well, start by the beginning and the end.... real deal, die cast before any torture was done to it, and final result. now it is not longer a 500 limited edition
door openers and all the other plastic and metal details needed to be removed. masking would have drove me insane... and I only broke one piece. and carpet monster did not get any of them (not that it did not try several times)
the grill there was the only one that broke, i tried to replace it since anyway was not 100% like the real one but could not get satisfied, so eventually used the original one and the joint is not really visible.
those holes were the bike holder were attached needed to be removed. pitty to destroy the VW logo in the process, but i was planning to use a decal anyway.
bike holder was ok, but my bother had one custom made.... so i wanted to duplicate the one he had. was one of the distinct features of the van, so it would have not been complete without it. started with metal wire of the right thickness
the floor was covered with some fake aluminum with a pattern. i tried first with some engraved plate, but the effect was too much, so i have to forget about it. i realized that to be true to scale (since it was not real engraved plate in the van) the only way was to use a thin flat piece of aluminum
furniture, to be painted and detailed. for example some sand color in some parts will be added. a bit of panel wash was also added to make the lines more visible. also added an extra line were my bother made an extra panel
this is heating vent that was totally wrong in the die cast model (well, that was not the one he had in his van). i will not be make such a complicated structure (only way would have been very thin metal that woudl have no doubt bent eventualy). i got as close as i could
a bit of a butchery to remove and stick the new one... but it will be corrected with putty etc until nothing can be seen
easy to see where the second vent was in this picture.
not very clear, but here you can see it, painted in black. also the metal colored flooring and the thin lines of alu to simulate the guides for the extra lines of seats
nice seats, but quite simple. i should have cut the head rests, but i was worried about the decaling. later i got a color laser printer, so i could have done better decals. but forgot about that part
painted and added. driver arm rest was set with glue and pasenger can be moved (but that will requiere to open the van again.... so i doubt they will ever be moved again). added some planel where the wheel to regulate the seat is located. with the wheel, of course. also added the safety belt locks
also added details for the safety belts in the back. i wanted to have the safetly belts too, but it was next to impossible to place them correctly with the windows closed, so i had to give that up
difficult to distinguish from the original... but it will not be used at the end. i wanted to have that one as a "extended" one (extra space to sleep on) but it is better that the van stays in the glass box without anybody touching it.
and some days later, disaster!! no idea what happended... those are flakes of 2K clear. with a tiny bit of alclad in them (they do not look like they are, but they were basically transparent)
fortunately it was mostly in the top of the van... that will be covered with the cover. so... fixed the best i could and it will never be seen again. do not tell anybody. the very front, not hidden under the cover was hidden under some rubber band (simulated with isolation from a thin wire) that projects the van from getting water when it rains.
i also removed the mirrors at the beginning of the build. i wanted to keep them in the best shape possible, and drill the space between the two parts. since just gluing would be prone to break, i added a metal shaft and drilled a hole in the van to insert it. and added the tiny mirrors my brother had in his van
those reflections look good... and hide an error i found when i was closing down. out of nowhere, something like glue damaged a bit the inside of the window.... 🙁 I did not have time to fix it (it was 04:00 and i was flying with it next morning one way or another....). well, it is a camping van, they are never clean right?
i really like how that worked out. here can be seen the last details added at the bottom.
number plates were also done with the printer. they look really good, but i had to remove them from the pictures
my brother used to have the T4 that you see in the first picture. he was truly in love with it. it was sold some time ago, and then he got the die cast that you see also in the first picture. he wanted me to just paint it silver so it would resemble more his beloved camping van. i said yes, back in September 2017! A "few things" happened after that, that left me not so much time or energy for modeling... so i was working on and off on this project, and finally finished right before Christmas and took it to him as a nice present. it had been quite a chaotic rebuild, with a considerable number of plans made, scrapped, new plans made, things forgotten, and things i could have done much better. but at the end, the result is not so bad, and above all, he is very happy with it. album may seem strange since some steps seem to contradict others, but since i was going working on one part or the other, the pictures we a total mess. so i posted in groups, even if the build was certainly not done in that order.
Peter Hardy
