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.