Tag Archives: miniature models

In no time, I had the completed engine compartment but when I went to attach the shock absorbers, I again went with red over the suggested color since I thought that would stand out nicely in the black wheel wells.

Next up was the underside with wheels and exhaust system.

The interior of the car also required a lot of painting.

When it came to painting the seats, I decided to leave off the red piping on the seats shown on the box as I knew my hands were not steady enough to paint a thin red line on the seats. It was hard enough just to get a straight line between the black and grey parts of the seats.

With the interior finished, it was time to return to painting the body. The paint can instructions said it was best to apply multiple thin coats so I took that approach.

However, even using that technique, the paint surface bubbled.

To remedy this, I had to carefully sand the entire front of the car and repaint it. Fortunately, this came out much better.

With the body painted, I was then able to attach the other exterior parts.

The next assembly step was to marry the body to the chassis. This is always a fun step in building a car model because from this point forward, it really takes on the appearance of a real car and a more finished look.

At this point, I had detached all of the pieces from the plastic “trees” that they are attached to during the plastic molding process.

However, I had this one piece left. I did not recognize what it was so I went all back through the instructions to see where I had I missed it. It was nowhere in the directions. Either it was left off the instructions or it was a left over from a different model that accidently got into this model.

At almost the last step of the assembly process, I next had to glue in the headlights, fog lights and taillights. Here I made the rookie mistake of applying too much glue, which seriously fogs clear plastic parts. One small drip of glue on your finger and when you touch a clear plastic part like a windshield, it is unforgiving. I had already made a few of these novice “boo-boos” in attaching the windows. It would have really been nice if the headlight lenses had been engineered to simply snap fit into the chrome reflectors without glue. But no, this model was going to have frosted headlights.

Only two steps remained, applying decals and gluing on the roof. But a single piece as simple as the roof gave me trouble as well. This was the one part of the car that was actually molded in the correct color plastic—white—which meant that it theoretically didn’t have to be painted. Unfortunately, during the molding process, cold flow of the plastic occurred which left a long jagged line across the roof surface, almost like a facial scar from a long ago knife slash. As a result, it had to be painted white to hide this mold defect.

But as can be seen, I had trouble with the paint bubbling again.

It had to be sanded again and this time I decided to buy different paint from the hardware store thinking my problem was the paint itself, certainly not my technique. After several coats, it seemed successful but then late in the day, I notice it had cracked. More sanding and more painting…

…and finally a finished roof. While this was going on, I finished applying all of the decals including this one on the top of the engine that was actually suppose to be applied before the engine was installed.

While I was finishing up the roof, I began to reflect on how the experience had been for me.

I began to look at the two models that I had previously built, the ones that I remembered having tremendous fun building. These were the models that I recalled where the parts came in all the correct colors and had such detail that I even had to assemble the shock absorbers using real metal springs. One of them even had tiny lug nuts that actually held the wheels onto the car. I knew a Mini was a very small car but these models seemed to just dwarf the Mini. These models were by a brand named Pocher. I looked them up on line and found out these were not 1/12 scale models as I originally thought, they were 1/8 scale—a 50% bigger scale. Well that certainly explained it.

Having finally finished the model, I think it has actually cured me of ever wanting to build a plastic car model again. Using plastic glue that is unforgiving and alkyd paint that must be cleaned up with organic thinner places constrictions on building a model and demands expert technique. Having built numerous miniature chairs from bass wood and painting them with latex paints was a much more fun and forgiving process. So I think I will give up building plastic models. However, when I was researching the models that I had built to find out their scale, I ran across the current Pocher website where they had new models shown. And wow were they ever sleek! Having had a wonderful experience building the two previous Pocher models, I certainly would be willing to build one of these beauties, no painting, no gluing, just sheer fun. Only problem is it comes with a hefty price tag–$750. Well maybe I will stick with building miniature chairs instead.

The last time I wrote about building models (Miniature Models – Part 3), I was still searching for that elusive model that would rekindle the desire in me to build again. Last fall, I was sitting in a particularly boring teleconference and decided to do a little multi-tasking on line. I began searching for a large-scale car model that I might like to build. This thought had come to me because one of the daily auto new stories I receive had an article that day about an interesting scale model that they had found. I began searching for my own and soon ran across a 1/12 scale Mini Cooper; the original car built by Rover (British Motor Company) before BMW bought the brand and reintroduced it in the new millennium.

Credit: Vancouverminiclub.ca

What even better luck was that it was available through an Amazon reseller? However, when I read the small print it said: “[IMPORTANT NOTICE] A Japanese retail item. Packaging, manuals, and instructions are in Japanese only.” I thought what a bummer, this would have been a lot of fun to build particularly since I had a 2006 Mini Cooper S, and it was a model that held significance for me.

Over the next several days I pondered whether or not I was willing to gamble the $75 price tag of the model and chance it. I wondered if the kit might actually include those “Ikea-like” instructions that only provide numbers and pictures, which are often difficult to assemble. I don’t recall what eventually tipped the scale for me to buy it but I did and then anxiously awaited its arrival from Japan.

In about two weeks the package arrived indeed from Japan.

When I removed the mail wrapping, I was greeted with…more packaging. The shipper had simply wrapped it with a small amount of bubble wrap and then added some flimsy cardboard for stiffening.   When I removed the secondary packaging, I was pleased to see that the box was only slightly bent but certainly not crushed.

However, the most encouraging sign was that in addition to the Japanese words printed on the package, there was English as well. However, the real test would be the instructions.

I opened the package and discovered my first disappointment—the model was not molded in colored plastic. The large-scale models I had built in the past were molded in all the needed colors so that no painting was required. I could quickly see that this model was going to require a lot of painting.

I was relieved to see that the instructions were actually written in four different languages, fortunately one of which was English. But since I knew this was not going to be a quick build, I decided to set it aside and let it be a summer project in 2014.

This year, after I got most of my outdoor spring time jobs done, I pulled the model back out thinking I could work on it on steamy summer days when it was too hot to go outside.

When I read through some of the details of the instructions, it was this table that was the most surprising as it called for 19 different color paints. As I read through the list, I thought did I really need gloss black, semi-gloss black, and flat black? Especially when you consider that some of the parts were already molded in black plastic. Armed with the instructions, I headed off to one of my favorite hobby stores for paint and glue.

I narrowed my list of must have colors down to just 11 but still with brushes and glue spent about $35. When I was a kid building models, these little bottles of paint cost 15 cents each. Of course that was over 45 years ago. But with paint and glue, I was now ready to begin the model.

Consistent with all of the other car models I had assembled before, the engine build was the first step. And in this case, it required a good bit of painting.

With an assembled engine, the next step was to attach it to the front suspension system.

Here is where I used a little “artist’s license.” The brake calipers were supposed to be painted gold color but since that was not one of the colors I deemed essential, I painted them red. I actually thought that would look better anyway.

With a finished engine, I was ready to tackle the firewall. It was all one piece but required painting of seven individual components all different colors. I could see that my skills for painting small parts had deteriorated over the years. I headed downstairs for a few toothpicks to help in this step.

All the while, I thought I should get started painting the body. This step was typically the nemesis of my modeling in years past as I rarely achieved a high quality paint job even with spray paint.

I gave it a quick coat to see how many coats it would require and then went on to other assembly steps. To be continued…