Audi S1: on to the body

So the combination of Dupli-Color Automotive Primer/Sealer with Testor's white in a rattle can appears to work just fine, given the constraints of rattle cans around things like droplet size. (Now that I am retired, there may be an airbrush in my future). I have no idea why I have had such problems with Tamiya paints in pale colours in the past, but there you go. Any ideas would be most welcome.

The chassis is painted and the engine installed. The intercooler is now level but too low and doesn't line up with the grille; fixing it would require shifting the compressor side of the turbo so that the air outlet from the compressor to the intercooler runs above the exhaust pipe from #1 cylinder, not under; I think I'll leave it alone if only because this will play havoc with the exhaust from the turbo and wastegate. These so-called multi-media kits, with resin and spun cast bits, aren't 'paint-by-numbers' like a styrene kit from AMT or Tamiya; lots of trial fitting and fiddling with bits is a good idea and I have probably been treating this a little too much like a styrene kit. The S1 and the Abarth (which still needs a few finishing touches) are providing useful information and experience before I get back to more demanding stuff like the Aston Martin DBR1 from Profil 24 or the monstrous little 908/03 from Model Factory Hiro. (Look through older posts for details on these.)



So with the chassis painted, the body now has a couple of coats in white, plus the yellow has been put on after taping it all up. I foolishly forgot to spray on a coat of clear over the tape before going to the yellow, so there are a few spots where yellow seeped under the tape and which will need to be fixed, but nothing major. One nice aspect of using Testor's rattle cans is being able to do touch ups with a brush. I took advantage of this benefit in several places and will continue to do so going forward.





The decal on the hood proved a challenge. The decals are fairly thick; normally I like this but the hood has a couple of blisters for clearing the shock towers, and no amount of Micro-Sol setting solution could get the decals to settle down over this compound curve without cracking. I will tidy this up with a very fine brush and some enamel, meanwhile the rest of the car is largely flat surfaces so there should be no repeats of this particular problem.



The air scoops all have photo-etched grilles (6 in the hood alone) that look quite nice. This is a step up from having to paint, then wash in some flat black, although the grilles are fragile and it is possible to lay on way too much CA glue. As with polystyrene glue, toothpicks are helpful in limiting the amount of glue on any given part.

I will be busy with other things for the next day or two, then away from the bench until November, so updates will be sparse for the next while. Please feel free to comment on anything you see here.