| Next I had to fabricate the new roll bar out of brass rod. I measured the space and bent the rod to fit, then soldered in the cross brace. After filing and sanding it smooth, the rear supports were attached and the whole thing was painted gloss black.
I also primed and sprayed the air box gloss white. Bit of a problem here, as when I initially sprayed it, the tape I was using to hold it down gave way and the part was blown away. So after cleaning it up, I started over and eventually got it a nice, smooth, gloss white. The body had been curing for a while, so now was the time to lay the first color coat. Again, I decided to use the Badger airbrush colors - in this case I decided on "scarlet" - which looked like a very nice Ferrari red. I have to say I can recommend the Badger colors, as they flow through the airbrush very well right out of the bottle. I sprayed two light coats followed by two heavier color coats, then set the body aside to cure. |
|||||||||
 |
Once the body had cured for a couple days, I masked off the front wings and painted them Tamiya gloss white. I got good coverage after about three coats. Unfortunately, when I pulled up the mask some of the white had run under the tape a little, so I had to clean that up. I got most of it up with water, then a light polishing took out the remainder. The front vents were given a wash of black to highlight them. The lower section of the body is bare aluminum, so the body was masked and then sprayed with Model Master silver. Finally, I used a very fine indelible marker to highlite the seams - doors, front clip, engine cover, etc. Now, on to the decals. |
||||||||
| Decals went on smoothly, just needed a little bit of MicroSol on the back wing to make the decal lay down. Otherwise they all went on very easily. This seems to be typical of a PM kit - I've rarely had any issues with decals. The model was then set aside to let the decals dry. About two days later, the model got three coats of Tamiya clear gloss. | |||||||||
| After the gloss had dried, body was mated to the chassis, and the final touches were added: wheels and tires, the vacuformed windshield and the tripod rear view mirror.
The mirror was a pain, and I did get some slight fogging of the clear gloss where it attaches to the body. It's pretty goofy-looking, if you ask me - and I'll bet it vibrated like crazy when the car was at speed. The wheels were painted Tamiya gold, and the Avon decals were |
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
| added to the tires (not shown). Note that since then it's been pointed out to me that the car should be running Firestone tires - which should have been obvious to me since there's a great-big Firestone sponsor decal on the front clip. Talking about a brain fart...
One note: the "indelible" marker (aka Sharpie) that was used to highlite the seams got a bit fuzzy after the clear gloss was applied. In the future I'll add this detail after the gloss overcoat! As a final step, the body was given a once-over with Novus 2 and then Novus 1, to give it a nice shine. Overall the model went together very well, and creates an acceptable replica. |
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
| References: | Vintage & Historic Racing Cars, by Alex Gabbard | ||||||||