15th Annual 24 Hour Build Finished

 

I finished the 24 Hour build. The kit was simple in terms of number of parts. But, the parts did not fit very well.  I know it wasn't entirely my lack of build skill as even the sample photos with the kit show large gaps, especially in the rear clip. Tamiya designed this kit so that the doors and rear clip could open. That might explain the large gaps

A nice looking engine was included in the kit, but the rest of the rear clip was not very well detailed or missing. The kit did not include the inner wheel wheels or even a whiff of the tubular suspension. I started adding some fuel lines and wires to the engine, when I realized that the the rest of the engine bay was not worth looking at. So I glued down the rear clip sealing the engine inside. The photo at the left is the last look at the engine before I sealed it up. 

It was a fun project. Having to rush to build it was both exciting and frustrating as this model would have benefited from a more careful build. 

Some lessons learned if I do this next year.

1. Pick a model type that you have more experience in building. I think a 1/56th scale armored vehicle is a good type of kit for this challenge as I know I can build and paint one in less than 24 hours.

2. I used acrylic paints for the finish. It dries fast and I had a lot of it on hand.  But acrylic paint is very hard to sand when dry and impossible to wet sand. If you need a glossy, flawless finish acrylics are probably not the way to go.

3. Pick a simple paint scheme. I did that in this case and it helped a lot. Especially when at the 22 hour mark, I had to sand and putty major gaps.

4. Car models are fun to build, but the finish can be very tricky. This was the first car model I have built since 1978 when I was living in Detroit and built some F1 race car kits.  It reminds me why I like railroad and military models. In railroad or military models if you make a mistake in the finish or have a glue glob, you can usually weather around it, add some battle damage,  or add some stowage to hide the error. That is much harder to do on on car models.

15th Annual 24 Hour Model Build

 My brother convinced me to try this challenge. This challenge is organized by a Facebook Group. Their "About" statement  says, 

This group is for those builders (and spectators) who participate in our annual 24 hour build. The object is to get together with a friend or friends or go it alone and build a model of any kind in a straight 24 hour period of time! 

Rules:

Start at noon on Sat and end at noon on Sunday during the weekend of the 24 Hours of Daytona race.

New or unstarted kit. (You may wash the parts and strip chrome ahead of time)

You are allowed to glue up to 4 pieces to body ahead of time.

You must paint your model during the build.

Please post pics during the build here on Facebook as you go along.

The #1 most important thing is to have fun.

Here is the Fotki photo site that Gary Kulchock put up where all photos of the finished builds will go... 

https://public.fotki.com/gkulchock/13th-annual-24-hour/

 

You can build whatever you want. Since this is an event based on a automobile endurance race, I decided to build a model of a Porsche 910. This kit was given to me by my brother. He got it from a guy who started to build it, made some mistakes and gave up. It looks like the errors will be easy to fix and all the parts are present. So I should be able to build it.

I will be making it car 17 from the 1967 Nurburgring. This car is somewhat historic as it was the first overall winner that Porsche had at the Nurburgring. The actual car is in a museum in Naples, Florida. It is still in operable condition having been fully restored. 

However, given that I am a model railroader and military modeler, my car will have be weathered as if it just finished the race. See the bottom photo. Note the weathering on the  car and the black tape holding down the frunk (i.e. bonnet). 

Check back in 24 hours to see if I was successful.

From the Porsche Legends website

After the race: Udo Schütz and his winning No. 17 car.

Six hundred twenty-one miles forever

While Formula One is going through a rough patch in Germany six years after the death of Graf Berghe von  Trips and twelve years after the withdrawal of Mercedes-Benz, a great age of sports-car races is beginning— with  Porsche leading the way. TV cameras are on hand to broadcast the 621.4-mile race to the world, as well as its historic result: for the first time, a race car from Zuffenhausen takes overall victory. During the race, the Nürburgring provides the requisite drama: holding a sizable lead, Lucien Bianchi and Gerhard Mitter are forced to abandon the race on the final lap with a broken alternator. Nevertheless,  sweeps the top four places. Leading the charge: Udo Schütz / Joe Buzzetta. How quickly the drama of motor racing can turn to tragedy is seen during the 1969 season two years later: Bianchi dies at Le Mans in the spring and Mitter on the Nürburgring in August.

Date: May 28, 1967

Winners: Udo Schütz, Joe Buzzetta 

Car:  910 

Distance: Forty-four laps of 14.173 miles (Nordschleife)

Winners’ average speed: 90.4 mph