Goodsmile Racing 911GT3R Hatsume MIKU Type B

[Peter Lombardo]

I haven’t had much time this summer to do any modeling mainly because my wife, in a moment of juvenile delusion on July 1^st, (really more accident than anything else) jumped off a 3 foot high deck backwards and broke her right leg. Lucky for the both of us we didn’t have to shoot her, but we did spend most of the night in the Emergency Room of the Hospital she works at (She is an Operating Room Nurse), well not this summer……this summer she is a couch potatoette with her husband (me) waiting on her hand and foot.

As a side note (this has nothing to do with the build here, so you don’t have to read it, but I did put some effort into writing it, so reading it is the least you can do….if you know what I mean), I have to tell you, the experience we had at the ER (remember, my wife is an employee of this hospital, so you would expect she would get….well, lets not say “special treatment” but lets say “enhanced treatment” since they have a vested interest in her rapid recovery), was, and I am being kind here, a joke. It is no wonder that the healthcare system is all screwed up and going broke rapidly so it is no surprise that it is full of high cost and inefficiency. Consider our experience on a Friday night in a suburban, well regarded hospital as proof of that charge.

It is a little before 9:00pm, I deliver my wife to the entrance, find her a wheel chair, which took some searching, bring her into the receptionist and go out to find a parking spot for the car. When I return to her, the first thing I notice is that the waiting area is jam full of customers…..I mean, are they giving something away for free here?????? Oh yeah, come to think of it they are. This is a large room with many rows of seats and there was only one or two seats available here….come on, is the ER that popular a place on a Friday night? Any way, when I find her she is answering questions from the receptionist who is recording the info….you know, who are you, what happened, do you have insurance (most important question, I am sure) were you drinking, do you have any allergic issues with pain killers….you get the idea.

Once done, I wheel her over to one of the vacant seats and sit down with her in the wheel chair next to me. She then informs me that she was told she would be “fast tracked”….ok, sounds good to me…..I really don’t like hospitals so if this will get us out of here quicker, I am in favor of this idea. Even as just a healthy guest, hospitals give me the “willies”…..maybe because the majority of the times I visit one it is to say goodbye to an older extended family member who is getting ready to take the “redeye” to the great beyond. Besides, hospitals seem to me to be the germ epicenter of the universe. Pneumonia contamination springs forth like corndogs at a state fair. Just about every person I know who spent any time in the recovery wards of a hospital got to enjoy pneumonia and the obligatory antibiotics up close and personal for a few weeks. Like I said, I want to avoid hospitals as much as possible….but there we were on a Friday night hanging with the contusions, lacerations and hematomas which are mostly the result of domestic violence or ones own poor judgment, as in my wife’s case.

About 10 minutes later they call my wife’s name and we are told we can follow the yellow arrows painted on the floor….So this is the way to “fast track” land….kinda like the Wizard of Oz, except that these are arrows, not bricks….we head off down the hallway, turning left then right a little further down the hallway…following along, then right again, a short way down and we come to a door where the yellow arrows lead right up to the bottom of it. I look around and find the little square metal button on the wall to hydraulically open the door. Once through, we see the arrows leading off to our left again, we follow them around a bend to the right and down the next corridor. I am beginning to feel like a rat in a maze…are they testing us to see if we can make through it to find if we are worthy of “fast track” status? Seriously, we must have made 15 turns before we finally arrived at the next checkpoint in our journey.

We enter a doorway where we find another receptionist. He acknowledges my wife and begins to ask her all the same questions that the first receptionist asked 20 minutes ago. The only difference being that the first receptionist was a woman and this was a young man…..nice to see that the hospital does not discriminate sexually. After his list of questions are answered, and responses noted, we are handed off to a nurse wearing scrubs who takes us to an examination area at the far end of the room enclosed with curtains. This is a large room with a number of desk and counter areas and a number of computer stations scattered around. There are at least 8 people in this room, all going about their business moving papers and walking around…..some appear to be nurses and others appearing to be technicians although without a trained eye (remember my wife is a nurse so she labeled all of the players for me) you would never know the difference.

A half an hour goes by and the same nurse who directed us to the curtained area in the first place comes over and begins to ask my wife the very same questions that the two other people asked….to quote Yogi Berra, “It's like deja-vu, all over again”…...come on, again with the same questions? Is this a test to see if she would change her answers? Is this a criminal interrogation? Really…do you think this is a little redundant? After we go through the series of questions again, this rocket scientist of a nurse thinks her leg may be broken (you think? A possibility maybe?) and wants to schedule an X-Ray session for her leg and ankle. Remember, we are there for now about an hour and fifteen minutes and they finally think an X-Ray is in order! She tells us to sit tight and she will get that scheduled…..sit tight? Did she really expect my wife to get up and try and leave?

So we are just sitting there making small talk, you know….”does it hurt?” “Is it swollen?” “Can you wiggle your toes?” “Why did you do such a stupid thing?”….actually, that last question never got asked, I know better, but I was thinking it. Time is just ticking away in slow motion. I am sitting there watching this cast of characters moving about the room, looking busy but not really doing anything. I mean, I have been in business for over 45 years….I know when someone is actually working, and when someone is pretending to be working, but really just making 20 minutes of work last for over 2 hours.

It is like going to the Motor Vehicle inspection station. It takes me 30 minutes from the time my car is brought into the actual inspection area to get through the process whether there is a huge line, or I am the only car there. These guys have one speed and that is a “gear change” short of reverse.

So we are sitting there…..every now and then the nurse walks by, smiles and says “someone will be right with us”…..or that ”the X-Ray” is being scheduled”, we smile back, but really, I am shooting daggers at her with my eyes and mumbling all sort of unpleasant things I would like to do to them if I had the chance.

After, what seems like an eternity, another female nurse type person comes into our open front cube and introduces herself as a Physician’s Assistant (is there such a thing?) and…..wait for it……..you guessed it, begins to ask the very same questions of my wife. What is going on here? Did we just fall down the rabbit hole? Is she Alice from Wonderland? My wife could see that I was getting really agitated and began begging me not to embarrass her in front of the people that work in the hospital she is employed at. Believe me; it took all of my self control for me not to lash out at the ridiculousness of this process.

And I need to point out, as I am sitting there; I am watching every “guest of the establishment” getting the same kind of “we don’t really care why you are here” treatment. I am watching this…..every so often one of the nurses or PA’s goes to a cube, says a few words and retreats back to the desk area to shuffle some more papers around and look busy.

So for the fourth time this evening, my wife explains to her who she is, what happened and why we were sitting in the ER at after 11:00 pm on a Friday night. She proceeds tells us the obvious…..they need to take an X-Ray to determine if her leg is actually broken or just severely sprained and she will see what the status of that request is.

Now, I try and mind my own business as much as I can, but remember, these are just curtained cubical enclosures we are in, and the sound does carry easily from one cube to the next so it would be difficult to have a “private” conversation or to not hear the reason for someone else’s visit to the ER this evening. I had noticed a couple, along with a child about 5 years of age, enter the cube next to us about 15 minutes prior. It was clear that the lady here was not very happy with her man….in fact she was berating this poor guy something terrible. I really began to feel sorry for the guy for the verbal abuse he was taking from her. It actually reached the point where the nurse had to come over and ask her to calm down and control herself. She apologized and said she would be quiet but not after she got one more “dig” in about what a “fool” he was. A few minutes later, a nurse came over and, which seems to be the custom here, asked who he was and why he was there. He began explaining that the day before, at about 2:00am he was hit in the eye. Now almost 2 days later his eye was really still bothering him. When asked how it happened, he was very reluctant sounding in his answer…..he said, “lets just leave it that I was hit in the eye”…..then the woman who was with him chimed in and told the nurse that if he ever did what he did again she would hit him in the other eye! My wife and I just looked at each other, shook our heads and smiled. Man, I am aware of domestic violence but this was the first time I experienced “angry woman on man” style and I have to tell you, it made me rather uneasy to hear it.

I know some people who say that they, on occasion, go to evening court just for the sheer entertainment of it. They claim you can hear some of the wildest situations and craziest explanations of why the police had them there at the court. I guess it is the “Jerry Springer” syndrome….people love to hear other peoples dirty laundry aired in public. Personally, I can do without it, but I have to admit it, there are some crazy people out there.

So, about 20 minutes later the Physician’s Assistant came by and said they were ready to take my wife to the X-Ray room…………it was about time….it was about 3 hours after we got the ER…….which reminds me, why do they call it the Emergency Room? The term “Emergency” imparts some kind of urgency to the situation, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t they call it the “Come on in, have a seat, tell a few people what is bothering you and maybe 3 or 4 hours from now, we’ll have a look at you Governor, ok?, Room?” Anyway, we wheel my wife off to the X-Ray room suite, where it turns out she knows all of the crew (remember she works at this Hospital), so after exchanging all of the pleasantries, she gets her leg and ankle eradiated a few times. Once completed, I wheel her back to our cubical where we wait for the verdict. 20 minutes or so later, the Nurse comes over all happy and bubbly and announces that the Technician sees no break in any bones so it just is a severe sprain. They put her leg in brace that prohibits any leg movement, proscribe some very nasty pain killers for her and tell us the Orthopedic Doctor is not in, but he will be in touch with her at some point to explain what she can expect going forward.

Now before I go any further, remember, in the beginning of my little story here, I mentioned that my wife “Broke Her Leg”….not severely sprained her leg, but broke her leg….remember that little fact.

We thanked everyone for the 5 and a half hours of entertainment and I got her back home. Home, our little house of “stairway” torture for her where every level has a flight of stairs to be negotiated……5 stairs up the front porch……..8 stairs up to the 1^st bedroom level, another 10 stars up to our bedroom level, not to mention the 8 stairs down from the living room level to the family room level or the 8 more stairs down to the basement…..you don’t think about stairs until you can’t negotiate them……………..my wife can’t negotiate them now. You should see her; she is doing the “backside crawl” to get up and down from level to level, it is actually rather humorous to watch, I know she finds nothing funny about it, but I have to admit to having a laugh about it every now and again.

As I expected, I inherited all of the duties now….cooking (ok, I already did that, being the best cook in the house), cleaning, laundry, all of the shopping, cleaning up after the cats (trust me, cleaning cat liter boxes is not as glamorous as the kitty litter manufacturers would have you believe) these boxes really do smell like…. Shhh….ok, I can’t use that word, but I know, you know, what word I was planning on using there.

Cleaning the kitty litter is just like flying in my opinion. They have sold us on a phony concept, and we always buy into it…. Remember, when the movies and the airline commercials made the idea of flying off to some exotic location so, so, oh I don’t know….glamorous! You know, you got all dressed up, arrived at the airport in a limo, sat in the frequent flyer lounge sipping at a cocktail waiting for your flight to be called. Then you hear the flight to Paris called so you and your significant other head to the gate where you walk out on the tarmac and climb those elegant outside stairs to the gleaming jetliner. Perhaps you fake a look back over your shoulder to wave good-bye, but stop and enter the plane where you are greeted by a meticulously groomed beautiful hostess in a perfectly tailored uniform, where you are shown your first class seat and offered a glass of chilled champagne. Remember when it was portrayed like that. Flown lately? It sure isn’t like this anymore, if ever it was. Today, they just want to poke and prod you to make sure you’re not packin’ some real hot “Calvin Kline’s” or maybe some “explosive” new fragrance by some up on coming designer. I just want to thank all of those terrorists out there, and you know who you are, who, through their vicious and heartless actions have taken all of the fun out of flying.

Anyway, back to my wife, Saturday morning comes and of course, I am on the golf course, secure in the knowledge that my wife has nothing more than a nasty sprain and will be as right as rain (it is pouring outside right this second….come to think of it, maybe it isn’t so right) in a week or two. After nine holes I called her to see how she was feeling and she was really down in the dumps. It seems that the Hospital finally got a “proper” Doctor to review my wife’s X-Rays and sure enough there was a “hairline” crack just below her knee. She had just hung-up from them when I called her.

Well, here we are, 8 weeks later, she is still in a brace, but we go to the Orthopedic Doctor tomorrow and hopefully she will be able to begin getting back to her life again, life without a brace….life with a car to get around in……and life to go to the store and shop again. She got a letter from the local Kohls asking why she hasn’t visited lately…..they miss her…..they miss her credit card. I am sure she will make it up to them…and soon.

Finally, on to the build.

With all of the extracurricular activities I have inherited, I haven’t really wanted to take on much of a build….I have a number of builds in the works, but no time to go near them. I wanted a more simple build to work on. Last year, I saw this kit announced on HLJ’s website in a limited production run. I had to pre-order one because I loved the way it looked. This is one of two Porsche 911GT3R Hatsume MIKU as raced by the Goodsmile Racing team in the Japanese GT3 series. They have an A and a B version car. This is the B version. The main difference is in the Anami girl on the car. I just preferred this version so this is what I ordered.

The kit is rather simple; no engine detail except for the bottom of it, but that is completely covered by the rear wind splitter defector plate.

I was tempted to open the doors, but with the rather complicated decal array on this, I thought that would be too much to deal with. So I opted to build this pretty much straight out of the box. In fact the only real modifications I made were: I opened up the front grille openings and added a black grille mesh behind them, added a small radio antenna on the roof and I added a seatbelt to the interior with photo etched hardware and Tamiya vinyl seatbelt material. Other than that, basically it is built straight out of the box which is extremely rare for me.

First, I washed the body and primed it,

lightly sanded it and painted it appliance white. When dry, it was lightly sanded and painted with pearl white. That is one of the other small changes I made….I think the pearl white looks better on this car than the plain white. Then I mixed up some Jacquard pearl pink powder with clear lacquer and airbrushed it over the center area of the car, followed by some yellow powder mixed and sprayed over the rear quarter panel area.

Then I mixed up a custom light blue/green pearl for the lower front fascia and the rear fender area. Then I mixed up a custom magenta pink to apply to the rear engine cover and above it. Once all this was dry, it got a coat of clear lacquer to seal it all.

Once that was dry, the lower layer of the striped decals was applied. They were very difficult and I used a fair amount of solvent and a hair dryer to soften them and help them to settle down on over the many contours of the body. After they were down and dry, I applied to three Anami characters to the sides and hood.

Once these were set and dry, I begin adding all of the sponsor decals. Once all was done, I sealed it all with a layer of Future and put it all together.

Edited August 22, 2011 by Peter Lombardo

[Peter Lombardo]

Edited August 22, 2011 by Peter Lombardo

[John Teresi]

Wow! ......what a summer you and the wife had........and this build,WOW!......gonna be nice man.

[Peter Lombardo]

1

Edited August 22, 2011 by Peter Lombardo

[Peter Lombardo]

I encountered two problems with the kit that if I built another one would be handed differently. First, the wheels do not sit as low in the car as I would like, so I would diffidently reset how the suspension is assembled to have a lower stance and second I would have handled the painting a little differently. The painting directions are printed only in Japanese, which I do not speak, but now having finished the car, I would have omitted the pink and yellow sections as the decals cover them, but the pictures do not make that clear. I didn’t matter that I did the painting, but it turned out to be unnecessary in the end

well, I am encounter a problem loading the last five pictures this will take a few minutes.

[Peter Lombardo]

 

 

Edited August 22, 2011 by Peter Lombardo

[Harry P.]

1

???

[Peter Lombardo]

Harry, I give up, I posted 5 pictures, I want to post 5 more on another post and I get silly code errors.....I guess you will just have do with out the finished pictures.....i am too tired to screw with this now.

[RodneyBad]

WOW!! What a story.

I couldn't write that much, let alone, remember that much.

So a Get Well to Her Soon E-card.

Porsche is looking Great and I Like the Decals.

Great job on the application. WOW!! Neat O..

[fumi]

The painting directions are printed only in Japanese, which I do not speak, but now having finished the car, I would have omitted the pink and yellow sections as the decals cover them, but the pictures do not make that clear. I didn’t matter that I did the painting, but it turned out to be unnecessary in the end

There is a set of supplementary decals you can use if you paint the pink and yellow sections, that are without the painted colours.

If you paint those sections, you are supposed to cut the main decal as stated in the instruction, and use the supplementary decals in place of the parts you have cut.

[Peter Lombardo]

There is a set of supplementary decals you can use if you paint the pink and yellow sections, that are without the painted colours.

If you paint those sections, you are supposed to cut the main decal as stated in the instruction, and use the supplementary decals in place of the parts you have cut.

I encountered two problems with the kit that if I built another one would be handed differently. First, the wheels do not sit as low in the car as I would like, so I would diffidently reset how the suspension is assembled to have a lower stance and second I would have handled the painting a little differently. The painting directions are printed only in Japanese, which I do not speak, but now having finished the car, I would have omitted the pink and yellow sections as the decals cover them, but the pictures do not make that clear. I didn’t matter that I did the painting, but it turned out to be unnecessary in the end.

Edited August 22, 2011 by Peter Lombardo

[BigEdsGarage]

Applying the decals must have been more time consuming than the rest of the build! WOW! Looks great.

[Peter Lombardo]

I encountered two problems with the kit that if I built another one would be handed differently. First, the wheels do not sit as low in the car as I would like, so I would diffidently reset how the suspension is assembled to have a lower stance and second I would have handled the painting a little differently. The painting directions are printed only in Japanese, which I do not speak, but now having finished the car, I would have omitted the pink and yellow sections as the decals cover them, but the pictures do not make that clear. I didn’t matter that I did the painting, but it turned out to be unnecessary in the end.

[brett]

Sound just like New Zealands public health system too Peter. Best wishes for your wife's recovery. Not a decal job I would even fantasize about attempting but you pulled it off beautifully as usual.On the other note,yes the recent "upgrade" has sure made posting fun (sarcasm inserted there), But cant wait to see the finished product as your builds are always great to check out.

[Tonioseven]

From what I can tell, it's a fantastic build. I pre-ordered that kit as well but foolishly cancelled it at the last minute.

[Peter Lombardo]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpl3k/sets/72157627484374658/ here is the link to the Flickr site where the pictures are. Personally, I don't care for the way the "new" site here, handles pictures......I guess I am just not sharp enough to figure out how to post a second set of 5 pictures....look back 2 posts....I tried...there is the code for the pictures.......oh well sorry.

[Peter Lombardo]

OK, well that seems to have worked.....I will just put the link to my Flickr site from here on and let the pictures appear in a "slideshow" format. What do you know...not bad.

[Tonioseven]

Peter, as good as the build is, I think the story trumps it!! I enjoyed ut but I DO wish your wife a speedy recovery!!

[3men2s]

SUPER JOB, LOVE HOW IT CAME OUT

[Tony T]

Man, Peter....I can relate with the hospital story...I wish your wife a speedy recovery and you a bit of a rest as well!

The build looks great...I'd be lucky to get through the decals on that one!

[jeffs396]

Peter, as usual, GREAT work!!!

But, as Antonio said, that story! To quote song lyrics "nice story, tell it to readers digest!"

I can relate, as my bride is an ER nurse and I hear the stories

Wishing a quick recovery to Mrs. Lombardo!

[John R]

Pete,

Did you use decal solution on the Fujimi decals. If what brand? Nice job by the way.

Thanks John Roberts

[John R]

Pete,

woops, so I read thru it again and I see you used a blow dryer and solvent. Which brand of solvent?

John Roberts

[bsoder]

Well Pete having dealt with hospitals more than I ever cared to in the last coupla years, your story comes as no surprise!..really don't know when we became so totally inefficiant just about everywhere buttt....anyway I blame the lawyers