James Bond's Aston Martin DB5

Revell-Fan

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It's 2019 - time for me to leave a footprint in this section, folks!;) :)

Lately a dear friend of mine who also happens to be one of our tenants has fallen in love with the 1:18 scale classic car series from Burago. That triggered something inside me because that has given me the chance to finally build something for his birthday. I knew I had some classic cars paper model kits in my archive and was about to choose the Mercedes 500 from Canon for him when I learned that he had already got the Burago version for cheap from ebay. Bummer. Another plan was required. I checked my archive again and found something which might fit excellenty in his collection: The Aston Martin DB5. Granted, in comparison with the models he already got this one is indeed a "youngling" since it is from the 60s (all the other cars are from the 30s), however, the James Bond theme is something that I think will hit the mark. Alternatively I could make Columbo's car since my friend likes the classic show, too (who doesn't?), but, well, JB is a bit more exciting. ;)

I found the kit I am building somewhere in the web a few years ago. It is made by rhagar from the Ukraine and can be obtained here:
https://dfiles.eu/files/5wowu184o

Unfortunately the outer shell comes in green, so a quick and dirty recolour in Gimp was required. I created some simple gradients and changed the green into a shiny bright silver like the original. I found it too inappropriate to fully use silver card for it because the result would become too shiny in the end. However, I'm thinking of making the bumpers silver using card or paint, we'll see.

The template comes in two scales, 1:35 and 1:25. I rescaled the larger one to 1:18 to match the other cars in my friend's collection. Everything was printed on 8 A4 pages. I'm going through the instructions now. Pictures will follow soon once they are available. Stay tuned! :)
 
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Gandolf50

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I LOVE the DB5 every since I saw the Bond Film at the theatre when it came out! Had a DB5 shell for my slot car also... along with an XKE... no one could beat me!

ps never saw so many Games that would keep me up ALL NIGHT!
 

zathros

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Potentially a very nice model. On the Fender cuts, and others that help shape the body and front section, make sure you cut inside the black lines, to get a smooth transition, unless you paint afterwards, then it wouldn't matter. I'd recommend Liquid Electric Tape for the wheels, gives a very reall rubber look, and works well on the steering wheel, shift knob, and many other parts. Good to see something like a car being done. Nice model!:)
 

Revell-Fan

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As promised: the first pictures! :)

I started with the bottom of the car. Since the parts don't have any flaps I have added them myself.

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I used a hole punch to make the holes into the parts. Maybe I'll be able to make the wheels rotatable, we'll see.

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The floor will be strengthened with some card later.
 
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Revell-Fan

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The interior takes shape. The cabin got some custom flaps as well.

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The white piece in the middle will be cut out. To make sure that the part maintains its shape during folding and glueing I have left it in place for the time being. I only made the straight cuts along the sides.

Since the rendering in the instructions don't show the assembly clearly I have taken some additional pictures for reference.

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Work carefully and tackle one flap at a time.

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Now the time has come to cut out the white piece in the middle.

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Two half cones are glued together:

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Revell-Fan

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They are placed right inside the hole:

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If you look closely you may see a bent in the rear area where the half tube was glued to the back side. Apparently I did not preshape the cones properly. To solve this mishap I took some scrap paper and glued it to the back side with regular glue.

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Then I pressed the bottom against the cutting mat to level out the bottom till the glue had cured and the part was fixed in its intended position.

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And DONE! :)

Another oddity aside from the missing flaps is that the designer chose to use the same dotted / slashed line for mountain and valley folds at the same time. Usually you would expect a slashed line to be a mountain fold and a slash-dotted line to be a valley fold. In this kit all lines look the same and it is very important to pay attention to the instructions and to test-fit the parts before glueing.

Next comes the dashboard. :)
 
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zathros

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Nice and squared, looks very good. I downloaded this model. It wouldn't be hard at all to make the doors open. I was surprised by how well it is done. Greeble the wheels, and the model will POP!! :)
 
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zathros

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I'd print out another instrument panel, lay a sheet of plastic, and cut out the circles of one of the panels to give the gauges a recessed look. :)

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Revell-Fan

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I'd print out another instrument panel, lay a sheet of plastic, and cut out the circles of one of the panels to give the gauges a recessed look. :)
I may consider doing that. :)

Alright fans, here we go again.

After a long hiatus I have picked up the project again - to get it done finally. ;)

I have been working on and off on the car but somehow the lack of flaps was so intimidating that I constantly put it on the back burner. In addition, I have encountered several oddities in the instructions which left me extremely puzzled (I will explain that later). Now then.

Let's continue with the dashboard.

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This is a very straight-forward component - aside from the little triangular pieces at the sides. To this day I was unable to find out where those appendages go, so I cut them off.

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The steering wheel consists of two pieces which are laminated to another piece of paper, as are the pedals, wipers and levers:

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The instructions leave the builder completely on his / her own with this part. First you fold up the grey rectangle and glue it to the back.

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Then you fold up the pedals like this:

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Since you will never see the back side it is not necessary to paint it.

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Revell-Fan

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The seats are straight-forward. I added some flaps for convenience. ;)

Then came part 15:

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I had to spread it on two pages so there is a small seam. If it becomes too obvious on the finished model I'll cover it up.

However, thoses two little "ears" at the sides almost drove me nuts. The instuctions do not show clearly if they were folded into a convex or a concave shape. I decided to fold it up to a convex shape - which later proved to be correct.

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Next I tackled the grill section.

The recessed shapes are straight-forward:

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The parts for the hood got some additional flaps. Please note that this was the first version I printed to check the new colour.

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So far so good. However, the next problem occured: The instructions do not clearly show if the small side of part 22 is up or down.

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So I ended up attaching it with the longer side up which actually worked quite well:

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Then I realized that the new colour including the fancy gradient I chose did not look good on the model. So I printed the hood again, this time in a light grey.

However, after completing the second hood I noticed that the new shade was too light. So I printed another hood in a slightly darker grey. Fortunately that one was spot-on.

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The front lights and covers. I painted the tube-shaped part of parts 27 with a silver marker which reflects the light nicely.

Then the instructions fooled me again. You cannot really tell where 27 ends and 28 begins. So when I saw that thick black ring on the outside of the cover I believed the lights were supposed to be cut out and layered behind some clear sheet. So I cut out the circles within the black rim, cut out some discs from clear sheet and then noticed that the creator meant to attach the clear sheet to the front of the cutouts of the covers (28), not to the lights themselves (27)!

So I closed the holes in 27 with some leftover pieces of the other hoods and looked for a cutting pattern for the clear parts that should go onto 28. There are NONE.

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So I had to make my own pattern by tracing the holes onto some paper and use these as templates. Since the covers are not attached to anything yet they are pretty flimsy and start changing their shape depending on how much pressure is applied and from where. So I have no idea if the templates work. More on that later when I get back to them.
 
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Revell-Fan

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The handle of the trunk was also painted with the silver marker. It is very small, so please excuse the blurry picture.

Fortunately the other pieces of the trunk were straight-forward again (at least I thought they were...):

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AND FOOLED AGAIN!

Parts 31 are not folded down but up. So I cut them off and attached them the other way round...

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Now it is correct.

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And the left side cut out and pre-shaped.

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This is the state of today. The instructions are tough but once you have figured out how the parts go together they will produce a very fine model.

Stay tuned! :)
 
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Revell-Fan

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Thank you very much. :)

The instructions are clearly the worst I have ever worked with. Apparently the creator highlighted the parts in question in Pepakura and took screenshots from the 3D window. That would explain the jagged and disconnected faces you see throughout the whole document. All parts are displayed in a distorted manner which makes it extremely difficult to tell how they are folded, attached or glued together. Sometimes I even confused left and right parts because of that, parts look upside down or folded inside out which basically is a nightmare to rely upon. It would have been so much better if he had taken screenshots or renderings from the 3D modeling program he used which would have shown the parts without distortion.
 
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