Hi Guys
A bit more progress this week
I made some light rotted areas with a rotary tool and then airbrushed various acrylic brown tones on the Beetle as a start to the rusting process.
I added more detail to the engine and then used the oil and pigment tip that Chris S showed on his awesome Sd.Kfz.6/2 3.7cm Flak, thanks Chris! I think this has worked out really well and will use it further down the line on the rest of the Beetle.I then fixed this in place on its benchtop resting place.
I then put more acrylics on the car with a sponge to show some lighter rust.
I also wanted to show the vinyl sunroof and all the reference photos show that this doesn't really rot and doesn't behave like a fabric roof so I decided to try making this out of plastic.
I cut a suitable sized sheet and then using boiling water to avoid splitting the plastic I gradually folded in the correct places and held in place with clamps. After some trial and error I managed to get the correct shape and then glued the folds together and clamped again. I need to do a little bit of fettling, but I think that this will turn out okay.
Next I used the salt technique on the car, one thing I have learn't from previous trys is to put the salt on and let it dry thoroughly overnight, this ensures it doesn't all spray off with the airbrush. It was that well stuck on I didn't need to reduce the pressure on the airbrush at all.
Once all the salt had been removed, I gave it a gloss coat and then added the home made decals which worked really well. It certainly was cheaper than buying the official Herbie snap kit which I recently saw sold on Ebay for over £40. The Tamiya Beetle was £16 and the white decal sheet was £2, who said modelling had to be expensive! It made up for the cost of all those plastic strips!
Until next time, thanks for looking.