Barn find Beetle

[Leighbo]

Hi Guys

While I'm waiting for the Land wasser schlepper to dry before finishing off, I thought I would start off my next build.

This will be a real barn find, a VW Beetle rotting inside a barn / garage made from plastic stock.

I am using the Tamiya 1966 Beetle, I am considering painting it up as Herbie, not quite decided yet, might be tricky getting the markings painted up whilst using the salt technique. Any input would be appreciated.

Got all the bits together today including a frame for the base, although I still need to order more plastic stock yet!

I sketched it up on the PC to get the general idea / dimensions, the barn will be really run down and derelict once done.

Not much done so far, but as I intend to show the engine on a bench in the barn I have had to start by cutting the transmission away first.

That's all for now I will post again soon

As usual thanks for looking

 

[Chris S]

Cool project !! I'll be following this one . What about printing the decals on the computer ? they would be easy enough to do .

Chris.

 

[spud]

i had one of them tamy kits years ago, was fun to build

 

[Chris S]

Now that I know the kit has a full engine I think I'll be investing in a couple of them

Chris.

 

[Leighbo]

Thanks Chris, I didn't think about printing my own decals but the sheets aren't too expensive so I think I'll give it a go.

The Tamiya kit is pretty sharply molded compared to most of the other car kit manufacturers that are out there. You even get a seperate tiny metal decal for the VW badge.
The chrome parts are good too, on most kits the chrome bits are poorly molded and need stripping and repainting, but not with Tamiya!

Looking forward to getting stuck in to this, I'll be posting my progress soon

 

[Leighbo]

Hi Guys, just thought I would share my latest progress with you.
I've been concentrating on the building this week.

I've used a pin vise with a needle in it to score the graining into the plastic stock and a small drill bit in the pin vise to make the knot holes. I used a sharp blade to make the ends of the boards look weathered.

I first made up the frame sides and tried to make the structure look authentic as you will see the inside of the frame when its done. Then I built up the rest of the frame ready for the boards.

It was very repetetive scoring the boards on both sides and drilling knot holes and I've only done one face! I added some broken and weathered boards as I went as this is meant to be an old abandoned building.

Anyway I'm all plasticked out for today so until next time, thanks for looking

 

[m1ks]

That looks amazing already, can't wait to see this barn painted up.
Superb job on the graining effect, they already look wooden with the exception of the colour.

Looking forward to seeing the car go together as well, i've almost but not quite bought this a few times so it'll be nice to see how well detailed it is, the engine, (speaking as an ex mechanic with several years serving at an aircooled VW specialist), looks very accurate.

Keep it coming, have to say you have more patience than I'd have with the graining, i'd have caved and bought some pre printed card stock or something, LOL

 

[Quaralane]

Building is coming together very nicely.
No way I'd have the patience for hand scribing that grain. Kudos to you for doing it

 

[Leighbo]

Thanks Guys

It has been a bit of a labour of love with the wood grain, hopefully it will pay off when it's painted!

I'm no engine expert m1ks, but the engine detail does look sharp compared too some of the kits on offer.
I just thinned out the fan belt a bit as that looked a little thick.

You'll have to let me know how realistic it is when done.

 

[spud]

jesus ild have just used balsa for that defo woulda been cheaper looks Amazing tough.

 

[Leighbo]

Thanks Spud

I've tried balsa before but find it hard to keep the grain visible when it's painted.

Hopefully this will work better, only time will tell!

 

[spud]

well lets hope

 

[Grendels]

Nice work on that barn, and that engine on the bug is great. I had one back in college and rebuilt that engine three times. It looks just like the one in the old car.

 

[Chris S]

Nice work on the wood ! ,you could use a harder wood like Basswood or something ,you wont loose the grain effect on that ,some Balsa is hard too and has a good grain too it

Chris.

 

[Leighbo]

Hi All

I've been busy, so here's the progress from this week.

I want to show bits missing from car as if someone had started a restoration project decades ago and then abandoned it.

With this in mind I shaved off the moulded side trim with a blade and then put in the fixing holes with a pin vise, this will give me some spots to run rust from!

I also wanted to show a door card missing and then I can rust the back of the door skin to give some depth. To do this I found reference photos of the bare door and cut this into the door and then shaved the moulded door card off the remainder.

I ummed and arred about whether to do just a rusty Beetle or to try and depict Herbie so thanks to Chris S's suggestion I bought some white laser printer decal sheets and after some messing about on the PC managed to get all the required images sorted, ready for use later on.

Once I decided to do Herbie I saw I would have to have a sunroof so I marked this out, cut and sanded it and then used some thin plastic stock to create the runners.

To make the seats to look old I covered them with masking tape and scribed in all the ridges with a cocktail stick and then went about creating rips at random. In all the reference photos I could find the sponge underneath was yellowy orange so I painted this underneath the grey top cover. I used the same technique on the remaining door card to show it lifting at the bottom.

The rest of the interior was sprayed the body colour before being rusted with various acrylics. The body colouyr was hard to get right, although the colour should be 'pearl white', Herbie looks variously, white, grey white or creamy white. I decided on mixing vallejo white with a touch of light grey. Most of the car will have plenty of moss and algae growing over it, so I guess the colour won't matter too much.

For a break from the car I made some freestanding shelving from plastic card. The uprights were pierced with a needle to simulate the shelf locating holes and then the whole lot was airbrushed and rusted, ready to be filled with junk.

Also I finished a second side of the building and created a concrete floor from foam board embossed with a wire brush.

After all that I think I'm ready for a rest now, so as always until next time thanks for looking

 

[Chris S]

This is excellent stuff buddy !!! ,the interior looks brilliant ,seats are great too !!! ...and I love the shelving ...brilliant stuff .

* Dont forget to shoot some clear over your decals before trying to use them * I maybe should have mentioned that earlier ...hope its not too late !

Chris.

 

[Leighbo]

Thanks for the warning Chris, fortunately these ones are ready to use straight from the printer! Apparently if you use an inkjet printer you need to spray them, but these are for a laser printer so don't need coating.

Thanks again!

 

[Chris S]

Ok mate ...Just wasnt sure so I thought I'd better warn you

Chris.

 

[m1ks]

You're good to go with laser printed, they're heat printed and sealed, you only need to seal inkjet printed as the ink is water soluble.

I love the rusting effect on the beetle floor and shelving, how do you do that?

 

[Leighbo]

Hi m1ks, I just airbrushed the floor with the body colour and then just built up the rust with acrylics and a sponge. I just tear small pieces off a normal cheap dishwashing sponge hold it with tweezers and then keep applying in small layers until I'm happy with the result.

I use Revell aqua colour paints as they stay quite firm, I find watery paints flood the sponge too much. I really only use leather brown, brown (which is more like orange) and a bit of black or very dark grey for some depth.

Also I sometimes use a thinned wash over the untouched areas to mucky it up a bit

Hope this helps!