DocRob

Thank you Chris and Carl. You can call me a liar, there are only 18 parts involved . The tank filler cap is really working, just open the tiny latch on the left and put in the juice - errr - not now, because the tank isn´t installed right now. After priming some interior parts for later stages, I had an idea about how to deal with the wheels. They are made from cast white metal and were cleaned in the tumbler polisher at the beginning of the build. I thought, I have to give them a bit more shine, to keep the eyes trained on the wheels, letting some other mistakes skip . Hand polishing proved difficult and I found, a conical head M4 screw holds the rims in place in my accumulator drilling machine. Then I sanded the wheels with fine grit sanding sponges, followed by polishing with Autosol polishing paste on a cotton rag. Now, I like the result. Later the wheels will be airbrushed in black and then I polish off the higher parts which are now shiny. Of course, before airbrushing the rims will be cleaned properly. the polished left one on the pic has a lot of dirt accumulated. Cheers Rob

I will dig deeper into the primer thing, Scott. Thanks a lot for your explanations and sharing of experiences. The primer easily lifts off the white metal parts and a bit less easy from the resin. A light sanding job might help, where possible. You are absolutely right about letting painting mistakes happen and forget about them temporarily. There is nothing you can do, when the paint is wet. I try to minimize airbrushing errors due to proper preparation, but yeah, there is Murphy lurking around the corner . Cheers Rob

Poco a poco, I grind my way through the Cobra build. Today, I assembled the tank filler cap, a seemingly small task, but it involved about twenty parts and is functionally. I polished the cap itself with Autosol metal polish and added the numerous etched parts and rivets. Then I started with the steering wheel, which got primed, airbrushed in a mix of red brown color and sand. After drying, I applied several layers of dark brown and red brown oil colors, thinned with fast drying thinner for a realistic looking wood texture. Tomorrow, I will apply a clear coat as finish. Finally, I repaired the damages to the firewall and pinned the lower side to the door fairings with brass rods for enforcement, to close the gaps in this area. Cheers Rob

Thank you Scott, always great to hear some pro tips. I have not a lot of experience with car bodies, be it in real size or large scale. I will try to lay my hand on some etch primer, being it in small bottles from Tamiya or Mr. Hobby or from my mechanic, who also does body repairs. It´s fantastic, to read about how the stuff works, I had no idea. Unfortunately, the adherence on resin isn´t great either. I cleaned all the parts with alcohol, to get rid of cast residues, but I didn´t sand the parts. I will test the etching primer for sure. Cheers Rob

Muchas gracias amigos, The fumes of CA are not really trapped into the body. There are openings everywhere, there is no windshield and no rear window and the chassis is still missing. I never had an effect that strong. Maybe it has something to do with a very high humidity here, it´s about 95%. I use the same CA (Colle 21) since years for everything from wooden ships over plastic, resin and metal. Even with normal plastic kits, I often use it for ready painted parts and had no issues so far. Cheers Rob I will look into the VMS products

To do something productive and without destruction, I added details to the rear area. The rear lights were painted with Tamiya clear red, have a turned aluminum base and a small rubber ring around. Next was the feared addition of the firewall, which fitted after a lot of sanding and grinding and is held in place wit a screw. Of course, there are a lot of scratches to be repaired. I also knocked off some parts during the process, which will be added later. Then, I added the dashboard, which luckily was an easy task. Concerning CA fumes, if you are spotting into the foot wells, you notice chalky white residue. I never experience this kind of CA-fogging before and I always use the same glue and used the semi matte black often. Strangely the fogging reaches very far from the gluing area. Cheers Rob

Thank you Chris, I will respray, where possible. The Tamiya LP-5 semi matte black has a distinctive sheen and a marker would be visible. In some delicate areas, I will use a brush. Cheers Rob

Thanks for your supportive words, Carl and Chris. It´s nerve wrecking to prepare and finish all the sub assemblies, only to partly destroy them again and again during test fitting. Tolerances are extremely tight and that there is everything made up like in the real car doesn´t help either in the way of complexity. I will try to do my best salvaging the build. For some reason, the primer and paint doesn´t adhere well on white metal and resin. Scratching and paint lifting is easily done, even with Kabuki masking, which I always de-tacked thee times. One of the CA marks on the body, I might be able to polish out. but the other resulted in a paint lift down to the resin. I oversprayed it carefully and will clear coat later, but it will remain visible. I had white CA fogging onto black painted parts, which look ugly. I will see, how much I can overspray there later on with a minimum of masking, because of the risks of paint lifting. Cheers Rob

Thank you Paul, no need to feel sorry, sometimes you win, sometimes, you loose, that´s the way with challenges. There is still a chance to finish the Cobra halfway decently, but not how I wanted to finish it. I should have chosen a simpler kit, but the success with the Crocker motorcycle made me greedy. The Cobra is not the easiest choice, but others got it done, so I hopefully will pull through, however the outcome. Cheers Rob

The picture may looks like pure happiness, but it isn´t. I feel overwhelmed by the Cobra right now. Test fitting results in damages and abrasion and when I glue the parts in place, they don´t fit like planned. To add to the miserable situation, I have lots of paint lifts and fogging on the paint from CA glue. I have two spots on the body, where I fingerprinted CA glue onto the body paint and lifted or distorted the finish. I´m more than a bit frustrated. This is the sequence of building where everything is supposed to fit but doesn´t. I have to grind resin away, to get a halfway decent fit for the doors. Most of the problems occur during fitting the inner body fairings. Nonetheless, the rear hatch and the doors with windows got installed. I´m now down to maybe 80% of my achieved look and my border of tolerance is nearing quickly. I hate to make corrections for flaws, but with the Cobra, it is necessary. Don´t get me wrong, the design of the kit is fantastic, I´m just not up to it. Cheers Rob

Thank you Carl, when my wife was in Berlin some weeks ago, I let her bring different types of double sided adhesive tape back. Some transparent, some black widths spreading from 1mm up to 19 mm. Very helpful with this build and not to get sent to my island. Like you mention, the level of detail can be demanding with these kits, specially finishing the body with all the sub assemblies and mounting everything onto the chassis are steps, which need to be well planned ahead. Did you finish your Porsche? I´d like to see more of it. Cheers Rob

A triplane with three cylinders and a lot of rigging, what´s not to like, Mike. I wonder, how flying in this tiny apparatus must have been felt. Fantastic work again Mike and I love the guy sitting by his table. Cheers Rob

Sleek looking plane, Carl. Should be finished soon. Cheers Rob

This build is like a rollercoaster ride sometimes. After checking my building sequence again (very important), I decided, it´s time to add the doors, which means, I have to deal with the side windows, a task, I really feared and I was right to do so. This is, how it should be done. After drilling all the holes for the rivets with a 0,7 mm drill bit, you cut all the window panes and fairings for the sliding window from a luckily pre printed clear acetate sheet. This proved to be not so easy, it was hard, to have all the strips look equal. I tried first to use my DSPIAE profile cutter, where the blade bet slightly with the long cuts and rendered the parts unusable. I moved on to use a steel ruler and a new scalpel blade then. But how to glue everything together and align the parts perfectly, for fitting in the rivets. I decided to improvise a bit. I skipped the spacers (CS5) and used 1mm wide double sided clear adhesive tape instead. To reach the sufficient thickness, I had to apply two strips onto each other. These strips with the CS4 parts were then glued onto the window pane, trying to fit the pre drilled holes. With the second strip in place, I re-drilled the holes again, now with a 0,6 mm drill bit through the adhesive tape and then inserted the rivets. Luckily the residues of adhesive tape in the holes fixed the rivets. Unfortunately, cutting and assembling must be made on a relatively hard surface and that lead to scratches. The result looks horrible, but I think, I have to live with that, re doing the strips would result in more scratches on the window panes and I don´t have spare acetate. The only upside, the windows actually slide . Cheers Rob

Thank you Carl, the Cobra is a demanding project for sure. I can´t understand anymore, why I shied away from rigging my Duchess of Kingston wooden sailing boat . Cheers Rob