911 Turbo

[appleseed]

I picked up this kit a while back... not too impressed with it now so I decided to use this as a mini-how-to for styrene scratchbuilding and what tools I use to do so.



This is the Fujimi 911 Turbo. Not bad but not that great either. Lacks alot of detail. The first thing I wanted to do was to beef up the rear flares with the goal to make it look a bit more agressive and similar to the Porsches that ran in some of the LeMans races.



I started off by filing down and leveling off the wheel arches so that I am able to give better adhesion with the styrene.

I did so using my handy dandy sanding block. Since you can probably use some scrap styrene to make something this simple, there is no excuse why I can't make sharp edges. For this task, I used 80 grit sand paper. Just don't push too hard otherwise you'll be sanding forever trying to take out the scratches later (removing alot of detail in the process).



I chose to use two layers of 1mm styrene sheets to beef up and widen the flares. I used scrap styrene for this. Notice how they're all small pieces and jagged. I try not to waste styrene as i have to drive quite a bit to get them. With each layer, I use my side clippers to trim them down to the shape of the wheel arch and bodywork. This saves you from tremendous amounts of sanding when you're ready.







After about ten minutes of sanding, I ended up with this. I used 80 grit paper thus the sanding was not bad at all. The mistake I made when I first started out using sheet styrene or putty for that matter was that I kept using too high a grade which took forever to achieve any results!

The goal here at this point is to give the styrene some definition at the top of the arch (where the new flare would be). You want it even all the way around the arch and as sharp as possible. You will be using this edge to glue with (glue would dull down the sharp edge as it melts the plastic) so the sharper the better at this point.

Make sure the plastic is fairly even with the body as you do not want it interfering with the next step.





At this point, you could go with either putty or styrene. My former self would have chosen putty but tonight, I chose styrene.

I made a mask using Tamiya tape of where my new flare would be. Not a really hard task as I don't expect it to be perfect. I just needed it to conform as much as needed for the model cement to take hold and weld the two together. For the new flare, I used 0.5mm plastic which is easy to bend (and cut with scissors!)





So here's the part many of beginners struggle over, how do you glue it in? Well here's the thing... no one said that you had to glue to whole piece together at one time! It took much trial and error before I found that out! The easiest thing to do is to glue one end first and let it dry. This gives it strength and won't move around when you struggle with the rest of the tricky plastic. I used some tape to hold it down while the glue dries.





In the above pix, you can see how I was able to clean off the inner wheel well so precisely... a Pert shampoo cap as a sanding block! It works wonderfully well and gives a perfect radius each time! You can achieve ovals with such a sanding block as well! Ahh... I wish someone would have told me that when I was starting out... *sigh*...

What I love about using styrene over putty is that you can achieve sharp edges and seam lines are almost invisible (I still got some here but eh... can't win them all).

With a bit of sanding, I got quite a result with just styrene alone. There are still some areas which I have to use putty on such as the interface betwen the bumper and the flare and the area where the sideskirts meet the flare. The last pic is a comparison of the left and right rear flares.







I'll post some more progress when I finish off the other side and start on the rear bumper.

Thanks for looking!

a.

[DukeMan]

That is so cool, nice way to use styrene for the job. And also, if you can´t build something nice with the kit, build something crazy with it! Let your imagination flow and be creative!

[BRM]

Nice job, thanks for sharing your technique. Look forward to seeing more progress.

[Hiroboy]

Great "How To" I'm sure it's gonna help loads of us
Thanks

[Midnight Racer]

Awesome progress and great how to.

[Wheelin75r]

Damn nice "How to". Thx for sharing. I'll be following this one!

[ToxicWaltz]

great! never saw styrene used to do those kind of things. really clean job

[Martin S]

That masking tape-trick seems very useful !
Will definatley try it some time.

[GvEman]

looks like good start! keep it up!

[Porsche Carrera]

Great tip! Saves so much time, rather than sandiing putty. Looking great!

[tonioseven]

Added to the "how-to" section

[Bas Carwash]

Nice How-to. Really useful technique. Thankx.

[MidMazar]

awesome stuff, please keep us updated, also are you going to modify the front bumper as well?

[rx7king]

thats a crazy way to make a wide body kit........and it looks perfect

[DavkeG]

Can't wait to see how it looks finished and painted.