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Building
Fisher Models 1:24th scale Le Mans Porsche 917 'Pink Pig'
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by Mark Flys This kit, made by Fisher Model & Pattern
of California, is a 1/24th scale resin miniature of the Porsche
917 ÒPink PigÓ that raced at Le Mans in 1971. At this point I am
not going to embarrass myself by trying to give chapter and verse
on its history, as I know very little about it. I do remember reading
somewhere that it didn't finish the race, but beyond that, I know
nothing! The kit is all resin and white metal, with a few pieces
of photo-etch and some metal screen for the grilles. The tyres are
also resin, which is quite a rarity in this type of kit. The bodyshell
looks to be well proportioned and very well cast, with metal stub
axles bonded into the wheel-wells, which is a nice touch. Unfortunately
the fit of the resin wheel centres on the stubs is very tight, so
I spent ages opening them out as far as I could and also filing
down the sides of the axle stubs. Once assembled though they are
a good strong fit. There was very little flash on any of the parts,
but there is a very thin lip cast around the bottom of the front
spoiler. It is part of the body and very easy to file off by mistake
if you don't read the instructions first. Luckily I did! I washed
all of the resin pieces in warm water and household bleach to remove
any moulding agent and let them air dry. The bodyshell was then
primed with Halfords white primer and the rest of the resin parts
primed with Halfords grey primer, as they were mostly to be painted
black. This is where I encountered the hardest part of this project,
trying to match the pink paint. After a head- scratching session
with Mark and André at GPM, it was decided that the correct
colour was British Standard ÒRose PinkÓ. Armed with this information
I phoned my local paint factors where I can usually get any colour
mixed up, given the correct code. Unfortunately they drew a complete
blank on any sort of reference number for the mix and a long session
on the Internet didn't get me any closer. The biggest problem was
that every reference photo I could find showed the car in different
light conditions, so it was a different shade every time. I ended
up buying around five different shades of pink from all sources
before settling on Tamiya acrylic pink (the small jar type). I even
emailed Paul Fisher of Fisher Models to ask his advice on some other
colour references (isn't the Internet wonderful?), and he told me
that the car had been abandoned and then restored rather inaccurately,
so nobody really knew what was correct anymore! |
I sprayed on a light coat
of the Tamiya pink to begin with and immediately decided that the
shade was too rich. I mixed Tamiya white into the pink and laid on
another coat and again wasn't happy. This process continued with every
coat, adding more and more white, until I got to the shade you see
now. It may still be a little dark, but who knows? The rest of the build is was very straightforward. The chassis was sprayed matt black (straight out of the can) and the seats and rear carriers were gloss red, with the seats having a coat of Testors ÒDullcoteÓ to tone them down a little. The instructions call for the seats to be black, but in one of the photos I found they definitely were red, and this helped to brighten up the otherwise black interior. The only unusual part was the construction of the rear chassis frame, which was built up by making up a triangle and supports from plastic rod supplied in the kit. It wasn't difficult, but I haven't seen this method used in a kit before. Maybe I've been spoiled by building too many plastic kits! It is worth pointing out that the instructions are very good with this kit, and I assume all of the other Fisher kits are the same. It should be stressed that it is worth reading the whole lot through once before building as there are many tips which can make the job go a little easier. The tyres were sprayed matt black and the wheel centres satin black. Surprisingly there were no tyrewall decals included in the kit, but Andre came up with a spare set of ÒFirestonesÓ from somewhere, so these were added along with the temperature sensor decals on every spoke of the wheels. I added a coat of Dullcote to the tyrewalls to protect and blend in the decals, before weathering them slightly with a dusting of pastel chalks. After the paint had dried out for a few days I set about the daunting decals! It was actually quite easy as all of the red lines are printed over-long, so you can just chop off the overhangs where needed. The instruction sheet is very clear on the placement so it all went together quite quickly. The two number decals on the front and rear didn't sit well into the air ducts though, so I just split them with a scalpel and touched them up with black and white paint afterwards. The body was then clear coated with Halfords clear lacquer and given a quick polish out when dry. The seatbelts were made up using the photo-etched buckles in the kit and some webbing from my parts box and the engine unit was painted flat black.  |
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| I left the fan unpainted
but gave it a thin black wash to bring out the detail, along with
the oil cooler below the rear spoiler. The windows are all vac-formed
acetate and they all fitted well, with only one headlight cover giving
me grief, but I am pretty sure that was my fault. The first one fitted
so well I got complacent with the second! I glued them in with Tamiya
clear acrylic paint,which works well with non-stressed pieces. Otherwise
I use Micro Scale Kristal Kleer white glue for clear parts. The windscreen
wiper is made up from photo-etched pieces that look fantastic when
assembled, if a little fragile. The white metal lights and fuel caps
were polished up and fitted and the screens were painted pink and
cut to size using templates on the instruction sheet. That was about
it, but one of the photos I found on the Internet showed the car mid
or post race with duct tape all over it, to presumably hold it together!
I thought that this looked like fun so I painted some masking tape
matt black and copied the photo as best I could. I also weathered
the car slightly with pastel chalks to tone it all down a bit and
that was basically it. As I said before, the kit is a pretty easy
build for a resin kit and the instructions are very good. The only
problems encountered were the colour matching and lack of reference
material, which you can't blame the manufacturer for. Anyway it certainly
brightens up my shelf and looks good next to my ÒTic TacÓ 962! Thanks
to GPM for the review kit |
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