The "ANYONE-CAN-POLISH-A-DIECAST" story - part II

[mrm]

Thanks again guys. Plowboy, it was not displayed this way. I assume you mean if it was screwed down like on the pictures. I made the model for the owner of the real car and it was screwed down to be packed and shipped. I took it to the show with his permition, just because I saw in the last moment there was a diecast class-something new to me. This is the reason I did not have a whole portfolio made. And being honest even if I had the time I probably would not have done it, because I did not know better. Not hapenning again tho. Too bad I don't have the model anymore. However I have a black Mondial 8 that went through the same ordeal, but I accidentally erased all the pictures I had from the buildup process.

Someone asked about polishing. It is a simple three step process. 2000 grit wetsand, rubbing compound and then wax. I am a firm believer that good paintjob is all in the prep work before you lay the coats, instead of polishing out blemishes afterwords.

[mrm]

So, here is part two of "ANYONE CAN POLISH A DIECAST"

This part has nothing to do with any show, but is ratter addressing the mentality that diecasts are not a part of our great hobby. Up to a point this statemen would be true, but not once you cross the line of completely reworking one.

About a year or two ago, there was a internet contest organized by a European diecast forum I used to visit. I decided that I am not going to participate in the contest, because it was not fair for many reasons, but I wanted to build a model with everyone else and then I would give my creation to the winner of the contest (the contestants were not very experienced and mostly young kids) The rules were simple. Had to be 1:24/1:25 scale and based on a diecast model. The required subject was VW Golf from any production year. I had no such thing laying around, so I just went to WalMart across the street and picked up a blue Golf from Maisto for something like $9.

I had no idea what to do with it. Golfs are as far from my comfort zone as I could possibly imagine. But this was the whole idea of the contest, to show that no matter the subject, with a little creativity we can bring it IN our comfort zone, which by the way is kind of the idea of this whole story. So since I knew nothing (and still don't) about hatchbacks, I decided to mix it up with something exotic, so I could feel a little more comfortable. Now, my idols are all people with very familiar style. Pininfarina, Foose, Coddington.... in other words I like clean smooth lines and everything to flow and interwine in some way. Therefore if I wanted exotic Golf it had to be mixed with Audi as they are basically the same company. I went downstairs in my garage and found an Audi R8 kit which I have no idea what did I buy for and when. Then the headscrathing began.

I wanted to lower the Golf and to give it a more aggressive face, so I decided to graft the R8's front. The problem was that the R8 is much wider. This lead to the decision to add the fenders and then all hell broke loose. LOL

First the metal was cut right under the front bumper and then the R8 front was cut into three pieces in order to narow it and also make it more rounded in order to fit the Golf's front contour and then it was hollowed out.

[mrm]

At the rear things were a little easier, as I now started with the idea of replacing the entire rear clip with teh fenders. So I removed the rear of the Golf from under the hatch and then cut from the R8 the entire rear with most of the rear fenders and the skirts under the doors all the way to the front wheels. All this takes a lot of Dremel noise and CA fumes.

[mrm]

Now that teh car had an aggressive new skin, admittedly inspired by '80s rally cars (it did not start this way, but hey-it's what it ended up to be) I had to give it some some balls, so I started rethinking the entire model. I had the entire drivetrain from the R8, so why not. Midengined V10 it was. That meant that the entire interior, or most recognizable parts, went buy buy. But not before I went throught the nightmare of integrating the front fenders, making an opening in the hood for exit of hot air (all the space on earth for big radiator now) and shortening the tailgate.

[mrm]

While the Miliput was hardening I had to decide on wheels. Original R8 wheels, or something from the parts box.

This is what I liked and had on hand

but I wanted more factory looking wheels. So I ended up cutting the original R8 centers and putting them into Pegasus alu rings. Because of the now huge rear fenders, I reversed the rear rings to make the REALLY deep.

After I was happy with everything, the centers were dechromed and painted black and the Rims got primed and painted the color I picked for the Golf - Ferrari red, what else?

[SuperStockAndy]

Very awesome!!!

Edited January 3, 2012 by Andy C.

[mrm]

Next I removed the moldings from the doors, as they had no longer matching lines on the fenders and did not fit with the rest of the car.

Now I had my "factory tuned" wheels and all needed body panels, so I could start test fitting everything together and start working on smoothing it out.

But first I had to figure out the inside of the model, which at this point was a piece of floor with a thin outline frame.

First I grafted the center tunnel from the R8

Then some pieces from the R8's engine compartment were transferred with a firewall from sheet styrene.

The rest of the interior, save for the dash was scratchbuilt.

Edited January 3, 2012 by mrm

[mrm]

Now the V10 fitted very nicely and snug.

For seats were chosen the buckets from a Ferrari 599 which were painted in beige.

The dash was painted and detailed and so were the doors, which received only minor modiffications

Since the interior was all black, but the seats beige, I made beige accent panels on the doors, but wanted to continue them all the way back. So some of the panels in the engine compartment were painted the same color

Now everything was nicelly flowing and detailed, being color coordinated with the overall look of the car.

[mrm]

The model started receiving primer coats and putty....

...when I realized that I had still to do a rear underpanel. Fitting the factory panel with its difuser ventury was not as easylly done as I had in mind, but at the end it was there to stay and a couple of center mounted aluminum pipes were made for the finishing touch

Things were starting to look a lot better and complete now

[mrm]

After many sanding hours, finally some red paint was laid

[mrm]

Only to decide later on, that I was not happy with the color and I should try to "spice it up". So I decided to experiment with a duplicolor spraycan set I had in my garrage. It is one of these flip flop colors, that is called black ice, or something like that. They come in three step process, where the first step is flat black of some sort, then comes the pearly stuff and then clear. So I sprayed only the pearly stuff over the red I already had the car in. The effect blew me away. I was loving it and pictures don't do it justice.

[mrm]

The exhaust pipes' tips were angled to match the shape of their surround

and then fitted in the underpanel, which was already flat black

The wheels received brakes from the parts box, with the calipers painted same beige as the interior to tie things up.

The rear received quite modified grilles, which together with the two tone stoplights were massaged to blend all the shapes, openings and lines together

The front received a nice big aluminum radiator and some carbon

The front grilles were tweeked to fit in the new openings. (the original grille is on the right)

A new spoiler lip was made from styrene

[mrm]

And here is the finished piece

[mrm]

[RodneyBad]

WOW!! The VW Looks Great.

Paint Looks Great on it too.

Fantastic Bodywork...

[Haubenschild]

Wow! , very cool , It looks like something that Jay Leno would own

[CorvairJim]

First off, The Ferrari looks FANTASTIC! I don't see why a diecast model that's been modified to the extent yours was shouldn't be able to go head-to-head with any plastic model from a box that's been modified. Fine workmanship is fine workmanship and it shouldn't matter whether the builder had to dismantle it before building it or not. Hey, I like rebuilding "Glue Bombs" - Should these models be disqualified just because I had to take them apart before I built them?

The Golf reminds me a lot of the late 70's Renault R5 Turbo (a purpose-built Rally car for the street for F.I.A. homologation purposes), which had one WICkED turbocharged inline-4 mounted where the back seat would have been in an ordinary R5 (LeCar here in the U.S.) Yet another fine build. Please keep 'em coming!

[Gluhead]

Interesting thread, and shows me again that I've been away from the hobby for a bit.

First off, very nice work. While it's not my particular interest as far as subject matter goes, I can always appreciate what is required to make something our own.

Alright...allow me to wax philosophical for a minute.

It's been mentioned several times already so really I'm just echoing others thoughts here, but I believe it's a good one to spread considering all the animosity between builders and collectors. Oh...oops. See what I did there? Yep. I hit the heart of it, I think. lol. It's never really been about diecasts vs. model kits, has it. Because there's also the old thing about people who buy a model kit that someone else has built and presenting it as their own with anywhere from no changes to minor changes. Now to my mind, I struggle to find how that is any different...other than the obvious detail of mass production vs. a one-off build. While the availability of the piece in question may differ, either is still created to a "finished state" by someone else, be they a factory of workers/assemblers or an individual.

And to carry the thought a little farther, obviously the animosity between the two sects has always been due to the folks from the collector crowd (yep, this is, in my mind at least, an interchangeable term for someone who collects other peoples model kit builds or diecasts, whether they polish them and change the wheels or not. lol), is that while passion for a subject may well be there in either side, the builders express their passion in the form of creating. What did the collector create, other than a new line on his monthly statement and a little more congestion in his showcase?

But the mind is a funny thing. Sometimes things are not as they seem, as is in the case of the OP here. See, what you've done is created a variation to something labeled one thing and done so so well that to the uninformed eye would easily pass for something that was not modified. Myself, I am fairly well-versed in plastic model car kits, but I am completely ignorant in diecast subject availability. Had I looked upon your Ferrari at that show I would have had no idea if it was a car that was available off the shelf or not. I think it's safe to say that many of us could easily say the same thing.

At this point, I have to say that this could be taken as the ultimate compliment.

Clearly, you are a builder, not a collector. It's as easy to understand you feeling slighted by the cliche "Anyone can polish a diecast" as it is to understand why builders can feel slighted by the intrusion of collectors on the show tables.

As has already been said, the easiest way to counter the prejudice at a show would have to be to include a build journal with it's presentation. Understandable that you did not, in this case, after reading how you ended up taking it to the show. But even with all that the judges need to soak in during the limited amount of time they have to make their assessments and draw their conclusions, one would have to be utterly obtuse to disregard this level of effort and execution. While there will always be those out there who are...you know the old saying, there's one in every crowd, I tend to think that most are not, and in most cases any build like this will be recognized for what it is -- a very well-built model.

Personally, I hope to see more of your work.

[LAone]

got some great stuff going on here.

the ferrari looks as if it came that way and the golf is just out there bro.

looking forward to more.

[Pete J.]

As has already been said, the easiest way to counter the prejudice at a show would have to be to include a build journal with it's presentation. Understandable that you did not, in this case, after reading how you ended up taking it to the show. But even with all that the judges need to soak in during the limited amount of time they have to make their assessments and draw their conclusions, one would have to be utterly obtuse to disregard this level of effort and execution. While there will always be those out there who are...you know the old saying, there's one in every crowd, I tend to think that most are not, and in most cases any build like this will be recognized for what it is -- a very well-built model.

I concur! I think if a contest is going to have a catagory called "modified" die cast, then at a minimum there should be a requirement for a list of modifications. Idealy, it would be a before and after photo, with discription. As you stated, I think most judges are not experts on what is availible in diecast, so knowing what has been done would be the challenge. There are some very nice diecast out there, but generally, they just are not up to the standard of a comparably priced plastic kit IMHO. Taking a diecast to the level done here is a challenge. Very nice.

[Rdkingjay]

Michael, beautiful work on the VW. This is just me, but I fail to see the difference in taking a diecast apart and making it your own, as opposed to building a plastic kit. The kit contains a pre-molded body that you have to assemble and paint. A diecast, once apart, is a pre-molded body, that you have to repaint and re-assemble. A plastic kit is laid out for you with directions, a diecast is not. Granted, I believe that in order for a person to call a diecast, "his work", it should be completely disassembled and gone through/detailed, just as if you are assembling a plastic kit. A simple repaint doesn't cut it IMHO. Now the only problem with Mikes Ferrari that I can see, from a judging standpoint, is that it was done so cleanly, that perhaps the judges didn't recognize all his work and mistoke it for factory work. Its not a radical custom, but rather a bone stock looking car, that you might expect to see come out of a box. If the judges/spectators failed to recognize Mikes work, then that may be a compliment to the cleanliness of it. Keep in mind that the aformentioned are just my loose opinions, not meant to harm anyone.

[tsa375]

Hi mrm , 

Fantastic work on the Ferrari Mondial Cabriolet . I sent you a personal mail inquiring this particular model . I’m hoping for a reply . 

Tsa375

[tsa375]

Just a bump I hope mrm you can read this . Its regard w/ your work converting the Hotwheels 1/18 Ferrari Mondial 3.2 into a cabriolet . Thanks

[Paul Payne]

Well I have been building for 61 years, back when diecasts were Matchbox and Dinky Toys, usually scaled to fit the box. I do own a few bi-scale diecasts of subjects not available in plastic or resin. A favorite is the Burago 1/24th scale Bugatti T57SC. I have though for many years of taking one apart, adding realistic wheels and tires, dash, door hinges,  etc., using Gerald Wingrove's model as a guide. There should be no divide between a kit built model and a disassembled built model extensively modified, corrected, and made unique. It isn't about what you start with, it's the end result, and the learning experience that goes with it. This post may just be the inspiration to start. As an aside, Burago's plastic seems to be more like vinyl than styrene- any comments on working with this, such as paint, adhesives, putty, sanding, etc.?

Thanks again for this thread.

[slusher]

Very impressive!