Alpine A110: progress is being made

The body trim is complete and the decals applied; I've put on a coat of clear to keep it all from moving around and will let it sit for a week to harden. Once dry, it will get lights, glass and a few other bits. 

The chassis & interior is complete and is just waiting for the paint to dry on the body so it can be handled without leaving big thumbprints in the roof.

I'm not out of the woods -- glass, lights, door handles, wipers and other teensy-weensy little bits are all time consuming and can ruin an otherwise decent effort.

Barring any future screw-ups, I'd rate this as a mid-level success story, mainly on the basis of the orange peel in the paint. The true fix for this is to throw away the spray can and get a new one, or soak the nozzle overnight in thinner, but my cheap side reared its ugly head again and I paid the price of trying to work with a slightly dirty nozzle.

This was also my first try with something called Bare Metal Foil, a very thin foil with a sticky back that allows you to model chrome trim without having to tape and brush on silver paint, with all the worries about paint bleeding under the tape. The chrome strip along the sides is chrome foil, and the strip down the middle of the hood is flat black foil; both worked well. One of the two sets of window frames is also foil and shows that getting it to wrap around a tricky shape will require some effort as it is really not much better than the silver paint and a very steady hand that I used used on the other side. 

What's next, you ask? There are a range of other projects sitting on the shelf, including a couple ordered from Europe recently that have not been delivered yet. Not sure what's next ... the 1964 Falcon Sprint is a nice idea but will require some fabrication; meanwhile there is a kit of the Maserati 450S that Fangio drove to a win at Sebring in 1957 in the mail. Fangio! His co-driver, Jean Behra, subsequently crashed this particular car at the Mille Miglia and again at Le Mans, but won the Swedish Sports Car Grand Prix with Stirling Moss as co-driver. Stirling Moss! I ordered the Sebring version. The car also has a well detailed Italian 4-cam V8 so that should be neat. (I went out and bought a fresh can of red paint for the occasion). This will be a great partner for the 1959 Aston Martin DBR1, with which Carroll Shelby won Le Mans, which is also sitting on the shelf waiting to be started. Carroll Shelby!

Then again the snow is melting and the bike will be coming out soonish, so there may be less time over the summer for modeling. Anyway stay tuned.

 

Originally posted 6 April 2014