Post by Mr.409 on Jan 8, 2020 10:00:53 GMT -5
I have wanted to build one of these Long John Dragster kits for a long time. Finally, when visiting in SoCal in October, I found one of these at Pegasus Hobbies and had to have it. The plan was to preserve the original look and feel of this quite simple kit, but build it with some minor improvements here and there.
The Dragster body consists of two pieces, but I decided to glue them together before painting. This way I was able to get rid of the ugly seam between the body panels, but I had to glue the front axle and driver's seat on place before painting anything. The seam between the body panels was sanded smooth and finished with as little amount of putty as possible. The body was painted with Tamiya TS-95 Pure Metallic Red and clear coated with Tamiya clear after applying the decals. Then the body was polished.
Otherwise this was a pretty simple project really. Mostly everything was just detailed by paint. Only modifications are opening up the header collectors, adding spark plug wires and front suspension parts like hairpins, tie rod and steering shaft were all modified a little as they were round only from outside. So they were sanded round to make them look more realistic.
Overall the kit went together really nicely and it was a lot of fun to build. Despite being so simple kit with a low parts count, it builds up pretty nice. My version is not perfect, but I'm really happy to finally have this legendary kit on my Shelf! And it was my only completion for 2019 so it feels good to finish something too...
Here is a link to the project thread on the excellent TRaK forum. I think it should be visible even to the non-TRaK members. Long John Dragster
Thanks for looking! All kinds of comments are always welcome as I want to make the next one better.
The Dragster body consists of two pieces, but I decided to glue them together before painting. This way I was able to get rid of the ugly seam between the body panels, but I had to glue the front axle and driver's seat on place before painting anything. The seam between the body panels was sanded smooth and finished with as little amount of putty as possible. The body was painted with Tamiya TS-95 Pure Metallic Red and clear coated with Tamiya clear after applying the decals. Then the body was polished.
Otherwise this was a pretty simple project really. Mostly everything was just detailed by paint. Only modifications are opening up the header collectors, adding spark plug wires and front suspension parts like hairpins, tie rod and steering shaft were all modified a little as they were round only from outside. So they were sanded round to make them look more realistic.
Overall the kit went together really nicely and it was a lot of fun to build. Despite being so simple kit with a low parts count, it builds up pretty nice. My version is not perfect, but I'm really happy to finally have this legendary kit on my Shelf! And it was my only completion for 2019 so it feels good to finish something too...
Here is a link to the project thread on the excellent TRaK forum. I think it should be visible even to the non-TRaK members. Long John Dragster
Thanks for looking! All kinds of comments are always welcome as I want to make the next one better.