Tamiya 1/24 Peugeot 206 WRC 2003 Monte Carlo

[Guest]

This is my first kit for years. I used to enjoy making them when I was still at school, but a lack of patience didn't help the quality of the build and watching paint dry was not my strong point.

With the benifit of a few years of mellowing I decided to try again and see if I could do it properly and with a less hurried approach.

I started last night and have already learned a few things.

1) Tamiya aerosol paints are better left overnight between coats, even when using an ice cream tub on top of the storage heater as a drying oven.

2) Using 'wet strips' of masking tape like we do on full sized cars doesn't seem to work and I managed to lift the edge of the paint while I was removing it. It must be better to leave the paint until it is fully dry.

I'm going to try again tonight and see how I get on, but I'll post pictures of my disaster before I try to fix it.

[Guest]

I've been working at this over the weekend and I've managed to complete one or two bits.

The floor pan of the car that I managed to totally cock up by using the wrong type of primer that would lift off if you so much as looked at it, has been picked and wiped clean using thinners and I now have a selection of 'work in progress' bits and pieces that I think have been salvaged from the brink. It's still not brilliant, but at leat it's underneath the car.

Some other bits that I've finished and I was quite proud of for a first go are:

My brakes

And my wheels

I'm going to try and add some heat colouring to the exhaust now, and is there any way to take the shine off the tyre decals?

[Ian M]

Its looking pretty good thus far. What paints are you useing?

As far as the decals, I think the only way roound that one is matt varnish, or paint the lettering instead. Now I know which is the easiest of the two. Easiest is not always best though.

As for the exhaust one of our bike builders here on the forum did the best ever heated exhausts with....... Food colouring. Go figure!

[Guest]

Thanks Ian,

My impatience got the better of me though and I've done the exhaust with tamiya paints thinned down with windscreen washer fluid and a brush because I couldn't be bothered to get the airbrush out.

I'm just using the Tamiya paints that were specified in the instructions and they seem to be quite good. Much better than the old Humbrol paints I used when I was a nipper. can you get stencils for the tyres then? Or how do you paint them?

Tonights work has consisted of some shading of a few bits and bobs.

Exhaust:

And my attempt at heat affected steel

And some shading on the gearbox and diff:

I've never done shading before, but it really brings out the shape of things

[Guest]

You're doing a great job of learning on the fly here! The wash on the gearbox looks fine and the brakes have come out very well as well.

The transfers on the tyres could be a bit of a challenge. The trouble is the rubber is probably a lot more matt than the best matt varnish so you may well have to paint the whole tyre and as to whether the varnish will hold to the rubber well is another question. You might be able to get hold of letraset letters but I would carefully experiment with different matt varnishes. Acrylic would probably be better as it is more flexible than enamel.

[tr1ckey66]

This is looking very good indeed George. Seems you've taken back to the hobby really easily! Way to go...

Love the gearbox, differential and the brake assemblies - they look just right.

Keep up the great work and looking forward to the finished car.

Cheers

Paul

[Guest]

I've got a 2K acrylic matt lacquer that we use at the work for doing anodised effects or just matt over gloss like these wheel centres:

I'll give it a go with a brush on the tyre walls and see how it goes...

[Guest]

A bit of inspiration (click here) - [. It's probably a repost on here, but it certainly opened my eyes as to what could be done!

edit: His tyre decals still don't look any better than mine though

[Guest]

That looks like a great start there, I love the Tamiya kits as good as perfect

[Guest]

Well...

The matt lacquer on the tyres seems to make them look a bit better. You can still see they are decals if you look close enough, but they are all matt now rather than shiney and they look ten times better than before.

I've almost finished the underneath of the car now. I don't know what else I can do with it. It was a shame to stick on the cover plates on the bottom of the car as you can't see all my work on the diffs and engine, but I wanted it to look original. I did consider dry brushing the edges of the cover plates to highlight the little bolts or lines, but I can't find any pictures of what other people have done.

Anyway: