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.
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.
Here’s a pic of the damaged decal.
I assembled the tires and used some Tamiya black panel liner around the lug nuts.
After trying to adjust the stripes, it looks like this.
I used panel liner again to black out the grille a bit.
I wasn’t entirely happy with that so I added more black later.
I thought I use polyurethane gloss varnish to get a nicer and hopefully harder surface so I painted a few parts with it.
I thought that looked alright so I decided to paint the hood and body as well.
That didn’t go as well.
Not sure if I flooded the colour too much as it started to puddle. As it dried it got a bit more even, and I decided to try and wet sand it and do another cote on top.The varnish looked hard and nice on the front and rear parts and after a day I thought it would be hard enough to sand a little, but then this happened.
The varnish started rolling off and had a rubbery consistence. I guess I’m not patient enough. Anyway I removed the varnish to the best of my capability, and then had a go with Vallejos gloss varnish for metal colours. I did a try on the hood.
Maybe not perfect, but a lot better than I had hoped.I’ll lay a cote or two on the body as well and hopefully that will work out okey as well.
My idea is to try and polish it later, but this time I’ll wait at least a week.
I used the decals for the wood panels and instruments.
I think it turned out pretty nice!
While the decals was drying I assembled the front and rear assemblies.
After touching up and giving the seats a bit of clear varnish the interior parts looked like this.
Then the interior was assembled.
I glued the firewall and did a test fit of the interior and engine on the chassie.
By the looks of it, it seems to fit very well.
I realised that I had missed painting clear varnish on the firewall, so I masked off the interior and varnished it with some of the other parts.
The body also got gloss varnish.
I actually gave the body another cote of varnish before starting to add the decals.
The decals on the hood was fairly easy and only required some slight poking and some microsol to look nice.
The stripe on the back was a whole other story. It went fairly well on the left side and on top of the trunk, but the other side didn’t fit with the opening for the reflex on the side.
After trying to get the decal look right it started falling apart so I didn’t dare work anymore with it.
I put on the rest of the decals on the body and will let it dry properly before I continue.
My idea is to use white and pink to try and rectify the broken decals.
I’ll see how things work out.
The engine was painted and assembled, and then I painted details.
I masked the center console and painted chrome.
I also painted chrome on the side panels.
There’s still a few spots that needs some touching up.
After priming the body I realised there was a few mould lines to take care of.
Some sanding later and also some more primer.
I then tried some pink on a few parts.
Looked quite good to me.
Hood and body ready for paint.
The hood went quite well.
But for some reason disaster struck while painting the body.
I actually went to the paint store and bought some wet sanding pads in 3000 and 6000 grit.
Then I used the 3000 grit to remove as much as needed.
After that it was time for a new cote of paint.
This time it looked a lot better.
The hinges for the hood was glued in place and next I’ll paint primer on the inside and also on one more part for the engine room.
Next I’ll hopefully can paint a gloss varnish on all the pink parts.
I’ll also start assembling all the parts for the chassie that I’ve been painting but forgot to take pics of.
The colours I was missing arrived so I could continue with this build.
Several parts was painted black, and I also repainted the engine and air filter.
Some parts like the seats and other interior parts is supposed to have a semi-gloss look. It turns out I had no clear satin colour, so instead I used Vallejo’s gloss for metal finishes and painted a thin layer, thus achieving a satin look.
I gave the engine a little more paint to get a glossier look.
I need to mask the mid console and paint that semi gloss later as well.
Once everything is dry, I’ll mask the interior roof and paint white primer before painting it pink.
That way I can check for imperfections as well.
On the weekend build meeting we had last weekend that we call plastkollo (plastic camp), I bought a kit from one of the members. I thought it could be a fun build.
The kit seems to be quite nice with good fit on the parts. As usual starting with the engine that should be mostly orange. I didn’t have any orange colour and my pink colour was messy with a big lump in the bottle. It ended up in the bin.
I borrowed orange colour from a friend and managed to paint it a little to wet. Then I decided to paint most of the interior and chassie parts black. Turns out there was very little black left in the bottle. I have to order new colours and a few other things that I need.
Anyway, this is how much I got done before it was time to wrap up the meeting and go home.
Pic taken at home though as I forgot to take a pic at the meeting!
Music and Model building 