JamesPerrin wrote:things have moved smoothly if not swiftly on
Well things stopped moving smoothly on. Last weekend I was ready to give it a clear coat using Halford's Lacquer spray can. You are meant to apply two coats 15mins apart. First coat went on lovely and settled down smooth and flat. I think the nozzle had gummed up, as it seemed to splutter on the when spraying the the second coat which didn't level out and I ended up with a textured finish that was very obvious when it caught the light.
So I a couple of days later I rubbed it down with 4000->12000 grit micromesh and sprayed third coat which went on fine and the finish was acceptable. A few hours later I masked on some red trim along the front sill. Which I brushed painted. Not only did the tape lift but when I came to remove it after a couple of coats it had reacted with the clear coat and left a rough finish. Evidently the lacquer hadn't fully hardened when I masked. So I rubbed and polished this down again with the micro mesh, at a couple of points it went through the paint work to the grey primer. To fix this would have meant stripping and starting again from scratch as I had hand mixed the off white might have well ended with a two tone car. So I decided to live with the tiny blemishes they are only on one side (and are to the back when it's on the shelf).
The interior was painted a deep red (Hu19 + a touch of black) which I then satin coated to represent the leather and matt coated for the floor. Dials were black with white marking and silver bezels. I added the missing handbrake from stretched sprue. To make the interior look for complete rather than some seats in a hole I added door bins from card painted to match the trim, and glued these over areas I painted grey to represent the unpainted interior of the doors.
With the under tray glued in place it was time to attach the wheels at which point the final insult (so I thought) was hurled at me. Not only was the rear suspension (parts 2&3) not quite horizontal which meant the wheels were hard up against the arches (my fault, but they only need to be a couple of degrees off), but the front axle stubs (parts 13&15) were the wrong way up and I couldn't even get the wheels on. I had followed the instructions carefully in the construction of the front suspension and indeed they are unclear. The way 13 was drawn it suggested the the longer half of the support was lowermost. In the end I grabbed some pliers twisted the parts off, inverted them and hit them with enough superglue and accelerator that they wished they'd never been born.
Finally as the the parts were all painted up and I didn't want to have to scratch at the body I was using white glue to attached the chrome parts where I could and superglue gel only where absolutely necessary such as the wind shield. After getting this in place it then promptly decided to fall over and slide over the bonnet and in doing so mark the windscreen (which a had spent weeks covered in protective masking tape) with said glue. Let's just say I will be buying shares in Micromesh.
After questioning my competence and seriously pushing at the edges of my sanity would like to say I'm disappointed why the finished model but I'm not
Maybe it's the scheme I choose or the fact that it's a Healey, but despite the shoddy wheels and the non too clever paint work it looks rather good.
Nurse I'm really for my pills now...
