Nissan GT-R32 Race Cars - WIP

This time, I'm going to build three Hasegawa R32s at the same time.
It is expected to be a pure assembly with little modification. 

One of the three is a different vehicle and the red pattern is not included as a decal so it needs to be painted. 

One of the two Castrols will be made in Reebok livery. 

The 1st. step is always washed. 

I removed the part from the runner (Removed gate not yet). 

Since the kit is designed with variations kits, there are quite a few places where you have to drill holes or remove protrusions before working on it.
And I work on 3 kits at the same time, and it's better to do them all at once to reduce mistakes. 

It needs to be cut off. 

I think the instruction is to remove this part because it is a detail of a road car. 

I don't know why there is a long bar, but they are instructing me to remove it and make a large groove in the side skirt. 

The large indentation seems to be for the air jack. 

The washer fluid nozzle on the bonnet is also unnecessary.
I wasn't sure how to attach the part that attaches to the nose, so I searched without removing the marked part. 

It was a completely unnecessary gate, so I just had to remove it and attach it roughly. Like this... 

It says to drill a hole for the tow hook to go through. 

The back also needs a hole for the tow hook, which is not marked this time. 

Of the three kits, one requires a roof antenna, so I'll only need to drill holes in one. 

The trunk also needs a hole to attach the lip spoiler. 

Interior panels also require a myriad of holes to be drilled. 

The hole was for the roll cage. And I assembled roll cage. 

And when I saw the enormous color chart, I was speechless. 🙁 

Anyway, I did everything as instructed in the manual. 

The front was easy to work on, but the back was a bit tricky to work on because no tools could fit. 

I had to trim the edges of the rear window a bit, as the trunk sticks out more than the rear bumper when just installed. 

I had an unknown shrinkage on the left rear end so I fixed it. (The right side was fine) 

Fixed shrunk part. 

And fixed the shrinkage caused by the part connecting the bottom plate to the body shell. 

I painted it black (Ballejo Mecha Primer) to prevent light from penetrating. 

The antenna that comes standard is thin and has sharp edges, so it is of fairly good quality. 

But before I knew it, I was engraving aluminum rods. 😉 

Done. 

Preparing to paint... 

I had pre-assembled it, but it was too heavy and the tongs couldn't hold it. So I drilled a hole in the bottom and inserted a pin. 

Since the paint has been peeling off a lot recently, I decided to use a primer this time. And when I filtered the water-based primer through a strainer, this is what came out. 

I tried to pour more primer but it was clogged and wouldn't come out, so I opened the inner cap and there was this sludge in the spout. 

Anyway, I applied the primer without any problems. 

And I painted White Surfacer. 

Then I painted Gloss White. 

It wasn't intentional, but all three had the same wheels. So I had to do 12 masks. 🙂 

It was unique in that it was designed to look concave without using a slide mold. 

Thanks to that, it was possible to easily pierce the center even though it was a cylindrical shape with a slanted end. 🙂 

I painted the small parts. 

The wheels needed to be painted over the plating, so I applied mecha primer. (And the windshield...)
But when I checked after painting, I noticed that one of the side windows was missing.
I panicked, but luckily I found it in the bin of parts I was collected to paint matt black. 

Now, The red pattern on this vehicle needs to be painted. 

It's not a complicated pattern to mask, but it's tricky because it's curved and has to be symmetrical left and right.
The roof is relatively easy. but... 

The bonnet required several attempts because its curvature is much closer to a circle.
I just roughly matched it by feeling, but I think it fits well. 😉 

Now I put masking tape on the remaining empty spaces. I used a masking sol for the tricky parts. 

There were also areas on the white cars that needed masking. Castrol car had to have two colors painted on the grille, and Reebok car were provided with stripe decals on the front bumper, but we decided to only paint the red lines. 

I painted Shine Red & Bright Blue. And the tow hooks were painted Mica Red. 

And, masked again for Castrol car. 

I painted Bright Green 

Removed masking tape. 

The symmetry is good and the red border is clean, so I feel very good. 

Masking was necessary because the trunk cover were glued together and painted to avoid any difference in color. 

The side was also painted cleanly. 

The masking tape is slightly lifted or smudged in the two places indicated, but this can be easily fixed with a compound. 

The front bumper of the Reebok vehicle was also painted cleanly. 

Grille of a Castrol vehicle. 

This is the wing of a Castrol car and I dropped a pair of tweezers on it and the paint chipped off. 

To restore it, I first lightly sanded it, applied a decal, and then clear coated it. 

1. Masked according to the decal pattern.
2. I painted the white surface first because if I just painted over it, the stains would show.
3. And now I painted it red. 

Recovered.
The embossing of the areas where the paint has peeled off is still visible, but it won't be a problem since it will be hidden after clear coating and polishing. 

Now it's time to start applying the decals.
1st. time is Castrol car. 

Done. 

The next is a Reebok car, but the decal quality is not good. It is a simple stripe, but the border is jagged.
The decal surface has a vinyl-like gloss, unlike typical decals. 

Plus, it doesn't fit well. 🙁
After attaching the decal, it doesn't cut well with a knife, doesn't respond well to Mark Softer, and is very tough and doesn't tear, so I think it's probably urethane decal paper. 

Anyway, I started attaching it.
It was hard to stick the blue stripe on the front bumper. It didn't melt well with the Mark Softer, so I used a hair dryer to glue it on.
It's a good thing I painted the red stripes in advance instead of using decals. 

The decals are thick, but a bit tricky to apply as they completely cover the thin, shallow, and intricate panel lines. 

Done. 

I also stick the decals on the last car. 

Attached decal on the spoke. 

After removing the masking tape from the windshield, I noticed that there wasn't enough paint on the top of the windshield. 

However, there is no need to modify it since a banner will be placed on top of it. 

Done. 

Silvering. 

I was not sure if it was a silvering or not, so I wet it with water.
Yeah, this was a silvering too. 🙁 

The marked areas are less tightly attached. 

Recovered. 

Recovered. 

Recovered. 

Because it is a racing car, the negative camber is expressed excessively.
However, I hate negative camber because it looks like the car is being pressed down with a strong force from above, making the car flat and the wheels are crushed. 

So I'm going to remove the negative camber. 

I prepared a pla-plate of appropriate size. 

I glued them like this. (these are for the front wheels) 

For the rear wheels, I used a thicker plate. 

Done. 

Since it is a racing car, the ground clearance is low, and since it shares a road car body, I think that if the camber angle is normalized, the fender and wheel may interfere with each other. So I think it would be safer to make it as thin as possible. 

So I tried to scrape it off with a power tool, but it was slightly misaligned and ended up like this. OMG... 😭 

However, I was lucky to have an extra set of decals since I used separate decals on one of my vehicles. 

I wanted to attach it after removing the decal that was torn off underneath, but I couldn't remove it even with scotch tape, so I had no choice but to add it on top of it. That's why there are faint stains, but I guess they won't be visible after polishing. 

I also painted the areas where there was blank space because the decal size wasn't exactly right. 

1st. coated. (UV Cut Clear) 

1st. coated. (UV Cut Clear) 

I painted inner parts. (metalic co) 

I painted remaining parts. 

2nd. coated. (Super Clear III) 

It doesn't show up well in the photo, but when I removed the masking tape, the paint came off with it.
This sometimes happens when you apply the paint too thickly. 

I gathered the parts to be brush painted, and since it's for three cars, there are quite a lot of them. 

The DecalPool's decal was so thick, I thought I had put on a vinyl sticker. 😛 

Because the surface condition was so bad, I did some sanding before applying additional coating. 

After washing it, I tried swapping the parts around just for fun. 

Last(probably) clear coated. 

Where the paint had peeled, I painted a coat of Vallejo Gloss Black Primer with a paint brush. 

Painted with paint brush. 

Before polishing the body, I wanted to make sure that the camber modifications didn't interfere with the body, so I decided to assemble one lower body first. 

Assembled lower body. 

Combined. 

The excessive negative camber is gone, just as I wanted. 

There is a little space in the front wheel, but the rear wheel is in contact with the fender. 

The wheel is pressed against the body, so there is a bit of negative camber. I could just cut the wheel hub a little bit, but it's annoying, so I'm satisfied with this. 

The front wheels have some room, but the steering angle is reduced. 

I think this is a very satisfactory result. 

I found that UJ car needed to block the vents on the dashboard and put decals on them, so I modified with UV resin. 

Since I happened to have to paint the back of the interior parts matte black, I masked them and painted them together. 

I also applied all the remaining decals. 

I think the assembly instructions are wrong.
I applied the decal as instructed, but when I put it on the lower body, the letters were upside down.
However, it was already stuck so there was no way to fix it. 

Assembled all inner parts. 

The surface condition of Castrol vehicles is particularly bad. 

So I wasn't sure if I should do an additional coat or just polish it, so I sanded some of it down and polished it a little, and it turned out fine. 

And then I sanded all. 

This time, I'm going to polish it with three different compounds from a [Finisher's] I recently purchased (I didn't use the one shown). 

Polished.
In this photo, it doesn't look like it's glossy enough. 

But in reality, we were able to achieve a better gloss than when we used other existing compounds. 

It seems to be good for polishing with an electric drill because it polishes well without having to press hard like the compound you used before. 

The problem is, the electric drill I have is too fast, so this is what happened. 

I just laugh. 

So I ended up ordering an electric screwdriver. hahaha 

At the second polishing, a temporary measure was taken to prevent the compound from splashing.
The one shown is the electric drill I use. 

But as I was worried, the paint melted because the electric drill's RPM was too high.
When I first turned it on, the speed was fine, but as the motor and adapter got hot, the RPM gradually increased. 

Sanded. 

Masked for repainting. 

Fixed some areas where masking wasn't done cleanly. 

Masked for clear coat. 

The paint was chipped here and there due to the high rpm. 

And the friction caused heat to be generated, causing stains on the surface. Fortunately, it can be recovered with a compound. 

Scratches also appeared during the second polishing due to heat from friction. 

So, I ended up having no choice but to buy an electric screwdriver. 

The final polishing went well without any problems. 

I roughly colored in the areas where the paint was chipped with a marker. 

I masked for windshield's frame to paint them. 

When I removed the masking tape, a little bit of the decal came off in the indicated area.
I decided to ignore this level of problem.
 

There were masking tape marks left. Sometimes it gets better with time, so I left it for a day. 

I painted panel-line. 

I started assembling the body shell. 

I put some chrome tape on the inside of the tail lamp. 

Combined upper and lower body. 

Assembled front. From now on, I must be careful not to interchange the parts. 

The brake cooling ducts should be attached after assembling the front bumper. In particular, I like the fact that the tow hooks are properly reproduced in this kit, unlike other kits that only provide the exposed ends. 

Hasegawa has been including plated parts for emblems for several years now, and while these are of decent quality, they don’t compare to metal stickers. I have a lot of optio metal decals for the GT-R, so I decided to use those. 

Assembled trunk and bonnet. 

Attached rear parts. 

I was attaching the antenna with super glue, but I fell over and the super glue spread. So I let it dry completely until the next day and sanded it, but even the decal came off. 

I had no choice but to paint over it with a similar colored marker.
I had no more stamina to recover, and when something like this happens at the end, I really lose motivation. 

Anyway, finally I attached the bonnet and side mirrors to complete all cars.
Thanks for watching.