Alphard Silk Blaze [VIP]

[stradlegroove]

Hi everyone.. I'd like to share my recently built VIP car, Alphard Silk Blaze which is made by Aoshima.

Overal, it's a great car for quick build. It took me about 2 weeks to finish it off. Unfortunately, it has some fitment errors here and there, such as, front bumper, headlamp, & backlamp as well as the detail of the interior. Apart from these flaws, it's a nice kit.

I painted the body with Tamiya TS-40 (Metallic Black) and its clear paint as well (hm.... forgot the serial no ). To be frank, it's the first kit of mine that is waxed & polished. I've never done that before. For the first time, I'm quite glad with the result . But I know that this result is still far away from most of anyone's work here. One of my friend told me that I need to wet sand the paint before applying the clear coat. Is it true? Because, 'my sense' convince me that it would scratch the paint. So.. what you guys think?

Finaly, here is the pics..















Comments are welcomed. Thanks for looking!

[potsie]

Nice and different - I like it! I like the idea of the Aoshima vans and people movers, and I have just recently bought the D.A.D. Odyssey. Looks like fun.

As for the wet-sanding... My experience is that wet sanding before final clear coat is okay for normal colours, but sometimes in metallics it reduces the 'sparkle' of the metallic. For example, I found that wet sanding TS-50 (WRX Mica Blue) before the clear coating reduced the shine. However, I do wet sand between every colour coat, between clear coats on normal colours, and even for metallics I sometime wet sand between clear coats - but very lightly and with a very fine grade sand paper. Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Grant.

[Mojo_stevo]

Nice! Looks very good. Can't wait till my VIP Junction Produce Q45 shows up. Well have to do a VIP meet or something, I know there are quite a few VIPs build in here.

[stradlegroove]

Originally Posted by potsie

Nice and different - I like it! I like the idea of the Aoshima vans and people movers, and I have just recently bought the D.A.D. Odyssey. Looks like fun.

As for the wet-sanding... My experience is that wet sanding before final clear coat is okay for normal colours, but sometimes in metallics it reduces the 'sparkle' of the metallic. For example, I found that wet sanding TS-50 (WRX Mica Blue) before the clear coating reduced the shine. However, I do wet sand between every colour coat, between clear coats on normal colours, and even for metallics I sometime wet sand between clear coats - but very lightly and with a very fine grade sand paper. Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Grant.

Great advise Grant. I'll give it a try! Thanks heaps.

[stradlegroove]

Originally Posted by Mojo_stevo

Nice! Looks very good. Can't wait till my VIP Junction Produce Q45 shows up. Well have to do a VIP meet or something, I know there are quite a few VIPs build in here.

Thanks! Actually this is my first VIP build, very fun to build. But this van almost consumed 1 tamiya spray can alone! Anyway, I love VIP but not in reality because it's quite troublesome for daily drive