Old School Competition
Status: Restored
Date: 29-Apr-2014
Comments: 17
1. Background
I stumbled across a wanted-ad for the Golf group 2 in ‘’ebay Kleinanzeigen’’ doing my daily ebay screen. Since I am thinning out my collection I contacted the person and we made a deal. For a good price I sold him a basically new but built Golf 2 and transmitter receiver combo. He was afraid to paint the body he asked me if I could do the paint job – and we agreed to do so for a good price.
I then suggested him some wheel options and we agreed my preferred combo and a price again.
2. The agreed package
- Painted model in original color scheme with decals and body lines
- Hidden front body-mount to avoid drilling the hood; no additional wholes to the chassis
- Second set of tires for the shelf to resemble the original 4-lug BBS fine mesh look
- No changes to the chassis and axles so that the car can be driven on original foam wheels
3. The shelf wheels and tires
Before I finalize the body I manufacture the shelf wheels and tires. The choice of wheels is not so great since the vintage 9mm hex on the rear axle does not allow to fit today’s standard 10mm hex without large effort.
I finally decided to use the rims + tires of my static Tamiya 1/12 Porsche 934 RSR which serves as a part donator for various projects….
The first test with those tires confirmed my recommendation and we agreed to fit these on the Golf:
3.1 Rear wheels:
I use two original RC rear rims of the Porsche 58001 (I need the 9mm hex) and reduced width and diameter so they can be glued into the plastic mesh rim. To control the offset I have to take away material from the inside of the plastic rim – which creates a large enough contact area for the glue.
Then I widen the center whole to fit the original axle and mount the wheel with the original self locking nut. This rim combo is tough enough to be driven but I recommend it only for display. The risk to damage the chromed rim edge is so high….
3.2 Front wheels:
Here I used vintage RC rims from the first generation Tamiya Formula 1 cars and fitted them into the plastic rim using a large standard O-ring from a gasket kit.
The original kit’s CS duplo tires run on two ball bearings: so I added ball bearings to the plastic rims as well. I use flanged bearings in 8x5x3mm dimension. I milled the flange seats into both sides of the front rim (external = plastic kit rim, and internal = RC dish rim). I added 3mm spacers for more offset and I had to make special alloy wheel nuts with 3mm set screws to minimize bearing-play for perfect rotation.
4. The body mount
When mounting a body I always try to hide the protruding body mounts which immediately kill all the other effort of a scale look.
I made a fixture from a 1,5x12mm brass sheet. It is fixed to the body using the middle one of the 5 front grill screws and uses a 4mm screw to fix the body to the chassis using an existing whole in the front bumper. So I do not need to drill new wholes to the chassis and avoid puncturing the body.
On the rear I use the 2 original mounting pins which look like the bumper mounts of the real model.
5. Painting
I got some tips from a TC member on which color to paint first…. Thank you again for that Michael!
I never blindly accept what Tamiya says in their manual; and checking some golf club website galleries I detected some differences of the paint schemes between the original and the model:
• The color stripes of the real car are curved upwards at the C-beam; Tamiya shows straight lines
• The paint lines on the fenders run slightly different on the original car than on the Tamiya kit
I guess these differences are because Tamiya wanted to help us doing a good paint job; which – I have to admit – can become a very tricky thing to be done right. I was asked how to avoid paint bleeding under the masking tape and which masking tape I would be using. Here are some tips for masking and painting a lexan body:
5.1. I always heat up the spray-can (or airbrush paint). Put it on the radiator for 1/2 hour. This ensures more even mixing of components inside the can (e.g. metallic sprays) and the warm paint can faster evaporate the solvents once landed on the surface. The paint binds and dries quicker which largely reduces the risk of bleeding or running. During the summer period, a pot of warm (not hot!) water does the trick as well.
Another beneficial effect of warming up the paint is the increase the internal pressure of the aerosol and this reduces dripping of the can towards its end (thick spots of paint coming out).
Safety advice: Do not excessively heat up the can – it may explode!
5.3. I always apply a single fine layer of paint and let it dry to ‘seal’ the masking tape at the edge. Once this first layer is dry the risk of paint bleeding is down to zero if your masking tape sticks to the body all along the edge.
Last before the painting I again run along the critical edge with the backside of my thumbnail or a similar plastic piece which should not have a sharp edge to avoid tearing or roughing the tape edge itself.
5.4. The masking itself may have caused you some issues with micro-bleeding under the tape edges.
I never use the outside edges of the tape to define the paint border. The tape-roll always has 2 ‘rough’ edges which can be covered with dust and other stuff that sticks to it on its sides.
You can avoid using the outside by cutting a new edge of the tape roll: I always buy a slightly wider tape (10mm), roll down a sufficient long section and stick it on a clean lexan or ABS board. Then I cut the tape in half and create two long stripes with a sharp and clean edge for masking. This way you will reach sufficient results – nice side effect: you double your tape live.
5.5. Bleeding on a lexan body can be fixed, as long as it is not the window area. Let the paint dry and then cautiously scratch off the paint from the lexan using an Ex-acto knife. Yes, the lexan will get matt at this area, but since this is from the inside it does not hurt as long as you paint it afterwards with another color. So watch out to cover the window section as good as possible.
5.6. To ensure a sharp border to the windows, I always use small black tape stripes for panel lines and window seals. This gives the car the much more realistic look. I use Kyosho micron tape 0,4mm for all panel lines and 0,7mm Kyosho micron tape for the body lines down the sides (e.g. the one underneath the windows across the car, and the one under the door)
I use 1,0mm Kyosho micron tape for the window frames – in some areas two side a side, e.g. the rear window….
The vertical door window frame is painted black.
5.7. Small punctual repairs can be done if you spray some paint in the lid of the spray can and use a brush to apply the lexan paint locally. But be careful: for the same color you may face a color difference when sprayed or brushed – this is due to the type of application I guess.
5.8. Sometimes it may be easier to not apply the masking tape along the desired border of the color. If the geometry is too difficult to pre-cut from a tape on your cutting board you better over-cover some of the area supposed to paint with tape as well, cut the desired geometry in the applied tape on the body and remove the surplus tape.
This works very good in edges or for a small radius beyond the tape’s flexibility. The cut in the lexan won’t be visible after painting, but it does not hurt to pay attention. You may want to draw the desired geometry with a pen first so you can erase it if it does not suit your desired shape. Follow the pen with your knife and voila!
5.9. The alloy foil for the rear lights is plain easy: just use barbeque or kitchen alloy foil and cut a stripe wide enough to cover the light section. Then I cut a stripe of tape 10mm wider and 10mm longer than the alloy piece – position the alloy in the center of the tape and place the tape over the light from the inside.
5.10. The front of this kit is made from ABS. So change over to Acrylic paints and again colors do not match the lexan paints. SO I decided to mix colors to better match the Lexan body. A bit of effort to get close, but I think it came out reasonable fine. I started with yellow, then came orange, then red. Then white on the sides. I always painted the lower and the upper same color at the same time which ensures consistency in colors.
After drying, I had to cover all of it with clear coat to get some shine. Last but not least, matt black for the openings and the grill and a bid of chrome silver for the lights and the VW-emblem.
6. Chassis:
The main effort was to make the body and to modify the wheels. To assemble the chassis was a piece of cake compared to that….
I built a vintage MSC setup with two servos and separate receiver power supply as in the original kit.
I added a 7,2V 1700mAh vintage battery that was sold originally for the Tyrell. I have some of them still NIB.
The Pistol radio and receiver from Graupner (XR6) are a little more up to date to ensure not loosing the car on the track. 99 different channels can be selected on the receiver with two dials and at the transmitter preset electronically to quickly chose a channel without interference to other radios.
I did bend the antenna to hide it inside the car. So there is no need to drill a whole in the roof of the Golf. Again, antennas and body-mounts are no.1 scale-killers.
Comments
Percymon
WOW - fantastic result !
mr alan
Beauty! Fantastic paint!
Yama46
Hi - Lovely. Can I ask what wheels and tyres u have used? and wheres the front body mount - have u made some modifications?
I like how u can see the door shuts etc...
RACECRAFTERS
Love the paint job and those wheels are dead right! Wicked work Kokuzu!
Kokuzu
@all folks:
please see the description...
Skottoman
Your attention to detail is amazing, and the result shows it. Best paintwork I've seen on one of these cars ever! Wonderful!
Tjaard
Holy cow, this is beyond perfection mate!!!
RENKEN 2000
Top job
steman
Very nice would like one myself
RallyeBaz
WOW that is stunning. Would love to see more pics
mongoose1983
Nifty!
Lancia
This is a real piece of art! nice work!
Kokuzu
Thank YOu all for the comments gents!
Glad you like it....
scollins
A+++++
JeffSpicoli
How much you want for it?
JeffSpicoli
DM me if you want to sell.
JeffSpicoli
Shoot me a DM if you have this and want to sell. Let's get a deal done.
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