BMW 535i

Started with a mixed feeling about the kit quality. was not sure about what to do with the kit till the very end. Also did not want to invest much time in it. Here I scribe the sunroof with a needle scriber. 

dry run with the sunroof open 

I decided not to use the kit steering wheel because I planned to make a "street" version again. 

fast forward to painted body and headlight assembly. The headlights are tine and were of the very poor quality with bubbles and uneven surface. I had to scribe the stripes on the glass, cover everything with clearcoat and polish every piece so that it fits, has some realistic looks and is not dull and opaque. 

The paint for the body is a Mr Hobby Black Metallic. First painted with Mr Hobby Steel, but then repainted to Black Metallic. 

interior detailing is OK-ish. Here the center console is still not finalized. I applied red purple and blue splatters to the center pieces of the seats and door cards to replicate the m-performance colors 

One major disappointment was with the clearcoating. I bought a cheap clearcoat from hardware store (OBI) and tried applying it like normal: two three thin coats and at least two wet coats. The thin coats were somehow always too thin, and by the time i started to apply wet coats I was always having overspray. After dried there was a horrible orange peel. The worst I´ve seen so far. Even my first model had a better clearcoat. I had to sand everything down (the bigger panels) and applied Mr. Hobby Clearcoat. It turned out great, but the paint was already ruined. 

 

fittine the 3d printed BBS LM wheels. The kit is using metal poles to fit wheels. This although gives a very bad fitment. So I had to use 6mm tube with 4mm inner, glue soft plastic bushing in and print "tamiya" style wheels. On top of that I also had to print brakes because there was no brakes included into the kit. 

i hesitated a bit if I want to have the wing or not. 

the BMW logos are metal etched 

 

i decided to go with 535i since m5 required more decals to be applied 🙂 

 

exhausts were made out of ferrules once again 

the numberplates I custom printed and added some color with the brush. Well if you know, you know 🙂 you can also see the orange peel here. 

Bratishka from Briceni 🙂 

 

 

 

yes, nice orange peel. 

 

 

 

Overall I am still happy on how it turned out. I wish I did not make the mistake with the clearcoat. Otherwise happy to have this classic vehicle on my shelf.