4knflyin

Great minds think alike? I had already started using ice cold water to rinse between grindings. Decided I would try sticking it in the freezer and holding it against some frozen peas to keep it cold — and hopefully solid — while I worked on it. I couldn't help but notice long ago that just holding thin epoxy resin casting for any length of time transfer enough heat from my fingers to turn it rubbery. When I saw your replies, I decided I needed to try my plan before replying back. So I did it and it was noticeably, but only slightly, better. Mike, I checked out the Createx Clear Acrylic and I'm not sure I understand. You put clear coat in your molds to make castings? Or did you mean to mention this Createx product ($$$): https://sculpturesupply.com/products/epoxacast-690-clear That stuff looks like the ticket. Does anybody have experience with it they want to share with us? For that kind of money (and I haven't even checked on the shipping), it would be nice to have more info, even if it was a vastly different application, before I do an experiment with it. I almost forgot to mention, thanks for turning me on to that website. Thats a lot of stuff they've got going on that could be useful.

I could have answered this right away because each time I rinsed it between sanding grits it amazed me how the water spots were crystal clear. I have some Alclad Klear Coat that it says can be used for dipping. I've tested it, but on a part that wasn't representative of something like this. Hopefully to save me some grief, how do you deal with keeping the dipping solution from pooling along the edges? Anybody? Here's some evidence: Held above the water. And submersed (this kind of says it all).

No, it didn't answer my question, but it was a pretty interesting thread. That specific solution would work because I don't care that the end result would be larger than the original. It's a simple rear window that can be cut to size. So thanks.

I've spent at least two hours over the past two evenings. Last night I started with #600, then #1000 and each whole 1000 until after #9000, where's there's a gap in the sanding sticks I use until #12,000. I started it over again last night and got to #4000, which is where I started tonight. Did the rest of the routine, plus Tamiya Coarse through Finish, and ended with Meguiar's Ultimate. The polishes were applied with a Dremel tool on the lowest setting (which is still pretty fast). The material is Janchun epoxy resin. They practically have a monopoly on Amazon. Importantly, the 'glass' started out perfectly clear straight from the mold. There were two significant "air-holes" that I had to fill, hence the sanding. This is the back window on my 959 build, where nothing, but nothing, comes easy. I hope you can help. (The deep scratches have me scratching my head, but I want to focus on the milkyness.) Here's an example of another part I cast with the same resin on the same day, Monday, I believe. These are pictues of the window starting after #12000 through to Meguiar's. This is after the #12000 sanding: After Tamiya Coarse (about 2 or 3 min. per side): After Fine: After Finish: And finally, an hour later, this is what it looks like now after using Meguiar's Ultimate

Thanks for saying that, not just because it's nice, but you are giving me an entrée to feed my ego. I read your 959 thread, and Kurts, too. I wish I had his patience — and skill — to make a couple intercoolers. Now for my starving ego: that engine cover got hours and hours of my attention. With each repainting and the changes to gaps that causes, I maintained my goal with that thing: I added the gap, not by just raising the deck, but by sanding what is actually almost a flat line from where it meats the fender skirt up and over the sharp peak. And more important to me than the gap was maintaining the sheet metal (reinforced fibre, I believe) curves that are complex back there, complex and beautiful. At each stage that I took photos of the car, I always included one showed that unbroken flow. If I you didn't give me an opportunity to tell you about it ad nauseum, nobody would have noticed. Still, not many, if any, will get it. Hah! And the opening under the spoiler. Damn. About 30 sec. of careless sanding in that tunnel resulted in my having changed the shape of the semicircle at either end. Than 30 sec. cost me 10 hrs. or more of body repair work. If anybody knows what the pink polyester putty it is that lots of builders are using, please, please post it here. Thanks. Now I'm going to show you stuff that only I think warrants this much attention! It started out innocently enough. Just a bit of light sanding since I was repainting it anyways. Then started big investment of pride in the outcome. Not to mention the big investment of time in "care and feeding" of the beast. Subtle use of Tamiya epoxy putty, which I found oddly soothing to maticulassly feather it to blend with the body. But fixing that 30 sec. of damage to the tunnel, that was not soothing, relaxing, or anything else pleasant. Many very frustrating hours into it, I figured I just wasn't going to be able effectively sand in those corners. And then a eureka moment that lead to results way better than I was expecting, though leaving lots of room for justified criticism from the highly skilled. What you saw there took a long time to do. Tens of hours in all tolled, I'm pretty sure, on just the engine cover/spoiler/fender meeting point. Mathias, you almost certainly get it. It has beautiful lines.

Great screen name, m’lord. Wow, John, you’ve got a great memory, especially for someone who hasn’t even built the kit. Yes, I’ve read the stories. We shall see!

So, I buried the lead on this post when I first submitted it. This experience is what cemented in my mind that I am not seeing details normally. I’m basically not seeing fully stereoscopically. The paint job, that I'm not all that unhappy with, went through three cycles of prime, paint, varnish. Three cycles without ever stripping it. LOL. I won't do that again. As I was advised on an earlier model, just strip it down. It wasn't my plan each time to do a complete cycle, it just ended up after failing at spot repairs and so forth that I just sprayed the whole thing with primer to hide the mess. #1 - Somehow I missed that I hadn't completely erased the parting lines until I'd primed it the second time. So I had to do this. What you see on the fender is primer on top of silver gray on top of primer. And in the middle of it all is putty because I had wrecked the shape of the fender. #2 - After putting a coat of the color down, I still hadn't erased the lines. This is the vision thing. It sucks. What really helped me decide to repaint it was that the engine cover looked noticeably different than the bulk of the body. The two remaining cycles of painting were done with the cover on the car so I could know it was getting exactly the same treatment as the rest of the body. #3 - The primer always looked awesome. Very tempting. Why doesn't it look as tight as the test spoon? Spoon has only one coat of color coat! And, more importantly, I still haven't noticed the lip of paint that had collected over three cycles of painting, that had collected at the top of the rear window opening. Still #3, the final major repaint. What the photo doesn't quite show is that the gloss coat is satiny smooth, like the "frozen" colors way too popular these days. Now I'm on to the lip. It has to go. That scratch in the paint? I told myself before I repainted the roof that it would be the end of chasing perfection for the paint job. And I stuck to it. So it stays, preserved under gloss. Removed the tap covering the grill opening and also removed some paint I wanted to stay put. The only solution I could think of was putty. It worked great. Totally unnoticeable. From the tape I removed I was able to measure how thick the three cycles of painting was: 0.12 mm. That probably only sounds thick to somebody who knows paint. I was finally comfortable that it had seen it last repainting, so I was also comfortable enough to paint the trim. I'm often curious how other people tape off for painting. This is the final product, as it is today. The headlamps are a mess. Three complete paintjobs piled on top of each other. And my only regret, besides the headlamp bezels, is that I stopped at two coats of color. The roof, which has a fourth coat, has a much tighter grain.

An inauspicious start: I was so tired of reworking the F1 models I started my return to the hobby with, that I pulled out the last of the purchases from 1994, this 959, because I just wanted to look at it. I literally thought to myself how nice it was going to be to start with a clean sheet. A fly landed and, not something I usually do, I swatted at it. It was on the other side of the 959 shell on my desk. The underside of my forearm came down on the roof of the car and, before I even intended to start on it, I broke the B and C pillars at their tops, and creased the A pillar. You will see in various photos the size of the B pillar grow in girth from more than five repairs. Then, finally, I scraped it down and did it right. Amazingly, the bottom part of it never separated from the door. That was 2 June, for reference.

This is where I'm at now, and have been for over a month. I think what I'm going to do is just show the progression of certain parts, which is a lot of build, break, rebuild worse, etc. If anybody wants an explanation beyond any I provide, please ask, I'm eager to respond. Observations/suggestions (other than find a new hobby), really, please, make them. The current state: Actually, I'm going to show you the only thing that worked right away and that was satisfying way beyond it's utility. I couldn't stand picking up the chassis and having the front wheels flopping around. The unhinged right rear, I could deal with that. But the fronts really bugged me. The very effective solution: 2.4 mm of 1.7x1.5 brass tube. Press fit. That's all it took to give me a tight front end and great satisfaction. However, even here, if you noticed the two tiny holes in the subframe, they're the ends of 0.5 mm SS rod that's supporting the standoffs on the other side that I broke off. I'll bet nobody else has found a way to break those off. And so it begins, the lasting legacy of this build: repair, repair, repair. I still turn the wheels left and right every time I see the chassis. Very satisfying.

It seems it could be a sort of right of passage. It's my first passenger car. The greatest significance of that is that it has an interior. That's like another skill set all together. I tried adding to the interior by getting the Quinta 3D decal set. Very conservatively, the work so far has be split 25:70:5, build:repair:naval-gaze. In all honesty, the repair portion is likely bigger. I'm not sure I can sustain that. I'm going to try to build least two more kits and see if I can find it rewarding to build at what I think I now know is my skill level. If not, the rest of my kits may be on the market done in a year or so. Why?... I'm not aging gracefully as I had always expected (gym rat, good food, etc.). To add to the unsteady hands I noticed when I started back at this hobby a year ago, I also could swear that I wasn't able to make detailed visual distinctions and judgements very well. I have to take a picture of anything I want to know if it's correctly done, which gets annoying and not done as often as I should. The short of it: I finally went to an ophthalmologist a couple weeks ago and, no, I wasn't imagining it. Options aren't great, so for now I see how it goes. The moral of the story is, if you're still under, say, 65 and putting off building that model you've been thinking about, maybe now is a good time to start it. Back to my right of passage. I bought the kit a year after Porsche stopped producing the car, 1994. Hand painted some parts on the sprue, actually glued three pieces together (that's them falling out of the bonnet, or mating with the box, I'm not sure), and that was it until last fall.

I'd love to think I helped. lol. Also, I just noticed the rear wheel arch... it's rounded like your friend suggested, but certainly rounder than he was envisioning. IIRC, symmetry with the front arch was what he was suggesting, an idea I immediately liked. I think it's true that certain design concepts are universally pleasing to the eye, and symmetry is chief among them. This is a great build to watch. Wishing you heaps of "mojo" 'til the end.

Photo of 935/19 from Peterson.org I think your mock up demonstrates a talent for automobile design — as you can see, it is strikingly similar to what the Porsche designers, paid handsomely, came up with decades after the long tail left the scene, lol. I should add that I like your treatment of the bottom part of the cutoff, whether intentional or just the way the plastic sheet fell. Seriously, it’s either that, or you have subliminally taken an image in your mind of the 935/19 and incorporated it in your first cut. Looking forward to seeing the details of how you do the work (if you go that way).

Great build. I can’t imagine threading an adhesive backed material through a tiny slot for those belts. Well done. And that paint... I'm writing it down. It's not just the color. that looks like the finest grain metallic paint I’ve seen.

Your feedback is gratefully appreciated. Onward. I should add that this my first "closed cockpit" car model, hence my discomfort.

I'm doing a Tamiya 1:24 Porsche 959 build, and somehow I got the impression from a 959 WIP that these windows need to be painted on the outside. So I did that... without checking again in other 959 build threads. Did I make a mistake? (Man, this build is full of mistakes, another isn't going to send me screaming.) If on the inside, how then is the front window attached? Where are the glue points? I'm inclined to think they're OK, but I would like your honest opinion (and an explanation would be helpful). Since they're exposed, I sealed them with a few coats of clear and so far, so good after too many drops. Here's where they are now (not glued): An extra qu. on the front. That horrible mark from where it was attached to the sprue happened even though I used a very sharp pair of knips. It made that scrunching sound as I cut it. Is there a way to remove those types of things? Thanks!