Porsche 917 K "psychedelic"
The 917 is a car that for years has been a leading role in the history of motor racing and which consecrated Porsche as the major manufacturer of sports cars that it is today. On this car practically everything has been said so that little more can be written of the most mythical car in the history of endurance and sport racing. At 1/32 scale this car has been reproduced by multitude of brands, both in plastic (Scalextric, Fly Car Model, NSR ..) as in resin (Le Mans Miniautures, ..) so in the market we can find both units to collect, such as Fly or LMM models, as to compete, as is the NSR model.
One thing I really like about the manufacturers of slot cars is that they sell their models as disassembled kit to decorate, saves work when making decorations since you do not have to disassemble or unpaint the car, and it allows to do a custom car, something that I love, in sight is. I bought the "Double Finn" NSR white kit version because I like it more than the usual "K" version and thus have more surface to decorate ... It really was the only one they had in the store at the time and I was wearing time looking for it so I get a unit.
The decor was clear from the beginning. I wanted to make a "psychedelic" version, with the yellow car with orange decals printed over a white background. I did not want to make a real decoration, but when surfing the internet I saw that there was a car with the same decoration. I may have unconsciously known it, but at the time of deciding the decor I did not remember.
When I make decorations of cars for me I look for a reproduction as close as a real car or to try different techniques. In this case, the intention was:
- Test with paint mixtures. The yellow color of the body was achieved by mixing Tamiya acrylic colors, yellow and matte white, resulting in a rather pretty satin light yellow color that actually covered poorly. By itself, the yellow color did not cover very well, and although it was mixed with white paint, I had to apply two coat of paint to leave a uniform color over the surface.
- Test with the decals printed on white paper. Virtually all the car´s decoration is printed on white paper.
The painting process of the body is the same as I always do, a smooth pass with sandpaper to the body, Tamiya white spray primer and two coats of the paint resulting from the mixture discussed above, applied with the airbrush. Of course always respecting the waiting times between step and step.
The water slide decal sheet was quite a job, since I wanted the shapes of the decal to fit well with the shape of the body. Logically, it is much easier to adjust logos. Once printed and varnished, the decal sheet looked like this:
The placement of these decals was complicated since it was a decoration based on quite large decals that must be adapted to the body. I had to moisten the body a lot to make it slide easily. When trimming the decals with the orange shapes, leave a thin line around the drawing so that a white line is left once placed. For the rest of the decals the cut was as close to the edge as possible (this is the case for numbers and logos). The problem is that the decals printed on white paper are more delicate than those printed on transparent paper, and I had to manipulate them so much, in some places they were a little cracked. In some photos you can see it, especially on the side of the slot car.
Once the decals were placed, I painted the back of the headlights with Vallejo acrylic black paint, as shown in the previous images.
After letting the decals dry for a few days to ensure that the drying was complete, I applied a generous coat of automotive varnish that left the body with a lot of brightness and also protect it perfectly from the hits that the car can get on the track.
The rest of the pieces that form the body were painted and varnished in different ways:
- The headlightds are painted with matte gray acrylic paint from Tamiya with brush and varnished with automotive lacquer.
- The exhaust pipes and the rear bars are painted in gray Tamiya acrylic steel applied with airbrush and lacquered with Citadel satin spray.
- The simulated motor and the support of the rear tubular structure are painted with matt black acrylic paint from Tamiya and lacquered with Citadel satin spray.
The interior included a full-body driver. The decoration was very simple, I painted it completely of metallic gray (X-11 acrylic of Tamiya) with the airbrush,I painted the dashboard of matte black with Vallejo painting and painted the seats of matt XF-7 Tamiya ref, obtaining a very real result.
On the other hand, the decoration of the driver cost me much more, mainly because the plastic with which it is made is infamous, and it took me a lot of work for the painting to take. After a few tries, finally I painted it with a matt white Humbrol enamel applied by brush. Curiously, the driver´s head was much easier to decorate with the same Humbrol enamel because the plastic was much better. Really what I liked least of all the kit has been the pilot, the rest is of very good quality. After the process of decoration and assembly the interior was thus.
Regarding to mechanics, what can be said about the NSR components? Well that should be a standard in the slot world. The quality is very high and this translates into the impressive performance on track of the car. The typical car that unboxed, without magnet and practically without any adjustment, works wonderfully. This is the chassis of the car with all mechanical components assembled.
And the car after a simple assembly process looks like this
I am not entirely happy with the result of this car, the decals were damaged a bit during the placement and it has left me a bit bittersweet feeling. I wanted a more neat result, even though I will not have any qualms about running with this car, because as I said, its track behavior is impressive, but I would have liked to get a better finish. Anyway, it is a car completely recommended for any lover of classic slot cars. Really impressive. My congratulations to NSR for cars like this 917.
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