¹⁄35

Trakz German Staff Car

Time to face the music!

After another extended break, it was time to face the music, and fix those extra thick doors. I started out using some good old fashion 80 grit sand paper. This turned out to be way too slow for my liking, and after a while it looked like I didn’t even do anything. Soooooooo--- out came the Dremel, and sanding drum. In no time I had those doors cut down to size, but sure had a lot of repair work to do also. I puttied and sanded, puttied and sanded, puttied and sanded.

I then replaced the lost chrome trim pieces. On hindsight I should have waited until more of the bodywork was finished, but hey we all aren’t perfect, and I sometimes do get ahead on myself. Anyway, replacing these strips was rather simple; I first ran a strip of Tamyia tape aligning it with the front hood strip, and the rear top strip. I then laid down a strip of .10x.15 plastic strip, and tacked it in place with thin CA. After it looked straight, I ran a little thin CA along its length, removed the tape, and proceeded to replace the other strips the same way (Photos 26-27).
I masked off the interior with some blue painters tape, and shot some primer (Photos 28-29). You can see why I said I should have waited to apply the trim. More filling and sanding on the horizon! And again the kit was set aside to allow myself to recover from the frustrations.After a few weeks I returned and after several sessions of filling and sanding, I started sanding through the resin of the doors, exposing large pinholes. I really was approaching the point of throwing this kit out, but instead once again put it aside, until I was in a better frame of mind.

When I returned, I took a ##11 blade, enlarged the holes, and mixed up some Magic Sculpt, and used this for filler, smoothing with a wet finger. After it cured, I again sanded it smooth, and shot a coat of the gloss grey I was going to use. This coat showed up some more blemishes, (Photos 30-31) so some more sanding and spraying, sanding and spraying. Fortunately the trim remained safe, but the hinges disappeared. Photos 32-33 show the hinges replaced. A little re-scribing of the door lines followed. Several light coats of gloss grey, and light sanding in-between, and eventually I got a somewhat presentable finish.

After letting this grey cure for several weeks, (actually I really didn’t want to look at this kit again) I started masking off the body for the chrome trim. Photos 34-35 show the first stage of the Alclad II black primer. I masked and shot the chrome in stages. I got a nice shiny smooth finished from this primer, I decided to also use it for the black finish on the fenders. (A future nightmare we‘ll come to!)

Next I tackled the tires. These had three rather wide groves to represent the treads. I decided to try to improve this area, and used Magic Sculpt to fill these grooves in. A little sanding, and I was able to try to re-engrave treads. I made up a jig from a stack of #11 blades, and some scrap boxwood. It was then a simple matter of loosening up the screw, and aligning the blades to the curve of the tire, tightening the screw, hoping nothing moved, and lightly scribing in the new tread. Not perfect, but they do look better than before (Photos 36-38). I then mounted all the smaller parts on toothpicks, wire, etc to prime with my normal primer, followed by the black Alclad II primer, then the Alclad II Chrome for the chrome parts (Photos 39-41).