Fujimi - 1:24 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano

This one bought a year ago.  A typical Fujimi quality, that is easy to build, and no engine detail.  I'd build it straight from the box, no grade up parts (actually I can't afford to buy grade up parts for all models as they are quite expensive and cost more than the model itself).

The body casting is good and in scale, despite of the obvious seam lines run from above the headlights to the end of the car and slight sink marks on the top.  The back window has a plastic attached the top and the rear hood to protect the b-pillar from bending or breaking during the building process, quite considerable by Fujimi.  The wheels are original Ferrari star-shaped wheels, their size matched the scale.  There is a cage-liked part for A,B, and C pillars, another improvement from Fujimi.

Chassis and wheels
Start from assembling the chassis, the wheel covers, and the braking discs, Fujimi has simplified the process to build and colour, despite of lack of detail.  While preparing the exhaust pipes, one of the pipes has accidentally flied off and cannot be found.  It sad to see one pipe is missing!


Body shelf
Next step is to sand off the seam lines and fix other imperfections on the body shelf, I applied thick primer on where the sink marks are and sand them smooth afterward; re-scribe all the panel lines; attach the side skirts; and seal off the holes for the front license plate ( I don't used to attach the front license plate to the model), gel-typed super glue instead of putty is applied to seal off the holes.

Application of primer

After all fixings are done, a couple coats of grey primer is applied to the body and the interior parts to spot any unseen imperfections for further handling and, the most important, to completely block off the red body colour, grey primer works better on coverage the base colour than the white.  As I decided to spray the car in light colour, the body parts need to spray a coat of white primer in the final stage.


There are quite a number of interior and exterior parts need to prime, both hand brake and handle bar at the central console will be primed by hand.

Nevertheless, white primer was applied to all exterior as well as interior parts as I have no plan of choosing what colour (light or dark) to be used for interior.

Body colouring

Leave all the parts to dry overnight, the body is paint with yellow colour, the colour is a Gunze #4 (Yellow) as the base plus just a few drops of Gunze #59 (Orange) to enhance the hue.  I've tried to match the Ferari Yellow nut found it a bit too yellow after the paint is cure.  Anyway, it's close enough to me.

Put on the decals, the prancing horse decal fort eh back is slightly smaller than the emblem build-in on the body and I have damaged one of the decal by overapplying decal softener.

Interior colouring

Allow the body colour to settle for a few days, I turned to work on the interior.  According to the reference photo, the interior colour of most of the yellow Ferrari is charcoal.  However, for the model, dark colour can hardly show the details of the interior, so I choose the usual Ferrari interior colour - tan and black.  The dashboard has compose of three different colours, flat black at the topmost section, gloss carbon fibre ("CF") at the middle, and tan colour at the bottommost section.  As I have no plan of using CF decal on this model because of cumbersome, I would use gloss black to replace the CF parts.  Besides, it can hardly notice if CF decal is used.

Firstly, I spray all interior parts with Gunze #44 (Tan).  It seems tanner than the Ferrari tan colour.


Secondly, seal off the tan colour and spray gloss black to the dashboard, door panels, and the back of the seats.  Wait until the paint is dried, I seal off the gloss black area on the dashboard and spray the clear flat base to the topmost area.  Then, touch up other black and silver parts, the interior is almost done.


After the interior has completed, I turn to work on the window glass.  The glass is firstly protected by a plastic wrap to prevent scratches during the process.  Then I free hand draw the frames with flat black.  After the glass is completed, I return to work on the body, I spray one thin coat of clear lacquer but found some dusts have stuck on the surface, so I need to sand them off before applying the second coat.  After the dusts have been removed, I spray another coat (and final coat) of super clear.

Put on all the grills, head/side/rear lights, paint the side window frame,..., it almost there!!! (pic 6)


Attached everything and assemble the car, another MISSION COMPLETED.

Remarks
Very disappointing that one of the exhaust pipes is missing.