[Music] [Music] [Music] Good evening and welcome to tinkering with Atkelar! As I mentioned in my last video, I got myself a few plastic model kits over the years and finally decided it was time to assemble them! Don't worry! I'll try to keep those episodes to about once a year. For my first kid I picked a VW Beetle in German police style… and yes, police used those back in the day! I started off by "knolling" the injection-molded sheets and other parts. As you can see, originally there were four types of plastic: gray, white, chrome and clear. Besides the clear and chrome, everything would have to be painted. [Music] To help paint adhesion, I cleaned all the parts with some soapy water first. Right then and there I realized a slight problem… Every other part needed some base coat of paint: mostly black and green. To avoid hours of brushing paint on and trying to get it even, I got out my airbrush. And to avoid a ton of cleaning and dozens of paint jobs, I picked as many pieces of the same color as possible at a time.
[Music] The build starts with the engine: it is tiny in a VW to begin with, but at 1:24 scale… oh boy… time to get out the old lenses! [Music] Carburetor, distributor, air filter, generator, belt… and that's only the upper part! The cylinders and gearbox are up next; Getting affixed to the underside of the car complemented by the exhaust and heater combo. [Music] Finally: the rear axle and suspension! The shock absorbers are again tiiiiiny! [Music] A pleasant surprise was the front axle: it has a moving steering mechanism! You have to heat stake the parts to keep it moving… not connected to the wheel, but still: neat! [Music] For the main body part, I also used airbrush colors. Mixing paint is not my speciality… so I was happy to have a nice shade of green! …which turned out slightly too dark.
Oh well… up next: the wheels! The chrome rims require some painting to leave the hubcaps in chrome and the rims in an iron shade. The rims glue together with a bushing in the middle, which allows them to rotate on the axles. With the wheels attached it is starting to look like a car… like… thing? [Music] The side panels call for some bright paint… over the dark green base coat! [sigh] I had to paint it four times! Also: quite a few details on those! For the seats I also had to use the bright paint; but with the white base, they were much easier to cover up! …only three coats of paint needed! Then we have the red seatbelt releases… did I say "tiny" yet? [Music] As is custom for some of these kits, you can pick between several versions of the object. In this case: different years and Police Department versions.
I picked version 3: "Police Neuss, 1974" because it looked the most authentic old-school to me. The dashboard has some interesting details. This is also where the versions first showed up. I followed version three as closely as possible; the phone or radio set was way too tiny to paint 100% accurately, but I got close! [Music] Depending on the version, you need to drill several holes for accessories into the body. Building the whole inside pod was simple enough: pedals, gearshift, emergency brake, steering column, wheel and of course: the seats. [Music] The body needs the white parts painted next. I would have preferred to airbrush these surfaces, but I didn't trust the green paint enough to tape it off.
Oh, and adding a coat of clear shiny finish too! [Music] After fixing the roof on the inside, we come to a major plot point: getting the three major groups together! Cross your fingers! [Music] The floor plate was slightly bent, so I had to get creative to glue the pod down. Clamps of all sizes within reach can be a valuable asset indeed! And here we go: the body gets glued to the base! woohoo! Looking like a full car now! [Music] getting the windows done was next don't paint past the lines you can always fix a mishap with more paint on the normal parts but the windows will show anything [Music] I keep scratching away paint from glue surfaces to allow better adhesion the paint will not carry any load [Music] Lots of outside stuff that needs to get painted'n glued on next: bumpers, step boards, handles, lights, Mirror…
Mirror?! Where's the hole for the mirror? Whoops! There seems to be a misprint in instructions; the hole for the mirror needs to be drilled like some of the specific version accessories… Would have been much easier from the inside! [Music] And finally after about three weeks of evenings and about a hundred and twenty gigabytes of video footage, I got to glue in the antenna; the final piece! [Music] [Music] [Music] And this concludes the VW police beetle build! Thanks for joining! Feel free to comment below! See you next time! [Music].
