VW Kafer 1950- engine grilles

I received the PE parts produced by my friend Pawel.

First, and most difficult job was to replace the engine grilles, which by Revell look poor:

...small holes were drilled:

  

...and original grilles removed:

 ...i marked the outline of the PE part, and cut into the body to make the room for the new grilles to be glued flush with the bodywork...

...grilles in place...

 ....here with dry fitted engine lid:

SHL M11 W engine brake in

This time i present you the short video of engine run in. Thanks to cold weather, and still no snow i am able to run the engine effectively.
I believe in running the motorcycle as normal during the process, but with much more oil in the mixture- hence the blue smoke behind the machine.
Hope you enjoy the clip:

SHL M11 W- engine rebuilt.

Today i finished rebuilding the SHL M11 W from 1968.
New piston from the seventies, bored cylinder, reconditioned crank, all new bearings, and clutch.
Now i have to carefully run it in before the spring.

VW Kafer 1950- crotch cooler

Is the small things that make the difference.

We all know that devil is the details.

Looking at the body of the car i was thinking what to do to make the model stand out from the crowd, and decided to improve the crotch cooler detail. Straight from the box it didn't look much inspiring.

...so i cut the flaps out:

...the drivers side was scratch built, and set in closed position:

...and passengers side, with added mesh was set in slightly open position.

Painting exhausts- tutorial

We had the discussion on PWM forum regarding painting of exhausts on the WWII era plane. I was asked about the way i would paint the exhausts. It had to be slightly rusty, dusty, well worn, and dirty.

This is my way of approaching such subject.

The plane in mention was a Spitfire, but i don't do Spitfires, and the only exhaust i could find in my stash, was the one from Bf 109 E 4.

First stage- primer. I used the Humbroll 33 Matt Black.

I got it turbo dry by spraying the Nitro mist over it, end used the hairdryer to further enhance the curing time.

Base coat of Red Brown from Tamiya.

Microscale Matt Varnish, followed by some ligh rust pigments applied with wet brush.

Then the delicate mist of hairspray, and light coat of Gun Metal.

At this stage i dumped the part under the tap for few seconds, and started rubbing it with soft brush. Some Gun Metal wore off.

Another coat of Microscale Matt Varnish, followed by hairspray, and mist of Tamiya's Buff.
Again used the wet brush under the tap to gat some paint off.

Last stage of painting the exhausts- pigments. I used the Soot for inside of the exhaust tubes, light rust imitating fresh rust, and dark rust for the old rust. Smoke here, and there and oil stains to finish the job off

 Hope you enjoy.

VW Kafer - the body

Work on the body of the Kafer started by removing the strengthening bars from the doors, and the luggage compartment:

Holes were drilled in the roof, where the sunroof must go:

The opening in the roof done:

Inside of the luggage compartment in place. I will not fix it until the work on the body is complete:

The complete range of paints arrived few days ago. I'm drawing the plans in my head how the bug will be painted:

T.B.C....

VW Kafer 1950- Headliner

Headliner was next.

Apart from usual things like ejection points i had to deal with few more issues here.

First i corrected the shape of the headliner, cutting away the front bit where the rear view mirror meant to be fixed. In the real car it is not fixed to the headliner, but just in front of it to the body of the car.

I added the ribbing this imitating the frame of the headliner.

Dome light was scratch built using resin, brass tube, and clear plastic for lens.

I had to adjust the dome light fixing point, as i got it wrong first time.

Assist straps were also scratch built, along with the fixing plates, and coat hooks.

All the window seals were scribed using home made tool.