Opel Admiral Cabriolet SMMI Review Build WIP #5

Hi all

Sorry for the lack of updates on any of the projects which I have, but there is a lot of other things going on in my home life at the minute. So all I am going to try and concentrate on now is this current review build and the next one which I will post about soon.

Now, onto the Admiral.

In between all of the separate home ongoings, I try to get bits done to the car whenever I can. It is now in the final stages of the build and I am down to mainly doing the detailing items. The chassis was finished off and the chrome hubcaps were glued into place on each wheel. ICM supply decals to represent the painted inset details on each of the hubcaps. These did not go on that good compared to decals from other manufacturers, this was not helped by the roughness of the chrome plating on all of the hubcaps. After the decals were dry, I went over them with some Tamiya clear just to make sure they were sealed okay. This also has helped to hide the film from the decals a bit more. To finish off the chassis, I did an engine grime wash over the chassis and engine followed some oil wash in certain areas of the engine and running gear.

Once the washes were dry, I glued the chassis to the body and strengthened the joints between them by using some Zap CA. Once the body was secured to the chassis, I started to do a wash on the underside of the body using some more of the engine grime wash from earlier. This also covered any glue marks left showing between the chassis and body. Various items such as the seats, folded soft-top, headlight bodies, radiator grills and other trim have started to be added. 

Unfortunately, I have been writing this posting over a period of a couple of weeks. With the home stuff that has been ongoing and a holiday last week, my time has been diverted bigtime over the last four weeks. Since these photos were taken, work has progressed to the stage at this time in writing where the interior is finished, windows are fitted, external door handles added and the rear trim is in place. All that is left to do is to finish off the front trim, front lights, paint the number plates and add the final decals. I hope to get this finished in the next couple of days and I will post some new photos of the model.