Here’s some pics of the finished Charger!
It was both a fun and challenging build! Most of my struggle was with the paint and polishing. In many ways I’ve learned a lot, which I hopefully can remember on coming builds.
This will be the last update before the final reveal pics.
I think this is as good as it gets.
I masked the entire car in preparation for painting the chrome trim. After paint it looked like this!
There’s alway a risk that paint seeps through, but it was successful.
Not quite as successful was that part of the black decals got ripped off and the clear cote on the rear stripe got damaged.
I should have known and I should have protected the decals, but kinda forgot.
I painted black on the front and filled in the damage, and used some clear cote to fill in the damage on the rear end.
With the tape gone it was time to progress with the build. After sorting a few spots on the inside roof, I painted chrome where the light should sit and added the main rear mirror.
Then I glued all the windows in place.
Once that was dry, I mounted the chassie with the body. Not entirely easy as the firewall needed to fit in its slot at the same time as I tried to spread the body to fit over the chassie.
With that done I could proceed with the underside.
I decided to mount the wheels first, which turned out to be a good idea as the metal rods had a hard time to fit and I had to drill the holes out a bit. That would have been harder to do with the front and rear end in place.
The exhaust system also caused a bit of a problem as it wasn’t entirely straight. So I had to glue one end first, let dry and then push one side down while glueing the rear end.
Next thing to mess up was the cooler and the wall it sits on. It needs to be pushed in from the front and then the fan pressed against the cooler. With some tlc and slight violence it finally got in place. Once that was in place I could glue the rear end and the grille in the front. Here it’s laying on the side as I had to paint one of the reflexes red.
Windshield wipers, battery and some other parts was glued in place.
All parts in place! 🙂
At this point the only thing missing was a few decals and the license plates.Which I sorted a little later in the evening.
I’ll go over it and try to correct a few spots where the colour have been scuffed off. Then it’s time for the final reveal pics.
Or to be precise, it arrived yesterday. Delivery to the door!
Looks nice with a box with handle and all.
I ordered the colour set last weekend and got them yesterday, which I think was very fast.
I’ll try them out as soon as possible.
I’ve been struggling with the paint from the start. Partly because I’m not used to paint cars that are supposed to be glossy. Lack of skills and technique is something I need to work on.
After finally having put on clear cote and letting it dry for about 2 weeks, I tried to polish it.
I started with trizact 6000 grit wet sponge/pad and carefully sanded the hood and then the roof. Trying to remove dust and other flaws. Then I used medium course polishing compound. It felt like a skin peeler. I was very careful with that and used a fine compound after that. The car looked like this afterwards.
It’s starting to get shiny but still needs some work. I used 3000 grit wet pad and worked some of the worst spots. Still very afraid that I’ll sand through.
On it again with 6000 after that and then I used Tamiyas fine compound before I used the very fine polish.
It’s better but it’s possible to see where I need to do more work. Feels like quite a lot of orange peel in some places. I’ll try to be as careful as I can and polish some more.
I also feel like I could use some really fine polish to finish it off with when I get that far.
This kit is set as a test kit for me to learn the skills so it’s okey if I fail, but I still want to try and make it as good as possible.
I started building this kit as I was waiting for the clear cote on my Charger to dry properly.
My eldest son got it as gift many years ago, but he wasn’t really interested in building it.I asked if I could build it for him, and he approved of that.
I started prepping the body and started building parts of the engine.
As I’ve got myself a paint booth, I decided to try better colours than acrylics. The booth sits on the side of the desk right now, but needs to be placed in a better position as it takes too much space on the desk.
While trying to figure out the best location for it, I decided to start a bit with the interior.
After looking at pics I’m doing a mix of the instructions and how I wanted it based on the pics.
A lot of masking and painting, one colour at the time.
I’ve started touching up a few spots and doing some detail painting. Still got some more to do, and I plan to make belts for the rear seat.
I really do like the colour combination on the interior.
Today I picked up two parcels at different locations and different content.
First I picked up this kit.
A Road Runner felt like a fun car to build!
Next thing I picked up was a long awaited paint booth.
All I need to to now is installing it in my hobby room. I also need to buy a led strip and a bucket with lid so I can tuck the hose there later. And hopefully it will do what is required of it, meaning drawing out paint particles and fumes so I can avoid setting off the fire alarm, and also give me opportunity to paint with other colours than acrylics.
Music and Model building 