SAS Kaminari Celica Progress Thread

[ZoomZoomMX-5]

I've been working for several weeks on this SAS Kaminari Celica, and taking slides of the project for a magazine article. Today I took some digital pics of the primered body and of the first coat of paint.

Long story short, after removing the front/rear bumpers and gluing on the resin pieces, the panel lines were a bit big and I didn't do a great job of removing the front bumper, removed a bit of the hood as well. So I decided to grind down the glue joints w/my Dremel, making about a 1/8" wide trough in the areas of the panel lines. These troughs were filled w/putty, so that I could rescribe the panel lines into the putty. Why? Rescribing is difficult enough w/o having to worry about scribing plastic/glue/putty joints, it's much easier to scribe just the putty. Sounds difficult but it really made the job easier and cleaner.

Once the pieces were nearly finished, there were a few gaps in the panel lines that I filled from behind w/some epoxy putty, so it would ooze out of the front side, and I could scrape off the excess. It worked well.

Here's the car in Tamiya white primer this morning just before the first color coats:





And here it is w/the first coats of Tamiya TS 58 (?) Light Blue Pearl.





Hope you enjoy! Today I'm working on lowering the suspension, fitting the XS Tuning rims, and making the end plates for a custom-fabricated GT wing that's using SAS uprights. The center of the wing is from a Viper GTS-R, matches the curve of the Celica body.

Sorry if the pics are slow to load, my album service seems really slow today.

[RaceMySS_454]

cars lookin great.

one thing those the pics to a few seconds to load. you might want to try uploading them directly to AF

here ya go.

Click here to upload

keep up the good work on the model :alien:

[daggerlee]

Awesome work! You'll have to let us know which issue of Scale Auto or whatever magazine it will be in is published so we can pick it up :coolguy:

[Towelboy80]

Good beginning. I build the same but without SAS kit... with a personnal kit .

[Veyron]

Looks good! Ooze?

[ZoomZoomMX-5]

Originally posted by Veyron
Looks good! Ooze?

Yep!

And squished, too! Looked like silly putty going through the extrusion machine!

[daggerlee]

Oh, and what scribing tool did you use? Was it hard starting from a smooth surface, or did you leave a bit of the panel lines as a guide?

[bigfrit]

Looking really, really nice ! Can't wait to see some further progress!

Olivier

[njh]

Coming along nicely.

[D[X]P]

looks great

[ZoomZoomMX-5]

Originally posted by daggerlee
Oh, and what scribing tool did you use? Was it hard starting from a smooth surface, or did you leave a bit of the panel lines as a guide?

I had to draw the panel lines in w/a pencil (using another Celica body as a guide) and then I used a curved, triangular-section riffler file to get the lines started and shaped. I sharpenened them up throughout the process before/after primer w/a pointed scribing tool (I think it's by Squadron). The traditional kind of panel line scriber, the one where you drag it along, only works on styrene. I really like using the riffler files and the pointed scribing tool.

I'm helping a friend this weekend do the same type of work on his SAS 350Z, much more work than the Celica because of the separate hood and more complicated joins between the resin and the plastic. It's his first major body modification project, and he's doing quite well. It's also going to be part of another magazine article.

[tonioseven]

Cool projects!!! Plus you guys are providing exposure for Chris, which means more kits for us!!! We ALL win in this situation!!

[fullbloodchop01]

lookin great:sun:

[flyonthewall]

Looking great Bob, really looking forward to this article you've been planning for so long

[ZoomZoomMX-5]

Thanks for the comments so far!

Got a chance to work on it more over the weekend, mainly getting the suspension/wheels fit which wasn't too big a hassle. The XS Tuning rims are a direct replacement for the Tamiya parts, and their brake discs are also direct replacements but you have to trim off the alignment pin on the Tamiya suspension parts. I lowered it as well using Chris's trick of cutting the upper suspension mount and adding a tubular donut to the lower mount. The rear only required one minor cut/trim to lower nicely. Everything's assembled w/fun tack right now. My GT wing just was too big/obnoxious looking for this model, the Kaminari kit and these rims aren't wild enough to support a GT wing. I wasn't happy w/it, then looked at the stock wing and it looked fine to me and my friends, so that's what it's going to be. Think I'll add blue carbon fiber stripes over the hood/roof/spoiler.