Racing on Tempura Oil

We have all read stories about people tweaking their diesel engined vehicles to run on various bio fuels, deep frying oil being the most used. The Indy Racing League is for the first time running Ethanol, so it is no stretch of the imagination, that some of the other racing series and events would see an influx of bio-fuels. Ukyo Katayama, a former Formula One driver, entered the 2007 Dakar driving a Toyota Landcruiser, running on used Tempura oil. To commenmorate the race, a paper model was released of the Landcruiser, you can visit(site has been removed) The model is a nice simple model, nothing that will trip up anyone. Enjoy, and maybe next time you are at a Japanese restaurant, and you order Tempura, the oil used might just power a race car.

Weathering the Storm, so to speak.....

One of the few things I never really got into was weathering, I tried it on a truck model, using model paint, never really liked it, never got a good mud pattern.

Forward to the present day, one of the members at www.cardmodels.net showed one of his little tricks, He showed off a weathering set from Tamiya, check it here.

I have picked up all 4 sets, only 3 were shown in the thread above, the fourth set has burnt blue, for burnt metal, like header pipes and exhausts, and the Oil Stain, for leaking oil from vehicles or aircraft, there is also a burnt red for rust colored burnt metal

I picked up my sets from Hobbylinc

I will try to use them in the future, on some of the more simple models, from Racepaper.de to see if what works, I'll keep you posted.

Two takes on a Race Winner

The Peugeot 405 T16, a coupe based full time 4 wheel drive monster of a rally car, won the 1989 Dakar.

When I saw this car first, I was like, "Ok, this will kick some ass."

As a result of the win, two paper models were released, one from ABC, designed by Michal Antonicky, which I have been building, but haven't finished yet, one day I will, I have the thread of the build here ABC 405 Build
Yes the car is still wheelless, I guess I need to remedy that some day.

The other model, a promotional model released by Peugeot, was designed by Dr. Gerard Colbere.
The model is simple compared to the ABC one, there is no scale indicated in the french directions, but I would say the model is a bit smaller than the other one, probably 1:35 or smaller.
I was able to find a thumbnail image of the kit,


But more importantly, I was able to score one on Ebay, now I need to score a second one before I start to build one.
I do consider this model to be one of the more rare Dakar paper models out there, the Polish truck I wrote about earlier, I feel is also one of the more rare models, as I was only able to snag one from PaperModelStore and Moduni.

Peugeot raced the 405 four times in the Dakar, the models represent the Pioneer clad models from 1989.
They also raced in Camel colors,



There are other 405 models, Tamiya released two versions of the 405, in 1:24 scale, Bburago also released two diecast models, one is a pre-assembled one, with a blue body, and a white bodied DIY version.
Other models are diecast models in 1:43, by Ixo, Norev and others, and a couple of smaller diecast cars, Majorette, a french company which makes Matchbox style cars, and the 405 car they released looks alot like the Camel clad cars.

During the years from 1984 to 1991, the Dakar Car class was won by cars, prior to that, and since then, the Car class has been dominated by SUV based vehicles.

Dakar Race Teams In Paper

One of the best sites for Dakar models is Volker Preikschat's Racepaper.de. Volker's Dakar models are a recent development for him, Volker is known for his excellent designed DTM and F1 models, his Dakar models rival the quality of those models. One of the most exciting releases from Volker will be all the Car Winners from the first to the most recent Dakar races. The first release will be the 1980 winning car, the VW Ilits. I was planning on doing this similar thing in plastic, but I like this option alot better. If like me, you want to follow the releases, visit Volker's Dakar site.

10th International Paper Model Convention

It is that time of the year again to drool over what others have built.

I am talking about the 10th Annual International Paper Model Convention.
Held this year at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Dulles Virginia, USA.
The date for the main attraction is November 11th, we will be displaying what we have built from 10am to 6pm(18:00 for our miltary and non US friends)

Some of the biggest names of the hobby will be in attendance, A.G. Smith of Dover Publications, Digital Navy, Fiddler's Green, and many others.

This year I will be providing a live webcam feed of the event, which can be accessed at IPMC Webcam feed

I will also be posting some videos and stills of the event when time allows, maybe a few days after the event.

If you are curious as to what fun we have, you can check out My 2004 photo album or if you need more info check out IPMC 2006 website

Hope to see you there

Polish Trucks in Dakar

Having written about Czech trucks and my history in The Netherlands.
I wasn't too surprised to see that some Polish teams decided to compete in the Dakar.

Two truck makes have competed in the Dakar, Star and Jelcz.
Both brands started competing in the race in 1986.
It seems that Star had better results, but I don't have a model of the Star race truck.....

I do have a copy of the Jelcz S 442, published by Mikrus, which from what I learned from Krys from www.papermodelstore.com that Jelzc owns Mikrus.

This kit is very rough, printed on thin chipboard(think the board in a dress shirt package)
The printing is not very sharp, lots overprinting, and some shifting of the ink.
The kit does have some good build diagrams, and the thin paper parts are printed properly.
One of the quaint(Sorry Scotty) things of this kit is the handdrawn nature of the model, reminds me of some of the ABC/Czech kits which I own.
The scale of this kit is bigger than the czech kits I have, 1:25 versus 1:32, all vehicle kits from Poland are in that 1:25 scale, brings me back to when I was building cars and trucks in that scale in plastic.

Not that it is much of a stretch, I have a 1:50 truck model, and I know of two other kits by Mikrus, one a bus, and the other a city square or statue kit, both of the vehicles are Jelzc machines. It is a cool concept, I wish more companies would do this, or contract with established designers or publishing houses.

I need to finish some models for the Paper Model Convention...Back to the Mat.

From Fan to Designer

One thing that I have been struggling with when building paper models is the inability to repaint a model to some version I want.
I understand how the technology works but I have a hard time with the control, the layers, blending and the like.

This repainting is how Roman Hruska possibly started with his repainting/designing career.
Roman started repainting a couple of simple models of Tatra trucks which competed in the Dakar.
Roman's claim to fame is a beautifully detailed Tatra 815, the truck competed in the 1988 Dakar, and is a 6x6 model.

The kit itself is is 8 pages long, with Czech and English instructions, and construction diagrams, and is 1:32 in scale
The cool thing about this kit is the 1:100 Minibox clone, and the 1:300 model.



Roman is working on a 1:32 model of the massive looking Tatra 8x8 truck.
Visit the build here Roman's 8x8 Tatra

In between these models Roman has released, what I would term, One Nighters, models on one page, and you could do it in one night.
Most of the models are truck models, but Roman has also a free standing model of the engine which is in the 6x6.
Visit the downloads here Roman's Downloads

I guess I need to spend time with Photoshop Elements if I want to repaint a model, but then when do I have time to build that model???.......

A Puzzling Situation?

Well..... not exactly, but close. It is made of paper, and it has a design printed on it, is it a model, not exactly. It is a jigsaw puzzle, not one but two. To me jigsaw puzzles are another form of escape, just like making models. Mom asked me last year, what did I want for Christmas, so I went looking for something Dakar related. I stumbled onto two puzzles, one with 500 pieces and the other with 1500. The 500 piece puzzle I bought myself, couldn't wait, the 1500 piece monster, I asked for that one. The 1500 piece puzzle was drawn by Blauchon, a European artist, who does alot of comedic drawings, lots going on, all in one picture, and is published by Heye, a French puzzle company.

The 500 piece puzzle, published by Nathan, another French puzzle company, depicts a temple of some kind, in Africa. The photo was taken by the official Dakar photographer, Maindru, it's their Toyota in the image.

These are the only two jigsaw puzzles which are Dakar themed, which I am aware of, so if you find one, let me know.

Pictorial Evidence...

So you will be able to see what I say is not a figment of my over active imagination.
I have started to use PicasaWeb, a free photohosting site, along the lines of image shack or photobucket.
PicasaWeb is powered by Picasa and Google, and is in beta now.

Dakar

Jul 24, 2006 - 3 Photos

Here is my Dakar album, over time I will be posting more and more pictures of the models I will be building and hopefully finishing.

I hope you enjoy looking at the pictures, as much as I had building the models in them.

An Obsession with Sand?

After a few posts you might ask yourself, why this preoccupation with Dakar?

Isn't Dakar, the capital of the African country Senegal on the west coast of the continent?
Yes it is, it also the finish line of the off road race, nicknamed Le Dakar, the starting point used to be Paris, France, more recently Barcelona, Spain, and Lisbon, Portugal.
Just to shake things up, one year, the organizers started in Dakar, and finished in Paris.

My first exposure to The Dakar, I was maybe 12 or 13 years old, Jan De Rooy competed with "De Koffer"(The Trunk). He finished 3rd in the truck category, and after that I was hooked.

I mean, come on, the biggest racing vehicles ever conceived bouncing around in the World's largest sandbox, this is the stuff dreams are made of.

4x4, 6x6 and even the massive 8x8 trucks racing each other in the Sahara Desert.

Baja it isn't, but Baja buggies and trucks are permitted to race the Dakar, but they have to adhere to certain technical specifications.

When I came back to the US, in 1987, I fell out of touch with the whole Dakar history, but since Speed TV used to carry coverage, and now OLN/Versus carrying it, I have gotten back to following the whole circus that is the Last Road Trip, The Legend.
The models, and the variety of news sources have just fueled my passion for this event, all available over the internet.

I invite everyone to experience The Dakar, and as they say Entrez La Légende Enter the Legend........