I noticed that the sprues contained some extra parts that would’ve been included in the road car kit, including a steering wheel, two front seats and the top half of the rear seat. Interesting… For reference, I downloaded the road kit instructions from Scalemates, plus some pictures of someone else’s build (below, right), and found that the only major difference in the kits is that the lower portion of the rear seats aren’t moulded into my racing cabin: I only have a modest amount of firsthand scratch building experience, but I’ve watched a lot in these pages, plus I already have the materials, so this has become my latest project. Essentially, it is a reversal of what many 944 owners did with the real cars as they aged, and I’ll be aiming at the reference photos below. I’ve already progressed some, so updates to follow soon.

Excellent!

Nice work, well done. ?

Nice! I finished the Aoshima LP700-4 recently - also green, though not the correct one. Look forward to watching your progress ?

Excellent. That's a good looking Ferrari ?

Brilliant! Those seats are amazing - I'd love to see your technique sometime ?

? I think that might win the award for most intimidating livery, from a scale modelling perspective. Well done!

Nice! It's funny how the red hue it that nail polish doesn't show up in the photos until the fifth or sixth coat! ?

Really beautiful work!

Nice job. I like the grey interior ?

Welcome Louis. Look forward to learning some of your secrets: that Bentley is incredible!

Great job. Sure is a lot of decals to apply!