Tamiya Neo Fighter Project
Page 2: Rework
If I had really understood how much work it was going to be to convert
this body to look like a Frog, I probably wouldn't have done it. I
considered simply buying a new body, but they seem to be out of
production and not available anywhere. Instead I started with my
light blue painted body shown on the left. I used a huge variety
of products to remove the blue stripe. I started with various
grits of sandpaper to remove the bulk of the blue which I had also
backed with white. Once that was off I tried to clean up the
remainder with thinner and polycarbonate cleaner. Acetone (CA
de-bonder) actually worked the best, but can also damage the plastic if
left on too long. Since the body was now all scuffed up, I wet
sanded it with 3000 grit and then used Mother's trim restorer to polish.
After an entire day of work, I had the result shown on the left. I
next had to apply the pink paint and also change some of the
decals. The main text along the side is obvious, but I also
replaced the two-tone stripe along the length of the body with white
trim tape and also trimmed the blue from along the top of the side
windows. Next I added the Frog decal to the roof and then did some
work on the spoiler as well. The result looks OK in the picture,
but on close inspection it's pretty crude.
©2020 Eric Albrecht
