The search for a decal safe clear coat

After the nightmare with the clear coat, I was wondering what caused the decal to dissolve in the clear coat. Could that be the decal softener that I put on? I dig around and found in a forum that a lot of people had problem with Tamiya TS13 clear coat and Cartograf decals. That was exactly the same combination! A wet coat over naked decal will destroy them! Some people recommend Mr. Hobby. Let's see how Mr. Hobby turn out.

BAR 006 10

Horrified to see the clear coat dissolved the decals... Major, major setback.

My only choice now is to strip and repaint the who thing, and redo all the decals.

BAR 006 9

Washing and detailing my Nissan 350Z used to be my therapy. Every Saturday, I drive down to a coin-op car wash place in Cambridge and then spend hours washing and waxing the thing. I can completely forget about the entire world for a good couple of hours and then drive home in a shiny car. Well, that car is long gone, and I am not going to spend my time washing and waxing the Subaru. Now, my only escape from reality is building model cars. Even today, when I should have been studying for my PMP exam, I spend the entire evening putting decals on the car. I desperately need to escape from reality today, some old baggage came back to haunt me.

The result: all decals on the body are done. I'll let it dry overnight, rinse it tomorrow and then clear coat.

BAR 006 8

My ultra-slow progress continues. Only managed to put on a couple decals this weekend.

One major issue for this car is the lack of reference out there. I have been trying to gather as much photographs as possible through internet search, browse through F1 websites to look for 2004 Japanese GP pictures, bought 2 old copies of F1 Modeling. Still, information is very limited. Reference is always hard to find for cars in the middle and the back markers. It's even worse when the car has tobacco sponsor's advertising on.

For GP winning cars and championship winning cars, there are plenty of pictures. But there are other cars on the grid too. A lot of them are beautiful machines that just did not win a lot of races. They deserve a bit of coverage in the press.

Received the FDS Porsche in the mail. Very disappointed. Should have learned that FDS' quality from previous kits. To make matters worse, the car is the white 1976 number 5 Kremer-Vaillant Porsche 935, not exactly the green one that I am looking for. The casting is terrible. Not sure what I should do with it. And I am not going to worry about it until I finish this BAR 006.

BAR 006 7

Started putting decals on. Finding reference photo of BAR 006 is a problem.

In the background is a Ferrari 641 French GP. Got the body all cleaned up and polished. But it is not the next project. The next project will not be a F1 car. Bought a FDS Vaillant-Porsche 935 K2 Turbo from eBay. When I was small, I put together a 1/20 Martini Porsche 935 and my brother put together a Vaillant one. Of course, those 2 models were long gone. I will build the 1/43 version for my brother. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish it before his birthday in November.

BAR 006 6

Blemishes fixed, primer dried and lightly polished, then a coat of gloss white. Now, time to let it dry.

In the time being, 2 very important things arrived. F1 Modeling vol.23 and the polishing compound that I ordered. Nowadays, there aren't a lot of hobby stores left. Kids now only play video games and do not build models like we used to.

BAR 006 5

Finally started painting.

Sprayed the body with white primer. Need to polish the body before spraying gloss white.

 

Update 4/20/2012: Fixed some blemishes and re-sprayed another coat of white primer. Will need to wait for it to dry, again

BAR 006 4

Got an email from PMI that my PMP exam eligibility will expire by the end of June. Ooops, so I quickly registered to take the test in the end of May. That means I only have about 1.5 months to prepare for it. So, instead of building models, I'll be spending my free time studying. Anyways I have to wait for the 2 copies of F1 Modeling that I bought from eBay to arrive before I really can continue. I need those reference pictures to know where the black parts are painted or naked carbon fiber.

Starting to mount the pieces on tooth picks to get ready for primer. That's all I did this weekend. Not going to spray at least till I come back on Thursday.

My order finally came in. I stopped by Marty's store on Saturday to pick up 2 1990 Ferrari 641, 1976 McLaren M23 and 1976 Ferrari 312T2. I ordered the M23. But at my current pace, I have no clue when I will be able to touch them.

Weather has been nice in Chicago lately. And Holland Bulbs are blooming along Michigan Avenue. Very pretty.

BAR 006 3

Continuing the slow progression. Front suspension test fit.

I think I need help

I am not a Ferrari fan. Yes, it has a very colorful racing history. Yes, they made a number of amazingly good looking race cars and road cars. Yes, I did dream of driving one when I was in grade school (who doesn't?). When I started to get interested in F1, it was during the ground effect car era followed by the turbo era. It was a period when Ferrari was not the best on the grid.

So, why am I buying so many Ferrari models lately? Unbuilt ones in stock include: 312T2 (FDS), 312T3 (Tameo Super kit), 312T4 (SRC), 640 (Raccoon), 643 (Meri), F93A (Tameo), 412T1 (Tameo), 412T2 (Tameo), F2000 (BBR version and Tameo). One simple reason is I like building models, but I am not too fond of complex paint schemes. Ferrari, being just one color (except F93), and no complicated livery means that, not much masking and not much decal softener work needed.

Besides Ferrari's, my recent purchases also included a number of Williams and McLaren. Williams FW11B (Tameo), FW14 (Tameo), FW14B, FW29, and a McLaren MP4/22.

And I have 4 more on order: a 1976 James Hunt McLaren M23, 1976 Niki Lauda Ferrari 312T2 and 2 Ferrari 641/2...

I am probably compensating for those childhood years when Mom and Dad (typical Asian Parents) kept me from building models thinking that my favorite hobby would distract me from my school work. Haha.

BAR 006 2

A lot of progress was made in buying kits off eBay than building this BAR006. Partly because I went snowboarding the past 2 weekends.

Progress was slow, but not without any progress. I put the rear wing together, got the pilot holes drilled, prepared the front suspension arms, and cleaned up a couple more tiny pieces

So far, I am quite impressed with the SLK series. 

BAR 006 1

This would be my first SLK series build. Honestly, I do not know what to expect. Unlike typical TMK kit, it has reduced number of parts, but more metal cast pieces and fewer PE pieces.

BAR 006 was the most successful BAR car with a 2nd place in 2004's constructor championship, 2 years before it was sold to Honda. I always like the look and the livery of BAR cars (except 001 which has half 555 and half Lucky Strike).

Back to the kit. Even though it is supposed to be a precision cast kit, it does not mean that there is no need to clean the flashing and smooth out the parting lines. This time, I have 2 kits on hand, so I am picking out the better pieces to use from the 2. 

Modern day F1 cars have all these winglets and vents which would be very difficult to cast in 1 piece. It is very cleverly made it into several different pieces. The main body is splitted into at least 8 different pieces.

This time, I am going to use the aftermarket racing harness set from Z-Model instead of the kit's photo-etched pieces. So, I opened up the slots on the seat with the 0.5mm drill and X-Acto knife.

I cannot open up the rest of the holes for the suspension pieces yet, I need to order some 0.4mm drill bits. To add realism, I am going to use carbon fiber decal for the suspension pieces. Not sure why, 1/43 carbon fiber decals are hard to come by. They're totally out of stock at Scale Motorsports. Luckily, they are still in stock at some vendors.

Detour

It's bound to happen. And it happened. I am setting the Ferrari 643 project aside. I thought I was making good progress on the kit but then found out interference problem when I tried to test fit all the pieces. Then I found out why... The instruction was so bad that unless you read with a magnifying glass, you would not have noticed that there are some extra bending of the photo-etched parts required. Not feel like fixing them at the moment, so I am putting the kit aside.

Simtek S951 Complete

Finally done. Too many blemishes here and there, it's another 10 footer.

Simtek S951 13

Skipped town last weekend, only work done was putting the rain light on and painted 3 out of 4 hub centers. Why only 3 out of 4? When I was putting the hubs on the wheels, one of the hub center fell off (bad application of adhesive?), I set it aside and have totally forgotten about it. After I painted 3, I noticed that the 4th one was missing. I freaked out for moment. I thought it fell off when I was painting the hubs, so I looked around my work bench and wasn't able to. Just when I was going to throw the towel, I open up my parts bin (where I keep all the pieces when I unbox a kit) and saw that tiny bronze turned hub piece sitting inside the bin! What a relief!

Remember the barge boards? The two which I managed to broke or lost all 4 support brackets? I decided to fabricate the supports. I bought a reel of 24 gauge (close to  0.6mm in diameter) anodized metal wire (black anodized, saved me time to paint them) from the art supply store, drilled out the plates with a 0.6mm drill and glued 4 short pieces on. Then bend and trim them. The result is not too bad.

The last 2 tasks outstanding:

• install the antenna
• attach the 4 lug nuts

Should be able to finish next week.