Category: Mod

Model customization at its finest

Frenchman Steph mods and customizes models for a living. I wasn’t aware of his work until I saw him featured at Petrolicious, and it’s nothing short of fantastic. From what I understood he works with all scales, big or small. I’ve been known to mod a model or two, but different than mine, Steph’s model actually looks (VERY!) good 😁.

Transforming something filthy into something nice

Ever been through this? You find a nice model for a good price. A model that you wanted and that’s not exactly common. The price is (very!) good and when you ask the seller, he says that the model is “in perfect conditions” – a true collector’s item. And since the seller has good feedback you hit the BIN button.

Well, that story did not have a happy ending when I got the model 😡. In the end, however, I think I came out on top. How? Read here.

MOD – Porsche 550 RS Spyder #65

Since I just posted a charming 550A, I thought it was a good time to talk about the worse model of my collection.

With a spare model for parts, a sharp knife and some glue, I tried to make my 550 RS #65 a better model. The result? It still stinks 🤮. Oh come on, what did you expect? I was working with a turd. Only magic to fix that.

Still, the stench is not as bad now. Click on the link above to see the how-to and the finished excre… I mean, model.

MOD – 1937 Auto Union Typ C Stromlinienwagen (record car)

Shortly after I published the Typ C Stromlinienwagen (record car) review, I was reading a bit more on Silberpfeile LSR cars. By chance I watched again the footage of Rosemeyer’s 1937 record attempt, and something caught my eye. I missed this when I first wrote the review, but you can clearly see that for the record run his Typ C carried a swastika.

To make it more historically accurate, I had to address that. So, decal time! If you want to see how it looks now, just go to the Stromlinienwagen’s page.

MOD – Porsche 911 R

One of the things that bothered me at least a little about my 911 R was the absent “Porsche stripe”. The stripe was an accessory that you would buy at a Porsche dealer, and then apply to your car. But as it’s common knowledge, a car with go-fast-stripes is always faster. Therefore, my car needed the stripes. To fix that, a few months ago the Earl of Northumberland graciously sent me some spares stripes that I could use.

But to be honest I kind of forgot about them, always waiting for a decal job to show up so I would do everything at once. Well, yesterday the time came, and it was a VERY simple decal job. Decals in place and like magic my 911 R got faster 🙂

Function above form. Always.

The gold paint arrived (Tamiya’s X-12) so I started on the wheel lug nuts and then metallic silver (X-11) for the door handles. From the looks of it the door handles won’t look very good, since they should be chrome. But since there’s no way I can chrome them, flaky silver paint will have to do. From a meter away I think they will convince.

And this is a model car blog, so no comments on the (lack of) latte art. A cappuccino with the perfect proportion of espresso, milk and micro foam. And perfect shot of espresso. Flavor was friggintastic, and that’s what matters – looks be damned.

Boogers!

Do NOT believe anyone saying that this is an easy project… The white around the door handles is tampo-printed, and at least in my car, the paint was pretty thick. So I had a bear of a time to remove it without damaging the red paint around. But even using acetone-free nail polish remover, a bit of the red rubbed off. So I had to make some retouches to the paint in the recessed area around the door handle and of course to the door handles too.

Now I’m waiting to receive a flask of gold paint (for wheel nuts) and I’ll also have to paint the door handles silver. That done, then it’s decal time.

The project advances

But I have to say it was NOT easy to remove all the decals. It took a lot of scratching with fingernails and a plastic knife. The decals were really adhered to the paint, so it was not exactly easy. I can only hope that the decals on my other models from Minichamps are as solid as these.

And now the part that I’m most worried about: to remove that white around the door handles.