1981 IMSA MOMO Porsche 935 “Moby Dick” Resin Conversion for 1/24 Tamiya kit

This blog post is for converting the 1/24 Tamiya Martini Porsche 935 “Moby Dick” plastic kit into the IMSA 1981 MOMO Porsche 935, Riverside 6 hr version, Sears Point, Portland, Road America or Nurmberg race version.

The project….

Pictures of the 1981 MOMO Porsche 935 can be found here at Racing Sports Car Photo Gallery 1981 Sears Point 100 1981 Portland 100 1981 Road America 500

About the kit….

-Resin conversion kit

You can purchase a 1981 MOMO Porsche 935 conversion kit at my website HERE It comes with two resin doors that replicate the MOMO IMSA 935, rear bare aluminum rear wing assembly with angled endplates.

-Decals

Decals can be purchased at Indycals HERE

These decal placement artwork by Indycals depicts the 1981 Riverside 6 hr layout and uses the Tamiya kit rear wing. The rear wing in my kit is the bare Aluminum rear wing that was mostly used during the IMSA season and in the Nurmberg race as seen in the illustration below….

The Nurberg version of this car, uses the aluminum rear wing which is supplied in this kit.

1/24 Tamiya plastic kit

Designed in 1978 by Tamiya model company, this kit was originally designed for an electric motor and batteries. The body is beautifully shaped to look as real as it can get. The chassis is very basic with very minimal detail. Many 1/24 Tamiya Martini Porsche 935-78 Turbo kits can be found on ebay HERE

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The build-up…..

The MOMO Porsche 935 did not have these front fender extensions. Everything in black needs to be removed

This part takes some concentration and patience. Use a thin razor saw the fits onto an X-acto knife. Cut along the kit body line as best as you can. Be sure not to cut off the window moldings off too much as you will need these to touch the new resin replacement door. If you are brave, you can use a Dremel and quickly grind out the sections that need to be removed…

If you dont get the cut lines perfect you can easily use Apoxie-Sculpt to fix the lines. 9 times out of 10 this will be part of the building process.

The 1981 Momo Porsche didn’t have the top fender louvers. So those need to be filled in with Apoxie-Sculpt. Be sure to wet down the Apoxie Sculpt and press it well into the louvers and blend it into the gaps.

Use Super glue to stick the doors into place. Glue the bottom of the door in first from the inside. and make sure the front top of the door is somewhat under the front fender edge. Make sure the window moldings are slightly touching the resin door.

Be sure to test fit your door and get your hands and motor skills trained to handle the door the best way possible to make the gluing process easier. I also recommend using a fresh super glue, old super glue loses some of its instant grip. After your initial gluing, do an extra round of glue on the inside to make sure there is the most adhesion possible.

Scuff the entire body with Scotch brite green scratch pad to take the shine off the plastic surface and make slightly roughed up surface for the Primer to adhere to properly. If you fail to scuff the body, your paint job will not stick and will flake off because its like painting over a glass surface, it doesn’t stick.

Give a nice light coat of Tamiya Grey Primer to find all the problem areas

The grey is easy on the eye and shows the bad spots on the body and or contamination areas that need to be addressed. Sand and use Bondo spot filler to cover over any pin hole or rough spot.

I recommend using Tamiya White Surface Primer – Spray light coats until the entire surface is all white. Doing this will insure the Bright Red will be the proper shade in all areas of this car as Tamiya Paints are very thin and any color under the layer of paint will show though, so that’s why its important to lay a nice coat of white primer down first.

I recommend using Tamiya TS-49 Bright Red, but this can be debatable. Red is always a controversial color. A lot of older pictures of this car look like a darker red. But I found a number of good quality images that show this paint job as Bright Red. I also compared pictures of the Coca-Cola Porsche and the Miller Mustang in the same shot as the MOMO Porsche and the MOMO Porsche is always lighter red than those cars and we know the Coke and Miller reds are a traditional shade of red.

I use the Master Airbrush Brand Lighted Portable Hobby Airbrush Spray Booth Ive been using it for over 7 years and it keeps going and works great

Use Tamiya Grey Primer for the rear wing assembly to make sure the surface is good and clean for the coat of Flat black, then Aluminum paint.

I recommend spraying a light coat of Lacquer Clear over the Aluminum paint to seal the metal flakes down before applying decals, because if you clear coat over your decals, metallic paint has the tendency to lift and move around when clear coat is applied, and not apply clear before decal application will result in a strange shade difference around the decal film.

You can choose how you want to construct the rear wing. I prefer to put it together before final paint work. I primered the parts to make sure they are clean and then super glued all the parts together and applied the flat black, then aluminum, then light coat of clear, then decals, then a final coat of clear to protect everything. I painted the wing struts Tamiya TS-49 Bright Red.

My favorite part of model building is applying the decals to the body. Decaling takes a lot of experience and finesse. Every decal manufacture, age, type has its own characteristics and that’s where the knowledge and experience comes in. Applying decals take precision, finesse, and good motor skills to handle the thin decals. Luckily using Indycals decals is a best case situation. Indycals decal sheets are forgiving and wont crack from dryness, they not too thin or not too thick, the colors are correct and the whites are VERY white with very minimal bleed though of the underlying color. Most other decals, especially kit decals have TERRIBLE bleed though and completely ruins the whole model build.

When you start the decal application, I recommend starting with the deck lid logos, first, then apply the yellow stripes on both sides of the to figure out where the yellow stripes need to be located. Be sure to keep the decals wet to not dry out and start sticking because you need to adjust them.

I highly recommend using Walthers Solvaset Decal Setting Solution. The Solution softens the decal film so it snuggles down to the surface and stretches over details, such as rivets, without hiding them. Make sure you have your decal placed into the location you want before adding decal setting solution on as it will “melt” the decal fim onto the surface and after it dries, it will look like paint. Also adding decal solution will help remove air bubbles from under the decal film. Indycals decals react to the Walters Solvaset Decal setting Solution very well and Ive had no issues using this combination. I prefer the Walters Solvaset over others because its aggressive and gets the job done.

After decaling the body, be sure to apply flat black paint by brush, I use Tamiya Acrylic XF1 Flat Black to the inside of the body and the window moldings, this takes a steady hand. Super glue the window assembly into place. Apply the decal to the front windscreen and rear window.

and before putting the body over the chassis, make sure the dash is total glue to the bottom so the body fits all the way down. I had trouble with the dash touching.

After the body is applied onto the chassis, stick on the front headlight covers and attach the antenna and off to the photobooth the model goes!

I used a I used an AmazonBasics Photobooth for all my finished work. I highly recommend this photobooth, its very easy to set up, it fold-ups and fits anywhere which really benefits anyone with limited space. You can buy an AmazonBasics Photobooth HERE

I used a Canon EOS Rebel T3i Digital SLR Camera with a Canon 50mm Prime lens

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1986 Coke Porsche 962 – 1/24 Hasegawa conversion

About the kit…..

This conversion kit is for any of the 1/24 Hasegawa or Revell Porsche 962C kits and will replicate the 1986 12 Hours of Sebring winning car of Bob Akin, Hans Stuck, and Jo Gartner.

You can purchase a conversion kit from my website HERE… Easy checkout, you dont need any account, I accept Paypal and credit card. The kit comes with the proper turbo hump that was used in the 1986 12 Hours of Sebring, along with replacement side panels, naca roof duct, naca duct plugs, BBS wheels, and simple instructions.

The Donor kit you need

Any of the 1/24 Hasegawa or Revell Porsche 962c kits will work, even though each kit might have different wheels in the kit, thats doesn’t matter as the IMSA Porsche 962 conversion kit comes with wheels and tires.

The Decals

Indycals has a beautiful decal sheet for this kit. These decals accurately depict the winning car from the 1986 12 hours of Sebring. Many replicas of this car got the main sponsor logo wrong – in 1986 they were sporting a ‘new’ bold product and along with that came a new logo. Indycals got the logo correct!

Fax about the car…..

The 1986 Coke Porsche 962 had the new “Bold brand look” taking on the bold “Coke” logo for 1986 when Coca-Cola changed its formula to compete with Pepsi, after Pepsi beat them in sales for the first time in history.

This website has beautiful reference pictures of the restored 1986 12 hours of Sebring winner http://www.stanceworks.com/2018/09/coke-porsche-962/ But take note the car on race day did not run the white wheel covers as seen on raceday, but with the open gold and chrome BBS wheels.

The build-up…..

I recommend using Grey and White Tamiya lacquer Surface Primer for this build. Its important to use lacquer on resin parts for best results. Its best to avoid enamel paints over resin parts at all cost. Unless you use lacquer primer as a base, you can apply enamel over lacquer paint.

The recommend color for this build: Tamiya TS-8 Italian Red for the overall body color

The first step is to cut of the last part of the under-tray to fit on the larger ground effect tunnels. Using a Razor saw, saw right on the leading edge of the rear bottom A-arm mounting point.

Superglue the ground effect tail end onto the plastic kit chassis. Be sure to use plenty of glue for a good weld

Add Apoxie-Sculpt, if needed to fill-in any gap of ridge. Sand the bottom of the tunnels smooth after the Apoxie-Sculpt cures….

Using a Dremel, grind out the square raised part of the rear side naca ducts

Test fit the turbo hump on the rear. The resin turbo hump has an indention of the naca duct underneath that will help align the turbo hump on-top of the body work. But, before gluing the turbo hump on-top of the bodywork, I recommend tracing out a section where the vents of the turbo hump is, to cut out an open section for a more realistic look. Not opening up this section inside of the turbo hump vent section will make for a tricky painting situation later on.

Use an ink pen to mark out the section for the turbo hump area and mark the section of the top roof naca duct.

Use the Dremel and grind out the marked sections – use sanding files and or metal files to smooth out the edges of the cut out sections.

Test fit on the two rear naca duct sections with the square resin blocks.

Superglue the resin blocks into place.

Its recommended to take a sanding file to rough up the are where the the resin turbo hump will be super glued on. This gives the super glue a roughed up surface to grab onto.

Super glue the resin turbo hump into place. Align into place before the glue sets-up.

Superglue the top roof naca duct into place. If there is some gaps, there is no need to worry as you can fill these spots with Apoxie-Sculpt, which that step will come later….

This step is optional – if you don’t want to cut anymore off your body you can simply glue on the exhaust side plug on each side. But if you want the full replacement panels with vents, see the next step….

If you choose to add the whole square pannel with side vents, go ahead and mark the location that needs to be cut off. Use a razor saw to cut the two sides.

Superglue the side panels into place.

Use Apoxie-Sculpt to fill in any gaps on the attached resin parts. Add Apoxie-Sculpt into the old naca duct hole that is part of the kit. Be sure to rough up the surface before adding Apoxie-Sculpt so it has something to adhere to. The apoxie-sculpt will need 24 hours to cure properly and then it can be sanded down and leveled.

Sand all the bumps out smooth…..

Cut out a wedge of styrene to fit into the first section of the radiator exit and glue into place to make a “T” section in the radiator exit.

After the glue cures on the styrene wedge cut off flush and sand the top smooth.

After leveling out and sanding the Apoxie-Sculpt the entire body and any part of the kit that needs paint will require scuffing up the surface with a scotch brite pad so the primer has a nice surface to adhere to and grab onto.

After you have a dull roughed up surface and all course sanding spots are finely sanded out. Wash your body and parts with Dawn dish washing soap and scrub. This will help take off any oil or contamination off the body so the primer will stick.

When the body is dry and clean, use Tamiya grey primer in the modified areas of the body first. Adding primer shows any imprecations on your surface and most likely there will be some blemishes to fix. If there is an small hole or fine gap, use Bondo sport filler in the problem area. Use a dull x-acto knife to apply the filler. Let dry for about an hour and re-sand the surface until it looks smooth, then repeat the primer application until the blemishes are gone. This step is not necessarily exciting but is the most important to accomplish a desirable finish. A good finished paint job requires a lot of long and hard prep work.

When all the blemishes are all gone, use Tamiya White Primer to eliminate any color bleed-through with the of the body and other parts. Adding the Tamiya White Primer helps the Tamiya TS-8 Italian Red to have a nice white surface that will not effect the color of the red paint. Tamiya Lacquer paints are very transparent and need a nice white surface to lay over.

Apply very light coats during your first time of applying spray paint and focus on the hard to reach places. Take your time and observe every area of the body.

I traditionally apply three coats of Tamiya Spray paint with 1 hour intervals, ideally in 75 degree temperature, preferably in a dry climate.

I recommend painting the rear wing flat black first before spraying on the Silver/Aluminum/Chrome paint. Its always recommended to spray a matte black base coat before any metallic paint job, it makes the metallic paint ‘pop’ more.

My favorite part of a racing car model build is the the decaling part. I prefer using Indycals decals whenever possible. The nice futures of Indycals decals is the are fresh, not too think or thick, easier to handle than a lot of decals, Indycals decals always works great with Walthers Solvaset decal setting solution. The white decals are actually WHITE when you apply them over any colored painted surface and have the least amount of transparency than any decal manufacture I know, especially kit decals!

Im decaling this body FIRST because I plant to clear coat over the decals with Model Masters or Testors Clear Lacquer. Indycals decals handle clear lacquer paint just fine, also the ‘hot’ Tamiya TS-13 Clear. Im not using Tamiya TS-13 on this build because after a decade of using Tamiya paints Ive noticed Tamiya TS-13 has the tendency to make red Tamiya ‘roll’ off , Im NOT talking about crinkle, but more like, ‘melt off’…it also does this with Tamiya Black and Florescent red.

 

apply the Indycals Tire decals with Walters Solvset Decal Setting Solution.

When preparing the wheels for paint, I like to spray anything that requires chrome with a Flat Black base coat first. I gave the wheels a spray of Tamiya Matte Black.

My new love for Chrome paint is actually in pen form and that is Molotow Liqued Chrome pens, the chrome reflection is AMAZING! and in an easy to use pen form to where you have complete control. If there is any spots you cant fit the pen tip, you can quickly take a paint brush and move some of the paint in the hard to reach area and it doesn’t effect the chrome shine.

Next I brushed on some Tamiya X12 Gold Leaf to the inside part of the wheels. After the Gold dries I added some washed down Tamiya X-19 Smoke to add some depth to the wheels. I use Tamiya Acrylic Thinner X-20A to wash down the Tamiya X-19 Smoke.

For attaching the rear wing onto the tail ending of the body, use a #60 – 0.040″ drill bit and use a pin vise. There is holes under the body for the wing struts. Drill out from the bottom, then re-drill on-top to clean the hole out.

I chose to clear coat using Testors Clear lacquer spray paint and covered over the decals to seal them on and adds protection. I let dry for a couple days and used Tamiya Polish and rubbed down and orange peel in the clear finish.

Attach the rear wing by added small amounts of Gorilla Glue to the ends, then take your fingers and squeeze the tail fins (End plates) up to the sides of the rear wing. After the glue sticks to the tail fins (end plates) add super glue underneath the body into the holes for the wing struts.

Carefully paint the edges of the window outlines on the body and paint the outside edges of the clear windows. Use windscreen glue to apply them. Dont for get to add the windscreen decal, too!

Follow the kit directions to the end with cockpit and other details and after all that its all done.

I used a I used an AmazonBasics Photobooth for all my finished work. I highly recommend this photobooth, its very easy to set up, it fold-ups and fits anywhere which really benefits anyone with limited space. You can buy an AmazonBasics Photobooth HERE

I used a Canon EOS Rebel T3i Digital SLR Camera with a Canon 50mm Prime lens

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1966 Shelby American Ford GT-40 – Daytona Conversion

In this blog post we will be using the 1/24 scale Fujimi or Revell Ford GT-40 MKII plastic kit and making the proper conversions to build the Shelby American Team from The 1966 24 Hour Daytona Continental, the very first 24 hours of Daytona.

About the cars…

Ford was represented by two factory-backed teams at Daytona in 1966. Shelby American fielded three new GT40’s, now called the MKII and powered by 427-cubic-inch engines. Ken Miles / Lloyd Ruby, Dan Gurney / Jerry Grant, and Chris Amon / Bruce Mclaren were the driver pairings for the Shelby team.

The Conversion kit

What makes the Shelby cars from Daytona unique is the V-shaped hood with the aggressive depth of the radiator exits. Most of the Ford GT-40’s had to make a modification to the bodywork as the right front wheel was rubbing through the right front fender as the cornering speeds of the high speed high banks was enormous. SO a modification before the race was needed. There are some pictures out there on the internet that shows these cars with no fender humps, but its been confirmed that it was practice shots and NOT race-day shots. You can Purchase a Resin conversion kit off my website HERE

The Plastic kit

The first Ford GT-40 MkII Kit from Fujimi was 1989 and has been re-issued dozens of times in different schemes. You can find many Fujimi Ford GT40 MKII kits on ebay HERE.

The Decals

Indycals offers all three Shelby American cars for the Daytona 24 hrs. Indycals has the most accurate set of decals for these cars. No other decal has the proper blue and black stripe on the side of the car, the correct decals on the windshield

The build-up

This section reviews how to use the resin conversion kit properly….

Fujimi/Revell did/does make the the #98 Miles/Ruby kit, BUT the hood its not totally accurate. the angles of the center V and the depth of the radiator exits is not as aggressive as it should in the Fujimi/Revell kit. Also the Fujimi right fender hump is not correct with a rectangle shaped fender hump. The real car had an oval like hump that is slightly rounded and semi flat on top.

Using the resin fuel filler insert, trace out the outline of the resin part in the side corner of the under left side of the windshield. Then cutout the areas using a Dremel. This doesn’t necessarily need to be cut out perfectly, get it the best you can. You can use a sharp X-acto knife to finely cut out the edges of the cutout.

Superglue in the resin fuel inlet part into place to make sure its relatively flush with the body surface.

On the Miles/Ruby and Mclaren/Amon cars, there was no Gurney hump. BUT! If you are building a Gurney/Grant car, you will still need to grind off this particular Gurney hump. In early 1966 the Gurney hump was NOT a teardrop style of hump, but just a round hump at Daytona and Sebring. They didn’t make it teardrop style until Le -Mans

I recommend using the Dremel and grinding the teardrop Gurney hump off then take a sanding file to smooth off and level off the rest of the way.

If you are building the Gruney/Grant car, go ahead and super glue the round Gurney hump into place on the top of the door roof. After research the hump was approximately in this location in the picture above.

Glue in the fuel plug on the right side. Since this race was at Daytona in a anti-clockwise direction, they fuel the car on the left side.

Take a sanding file and rough up the top of the right front fender for better superglue adhesion of the resin fender hump.

Insert the rear plugs from under the body for where the rear scoops would normally go. The Shelby cars at Daytona did not run the rear scoops. Sand down the mounting plates that are already molded to the body. After these are sanded down and filled there should be no evidence of there being anything in these locations.

Use 0.010″ thick white styrene to make the split in the air-scoop on the engine covers.

The painting

This section goes over all the painting details….

Its best to spray Tamiya grey primer over the resin areas to find any imperfections before covering the whole body in white primer. Grey primer is easier to see imprecations with and I find it best to spray the potential problem areas. If needed use Bondo spot filler to fill in any pin hole or gap that shows. Then re-primer until the imperfections are gone. Then give the whole body a nice coat of Tamiya White Primer.

The one interesting thing about the Shelby cars is, the hood was flat black and the rest of the car was Gloss white. What makes this paint job different is it will be a little backwards in how it needs to be done.

Start off with using Tamiya TS-26 Pure White for the whole body.

Mask off the hood area and spray with GLOSS BLACK….why gloss black? Because there is a decal on the hood and its never recommended to apply decals over a flat surface, doing so will create “Silvering” around the clear blacking of the decal, and the decal will not adhere to a flat surface very well. The decal will adhere to the nice smooth glossy black surface and the clear backing will disappear. Also take note that the #96 car had black all the way up to the windshield. The #98 and #97 cars had a white gap in between the black and windshield.

You can clearly see in this race day photo of the #96 car the black extends all the way up to the windshield. https://www.racingsportscars.com/photo/1966/Daytona-1966-02-06-096b.jpg

After the GLOSS Black is spayed on, apply the hood decal next. Wait a day or so, then Spray the black area of the hood ONLY with Tamiya Flat Clear to give the proper sheen of the black. Be sure to NOT tape over any decals, applying tape over any what slide decal, even if they have clear coat over them increases the chances of pulling the decal up off the surface.

Apply the Indycals to the gloss surface. Then let dry for a good 24hrs

Spray the gloss black down with Tamiya TS-80 Flat Clear lacquer. This will give the black the proper black sheen. It should come out Not too glossy, but not too flat.

The fine details

Im building the race start version of these cars and they had a bunch of black tape holding the headlight covers on to protect the headlights before nighttime.

The Miles/Ruby car had dayglo markings on the door and front nose. The #98 and #97 cars had a dayglo “R” cover over the front grill.

The #98 Miles/Ruby car had a cardboard like headlight covers with black tape on the outline of the headlights. It also had the Dayglow “R” cover of the the front grill. No one seems to know what the “R” means. It was no doubt for keeping the car warm during this race as it was one the coldest in race history with ambulant temperatures at night in the mid 20’s. The dayglow “R” cover was not on the car at the end of the race.

For the radiator cover, I used very thin plastic styrene and painted them black. It just needs to be an approximate size like seen in the picture.

The #97 Gurney/Grant car had blue headlight covers with black tape on the outline of the headlight. It also had the Dayglow “R” cover over the front grill.

The #96 Mclaren/Amon car had cardboard headlight covers with black tape over the outline of the headlights. But, unlike the #98 and #97 cars the #96 had a Yellow “R” cover over the front grill.

When it comes to the headlight covers. I used extra decal paper and spray painted over it, like for example to replicate the cardboard look it found a can of spray paint that was close to cardboard color. Then for the black tape I spray painted decal paper and then cut out strips to replicate tape.

A reliable Dayglo paint for all the dayglo areas for these cars is Model Masters Florescent Red. Some people get confused as it does look kinda Orange, but this is totally correct. Tamiya Florescent Red is another poplar choice but it has a history of being unreliable as the paint has the tendency to go bad(?) Tamiya Florescent Red can be hit or miss as it can come out as the wrong shade of “Bright Red” This has been a big mystery in the hobby for some time. If you do plan to use a can of Tamiya Florescent Red be sure to test it out and see if it keeps it GLOW! It should glow and hurt your eye its so bright, if its not bright, then you have a bad can.

The Shelby car did run the aluminum luggage boxes at Daytona. As seen HERE

The Tires

We are using Indycals 1/24 scale high profile tires fit 1/24 Fujimi GT 40 tires with the black background it makes it way easier to handle. But the key is using Walthers Solveset decal solution. I simply cut out the tire decal and apply it to the tire and then apply the decal solution and let it sit for about 7 mins and take an old t-shirt and dab the decal down to the surface and it will start conforming to the sidewall of the tire. The decal solution softens up the decal and helps “iron out” the wrinkles.

This is why I like the Indycals tire decals. Especially on rubber kit tires, where “silvering” often happens when the clear carrier film around the graphics or letters can be seen. The black carrier film of the Indycals tire decals hides any “silvering” that may occur. I just applied the Indycals 1/24 scale high profile tires for 1/24 Fujimi GT 40 tires. I also used Walthers Solvaset Decal solution to help lay the decals snug and flat. You can buy the blue ring tire decals for the Fujimi Ford GT-40 here

The best match for the wheel color is Tamiya TS-84 Metallic Gold

This finished results!

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1/24 NuNu Porsche 935 K3 1979 Le-Mans winner – Kit Review

In this blog review I will be reviewing the the new 1/24 NuNu Porsche 935 K3 “1979 Le Mans winner” This review will cover all the initial box opening basics. This review will be totally honest and I’ll go into great detail about the basics of fitting up the bodywork and important things to lookout for. This is not going to be the usual kit review worrying about flashing around the parts. This kit review will be of great value to you.

You can buy this kit HERE on eBay. Most are from Japan but I never have any issues buying from the Japaneses sellers and the shipping time is typically around two weeks to reach the USA. Every link in this blog post for this kit is an ebay affiliate link. Using my affiliate link to buy the 1/24 NuNu Porsche 935 K3 off ebay will give me a fee from ebay. This doesn’t cost you any more but I will make a little bit from ebay for referring you to their website, you don’t have to use my affiliate links but doing so is greatly appreciated and helps my business and website to bring you more resin kits and value.

Un-boxing the K3

First off I was very excited about this new Porsche 935 K3 kit. There is so many possibilities with this K3. All the parts look great, very minimal flashing. The same great chassis mold from the K2 is used in this K3 kit, which is great, because it worked great in the K2 kit and the fit was awesome! There is also some other molds that were used in this kit that was used with the K2, like the rear wing/engine cover, fenders, twin turbos, and glass parts. I dont mind having extra parts as they could possibility be used in scratch building projects. The shape of the body looks good. I’ve studied this car for many hours now, and I think majority of people will agree. Its important to be careful when comparing a model to photographs as different types of lenses will produce a wider than normal picture and if you are comparing and sizing up a picture to the model kit, you might find yourself comparing your model to a picture that is slightly off

First things to look out for before you start

I recommend leaving the rear fender spruces on until you are done gluing on the entire fender assembly as not doing this will make your fit very complicated as the entire rear section will bend around without the spruce holding into place. But it is nice that the kit manufacture put such big heavy duty spruces holding up the roof and all the fragile parts in place because there has been so many car models get slightly bent or crushed because of not the proper reinforcements.

Before test fitting grind the edge of this spruce down with a Dremel. The fender wont fit unless you grind it down enough for it to fit.

Clean and de-bur all the edges on the fender/engine cover area. The fit is very tight with all these parts and test fitting will be VERY important.

I recomend glueing to gether the engine cover/rear wing up rights all together. Then test fit it ont the back.

The little fender hole

Before gluing on the top rear fenders. Take note of this little hole on the back of the main kit bodywork. There is nothing mentioned in the instructions but this needs to be drilled out as the top rear fenders have a pin and not drilling out this hole will not let your top fender fit snugly down and will be raised and off.

Fitting up rear fenders

After adressing the holes for the top fenders, go ahead test fit with the engine cover on. If everyhting fits good and your top fender is snugly fitting up to the engine cover and slightsy under the lip under the rear side glass area, go ahead and glue the top fender into place.

With the top fender glued in place go ahead and test fit the side of the fenders. There is a difficult part under the bottom of the fender where the main body fits with a 90 degree edge that needs to be held down to make sure proper gluing adhesion

It might be necessary to sand a little bit off the edges of the top part of the rear fenders as shown in the picture above…

Other notes…

The K3 kit has a nice new twin turbo setup. The exhaust headers dont quite clear the engine block and I recommend test fitting them before gluing.

There is a new box attachment to the original K2 dash. With easy to use gauge decals.

For the interior there is a new big box that fits in the back. But the whole chassis and roll bars, seat, and other details fit very well. Everything is designed very nicely on the chassis. Also when fitting the body on the chassis they did a great job designing it and the have a great pin and hole design that makes it easy for the builder.

Conclusion

I totally recommend this kit. I feel most people would not be disappointed. The detail is great. I think some people would prefer to have engine detail. Im not one that worries about if a kit is a curbside or not. Every kit on this earth is not 100% accurate, as model kits have to be built to handle human hands and plastic can only be cast so thin. I showed everything you need to look out for. If I find anything else I will update this blog post. I feel I covered most everything new and important. Also, once again if you haven’t already, I totally recommend getting this kit on ebay HERE. I also plan to offer a number of resin conversion kits for this kit and Indycals plans to offer many decal options for this kit as well…. Like my Facebook page and my website classicracingresins.com for all the new resin kit releases.

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Building a 1/24 1980 Apple “iCar” Porsche 935 K3 Le-Mans version

This blog post reviews and shows how to properly convert the 1/24 scale NuNu Porsche 935 K3 kit into the 1980 Dick Barbour Racing Apple Computers Porsche 935 K3/80. The NuNu kit came out December 2019 as the 1979 #41 Kremer Porsche 935 K3 -24 hours of Le-Mans race winner, this was very exciting news to me as a model builder and businessman because there’s endless possibilities of K3’s that can be created from this NuNu kit. I have many conversion kits planed for this K3 kit. The Apple car is my first, I just came out with a fender converts for the Dick Barbour Team car of #70 Sachs K3, and also now available is the 1980 #2 Jagermeister conversion kit with the aggressive bodywork of the Kremer team which can be purchased HERE

The resin conversion fender kit

These fenders depict the ones used on the 1980 Dick Barbour #71 Apple Computers Porsche 935 K3 at Riverside and Le-Mans chassis number: 009 00030

You can buy Apple car fenders HERE at my store

Decals

The Indycals decals are guaranteed to fit. Here is a list of reasons why the Indycals Apple Decals are the best choice for building your NuNu Porsche 935 K3:

• Accurately test fitted to the NuNu Porsche 935 K3 kit with Classic Racing Resins Apple iCar Le-Mans version resin fenders.
• The Indycals has the correct sequence of colors on the hood stripes for the Le-Mans version with the blue stripe on top and Green on the bottom. The IMSA version of the Apple car had the reverse order with Green on Top and Blue on the bottom.
• The correct size and font with the “Apple Computers” letters on the side skirts.

If you are building the IMSA Riverside version of the Apple car, check out this great website with lots of amazing pictures of the car. HERE

Building the NuNu kit

I recommend leaving the rear fender spruces on until you are done gluing on the entire fender assembly as not doing this will make your fit very complicated as the entire rear section will bend around without the spruce holding into place. But it is nice that the kit manufacture put such big heavy duty spruces holding up the roof and all the fragile parts in place because there has been so many car models get slightly bent or crushed because of not the proper reinforcements.

Before test fitting grind the edge of this spruce down with a Dremel. The fender wont fit unless you grind it down enough for it to fit. Clean and de-bur all the edges on the fender/engine cover area. The fit is very tight with all these parts and test fitting will be VERY important.

Be sure to fill and clean your resin fenders. I don not use mold release in my molds but the resin still can pick up some oil contamination from the silicone rubber mold. Soaking in tire bleach or spray and rinse down with oven clean works well. Also when sanding the surface of the resin its recommended to use Dawn dish washing soap as that helps get any possible grease off

Use Tamiya Grey Primer to find any imperfections that might be on the body. That is the main reason for applying primer is to help find any problem areas and to give the color coats a nice base to adhere to.

After apply coats of grey primer, I prefer to give the body a couple coast of Tamiya White primer. When using Tamiya spray paints, its important to use a white base, because Tamiya spray paints are very thin and translucent. After the white Primer is cured, Apply Tamiya TS-26 Pure White.

Use Walters Solvaset for applying the Indycals decals. Which can be purchased HERE

After applying the decals I would HIGHLY recommend clear coating over the decals. Testors Lacquer Clear coat is a good safe clear coat, Tamiya TS-13 also works but and be a little ‘Hot” so be careful.

After all those steps its just a matter of following the kit instructions until the end.

The Final product.

This was an enjoyable build. The NuNu kit was very straight forward and built very well. Thank you to Indycals for working with me to make this Apple K3 possible.

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1966 Ford GT-40 X-1 “Big Ed” resin conversion for Fujimi kits

This blog will be a how-to tutorial on converting the 1/24 Fujimi Ford GT-40 MKII kit, into the unique Shelby American Ford GT-40 X-1 Roadster, driven to victory by Ken Miles and Lloyd Ruby. I will show how to properly convert the coupe into a Roadster with the new resin conversion kit that I offer in my store, HERE.

About the car:

For a more detailed history lesson on this car check out this article from Hemmings.com

The Conversion kit:

Resin Kit:
-Resin doors
-Resin Windshield base.
-Windshield side pillars
-0.015″ thick clear Vac-U-Form windshield
-0.010″ thick Clear Vac-U-Form side windows
-Resin rear spoiler with styrene rod for braces
-Resin dash top
-Resin Driver figure with the likeness of Ken Miles
-Templates
-Comprehensive instruction sheet.

Decals:

The Decals are designed and printed by Indycals. This sheet accurately depicts how the car ran in the 1966 12 Hrs of Sebring

Converting the Fujimi kit:

This conversion will require test fitting and adjusting. The main challenge is adjusting all the new resin parts to fit together.

The X-1 had a smaller windshield than the regular GT-40.

The red highlighted sections need to be removed.

Its best to grind out the area a little undersized than pushing it to the limit. Prepare your resin doors before finishing off the cutout on the Fujimi kit, to make sure you don’t cutout the sections too big. Take your time and observe all the edges and edges.

Super Glue the Resin doors into place the best you can. This resin conversion depends a lot on how well you cutout the areas to fit the new resin parts. If you are unsure, do more test fitting and studying how it all looks. The reason why I recommend gluing the resin doors into place first, as it helps you cut and line up your next step of adding the resin base for holding the windshield into place.

After the superglue dries on the resin doors, use the template for the windshield base and draw out the outline of the area that needs to be cutout. Be sure to cut WITHIN the lines you mark out.

Take the side windshield post and get familiar with how the need to be mounted. I recommend test fitting them up with the clear Vac-U-form windshield into place. I recommend gluing the windshield post into place and there is no seam at the bottom and needs to blend into the rest of the bodywork. I wouldn’t glue the top windshield molding into place until the whole car is painted and the clear vac-u-forum windshield is glue into place.

Remove the rear spoiler by carefully using the Dremel and grinding the spoiler off, then use a file to sand the rest of the spoiler off flush with the rest of the body.

After the original kit spoiler is sanded smooth off. Glue on the new taller Resin rear spoiler.

Painting:

Preparation work before painting the color onto the body is the most import step in painting.

Making sure the new resin parts are cleaned scuffed is very important. YOU MUST scuff and clean the body thoroughly. First knock down and high edges with a low grit sand paper and work down to a fine grit. Then going through the process of primer the body and fixing imperfections is the norm…

I recommend using Tamiya Gray surface Primer, first on the critical areas to workout any imperfections The areas that have been modified are naturally going to have problems occur with contamination and un-level areas. Spray a light coat of Tamiya Grey Primer over these modified areas to uncover the problem areas. Sand or fill any areas that need to be addressed. This could take multiple times of working over. Making sure the surface is smooth and clean is the most important part of the paint job. Having a good base, will yield great finished results.

I recommend using Tamiya TS-8 Italian Red for the shade of color.

Details:

I recommend Indycals Blue Ring Sports Car Tire decals 1/24 scale high profile tires fit 1/24 Fujimi GT 40 tires available HERE

Use Apoxie-Sculpt to fill in the hole pattern on the kit seats. The X1 didn’t have this type of seat.

One of the exciting details about this conversion kit is the addition of a resin driver figure that ha the likeness of Ken Miles! Since this is an open cockpit roadster the interior details are important and I felt it was important to put the late Great Ken Miles in the driver seat. This is the first time I’ve offered a driver figure.

Apply the Indycals decals to the body using Walthers Solvset decal setting solution

Before applying the vac-u-form windsheild I gave the body 3 coats of clear coat to help protect the red paint job and the decals.

Cut vac-u-form windshield out using smaller scissors. Its not critical to cut the bottom of the windshield out precisely, its recommend to leave a little bit of excess on the bottom. It is important to cut the sides and top precisely.

When applying the vac-u-form windshield its import you plan out how you are going to glue the windshield into place. This is the most complicated part of the build. I recommend super gluing the front center part of the windshield into place, first. Let dry and super glue the sides into place, last. I used a combination of super glue and CA thin glue. These are both very risky to use on clear parts but I always choose to strong glues with these complicated situations.

Super glue the Dash assembly into place. This fits in the original place of the original kit dash. The front end of the chassis was painted blue, which isn’t necessarily important as you can barely see the area up front when the body is on. The rear firewall is painted red, the same color as the body. The fuel takes are aluminum color.

One important detail to apply to your kit is as simplet as using a Black Ink marker on the side egde of the clear headlight covers. As you can see in the picture above the edges of the clear headlight covers has a white edge that doesn’t make the look of the model look very attractive and unrealistic.

Simply take any ink marker and darken the side edges of the clear plastic. This will eliminate the white look around the edge.

As you can see in the picture above the white edge is eliminated and helps give the model a more realistic look.

One interesting rule change was the cars did NOT run the aluminum luggage boxes at Sebring during the race. There is a picture on the internet of Dan Gurney’s #2 car with luggage boxes, but there is no proof of when that was taken? But watching video and looking at many race day photos of many cars there was no sign of aluminum luggage boxes during the race itself.

So with that said, grind the luggage boxes off the rear brace section.

After grinding the luggage boxes off the rear brace, glue the rear brace onto the back end of the car. and on top of where the section where the luggage boxes would sit.

Use the small styrene rod supplied in the kit to make the rear spoiler supports.

Cutout the side window plates with the styrene sheet supplied in the kit and paint red.

The finished car

After completing all the conversions on the Fujimi kit, the rest is the traditional buildup with the Fujimi instructions.

Customer Builds

A fantastic diorama of Ken Miles and Carroll Shelby chatting in front of the 1966 Ford GT40 X1 Roadster, built by Dan Parke

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1980 #2 Jagermeister Porsche 935 K3 conversion kit

This blog reviews the 1980 #2 Kremer Jagermeister Porsche 935 K3 conversion kit.

The Resin kit

This resin kit converts the 1/24 NuNu Porsche 935 K3 into the 1980 #2 Jagermeister Porsche 935 K3 Version 1 or Version 2
-The 1980 #2 Jagermeister Porsche 935 K3 had more aggressive bodywork in the rear.
-The rear fenders had a higher downforce setup with a more curvy tail end.
-The fenders sides had a more defined outline
-Different hole configuration on the front part the fenders
-The engine/wing struts had a different design with higher fins leading up the wing struts.
-The wing endplates are more square
-This 1980 #2 Jagermeister Porsche 935 K3 had two different versions of fender configuration.
-Version 1 was used in the first half of the season
-Version 2 was used in the 2nd half of the year and the particular version I offer can build the Fall Zolder race driven by John Fitzpatrick

The kit includes:
-Two Resin fenders
-Two resin wing struts
-Two Resin rear window side fins
-Resin engine cover
-Resin rear engine cover rear panel
-Two resin square bumpers
-Resin rear wing base
-Resin wing endplates

The 1/24 1980 #2 Jagermeister Kremer Porsche 935 K3 conversion kit (Ver. 1 or 2) for NuNu K3 kits can be purchased HERE

The Decals

These Decals are properly sized for my Resin conversion kit and the NuNu K3 kit. This decal sheet will depict the following 1980 DRM races.

• Zolder Bergischer Löwe – Driver: Axel Plankenhorn – Version 1
• Spa – Driver: John Fitzpatrick – Version 1
• Nurburging: Driver: Axel Plankenhorn – Version 1
• Norisring – Driver: Jochen Mass – Version 1
• Zolder Westfalen-Pokal – Driver: John Fitzpatrick (Winner) Version 2 fenders

Removing parts of the kit…..

The first step for converting your NuNu Porsche 935 K3 into a proper 1980 #2 Jagermeister car is to cut off the sections pictured above highlighted in red on both sides. In order for the new resin fenders to fit on, these side sections need to be removed. The bottom highlighted area of the rear bumper needs the bottom section removed.

Remove the red highlighted sections seen in the pictures. These areas need to be removed of the NACA ducts will hit onto the section of plastic.

Attaching Resin Parts to plastic kit

The 1980 Jagermeister Kremer Porsche had a totally different engine cover/rear wing setup, compared to other Porsche 935 K3’s The 1980 Jagermeister Kremer Porsche had higher wing strut fins that ran up along sides of the rear window. The top of the engine cover also had a dove-tail curve shape for more down force. The back panel for the engine cover was shorter.

When super gluing the engine cover parts together, be sure to test fit and understand how you need to hold your hands to accurately align the panels up. This step isn’t necessarily easy. If you dont get it completely lined up you can always fill in gaps with Apoxie-Sculpt. If you read my earlier blog post on the 1/24 NuNu Porsche 935 K3 kit review this set was a challenge wit the kit panels as well.

Glue on the top engine cover. Its best to try sliding it into place from the top. You might have to sand the tail end edge off after it is fitted and glued into place.

Glue the side fins onto the edges of the rear window. Take note of the tapered edge of the fins. The tapered edge needs to be facing inwards towards the window.

After the glue is set up, you must use Apoxie-Sculpt to fill in the gap in between the kit plastic and the resin fin. You will need to level the surface area and flat as possible. I recommend using a flat sculpting tool to make the area on the side as flat as possible. (See picture above for reference)

Attaching fenders Version 1 or 2

Be sure to test fit the fenders before gluing. Study the area and understand how they go on. Theres a good possibility you will have to do some sanding and adjusting to the fenders. There is many contact points that can change the fit of these fenders. Glue the fenders on using super glue.

Super glue the bottom base of the rear wing. This part has a different location for the hols to attach to the rear wing struts.

Attach the wing end-plates

Be sure to fill in the fuel inlets in the hood. The 1980 DRM #2 Jagermeister K3 did not have an fuel inlets

Use Tamiya Grey Primer to find any imperfections.

Tamiya White primer is a good type of primer to use before the final color coat of Tamiya TS-12 Orange.

Tamiya TS-12 is a great match for Jagermeister Orange. Indycals makes accurate decals for this car with multiple race options and details.

The finished result…

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Upgrading a Revell 2014-15 Corvette C7.R into a 2019 Spec.

This blog will cover the process of taking the 1/25 scale Revell Corvette C7.R plastic kit and upgrading it to the post 2016 CR.7 specifications to comply with the new for 2016 Group GTE regulations using the new Classic Racing Resins C7.R upgrade resin kit. With new rear diffuser, more aggressive front nose, larger front splitter and slide splitters, and wider rear wing and accurate wing struts. This blog will show step-by-step in detail on how to convert your kit properly.

The Revell Plastic kit

There are three different box styles for the Revell Corvette C7R. Revell modeled this kit around the first generation of the C7R 2014-2015. This first generation didn’t have a rear diffuser or the more aggressive front nose or large side skirts and a smaller rear wing.

The Resin upgrade kit

The Classic Racing Resins C7R Upgrade kit can be purchased HERE. The resin kit consist of a upgraded post 2016 nose with the sharper leading edges and larger front splitter, Rear diffuser, larger side skirts, winder rear wing, endplates, exhaust pipes, resin camera pod for easier application of decals and painting, and rear wing struts.

This resin upgrade kit is designed to easily adapt to the Revell kit with very little effort and figuring.

Comparison

As you can see the 2014-2015 Front nose (left) has a more rounded look. The 2016-2019 (right) has a way more aggressive design.

Decals

Indycals offers the 2018 Redline Corvette C7R (Shanghai) and 2019 Corvette C7R decal sheets. The 2018 Redline sheet has all the markings to build an accurate C7R that raced in the Shanghai 6hrs are available here at Indycals. The 2019 IMSA Corvette C7R sheet has all the markings you need with the spectacular American flag scheme. You can purchase an Indycals C7R decal sheet HERE

The conversion

We will cover the all the steps needed to convert this Revell kit into the post 2016 spec. The main items and tools needed in this upgrade is a Hand Held Razor saw, X-acto knife razor saw, Super glue, Styrene plastic sheets and sanding files.

First step is to follow the kit instructions and glue on the rear end part as per the instructions say, then cut off the area highlighted in red.

Use a razor saw to cut off this section flush up against the rear end part.

Sand and de-bur and rough areas.

Use super glue and attach the rear diffuser flush and level.

The diffuser should be level with the rest of the under tray.

Use a dremel and grind off the existing kit side splitter flush up against the side of the body.

Do the same on the separate side door parts too. Grind down flush and sand smooth

Super glue the side splitters into place, be sure to test fit before gluing, sand if needed for adjusting. Then drill out an oval shaped hole for the resin exhaust pipe.

Push the resin exhaust pipe from the inside out is the easiest way.

Make adjustments to the exhaust pipe if needed.

Use a razor saw to remove the nose from the kit body. Preferably use a very thing razor saw you attach to an X-acto knife

Then cut down the gap between the nose and body. Be sure to sand and clean up the cut area afterwards

Super glue the resin nose into place and make sure its level. After the glue has setup test fit the clear headlight covers and make an adjustments if needed. This is very important as after painting this headlight hole will become even tighter with paint applied.

Remove the molded kit camera pod. This is an inconvenience to the model builder as this abject makes the painting and decal process more troubling.

The painting process

After the resin parts have been attached. Start by using a scratch pad and scuffing down the entire body to make sure of proper paint adhesion. I recommend using a combination of Dawn dish washing soap and fine grit sand paper of the resin parts to help clean the resin parts of any possible mold release or contamination. Start with a light coat of Tamiya Grey Lacquer primer over the resin parts first and fix any possible blemishes. After all the blemishes are fixed apply Tamiya White Lacquer primer to the whole body and observe for any blemishes.

After the priming process is finished. I used Tamiya TS-16 Yellow and Tamiya TS-14 Black on my body.

This next step is going to be up to you on how you will decide how you want to approach it. The C7R a lot of the times had front nose fines on each side but not all the time. I avoided molding these into the nose as they are too thin for the resin casting process. The design also varied too. I depicted my fins as run in the 2019 Long Beach Grand Prix. I use very thin styrene and bent in the shape you see. I also cut out the front splitter fins with a slightly thinner piece of styrene

Don’t forget to paint and glue the Camera pod in the proper location on the roof.

Before gluing your body onto the chassis be sure to cut the bottom of this fan part off before gluing into the inside back end of the body. The rest of the build is just a matter of following the Revell kit instructions.

The final results

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1981 Cooke/Woods Porsche 935 K3 – Daytona 24 hr winner

This blog post reviews and shows how to properly convert the 1/24 scale NuNu Porsche 935 K3 kit into the 1981 Cooke/Woods Racing Style Auto Porsche 935 K3/80 “The Warhorse”.

About the car

In its third year of competition, Chassis # 009 00030 was in Dark Blue, red, and Gold colors for the 1981 24 Hour Pepsi Challenge at Daytona, after the 1980 season with Apple Computer colors. The Garretson factory-built Porsche 935 was powered by a high-boost 3.5-liter Sprint-format powerplant. Brian Redman, Bobby Rahal, and Bob Garretson shared driving duties during the 24 hours.

This is a good reference website HERE about the 1981 Daytona 24 hours.

The Conversion kit

These fenders depict the ones used on the 1981 Cooke/Woods Style Auto Porsche 935 K3 at the Daytona 24 hrs – chassis number: 009 00030. These fenders have a unique hole opening with a cap lid over the top. The left fender has a single circle opening below. You cant find these fenders or decals anywhere else. There are other aftermarket resin fenders out there, but its beyond me what car they depict as? If you follow my blogs you know, every K3/80 fender is DIFFERENT! I put great attention towards the accuracy of these K3/80 fender kits I produce with the details of all these different designs.

You can buy 1981 Daytona 24 hr winner fenders HERE at my store

The plastic kit

The NuNu kit came out December 2019 as the 1979 #41 Kremer Porsche 935 K3 -24 hours of Le-Mans race winner, this was very exciting news to me as a model builder and businessman because there’s endless possibilities of K3’s that can be created from this NuNu kit. I have many conversion kits planed for this K3 kit. I already have many versions of different types of fenders for this kit HERE

You find many 1/24 NuNu Porsche 935 K3 kits on ebay HERE, using my affiliate link.

The Conversion

I recommend leaving the rear fender spruces on until you are done gluing on the entire fender assembly as not doing this will make your fit very complicated as the entire rear section will bend around without the spruce holding into place. But it is nice that the kit manufacture put such big heavy duty spruces holding up the roof and all the fragile parts in place because there has been so many car models get slightly bent or crushed because of not the proper reinforcements

Before test fitting grind the edge of this spruce down with a Dremel. The fender wont fit unless you grind it down enough for it to fit. Clean and de-bur all the edges on the fender/engine cover area. The fit is very tight with all these parts and test fitting will be VERY important.

Be sure to fill and clean your resin fenders. I don not use mold release in my molds but the resin still can pick up some oil contamination from the silicone rubber mold. Soaking in tire bleach or spray and rinse down with oven clean works well. Also when sanding the surface of the resin its recommended to use Dawn dish washing soap as that helps get any possible grease off

Painting

This next step is going to be the most challenging part of the whole build. Lots of decisions need to be made after the primer process is finished. Unfortunately in the scale modeling world, there are limitations, one of those limitations is the scarcity of waterside decal Gold Foil printing. Questions for you to answer before you continue are: Do you want to paint the gold onto you model or use Gold Foil Decals? If so, what kind of Gold paint are you going to use? Will the combination of Dark Blue paint and Gold Paint be safe to use with each other? When making my decision I instantly wanted to avoid the Gold paint and masking process all-together as Im more of a decal guy and I choose decaling over painting, any day. If you’re like me and would rather use Gold Foil decal, then your decision is easy, and that is to simply paint the whole car body Dark Blue (See next chapter for Decal Gold Foil tips.

Use Tamiya Grey Primer to find any imperfections that might be on the body. That is the main reason for applying primer is to help find any problem areas and to give the color coats a nice base to adhere to.

After apply coats of grey primer, I prefer to give the body a couple coast of Tamiya White primer. When using Tamiya spray paints, its important to use a white base, because Tamiya spray paints are very thin and translucent.

Masking Template

Masking templates are OPTIONAL when making your purchase at my store and will be fulfilled and shipped separately by Indycals, along withe the waterslide decal sheet that comes automatically when you buy this fender conversion kit. How you use the masking template is up to you, are you going to use it for paint or use it to cutout Gold Foil decals with?

I recommend using Tamiya TS-15 Blue lacquer Spray paint as this is the color the decals are matched to so they blend into the paint job.

The Gold Foil

One of the challenges of this particular build is the gold foil scheme. There’s no denying it, its a challenge to get that reflective gold onto a scale model. Gold Foil is very hard to come by in the modeling world. I do have a very limited supply of Studio 27 Gold Foil Decals which can be purchased at my store. HERE

Gold Foil Decal sheets can be purchased HERE

Its best to layout your masking template over the single Gold Foil sheet. I recommend cutting the sides of the front fender nose gold stripe to make the decal applying process easier and to make the better use of the Gold Foil sheet.

Applying these Gold Foil Decals are very easy. I used this sheet and they are NOT dry or brittle. I recommend being conservative on the Decal setting solution as with any foil decal, they can over-crinkle. Its also recommend to be careful with Clear coating over any foil decal as it will crinkle them up. Luckily with this scheme the Indycals decal backing of the red/white stripes will be covering the Gold Foil.

You also may note the large square Gold Foil decal on the hood and there is also a small one on the back of the engine cover. These are for the logos that are gold foil and the only way around this issue was to print the outline of them and match outline to the Dark Blue paint.

The Decal process

After doing a few other Porsche 935 K3 conversions I realized a decal sheet for one of my favorite cars was most likely not going to be produced for the complex nature of the scheme the stripes and the famous Gold Foil. I always enjoy a great challenge and was going to figure out a way to get this decal sheet produced one way or another. I approached Indycals and made a deal, if I draw up the decals, he would print and fulfill them for me as an exclusive deal, only available to buy on my website. So for the first time in my model car building career I taught myself how to properly draw up a decal sheet, with tutelage from Indycals. I’ve always known how to draw, but learning the software was what I didn’t know. But after a month I finally had a decal sheet for this car that was acceptable to my standards. There is lots of details that most die-cast cars, slot cars, and other random 1/43rd scale kits of this car missed when it comes to the proper layout, decals and accuracy of this sheet. I have proof of every single decal on this car during race day. If you want the most accurate model of this 1981 Winner, ever, then you’ve come to the right place.

I always recommend Walthers Solvaset Decal Solution when applying Indycals

The Finished Build

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