11/7/10 - Progress has already been made on this kit. The chassis is a bit complicated. To make sure things stayed solid, I glued as much of the rear chassis together before painting to get a good glue bond, then sprayed it all semi-gloss black. Note that for the later Testarossas, the side valance panels were body color, unlike the earlier cars, that had black ones. I am going to try an idea I have where I spray body color on clear decal film, then apply it to the chassis. I hope it works...
The engine is pretty much done. I am not looking for perfection with this build, as I can't help but think the body will look rather iffy thanks to all the molded in details that will have to be black. If everything fits together and looks like a car and not a mouse trap, I will be happy...
11/12/10 - The engine has been glued to the chassis, and that was the easy part. I had some issues with the exhaust setup and firewall. I have some color touch-up to do... I stripped the chrome wheels and sprayed them silver, with one coat of semi-gloos clear.
The tires have the tread sanded. Note the one tire at left that wasn't sanded yet. The wheels are a bit tricky. There are wheel backs, brake rotors, and wheel fronts. The back goes on first, then you glue the rotors to the "hub", then you are supposed to sandwich everything together with the tire and wheel front. Not an ideal way of doing things. The rotor is supposed to stay put, and the wheels are supposed to roll. One of mine is glued in place, the other three roll, but are wobbly. I need to find a better set of center-cap decals, as the kit ones are off-register.
The interior will be tan/black. The parts are in primer right now. I will have to mask a few parts to apply the black areas. Not looking foward to that task. I am not the world's best masker!
12/9/10 - The TR's interior is pretty much done. I had to use the decal from an old 348 kit for the gauges. I also bought a red gel pen to try out, and as you can see, the red ink shows up on black paint! I also bought a dark blue one, but it doesn't show up as well on black. It is possible the carpet areas should be black, but I may just add some black floor mats . I was just glad to finally have a nice tan paint to use for interiors.
Yesterday I sanded the body, and today applied the first coat of Guards Red. I forgot how that Testor's color gets EVERYWHERE when you spray it!
12/21/10 - The car's body is almost ready for clear-coats. There are three coats of Testor's red on it. I need to let it gas out a bit before sanding out a few spots. No matter hard I try, dust always finds its way onto wet paint...
12/26/10 - Decided to add some black carpet to the interior. Also, made some decals for the body-color rockers that are molded into the chassis. I didn't want to mask it all, so I sprayed body color paint onto some clear decal film. The idea actually worked! Below is the decal almost dry, before final trimming. It won't be perfect, but it will be body color, like this later Testarossa is supposed to have.
1/2/11 - Finished the TR today. Of all the Testarossa kits I have tried so far, this has been the best as far as detail and the side strakes. But it is a PAIN to build. All body detail is molded in, including the Cavallinos. The whole rear chassis is made up of a lot of parts, all of which need to be glued together well. The wheels are not as good as they could be. You have to sandwich the brake rotors between the front & rear wheel halves, somehow making everything line up properly. The red side decal idea worked well, but the chassis didn't fit to the body 100% perfect, so I had to do some touch-up with red paint. Painting the black trim was the usual headache. For some reason, the whole body paint process was just not right. Something must have happened in the basement while the paint dried. I didn't paint the "TESTAROSSA" badge on the black engine cover because I didn't want to ruin it. The kit decals were not that great. More recent kits most likely have better ones. Overall I am OK with this build. I wasn't looking for perfection. I am also OK with my first beige interior.
