My 1/18 6R4 Project

Ah! I think I've answered one of my own questions! The door pods look to be part of the man body rather than being detachable. Go easy with the new paint there or you might partly fill the door shut line, though I suspect the larger scale of your model will be more forgiving than the 1/43 stuff I do.  

Cheers, Steve

the door pods look to be part of the man body

are you sure you have the right forum steve?...sounds bit dodgy!!     

Hey now! Stop it!   Leave my man body out of it! Cheeky!!  

Just goes to prove a theory I've had for a while to be completely true - spell checkers stop you having fun! Ahem!  

Send me a PM with a link to the other forum you're referring to, Billy!!   Cheers, Steve

Trust Billy to spot something like that.  


Coming on nicely Nicky.

  lol!! will do steve..................  

now chris, somebody has to keep a modicum of grammatical standards in this establishment.... might as well be me!!   

Apologies for my delayed contribution and praise to this project Nicky, but by the sounds of things you've had enough comments to read in my absence anyway mate!  

Can I just say what a superbly detailed and immensely informative 'little' project thread you have started here Nicky - I cannot wait to see it progress over the forthcoming weeks / months, and finally concluding with the finished model.  

There's some fantastic advice given out amongst your posts, and supported by some very good quality images, and helpful tips as well. I appreciated the detail on how to remove each component, as well as the insight into your own personal methods of producing decals - most informative I must say.

No problems at all about using my image. If I can find anymore, or be of any further assistance, then I will be more than happy to help.  

Well done again Nicky, and I wish you a speedy and trouble-free conclusion to this very brave project!

David, thanks very much for the kind words on the project and the posts I have made. It really does make all the hard work worth while  

Unfortunately, I have had a little issue with the red showing through in small, hard to reach areas where I couldn't get in to sand down :(which is a bit of a pain. But, its no problem as I have decided to do the Cyril Bolton 6R4 so all is still good in my opinion. Now I know that the car didn't have the wheels on that came with the otto 6R4, so I am buying a set of 5 spoke compomotive wheels that are an exact copy of the correct wheels in 1/18 from a seller. Or I may do the 6R4.COM metro of Ian Rowlance as I have just remembered he uses the same wheels plus I dont need to think of doing lots of dash modifications etc. I am off out in abit to go and get the red paint, but have got the model to sand down before I start spraying with the red coats. I will get some pics in later and upload them.

Cheers for now

Hi Nicky,

Just wondered if the small, hard to reach bits of red paint can be removed by some sympathetic scraping with a narrow file or something like that? Clearly, now you're going the red bodywork route, this isn't an issue, but thoguht I'd float the idea passed you as no-one else has been there yet and it might be useful to have it sorted before you or others tackle other 1/18 6R4 projects!

How are you doing the white decals on the red background? Are the decals large enough that you can trim around each white letter with a scalpel or are you doing what I do, which is to try and match the base colour as closely as possible with colour on a white decal sheet before printing?

Cheers, Steve

Hampton Caught wrote:Hi Nicky,

Just wondered if the small, hard to reach bits of red paint can be removed by some sympathetic scraping with a narrow file or something like that?  Clearly, now you're going the red bodywork route, this isn't an issue, but thoguht I'd float the idea passed you as no-one else has been there yet and it might be useful to have it sorted before you or others tackle other 1/18 6R4 projects!

How are you doing the white decals on the red background?  Are the decals large enough that you can trim around each white letter with a scalpel or are you doing what I do, which is to try and match the base colour as closely as possible with colour on a white decal sheet before printing?

Cheers, Steve

Hi Steve,

It is a good idea and will definately be something I will consider doing in the future with any 6R4's. Hopefully, it wont be too long before there is a plain white 6R4 that is released in 1/18 so it will be easier lol

I will look at getting decals printed in white once again, like I did with the Rutherford 6R4 I made in the past. The only difference is that with red, I will also need to have the decals printed in a block of silver (if that makes sense) so it will show the white up better instead of looking washed out in the red paint the decals go on  

Sorry to hear your having problems with the red showing through Nicky. What was it showing through, just the primer coat? I thought it might have concealed things once you'd sprayed the silver, when you had the initial idea of doing the Rob Lawrence car?

I note this one has re-appeared on eBay yet again... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MG-Metro-6R4-Ayrton-Senna-1986-in-1-18-/200942394293?pt=Spielzeugautos&hash=item2ec9199bb5

Rory also stripped an Otto 33 Export model a few months back mate, and maybe he has some advice to give following his own experiences mate? Just a thought...  

Hampton Caught wrote:Hi Nicky,

Another very useful and interesting post.  Thanks for letting us into your world!  

I tend to have a model in one hand, a ruler in the other, some photos of the car I'm looking to create in my other hands and make boxes, chose background colours and fonts with any spare hand I've got left!  Hadn't tried taking the photos and scling up (or down!) the decals from that.  Good idea though, and you don't need as many hands as I need!  

With the older fonts for number plates, I've experimented with both the 'UKNUMBERPLATE' font and the 'REGISTRATION PLATE UK' fonts I've loaded on to Word (and my desktop publisher) and by changing the font size and spacing between the characters, can do both older and current plates very nicely.  Worth playig around with this and also downloading (free of charge) the other font you haven't got.

Hope this helps and thanks again, Steve

I find the best way to scale decals is to paste them onto a Word document, then drag the corner to enlarge. If you have the page size set to 100% you will then more or less have the image to the size it will be printed. Put the model to the screen to see how it sizes against the image on screen. You will be able to see if its too big or too small. Then drag or push the corner of the image to resize it. Print off a test page in ordinary paper and cut the decal out and put it on the model to check for sizing in real print.

excellent advice rory..........  

Hi Rory,

Thanks for your post, very clear and makes good sense. I've never trusted the 100% on the screen is 100% when printed thing, but if the word processor doesn't have an accuarte and small-scale meaurement on it, this would do nicely.

My desk top publisher has very accurate measuring increments on it, but I still usually do what you do and print on normal paper first to check for accuracy before doing the high quality print on decal paper.

All good stuff!   Cheers, Steve

In my program of choice, there is a transform window that will allow for exact measurements that i can put measurements in mm rather than scaling manually.

So I measure off the model with a ruler, and input the measurements into the transform window (whats in pink in the image ive robbed off the net. I have my program set to work in mm rather than px) This will change the logo im scaling into the measurements ive taken off the model. No need to print each logo to be sure its the correct size. So long as my inital measurement taken with the ruler is correct, then the printed logo will be correct.

If i need a logo to wrap around a particularly tight curve, then ill put a strip of masking tape on the model, mark it to the size the logo should be based on pictures of the real car, then remove the tape and put it on a flat surface and measure that with the ruler.

I use very similar methods to Brian & Rory.

In the program I use I have the page size set to mm rather than pixels, the page has a ruler around the edge in mm, so when I use the method Rory does to resize an image (click and drag the corner of the image) I can resize it accurately right down to mm or fractions of mm using the ruler on the border of the page.

I also usually print a test sheet on plain paper to double check the sizes before printing on decal paper.