Well, its been a few months now and so time to get off the pot. I polished away all of the ‘vinegar’ marks that appeared around some of the decals where we used extra Micro Set to get them to lie flat with Tamiya polish… When the paint finally looked clean I got the remaining dust off – I used my compressor with a fine nozzle to spray any dust away. I then left the body hanging upside down in my paint booth while I prepared the can of Tamiya TS-13 – A perfect match for the base coat of green. Obviously you need to have something mounted to a body post or glued to the underside of the body – like a styrene tube or a stick with clamps… I heated up the can/paint in a sink using the hottest water from my tap – I let the can sit in the centre of the drain to block/slow the water flow. After the water reached half way up the can I turned off the tap and let the water drain slowly until it was gone. I left the cap on the can throughout. I got a small towel, and after the hot water drained I took the can out and wrapped it in the towel and shook it all about for 5 minutes or so. I immediately sprayed the body with one quick coat everywhere. After 3 minutes I sprayed a slightly heavier coat everywhere again. I then took the body to a warm lamp where it could dry upside down while hanging from a hook. I couldn’t have asked for a better result – all of our home made decals were perfect – and now everything was sealed permanently – and shiny.

This will be one of the shells used in our detailing session on Monday. I have a McLaren M12 with a Castrol livery which we will also use time permitting.

I decided to build the chassis next – then finish the detailing…

Here’s the sidewinder chassis using a Fox 10 motor: 

The way the body was mounted is convenient – but not optimal for performance – regardless it needs to be finished – so it was… DArt inserts were painted then weathered… here are some macro shots to help with the rest of the body detail – showing how things really look better than the naked eye can discern is most helpful – although not the most flattering…There is more room to lower or slam the body to the chassis but doing so wouldn’t reflect the reality of how it raced.

Radiator detail from an electronic device kept before being thrown away or recycled was fixed in place using epoxy… Tony Adamowicz was a famous Polish American race car driver who helped establish the PRDA – Polish Race Driver’s Association – and wore a white full face helmet (as soon as they became available) with only his name and the PRDA logo affixed. This model is a fantasy livery with Tony as the pilot. I didn’t have a PRDA logo printed so I used a Lotus black and white logo (upside down I think) to suggest the PRDA logo… it looks very close… for the mirror I cut off the plastic post, replaced it with a thin wire (drilled a hole into the base of the mirror to make it durable) and painted the whole bezel with Krylon Crystal Clear – then I hand painted the mirror portion a dark grey – and then dipped the whole mirror into Pledge acrylic floor polish to seal it… The same was done to the roll bar….Nothing was done with the front lower valence – it could be painted or removed but I didn’t… I added a Citadel Nuln Oil wash to several portions of the body to add realism… Body panel lines were also highlighted with the same wash… The same wash was also added to the pilots body – especially to his legs The tailpipes and transmission detail were painted – also with Tamiya acrylics – and weathered with more Citadel wash… Tail lamps were done the same way.

All done.

Not a bad looking CANAM model now that it is done – and it is very fast too. Cheers Tony!