Dougs VW Beetle

[Ian M]

You can take the chrome off with drain cleaner... Amongst other things. Then its prime and paint as normal... after a good rinse that is!

As for the scooby engine... An Impreza had a 2 liter flat four DOHC with 148 ponies and about the same ft/Lb in torque. It goes fast. One of my old fishing pals had a Forester wagon thing. used to blast BMW and Porsche off the road at the lights... lol

[Tim Marlow]

You can take the chrome off with drain cleaner... Amongst other things. Then its prime and paint as normal... after a good rinse that is!

Household bleach usually works as well. Just wear rubber gloves while you use either of them.

[Waspie]

Household bleach usually works as well. Just wear rubber gloves while you use either of them.

That’s the route I’ll use. We have bleach - we don’t have drain cleaner!!

[Waspie]

Ok then.
I was going to take a before and after pic but you'll have to settle for an after!!
The bleach worked wonders!! Blimey, it was seconds. Tesco's own brand thick bleach!! I was rinsing it off before I had a chance to blow over my morning cuppa!!! Outrageous!!
Chrome to No Chrome - seconds. These are they after a session on my new drying pad!!!! (Sky mini box!!!!) Love it!!


I even managed to apply a first base coat of orange, it's too cold outside now so temperature stopped play. (Outside)
The chassis was attacked with a hairy stick on the kitchen table to which I suppose SWMBO deserves a mention in de -patches for allowing me to use 'her' kitchen table!!

Getting there after a few gigantic steps backwards.

This has been a true warts and all production!!! Be glad when this one is behind me. I thought this was going to be the easy build after the Ryefields Ch2 - not the case. This has been a right test.
As I have said in previous blogs, tis 'all about learning' and I have certainly learned a bit from this one - onwards and upwards.
Doug

[Waspie]

As shocked as I am, another day I managed to get some work done on the Beetle!!

After removing the Chrome previously, I applied a coat of primer this morning followed by a second coat of orange on the bodywork.
That dried relatively quickly once in the kitchen and sat on top of the sky box!!

Once dried, the chrome 'stuff' was treated to a coat of silver, one - because it's all I had, second I remember from my Beetle, (1:1) days the chrome on my aged VW wasn't what you would call shiny!!
A third coat of orange was applied straight after I finished with the silver.
I have to say how pleased I am with the new H&S Ultra AB, the turn round from one colour to the next is amazing. No full strip down as I had to with the timber-tech thing I had before.

In between all the spraying I decided to tinker with the chassis. The Beetle had a unique system for windscreen washing. Using air from the spare tyre, it pressurised a tank of screen cleaning fluid. Which, once you pumped the plunger in the cockpit sent fluid to the screen, front or back! So! Using a strand of blue coloured plastic wire I routed a wire from the tank to the front of the windscreen. (Wire was purloined from an old ethernet cable!!).

After that, I set about rusting up the front and rear bumpers!! Tomorrow, I intend on experimenting with the new AB again using a new setting to blow silver on top of the rust. (Working on the premise, rust starts inside and comes to the surface). So spraying lightly over the top seems logical. (To me!). We'll see how it turns out tomorrow!!!

Right, piccy time.
Third coat, a few blemishes but I'm ok with them as I don't want a show room model.




Rusty bumpers (Phase 1)


Finally the washer tube!
The washer tank is directly behind the spare wheel.
In hindsight, the wire is too big, (diameter), lesson learned - again!! Pictures always bring out the faults!!
I did say it was a warts and all production!!:sad-face::sad:


If you've got this far - thank you!!
Doug

[Jim R]

Cracking work Doug. Paint job looks fine to me. Really coming together now.
I'm another who hates the chromed parts on model cars and trucks. They are too shiny for a model, the chrome is thick and obscures detail and if a part needs fettling to fit and the finish is damaged it is almost impossible to touch up well. I use bleach too. As you found it works a treat.

[Waspie]

Cracking work Doug. Paint job looks fine to me. Really coming together now.
I'm another who hates the chromed parts on model cars and trucks. They are too shiny for a model, the chrome is thick and obscures detail and if a part needs fettling to fit and the finish is damaged it is almost impossible to touch up well. I use bleach too. As you found it works a treat.

Thanks Jim. Yup, the bleach is now in my arsenal of tools.
If a big 'if', I do another automobile and it has chrome parts they will be stripped and I will obtain some chrome effect paint as it will be thinner for sure.
I fitted 'chromed' after market bumpers to my 'real life' Beetle and within two years had become dull and had already shown signs of rust coming through. Which told me it wasn't really chrome, as chrome isn't porous so in reality shouldn't corrode that easily.
My build isn't going to be pretty, nor intended to be. The 'chrome' hub caps won't be fitted and I'm thinking one of the rear mud flaps won't either as the brackets rusted for a pastime. I had to manufacture a bracket on my real Beetle but when that corroded I just gave up with mud flaps.
This is proving to be just like the 1:1 outspan orange Beetle which was my first car. A right learning process.

[Waspie]

Continuing on from yesterday. Had an hour experimenting with AB and 'rust'!!
Started off by re-coating the bumpers with silver to cover the harsh rust colouring.
What do you think? Never tried anything like this before.


Next was the bodywork!! I mixed a concoction of burnt umber, the bright orange from the actual car and a smidge of yellow. Then I tried to give the wings and such a dusting in the mixture to give an appearance of used to deflect from a totally glossy looked after car. I think the passenger side door needs a little more work on it. Inside the wheel arches were given a couple of coats but I thinks a dirty black is needed in those areas.
Also coated the backs of the front headlights as they intrude into the front wheel arches.


Any comments, criticisms more than welcome. This is new turf for me.

[Andy the Sheep]

Those bumpers are great! and the car... a Beetle was my first car too so... :blow-kiss-2:

[Waspie]

Had a mega busy couple of days. I have spent nearly two days trying unsuccessfully to stop getting messages regards McAfee and infections on my laptop. A very long saga cut short. Ended up erasing my laptop, re-installing OS, then using Mac's 'Time Machine' restoring all my data up to the 1st December. Any other files were synced from the 'cloud'. So - All Good now.
Whilst all that was going on I set about the Beetle. (It was starting to really - erm - annoy me!!) It is what I consider finished. Or to put it another way! I ain't doing anymore to it. On the up side, I did get to 'play' with the AB and get used to a few of its settings.

Ok then, after the last picture show. I started sticking stuff together and getting it to look Beetle(ish). Enough for it to make number 1 son shudder with memories of pushing it to garages etc!!!
It started with me masking the car windows! Why? So that I could paint the seal around the edges!!


Next, it was over the garage to spray a bit of 'dirt' over the body shell, bonnet and engine cover. Cocked up on that, I should have taped the covers in place so I ended up in a mis-match of dirt!!


Then, the little silvery bibs and bobs were fitted and whilst I was doing that I had a thought about making the windscreen match the rest of the car. To that end I dabbled, (badly) with masking the curve of the wipers!!


Windows fitted using Formula 560, first time I have used it. Not bad.


This morning was a, hand paint the silver trim lines, not as easy as I thought. Attaching the body to the chassis, a few ancillary pieces, windscreen wipers and door step rubber 'things'!!


Then, it back to the garage to add more dirt! (A mix of Burnt Umber, Tire Black and Rust to achieve an off road dirt effect.)
I removed the windshield masking and not displeased with the effect although the shape could have been better!! I also added a silver line to the quarter light windows as I can't remember mine being black!!


Another angle, also added more dirt effect to the wheels, more to the rear than front, checked with pics of old Beetle and the back did suffer more from dirt than the front.


Nearly there!!


Finally!! No number plates. Leaving them for now as at some stage I plan on getting/scratching some realistic sized plates with non US numbers!!



Thanks guys if you made it this far.
That's it for the Beetle. Can't say I overly enjoyed it. I did get a lot out of it though. Managed to get to grips with new AirBrush, the new H&S Ultra is a grand brush, as a beginner it has helped me, really enjoyed experimenting with it. Simple to use and even simpler to clean.
A few new techniques were employed, scrubbing tyres, using the new 'glue' for the transparencies. I found writing on the instructions really handy but I did miss a few things so again, must pay more attention to details and look deeper into what the instructions don't say!!! EG painting 'under' or all the parts not just the bits that appear to visible.

So that's it. No more cars, I'm sticking to real size 1:1 from now on. Spanner not tweezers!!!! :thumb2: :rolling::smiling2:

[langy71]

I'd be well pleased with that little build, love the 'road' dirt effects, seen loads like this when I were a younger lad. take a bow you've pulled it out of the bag indeed.. :thumb2:

[Tworrs]

Great result at the end of the day Doug

[Andy the Sheep]

Love it, Doug.

[tigersteve]

Looks good to me !