Jaguar E-Type 1962 Le Mans

[Smilesperhour]

I'm still playing around with some airfix kits as scrap cars to work out a good brush painting technique. Although I nipped outside and spray painted 1 of them just so I could have at least 1 kit under my belt!

 

I hope to get withing a quarter of Pierre's mastery of a brush. 

[absmiami]

Ok thanks  Now quick

delete  your answer ….

[MarkJ]

14 hours ago, Pierre Rivard said:

It took time and experimenting to develop a system that works, starting with surface prep all the way to clear coat, but to answer your specific question I would say yes, the retarder is the secret sauce to achieve a smooth brushed on clear coat.

I will second that assessment. the retarder allows the clear to lose the ridges caused by the brush. Makes it act more like future does. But the percentage is very important, and Pierre has certainly figured that out.

[Pierre Rivard]

In one of these rare "I feel good about scale modeling" moments, here it goes after the second clear layer brushed on with the "secret sauce" 

If I polish it it might just be with Tamiya fine and finish compound as Mark suggests.

 

[MarkJ]

Pierre, when do you plan on painting the headlight bezels? Should you do that before any polishing that you might do?

[Randy D]

Pierre,   Very impressive paint work my friend!!!

Those Webbers are looking mighty fine:)

Randy   

[Pierre Rivard]

16 hours ago, MarkJ said:

Pierre, when do you plan on painting the headlight bezels? Should you do that before any polishing that you might do?

Actually the race car did not have the chrome bezels, just the lexan covers fixed with screws. The way the kit is designed is cover into bezel into body. Without the bezels the covers are too small to fit into the headlamp openings. What I should have done is making a lip into the opening but I felt it would be beyond my ability with these compound curves. So I chose to de-chrome the bezels and integrate them to the body. I should have sanded them down more to blend them into the body more. My bad...

[Pierre Rivard]

13 hours ago, Randy D said:

Pierre,   Very impressive paint work my friend!!!

Those Webbers are looking mighty fine:)

Randy   

Thanks Randy. Happy with the paint but not with the carbs. The material Shapeways uses for printing these is unworkable...grainy and brittle.

Anyhow, I decided to make the best of them as I declared this build a "sweat and spares" project. No fancy stuff here.

I just finished the engine

 

[MarkJ]

That engine looks pretty Awesome to me. It could pass for a 1:1 replica. Looks like real metal.

[Smilesperhour]

That's a beautiful looking engine. Packed with detail

[Gramps46]

1 hour ago, Smilesperhour said:

That's a beautiful looking engine. Packed with detail

X2

[SpikeSchumacher]

That engine looks amazing Pierre ?

[Pierre Rivard]

Thanks a lot guys. Putting the finishing touches and trying to figure out how to do the oil lines in tight spaces. Engine compartment should be done tomorrow.

[AmericanMuscleFan]

WOW, great job Pierre, you have great skills, your work is of great quality.  Sorry I didn't comment earlier, I don't come regularly to this section but I will come back for sure!

This engine is spectacular by the way! ?

[Pierre Rivard]

Chassis (minus exhaust) is completed. Engine installed and plumbed. No construction pix of underside because I basically built as is. Some mild weathering added. I'll do the exhaust at the very end with mods to remove mufflers.

 

[Belugawrx]

Looking good Pierre, just enough oily grime !

??

Cheers

[Pierre Rivard]

15 hours ago, Belugawrx said:

Looking good Pierre, just enough oily grime !

??

Cheers

Thanks Bruce. Looking at the pics I see a few spots that could use a bit more weathering but it's pretty much done. 

[absmiami]

The A arms look good with the added wash of paint - and the Revell frame looks a little better than the Heller frame  …

[MarkJ]

You can tell you're on the home stretch, but here is maybe a dumb question. Is the interior staying red or did I miss something from earlier posts?

Edited February 16, 2023 by MarkJ

[Pierre Rivard]

38 minutes ago, absmiami said:

The A arms look good with the added wash of paint - and the Revell frame looks a little better than the Heller frame  …

Thanks...I guess. I took the easy way out. If it was you we would be looking at lovingly crafted brass A arms.

[Pierre Rivard]

38 minutes ago, MarkJ said:

You can tell you're on the home stretch, but here is maybe a dumb question. Is the interior staying red or did I miss something from earlier posts?

Nope, interior is next, gotta add roll bar, fuel tank, spare tire etc...and it won't be red.

[MarkJ]

13 minutes ago, Pierre Rivard said:

Nope, interior is next, gotta add roll bar, fuel tank, spare tire etc...and it won't be red.

Good. That would have looked crazy.

[MarkJ]

Okay , I'm missing my fix of great building to watch. I hope you haven't finished it already and put it in the finished forum.

[Pierre Rivard]

4 hours ago, MarkJ said:

Okay , I'm missing my fix of great building to watch. I hope you haven't finished it already and put it in the finished forum.

Still a long way to go sir. I still need to do all the exterior glass with that delicate edge painting, plus all the exterior trim bits and all of the interior with race hardware mods. For now I have completed decals and Future seal coat. I made a mess of the nose number. The white round decal would not conform to the hood bump so I removed it but a part got stuck and was impossible to remove. So I decided to cover it with one from a Gofer sheet and disaster struck again, same problem... so anyway I fixed it as best as I could. Looks ok in pictures but it's bumpy. Bummer...

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by Pierre Rivard

[Gramps46]

Looking good.