Austin Mini Cooper WIP

Martin Oostrom
Next one is underway!

Spanjaard
Martin model factory attacking again 🙂 great to see the next in the bench 🙂

Martin Oostrom
In the box are parts for different versions. As you know, I'm not one for historical accuracy, so I'll mix and match the parts that I like best 😄
I've got some Alclad colours that I really want to use on this neat little car

Spanjaard
sounds like a good plan 🙂

Martin Oostrom
As it turned out, It seems I like a little variation.

Peter Hardy
Great! Then you will be building the Aussie Kenworth next then?

Greg Baker
Oh, I wanna see how this one rolls out from Martin's garage.

Martin Oostrom
Peter, haven't got one in the stash. Which one do you like in 1:24 or 1/25?
Hopefully on 4 wheels Greg 😉

Peter Hardy
Marty, this is a real truck! an-modeltrucks.com/s..truck-resin-kit-124/ You'll need a doner kit for the chassis though.

Martin Oostrom
I'll also need to donate some organs to get that money!

Martin Oostrom
Sorry Peter, I won't be building the K200. I'll have to make do with this one: scalemates.com/kits/110109-italeri-719-australian-truck

Peter Hardy
Well, it's a start. I have never seen a background like that in Oz though!

Daniel Klink
Lovely so far Following 👍

Wim van der Luijt
@Peter: could be the snowy mountains, I walked through the snow there on Mount Kosciuszko when I was in Oz

Peter Hardy
I stood on top of Kosciusko many years ago. Wasn't snowing though. Didn't see any fir trees either.

Martin Oostrom
Alclad bottle green on the roof and rims

Spanjaard
silver primer looking good. english green, nice 🙂

Martin Oostrom
It did. Somehow the silver primer lifted of the plastic in a corner. Had to strip the roof. Now she is white again and ready for another go in the morning. The green did look stunning after a gentle polishing though 😛

Martin Oostrom
Now that's a compliment!

Martin Oostrom
As I need to repaint the roof, I've come up with an idea. I want to prime in Gloss Black, then create highlights with the Silver Base. Colour will be Alclad Candy Bottle Green. This way I hope to create some visually interesting stuff. Is this an idea that might work??? Critics and suggestions are welcome!

Spanjaard
well, why not? i may even give more shine to the base, that will make the green look even better

Peter Hardy
Me too! Very!

Martin Oostrom
I did I did see a... Oh, wrong cartoon 😄
I reprimed with Alclad Gloss black primer. Let it dry overnight, then polished it till it shone like a national guitar. Made a circle mask from a Pringles lid (thanks for the idea Greg). Then added highlights with Alclad Silver base. Next time, assuming a grand succes, I'll use a thinner mask.

Martin Oostrom
Sprayed the Alclad Candy Bottle Green. I like it!

Spanjaard
Top! 👍

Wim van der Luijt
looks reptilian somehow

Peter Hardy
Sweet!

Greg Baker
The idea that I somehow had something to do with that amazing result, even indirectly, is hard to believe. What a great job.

Martin Oostrom
Thanks lads. I really like the roof, so I went and sprayed some Alclad dark aluminium on the body of the car in stripes. Then I used Alclad Candy Violet. The stripes are showing through…..

Martin Oostrom
The green is so deep, it just overpowers the purple

Spanjaard
very nice experiment.

Tim Heimer
I saw an insect with those colors!

Donald Dickson II
Wow! Martin, I LOVE the result you got! That is absolutely gorgeous!

Daniel Klink
@Timothy exact my thoughts 🙂 Great Paintjob Martin 👍

Christian Bruer
Excellent paintwork Martin 👍

Martin Oostrom
Well gents, she does look fine. This afternoon I sprayed another purple layer and this improved her very much. Still not KC quality, but it's improving. Tomorrow I hope to seal and protect the Alclad with some layers of Tamiya X-22 gloss.
Then it's to the next step.

Norm Sheppard
WOW! Far out and groovy, as we used to say.....

Spanjaard
certainly a great result 🙂

Peter Hardy
Lode and Spanjaard aren't piss!ng in your pocket Marty, it looks brilliant mate!

Martin Oostrom
Norm, you make me want to watch Austin Powers!
Three Amigos, you make me blush, again.

Martin Oostrom
Primed some parts white. Disappointed that I pulled a bit of purple and silver primer off the plastic.

Martin Oostrom
Found some time yesterday and today to paint some parts. Quite happy with the Alclad stuff. Also did some assembly work.

Greg Baker
This is really coming along nicely.

Spanjaard
very nicely indeed!

Peter Hardy
Marty NEVER buy a car with white upholstery!

Martin Oostrom
Peter, it's a gift for a lady. They never care much for practical issues. It just looks pretty!

Peter Hardy
Oh, you have met a woman then? Lady at work is getting a new car. I asked her what type and she replied a red one! True dinks!

Burkhard D
Cool paint job!😎

Martin Oostrom
This is turning into a frustrating with light speed. Left front wheel keeps falling off. In one of the repairs I got some glue on the purple 🙁
While adding the metal transfer on the back of the car, some paint lifted, varnish, colour AND primer. Need to think of something 🙁
I might as well weather the crap out of it to hide my mistakes. This might not be gift worthy anymore?

Martin Oostrom
Has anybody got suggestions on how to fix the rear?

Daniel Klink
Martin that looks amazingly good 👍
Hide that thing from male Rosebugs 🙂

Oops sees they were already there😢 Hm thats really a pit.
How About Molotow chrome Pen or the chrome parts?

Tom ...
I feel your pain! I managed to remove some spots on the Citroen body while masking and was so bummed. However in my case I was able to lightly sand and repaint so can only image how devastated you must be. I don't have any suggestion, sorry.

I really like the re-chroming you did. Using Alclad?

Martin Oostrom
I re-did the Chrome with Alclad Chrome. Peter states that Chrome for Lexan gives better results, but I don't have that one (yet).
The problem is that the purple is lifted AROUND the metal transfers. Light sanding would mean destroying the transfer and repainting around all the other stuff. I'm not sure I'm capable of that particular trick. I'll patiently await all the bells and whistles from my super mates 😉

Spanjaard
if you can get the transfers again, you can polish it very carefully, paint it again, and give it rest to cure very well, add some future, let it cure very well (several days) and then try the transfer again. I can get you some future in Houten if you need

Greg Baker
Spanjaard's suggestion is the correct one... but, since this car is already pretty groovy, what I would do is get a perfectly placed bumper sticker...

It's a gift, right? Why not personalize it with a "I heart..." sticker?

Spanjaard
Greg idea is very simply... and totally spot on. plenty of choices there, something "personal" for the lady it is going to

Greg Baker
I was going to suggest a "Just Married" sign... but that might be pushing it.😉

Tom ...
I suggest "Baby On Board!" 🙂

Spanjaard
indeed! 🙂

Donald Dickson II
Honestly, I would go with get the transfers again and redo that spot completely. But thats just me.

Greg Baker
Of course the guy who adds lights and sirens to a 1/24 scale fire engine would say that...

Donald Dickson II
LOL Greg, and who led me down that path???????

Peter Hardy
I would be interested as to why it lifted in the first place. Some folks wash the plastic before painting but I have also heard that with the improvements in the plastic it isn't necessarily needed anymore. So, we are down to Marty handling the body with a bit of cheese in his fingers. How to fix it? Strip it and start again!

Martin Oostrom
A bit of sanding works, unless it's a high shine Alclad paint. Then it's sanding, polishing and a lot of praying. Guess what I've got here? 🙁
Greg might actually hit the jackpot. She was married in a purple mini (new version), so a couple of just married decals could do the trick of hiding my errors. Thanks Greg!

I usually wash the sprues with a regular dish washing soap. Rinse with cold water and let them air dry. I did polish the body before washing. Could it be that the surface was too smooth for the primer to 'bite' into the surface?

Donald Dickson II
Didnt you use the Alclad primer? I believe that is a lacquer as well and SHOULD bond with the plastic fairly well. IF I am remembering correctly. I HAVE had issues using Valejo primer as it is an acrylic and just lays there.

I guess the just married thing would work as well. Just dont give Greg too much credit. He will get all cocky and stuff.😉 LOL

Martin Oostrom
Bought white decal paper last month, nice test bed this mini 🙁
Donald, I used Alclad Silver Base. That IS a primer, isn't it? Don't tell me I should have put on a layer of Alclad's Gloss Black first...
Edit: according to their website alclad2.com/how-to/ Silver base should be applied to bare plastic.

Tom ...
Hmmm, are you going to tie little tin cans to the back of the car? 🙂 That would be cool but then you'd probably need to make it into a diorama... which would be super too.

Martin Oostrom
Tom, a 1/24 coke can is approx 3 1/3mm wide and 5 mm high. Let's assume I can build these (should be the easiest bit), how the **** am I going to paint them AND tie them to a rope?? I'm not Bughunter or Alex G 😉 I DO like the idea though. Crap, I'm tempted.

Tom ...
Hehe, sorry. 🙂 I think you could get away with oversized cans. It might look a little cartoony but that might be a nice look too. I'll shut up now. It's too easy to suggest things when I'm not the one who has to do it.

On a side note, I have to look into how to make my own decals. Yours look really great!

Martin Oostrom
Just keep throwing ideas around, there might be a gem in there!
For the decals I have asked the help of The Great Greg 😉 Here as his answers:

Ok... there's always hope, but be prepared for some disappointment. As you probably know decal paper works because you print onto the carrier film (either transparent or white) and then you spray on top of the ink to seal it. The main problems I've had are a)not spraying enough and having the decal dissolve as soon as it hits the water and b) not being able to trick my own Canon Pixma into printing high quality onto the paper. I've tried "high quality settings" but it refuses to believe the decal paper is anything other than regular A4 and so doesn't give it as much ink as it would on, say, photo paper. That means that no matter how high a resolution image I print, I still seem to get a bit of a grainy print.

The other thing is of course the no white. The white background paper is difficult to trim perfectly, so one thing I've tried is having a small border transition into the background colour. Matching the paint on your model is tricky, but one thing I've heard of but not tried is to try and match it as closely as possible on-screen and then print a bar of "test" shades that are basically +/- 10% so that you can get a pretty good approximation.

As far as equipment goes... I don't know what Gimp is. I draw my images on Illustrator (or steal them off the internet and then re-draw them) and then I do the set up in Photoshop. To ensure I've got the sizing correct, I create a new document and then set the parameters (say, 5mm by 8mm at 300dpi resolution) and then resize my image to fit that document. Then I copy and paste it to another document which is A4 paper size at the same resolution (very important!). That way you can do a layout that manages your paper usage properly.

--------My summary:
1) Size to fit at 300dpi or more
2) Lie to the printer about paper quality
3) Avoid white in the decals 😉
4) Spray a lot of sealant

Martin Oostrom
I do have some Evergreen stuff lying around. Could be there is a rod in there? ****, now I HAVE to check. Perhaps a decal in the right size could be used instead of painting the cans?
I'm afraid where this will lead me....

Greg Baker
Figures I'd hit the Jackpot here and not in Vegas...😉

First off, the Just married decals look perfect. One thing you might think about is placing them on a bit of square polystyrene so that it looks like a signboard rather than just a sticker. Just an option depending on the look you're going for. That might give you better placement options.

As for the tin cans... you must do it. I'm pretty sure you can find a bit of 3mm styrene rod/tube that you can cut into 5mm sections. Paint them silver and then apply your homemade decals for the labels and the tops... voila!

Donald Dickson II
The signs look great! I agree that putting them on some plastic card would the way to go. Its a sign after all, not a bumper sticker. And the cans dont have to have anything on them per se. I have seen many a car with bare silver cans on it.

Spanjaard
why using styrene to make cans, when you can use aluminium? metal tubes (Albion Alloys?) of simply some piece cut to form a tube. a bit of white paint, and you can make your own decals to make it look like cola cans or something. i did such a cans of cola for dio ages ago.
Vietnam diorama (done in the 90's) | Album by hetspanjaard (1:35) (right hand side of the picture)
it was easy in 1/35, piece of cake in 1/24 🙂
there are commercial decals for it if you do not want to do it yourself
scalemates.com/kits/1147261-amt-mka030-coca-cola-graphics
scalemates.com/kits/276761-t..-energy-drink-473ml-pop-cans
scalemates.com/kits/992286-s..tion-sp24257-drink-cans-4pcs

Spanjaard
your just married decals look really good by the way 🙂

Spanjaard
i was thinking that there is another way of making it.... if you get very small capacitors you may have almost perfect cans... maybe a bit too big, but you can attach big cans to a friend car car in wedding day, right?😉
every time that i discard some electronic equipment, i look inside to see what i can salvage... cables, copper, capacitors.... lost of useful stuff for modeling 😄 😄 i have some pretty small ones if you need

Martin Oostrom
Now that's genius Spanjaard. You know I've got some of that stuff. As I don't have a rod in the right size, a capacitor might save the day!

Spanjaard
glad to help 🙂
if you have time in Houten, look out for Abyon Alloys tubs... a few of those can be really helpful! and they do not cost much

Peter Hardy
Marty, now you know why I pay Spanjaard so much to be your friend! He is worth having around!

Spanjaard
nice compliment 😛

Martin Oostrom
Totally agree 👍

Martin Oostrom
I'll have to think about those cans. In the meanwhile: Bumblebee WIP | Album by Mahoo76 (1:25) 😄

Martin Oostrom
Made some cans from metallic grey sprue. Good enough?
Also added some self made decals. (Thanks Greg!) Bit oversized, but there was lots to hide 😉

Greg Baker
That looks absolutely fantastic! It doesn't like it's got anything to hide. I can practically hear the trumpets playing in the background.

Martin Oostrom
Greg, hush! Or Peter will demand a 3-man mariachi band 🙁

Wim van der Luijt
how about a typical Dutch " Dweilorkest" and make a little diorama? 😄

Tom ...
Ha ha, love it. Now it has real character. She's going to love it!

Martin Oostrom
This one is done. Completed album is here: Austin Mini Cooper Completed | Album by Mahoo76 (1:24)

Martin Oostrom
My brother is in on the secret. He is happy. Saturday the Mini will change owners.

Peter Hardy
Jamaican steel drum band more like it. Nice job Marty, brother is bound to do well Saturday night.

Spanjaard
those cans look really nice, and the car with the decals and the great painjob? excellent! truly unique. quite a nice present!

Peter Hardy
Well, it's Saturday night here and a modeller's thoughts turn to .... DID SHE LIKE THE MINI MARTY?

Martin Oostrom
45 minutes to go before it's evening here Peter 😉
Of course I see many faults that you don't, but hey, that's my syndrome 😎. Thank you for the compliments gentlemen!

Martin Oostrom
Peter, she didn't like the mini 🙁
She loved it! 😎

Christian Bruer
Very nice work and finish 👍

Greg Baker
Yay! Mission Accomplished!

I have to admit, this mini got me looking at a 1/24 scale Fiat 500... I didn't get handsy, but I was ogling a bit...

Martin Oostrom
I restrained myself very much at esm, bought only one kit and one barrel and two resin engines.
To compensate I just ordered a bigsin set for the f-16 and a 1/24 Citroën 2cv and two mask sets. 😄

Peter Hardy
Hope there were tears of joy!

Spanjaard
only one kit a barrel and two resin engines? were you ok? maybe was the lack of "external motivation"😉

Martin Oostrom
Yup. My regular companion and instigator wasn't with me. Something about 'other business' in Germany 😉

Peter Hardy
I somehow doubt you need Spanjaard's assistance to buy a carfull of boxed sprues!

Spanjaard
Ha ha ha. Believe me, I would have loved to be there!

Martin Oostrom
Now there's an idea Lode. But where to leave the new 'table'? Might not get the approval of mrs. Oostrom to put it in the living room 😄

Martin Oostrom
Yours will 👍