Tamiya Alpine 1600

[Aaronw]

I got a Tamiya Alpine A110 1600 SC, and it is a great looking kit. I think this is actually my first Tamiya car kit, built lots of Tamiya tanks, planes even a ship or two, but never one of their cars that I can recall.

Anyway the body is molded in a really attractive metallic blue, and I'm actually considering leaving it bare and just buffing out the plastic. I always paint, but this one really has me questioning which way to go. One of my concerns is filling gaps, there really isn't anyway to cover up and putty used.

Anyone build one of these? Is it realistic to leave it bare or is that a really bad idea?

[CAL]

I knew a guy who built a bunch of Tamiya kits and never painted them, just polished the bodies and they came out pretty darn good.

They might even be better with a coat of future or two.

[jbwelda]

if you dont see any swirls or blemishes in the plastic, it ought to polish out pretty nice. i think i would paint it personally but polishing the plastic or maybe shooting some tamiya clear over the plastic and then polishing that would suffice.

[samdiego]

I considered the same options but mine had just enouogh swirl in the metallic to make me go with paint. Tamiya's Mica Blue is close to the box color. alpinerenault.com has some good reference photos. Great kit.

Edited March 5, 2008 by samdiego

[MrObsessive]

Aaron, I don't know if you're planning to enter a show with this, but if you are........I'd paint it if it were me.

Nothing's more disappointing if I'm a judge at a show to see a nicely built model------only to see daylight seeping through because the builder couldn't/wouldn't primer and paint it.

I frankly think it's a compliment if someone mistakes a model for a diecast..............that tells me a good enough job was done to making the model appear as solid and metal like as possible.

[curt raitz]

Aaron

met you at the NNL West...sold you the Alpine

I don't know about Tamiya' blue plastic...but most of their plastic is somewhat translucent

so if you don't paint the outside...the final color might change depending on what color is painted on the inside of the body

had this happen on a Ducati motorcycle...red plastic looked great, clear coated it, painted inside flat black and the nice pretty red became a nice pretty dark red...didn't look bad just not the right shade of red

my recomendation is use Tamiya's spray paint - you won't lose any detail with their paint

have fun

[Aaronw]

I'm going to paint it, between the swirl comment (there is a mild one right on the roof) and just in general my need to paint that just seems to be the way to go. Also looking at the parts it seems unlikely that I wouldn't find areas that really needed some paint.

I was just stunned when I opened the box, I'm used to white, grey, maybe red or black plastic on occasion, this is cast in a really nice metallic blue and metallic grey. Curt you told me it was a nice kit when I bought and you were right. I think I'll be getting a few more Tamiya kits in the future.

My wife is heading into town tommorrow, I guess I'll have her swing by the Hobbytown and grab me some of that Tamiya Mica Blue paint while she's there.

[samdiego]

Here's mine in Mica Blue

Edited March 6, 2008 by samdiego

[jbwelda]

erik, my lhs has this model (or had it anyway, havent been there in a week or so) on sale real cheap, like maybe it was 15$ or so. if you want me to check it for you, PM me and we can discuss it. it will mean tax and shipping so maybe you can get it locally, but if not, i would be glad to pick one up for you.

[Nick F40]

Here's mine in Mica Blue

NIIIICE!

[Aaronw]

Nice job on your Alpine. I got paint on mine this weekend. I ended up going with Tamiya's Light Metallic blue which is a perfect match to the plastic, you can barely tell the difference between painted and unpainted. I can't take the credit, I showed the kit to my wife when she was headed into town and asked her to find me the best match, she did good. It was between the Mica blue and light metallic blue. I'm watching out for the Monte Carlo version of the kit as well, maybe I'll do it in Mica blue just to be a little different from this one (other than all the racing decals on the Monte Carlo version).

I painted the 240Z I'm building with Tamiya Italian red and wasn't really impressed, not bad but certainly not 3x the price of my standard Krylon nice. The metallic blue however practically painted itself, its probably one of the nicest paint jobs I've done right out of the can. The Tamiya primer is nice too, dries very quickly.

[bsoder]

Whass up Aaron...looks like you've changed directions a little bit, nothing like variety to keep it interesting B)are ya gonna get us some pics?

[Aaronw]

Whass up Aaron...looks like you've changed directions a little bit, nothing like variety to keep it interesting B)are ya gonna get us some pics?

Yeah, sometimes its nice to build something actually following the directions. I have been having a really hard time staying motived on some of the more complicated builds I have laying around. I picked up a couple of sports cars at NNL West and thought I'd give them a try to get over my builders block. I only finished 1 build in 2007 and that was a 1/72 WW1 biplane that took me 2 days to build. I'd like to do a lot better in 2008.

You will definately be seeing more builds with lights and sirens on them from me in the future.

I'll get some pics up as soon as I have something worth showing. I think Group Builds and WIP posts were part of my problem, to much time thinking and yacking not enough time building.

[samdiego]

Thanks. Here's a shot of the other end. As I found on their website, just about any color works. These things have quite a racing history in Europe. I don't think I've ever seen a real one.

I just white-glued the fog lamps on for that shot. It looks better without IMO and matches the 1:1 also. I was really impressed with the adhesive back photoetch.

Edited March 25, 2008 by samdiego