Brian's Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 from 2 Fast 2 Furious

[harti20]

Hi all

 

In my McLaren Senna thread I promised to show you why I didn't make that much progress in the last two weeks. This project is the reason why  My son asked me a few times why I wouldn't build Brian's Nissan Skyline and I always answered that to mee this car was just boring. He always gave me a mixed look of disappointment and "you don't now what looks good" after that ? A few weeks ago I decided to build it for him, but without telling him, so I will only be able to work on it when he's outside playing with his friends or when he's at school.

For this build I'll use Tamiya's Nissan Skyline GT-R together with USCP's transkit. The body parts from the transkit took me quite a while to remove from their supports, but in the end they fit really well. Here you can see the body assembled, primed and with a few layers of Zero Paints' Platinum Pearl.

Together with the body I also started work on the undercarriage

According to Tamiya's instructions the silver parts should have been painted in Tamiya X-11 Chrome Silver, but when I took a closer look I had the impression that these parts should depict heat shields, so I decided to use MFH's heat shield foil instead. That was the first time I used it and I really like how easy it is to cut and apply. The only downside is that you can't really press it into crevices as the texture is quite fragile.

 

The rims have first been painted with Alclad Duraluminium. Once the paint had dried I masked the center part and painted the outer rim with Molotow Liquid Chrome.

That's it for today. I hope to have piqued your interest and am looking forward to your comments, criticisms and plaudits  
Urs

[harti20]

Hi all

Since the motivation for the carbon decal work on the McLaren Senna was not too great lately, I made quite some progress on this build  

The dashboard was painted and has already received the first decals

The NOS bottles were painted and assembled

The seat has been painted and is now waiting for.... exactly: a carbon decal on the back ?

And the doorpanels were also painted

Then I wanted to apply the first decal to the body and chose the left side with the stripes. However, I soon realized that it didn't fit at all in terms of size ? If the position around the rear wheel arch fitted, then the stripes in the front area ended far too high up and if I had them fitting at the front, the decal would almost have come over the entire opening for the wheels... So now I'm masking the body based on pictures from the internet and will paint the stripes afterwards. So far I've done the masking for the upper part of the stripe, now I have to tackle the lower part and repeat the whole thing for the other side...

All in all, I've come quite far and am now waiting for the bodywork to be finished. Most of the rest is already finished and waiting for the final assembly ? 
Urs

[Mattilacken]

Nice project!

[harti20]

Hi all

Some more progress on the Skyline. First of all the interior has almost been completed. The only parts not yet installed are the safety belts and the roll bar.

Then the masking of the first side of the body has been completed (I know, the lower part of the back has not yet been masked and the upper part will be masked once I masked the opposite side as well with some kitchen towel). For the stripes in front of the front wheel, I'll give the USCP decals another chance and hope that they fit better than the stripes over the main part of the body. And if some of the experts spots an error in the pattern, let him now speak or forever hold his peace ?

That's it for today's update
Urs

[NOBLNG]

Interior looks fantastic!? lots of nice detailing.?

[harti20]

Hi all

On 6/24/2024 at 10:41 PM, NOBLNG said:

Interior looks fantastic!? lots of nice detailing.?

Thank you very much  

Last week I started masking the second side as well, but soon realized that this would be much more difficult than initially imagined. I managed to get the rough subdivision into upper and lower strips (I think). Then I wanted to mask the top strip from the back to the front and already had the problem with the second field that, despite measuring on the finished side and transferring the measurements to the right-hand side, the field looked much smaller than on the left-hand side. The surprise for my junior was planned either as a reward for a good school report or as a present for his birthday. School reports are due in two weeks, his birthday is in three weeks... So I'm slowly getting a bit pressed for time and have therefore been thinking about how I could simplify the whole thing a bit and therefore speed it up. It occurred to me that the decal from USCP would have been suitable in terms of length, but the height was far too short. As I had only tried to apply the strip decal on one side, I still had one left, which I then traced, transferred to masking tape and simply extended downwards. After this attempt was successful on the right-hand side (and surprisingly easy to apply), I removed the existing masking on the left-hand side again to apply the mirrored pattern there. When I removed the tape, I was left with a nasty adhesive residue wherever I had used the 1.5 mm tape from Tamiya

Normally I remove adhesive residues with 99% isopropyl alcohol, but as the Zero Paints do not react too well to it, this was not an option in this case. So I decided to use scouring milk to polish away the residue. Of course, this also affected the paint around these stripes, so I had to paint them silver again before I could apply the new masking tape to this side as well.

I then painted over the masking again with silver to avoid undercoating as far as possible and then started to paint the blue stripes. I soon found a technique that I think produced quite satisfactory results: Always start on the side where the color should be dark, move the airbrush slowly at the beginning and then speed up the movement so that less paint gets on the model in the front area in the same amount of time. After a few layers came the exciting moment: removing the tape.... The first side (left) was 99% perfect, only at the very front there are 1 / 2 fields that are not quite sharply defined. But this is so minimal that I can live with it. On the other side, there are a few more blurred edges and in one place, something small has protruded into the field that should actually have been painted, so that there is now a small silver spot in the blue. But again, it's not that annoying, so I can live with it ? After a few hours, the decals with the lettering were applied and now the body is just waiting for the clear coat. However, this is currently still on its way from England to Switzerland. If everything goes as the tracking currently predicts, it should arrive on Friday. This would also be the day scheduled for the clearcoat... I hope that the postman rings as early as possible on that day ?

As I had the airbrush out anyway, I also masked the transparent part and painted it black. The rear triangular windows were then given a coat or two of smoke.

This is the current status. At the moment I'm still working on the 4-point seat belts. When they are finished, I will attach them to the seat / roll bar and definitely install the roll bar, then the only thing missing is the body ?
Urs

[harti20]

Hi all

The clear got delivered by thursday already, together with some spare primer.

Therefore I had enough time to clear coat the body and let it dry / harden for 5 days before starting the sanding and polishing process. One thing I learned from this: when you're already under time pressure on a build it isn't the smartest idea to use a clear coat you don't know yet and apply it with an airbrush you hardly know... ? The surface came out very rough and sturdy. I got proof that it wasn't the clear's fault a few hours later when I clear coated the first few parts from the McLaren Senna (with my "old" airbrush I'm used to). After trying to sand it down starting with my usual 3000 grit on the roof, I soon decided to start with 2000 grit instead on this build as I almost despaired of it. After several hours of sanding and polishing I can say that the body looks quite acceptable now...

But to keep the tension high, let me first show you the completed interior with the 4-point seatbelts installed ?

Now, as promised, the pictures of the almost finished body

For the front grilles Tamiya enclosed the usual black nets. After some searching through my leftovers from several PE sets I found something that convinced me way more, so that's how it looks now from the front

So there shouldn't be too much standing in the way of an early wedding. A few parts still need to be attached, then the wedding bells can ring. The bride and groom have already gathered here for an engagement photo ?

There have been times where  I doubted to be able to finish this kit in time for my son's birthday next saturday, but now I think, this shouldn't be too much of a problem ?. So, the next update will definitely be with the finished Skyline ? 
Urs

[rv1963]

Wow that is an amazing paint job, love all the details in that busy interior.

[harti20]

Hi all

On 7/16/2024 at 1:22 AM, rv1963 said:

Wow that is an amazing paint job, love all the details in that busy interior.

Thank you very much

By the end of last week I attached the last few parts on the body. After that the final assembly could take place. Happily without any issues, so I got it finished on Thursday already. The only thing that didn't really want to stay where (and how) I wanted it, was the small oval bit on the front. But if you don't look straight from the front, it won't stand out that much.

But now let me show the pictures of the finished model  

That's it from this WIP. Soon I'll (hopefully) continue on my McLaren Senna. In addition I just started alpha model's Ferrari SF90 Stradale. A new WIP covering this build will be started soon
Urs

[DJMar]

I am not a fan of the movies, but I do love seeing an R34. It's such a cool machine.

This is a great build, you really captured the look of the movie car. Also, I dig your photo background!

[adamelvis]

Fantastic Job !! 
 

TCB,

Adam

[slusher]

Impressive work'

[harti20]

Thank you all for your kind comments  

Urs