Mechajol Garage

Work in progress part 2

2007-09-25T09:14:00.000+08:00

Some updates on the plastic green bug...

Still trying to find a way to lower the friction engine.

Epoxy clay was used to fabricate new lowered mounting points for the axels.

Test-fitting the lowered front axels. The axels are already shortened.

Some detailing done - chrome linings, painted turn signals, painted tail lights.

Work in progress

2007-09-24T09:37:00.000+08:00

Last weekend, I got this cheap 1/18 plastic beetle.

Shown above is the bottom card of the container. The item itself has the same crappy stickers as shown in the illustration above.

Here's the plastic beetle minus the crappy stickers.

Now, the shape of the mould itself is decent enough to pass off as a diecast model. The body is made of very light plastic which may be flimsy on its own, but is assembled well. If you'll notice, the running boards are flexing a bit. The body is also coated with metallic green paint, which is applied well, surprisingly.

See, without the crappy stickers, the platic toy shines a bit, showing great potential. Check out these pics:

Here's a view of the base. The plastic beetle also has a friction-powered motor at the rear.

And one of the flaws, a hole on the roof. Maybe the manufacturers used the same mould for a police car version?
This hole was covered by one of the stickers. The adhesive is still seen in this pic.

I'm planning on fixing up this bug in a few days. After opening the package, I immediately took out the stickers (a mistake, actually. I should have taken pics first) and started clearing the adhesives. I also added details to the body. No repainting is needed, but some fabricating will be done. First of all, I dislike those side mirrors, and I've already taken these out.

Also, there's this issue with the wheels. The silver wheels look too "bling-bling" for me, but they do add some detail and they work with the dark metallic color of the body. These wheels also look too big in proportion to the bug, and the axels need a bit of shortening. Looking at the toy from the side, some lowering is also needed.

The good news is that some modifications have already been done. More pics and progress next time.

Some new stuff...

2007-05-21T16:48:00.001+08:00

Thank god our local distributor finally put these 1/18 G-Ridez VWs on sale! These retail here for around $40 each, and are now on sale at 50% off! I've been eyeing two particular items since these came out - the aquamarine bug, and the pink bug.
Pics were taken with my phone camera, I apologize for the crappy quality.

With these two on my desk, I took out a G-Ridez VW Convertible that an aunt gave me for my birthday.

Next some small scale VWs! These are all from Matchbox.

My Hotwheels Baja Bugs

2007-03-03T22:18:00.000+08:00

A glimpse of my collection, here are my Hotwheels Baja Bugs. Most of my toy cars are kept MOC in boxes and bags simply because I don't have enough space at home to display them. It's really frustating.

Last week, I got this...

I actually have one of these on my office desktop. Ever since I cleaned my desk, I had ample space for another display case. I brought this case home last Friday because I was too busy the whole week to open up boxes and take pics.

Anyways, I started setting my cars loose this morning, and continued this evening. Here's the aftermath...

Nice, eh? Here are some closer shots of my Baja Bugs...

And here are some pics I took while playing around with my crappy digicam...

I'm still on the lookout for any HW Baja Bugs that I still don't have.
I'm also planning on doing more Baja Bug customs,
and if I finish enough, I might get 'em their own display case!

Next time, i'll try setting my Hotwheels VW Bugs loose!

Diliman Motorshow Winners!

2007-03-02T22:47:00.000+08:00

Last Saturday, the UP Gears and Pinions held the 12th Diliman Motorshow. Aside from the 1:1 car show, there was also a competition for customized scale models.

I entered the Kombi Fully Loaded and the Yellow VW Taxi, both 1/32 scale, and guess what? Both won 1st place in their categories!

(Click on the thumbnails for a bigger view.)

Some pictures with last year's Motorshow winners!

Kombi Fully Loaded

2007-01-25T10:27:00.000+08:00

It has been pretty stressful for the past couple of weeks. The home PC just went kaput, and the workload at the office is just crazy. Fortunately, I found time during the weekend to finish this custom. The weather was cooperative enough to let the paint dry quickly, and this custom did not really demand that much painting skill.

Anyway, here's Kombi the Love Bus. Click on the thumbnails for a bigger picture.

The base model used is a 1/32 Kinsmart 1962 VW Bus. I just blasted the shell with white paint, after a thorough sanding.

Herbie-themed VW buses aren't original anymore, I know. Some people have even done pretty good Herbie drag buses from the Hotwheels mold. But it didn't really stop me here.

The original plan was to take a 1/32 Kinsmart Beetle and convert it into a Herbie, but that's a bit expected, and easy. I doodled some designs on a notebook of a Herbie bus. My original doodle included more decals on the design, aside from the stripes and the 53. But after applying the Herbie decals, I thought this bus would look better with less clutter.

Yes, the pull-back motor still works. The rear hatch and the door still open.

The Herbie theme is not only limited to the decals. I added a sunroof and painted the interior gray like the original Love Bug. What's only missing is the "OFP 857" plates. I did consider painting the wheels white, but decided to leave it alone as is for some subtle "bling."

After applying the decals, I used flat clearcoat. This Love Bus just looked better in flat white, makes it look like one of those salt flat drag racers...

Painting the whole bus in one color did make it true to its name - Kombi. Kombis came from the factory in one color, and were pretty much utilitarian as compared to the Samba versions which were the top of the line. Of course, Kombis didn't come standard with a sunroof and chrome bumpers and wheels, but since we're following a Herbie theme...

Anyways, here are some pics of Kombi the Love Bus with one of my earlier Kinsmart Bus customs - the Rat Bus. The flat black and flat white contrast is just too cool.

Not just Volkswagens - a Police Charger Custom

2006-12-21T08:00:00.000+08:00

Inspired by pictures of an old redline Hotwheels Plymouth Fury police car, here's my own version done with a Dodge Charger.

Grill, sidemarkers, and tail lights were all painted and detailed. Burn-out "dirt" were lightly sprayed on the rear fenders, and the lightbar was built from scratch.

Click the thumbnails for a bigger view. :D

simple VW Microbus Concept repaint

2006-12-17T16:52:00.000+08:00

Base car is a Matchbox VW Microbus Concept. After months of waiting for my schedule and the weather to clear up (damn typhoons), I've finally managed to finish a simple repaint.

Click on the thumbnails for a bigger view, and let me know what you guys think.

Some news and some customs...

2006-12-17T16:43:00.000+08:00

Finally tried photobucket's thumbnail feature. I hope it works!

Anyways, here are some custom cars I did for my cousin's wedding. I asked for white cars. I'll be using clear decals, after all, and besides, it's a wedding. The mini coopers had white roofs, so no problem with that. But the scarcity of cheap white cars on the pegs made us settle for yellow beetles.

These will be used as giveaways on the wedding.

Click on the thumbnails for a bigger view.

Toys R Us "Ketchup" Display

2006-10-13T12:16:00.000+08:00

Last month, DCPH had a successful toy exhibit in cooperation with Toys R Us and PinoyToyKolektor. The venue was the 4th level of Robinson's Galleria mall, near our local Toys R Us branch.

The exhibit lasted for a week and ended with a swapmeet last September 30.

Here's some pics of the cars I brought for display.

My instructions were to display miniature cars of different scales. Instead of just grabbing random cars from my collection, I just decided to stick to the color red.

Why red? Well, most of the stuff available from my stash were red. I also decided to stick to two types of Volkswagens - the classic beetle, and the T1 transporter. I was thinking of including some red New Beetles, but the space alloted for my display can't handle more cars.

I brought around 40 red Volkswagens of different scale, but only managed to squeeze in less than 30 items.

Ingress was at 9PM, but the display cabinets arrived late, around 11PM. And to make matters worse, I was assigned to a red cabinet! This really affected the visual impact of my red collection.

It was a great event, though, both the exhibit set-up and the swapmeet proper. I really wish for ample space at home to display my collection properly, instead of keeping these cars in stacked cardboard boxes...

A simple wheelswap can go a long way...

2006-10-13T10:56:00.000+08:00

Did this Notchback custom the other night because I'm bored.

When I got this black Type 3, what really bothered me is the wheels.

The car has black paint, totally stock exterior, then, the black BRMs.

Looks cool to me, but it's still lacking!

So check out these quickie improvements.

Side profile.

Where did I get the classic wheels? Well, there's this other Maisto Niotchback with a customized cnady green paint, but it has stock wheels. Just switched the wheels, and look, everything looks better.

If you check the earlier pics, the classic wheels from the green Type 3 has some green paint on the rims to match the candy green paint. At first I thought I have to do something about it, but looking at it now, it's a subtle detail that makes the car look stunning.

Primer number 1

2006-08-24T00:31:00.000+08:00

Over the weekend, I finished this baja bug custom in around a couple of hours. The Shell Baja Bug looked lonely without a rival, so I planned on doing a quick nemesis.

No drilling was needed. All I did was erase the original tampos, and started applying the decals.

As you can see, this baja bug is not as pristine-looking as the Shell Baja Bug. The original primer gray looked good enough, and the intent was to make this nemesis an antithesis of the number 00 car.

The result is "Primer Number 1" - a veteran baja bug desert vehicle. It's more go than show.

Yes, I know. The pics are still blurry. No budget for a decent digicam, but believe me when I say that it does look better in person, although it lacks that "it came from mattel" look which most people liked about the Shell Baja Bug.

What do you think? Here are some comparison shots.

Stay tuned for the next custom...

Deputy Filmore

2006-08-07T01:01:00.000+08:00

Just finished this custom, thank God for sunshine...

Shell Baja Bug

2006-08-06T02:40:00.000+08:00

After weeks of waiting, the weather finally cooperated, and I finally went to town with the clearcoat to finish this custom.

Now, if the weather cooperates again tomorrow, another custom will be posted here. Stay tuned!

Sneak Peeks and some old customs

2006-07-01T21:33:00.000+08:00

Here's what I did for the whole day. Both at 90% completion. Yes, I know the pics are blurry. I did that for suspense.

This is a bit obvious, the question is... what scale?

This one's a bit harder.

I could actually finish these cars this weekend, but we have to attend a friend's wedding tomorrow. I'd love to stay up all night sparying clearcoat, but I work outdoors.

Anyway, while we're waiting, here are some interesting pics of some customs I did.

This is the same taxi bug I posted earlier, except that an officemate took the pic with a better digicam.

These are my first batch of 1/32 custom VW based on Kinsmart models. Yeah, the pic is blurry because my digicam has no macro setting. I entered these in a custom scale model competition and ended up winning 2 first prizes for the police bug and the rat bus (the flat black one). Yep, beginner's luck.

For better pics of the police bug, check out my deviant art gallery.

http://mechajol.deviantart.com/

Bug Yellow Taxi

2006-06-28T20:56:00.000+08:00

Okay, for the first custom VW to be posted here, I choose my recently-completed Yellow Taxi.

This was based on a 1/32 scale Kinsmart VW Beetle. I really had fun doing this.

Sorry for the crappy pics. Will post better pics next time! :D

Blue bugs on my desktop

2006-06-12T13:45:00.000+08:00

No customs yet. Am finishing one this week. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, here's a pic of a small collection of blue beetles on my office desk.

How I spent my summer vacation...

2006-04-14T01:48:00.000+08:00

Holy week has finally come, and while most people would spend their non-working holidays out of the city, I decided to just sit back and prep some cars for future projects.

Last week, I called up Polidread, an artist friend of mine who specializes in hands-on fabrication of almost anything his twisted mind could conjure. Good thing they have this aluminum/glass shop - industrial tools and materials are always at hand. So I asked him if he could help me open up some small cars.

I dropped by yesterday after lunch (am typing this around 2AM) and brought a bag of cars, some loose, some MOC. Here are the pics-

Our first victim.

Here's Polidread with a Matchbox Sand Digger.

Here's a disassembled Siku Vanagon. The white plastic pieces you see on the base are flexible tabs that serve as the car's suspension. The cool thing is that after years of abuse and rough playing, these tabs still work perfectly!

Another disassembled Siku, this time a VW T2 Pickup.

This is the base. The previous owner, for some reason, stuck a screw through the base. We managed to get it out, though.

More cars waiting for the drill.

Here's a Tomica T2 Kombi.

Apparently, the rivets that would open the body is located near the edge. These two rivets on the orange plastic just holds the axels to the base.

Can't believe we just opened up this hard to find model...

Some more cars...

This is a surprise! When I took out a Baja Bug from its card, I noticed that the other side of the toy hides an error paint job!

Here it is, as compared with a normal variant.

There was no way to tell that it was an error since this side was hidden from plain view! I promptly placed the error baja bug back in its card. This is a keeper!

The last batch of cars to be opened...

Some observations in this operation:

1) Cars with metal bases are much easier to drill as compared to cars with plastic bases which gets damaged easily. The first surfin' school bus we opened had its base violated. Still repairable with some epoxy, though.

2) Hotwheels rivets are really a pain to drill. The first HW we drilled was the Hare Splitter. Man, took us longer than expected.

3) The Low Flow is very difficult to clamp with its sloping structure. Had a bit of trouble opening that one up. The plastic base didn't make it a clean job.

4) We didn't have any problems drilling Siku rivets.

When I went back home, I immediately tried swapping wheels with a Siku Vanagon.

I was planning on painting this red, but the "weathered gray on HW 5-spoke wheels" look is growing on me...

Also temporarily glued the broken tailgate.

Paint stripper will flow when morning comes. To be continued...

World's Coolest Police Chase

2006-04-06T09:38:00.000+08:00

Found this at youtube.com. Pretty cool!

If the video won't work, use this link:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=CYGd0yWaK0I&search=matchbox

Work in progress

2006-03-30T22:24:00.000+08:00

This is a 1/43 1303 Super Beetle. I would keep this as is except that the toy is lacking in detail. This is my first attempt in improving it.

Some of the things I added are the chrome linings around the body, the chrome rear fender gravel guards, and painted tail lights. The plastic convertible top was also covered in fabricfor a more realistic texture.

I am not happy with the results, though, and looks like I'll have to redo the top. I'm also having a dilemma if I should retain the original wheels or add some hubcaps.

The headlights are crappy units, but I don't have any replacement, so these will stay for now.

The end result should look like this - a triple black "Epilog" special edition cabrio.

image from http://sebeetles.com

Dirty Dubs

2006-03-25T23:49:00.000+08:00

I recently acquired a lot of old VW toys. While the thought of getting a bunch of vintage diecast Volkswagens may sound appealing, the bad news is that most of these cars have been played with very well. Apparently the previous owner enjoyed playing with these cars too much he tried, well, repainting and modifying these. Of the 14-car lot, there are only three cars that will remain intact. The rest will be restored/customized.

Shown here are thirteen cars. I got a red Matchbox Flying Bug which, fortunately, retained its original paint with minor scratches. It's missing the two jet engines on top, though. Anyway, I didn't manage to take a pic of this item since I left it already on my office desk.

The first pic was taken after I cleaned up the cars. And by cleaned up, I mean scrubbing these in hot, soapy water, using pliers and nails to scratch away "glue-gunned" parts (the previous owner was, obviously, trigger-happy with his glue gun), and prying seashells (!) from pickup beds.

This pair of Golfs were made by MC Toys.

The green one only suffers from a broken tail light and the right rear fender and spoiler colored with a black marker. The paint is still good, perfect. The broken tail light, however, also acts as a lock, so the body and base are a disjoined on the left side. I'll probably just use super glue to fix it in place. While the wheels still roll perfectly, the front suspension seems to need a bit of work, so I'll have to open this car up. I'll also try taking the marker ink off, though, and maybe add a few details by properly painting the fender flares.

The orange one is trickier. No repaints necessary, but the rear suspension is shot. This car definitely needs to be drilled open.

Next is a Siku VW Kastenwagen. Looks sorta like a T3 Vanagon, but it has rear cabinet doors, instead of a hatch.

Customized to look like the A-team's van, the body has minor dents but overall it still remains solid. The suspension still works, and the wheels just need a bit of cleaning. The window glasses were painted black. Hopefully I'll have this cleaned. While the exterior looks rough (the yellow green paint is the original color), the interior looks perfect!

Next is another favorite - a Siku T2 VW Double Cab Pickup!

When I got this, the bed was filled with glue-gunned seashells. Ater repeatedly immersing it in hot water, I managed to pry off some shells with a nail. I finally managed to pull everything out with a pair of pliers.

The windows were painted gold, the body shows wear in places, but it still feels solid! The thin wheels also just needs a bit of cleaning up. The only problem I'll probably encounter is cleaning up the windows.

Now here's a Tomica T2 Kombi, with a sliding door!

The body is perfect, the wheels roll good, and the only problem here is the botched repaint. The yellow you see is the original paint. I really wish that I could just scratch off the red paint, but eithe way, this toy still needs to be opened up to be repainted. At least the windows were left alone this time.

Another example of a good car ruined by a botched paint job is this Matchbox Beetle Streaker.

The wheels still roll straight, the body still hinges perfectly, the windows are clear, and the plastic lock still keeps the body up.

I'm not really sure if I can repaint the body without disassembling the beetle, but I really wish I could.

A Matchbox Sand Digger that looks like it came from a Mad Max flick.

No amount of scrubbing could clean the tire threads of hardened earth. This toy must have made some hardcore off-roading early in its life. The body metal looks solid enough, and all it needs is a new coat of paint. And wheels.

Aside from the missing folded top, all this Mk 2 Siku Cabrio needs is new paint.
And a starightened front axel.

You gotta love how these siku cars are built.

The biggest challenge in repairing this Hotwheels Hare Splitter is fabricating a new hood to replace the missing one.

Also needs a new set of wheels and new windows.

The set actually includes two Vanagon panel vans, and this is one of them.

The rear hatch broke off when I attempted to open it. Vanagon number 2's hatch is still good, although it's mising window glasses.

The pictured Vanagon still have good wheels (unlike Vanagon number 2) that show little wear. Someone just please teach me how to repair the hatch and this project will probably be okay.

This Matchbox Golf will definitely need new windows and wheels.the front end will also need to be rid of dings and dents.

And finally, a very sad tragedy - a Siku VW Caddy with a crushed roof. I'm still thinking where I could get a new cab, and how will I attach it. Maybe I'll leave this one alone for now. Better to gather more experience first.

So there, custom projects that will keep me busy in the following months, as if my workload is not that heavy already...

For my first step, I'll call up a friend to drill these cars open for me. After that, time to get my hands dirty...

First Gear

2006-03-24T08:25:00.000+08:00

Introductions always make me feel uncomfortable. At least, introductions online.

While a short "Hi! I'm Mechajol!" would suffice in online communities and fora, life would be easier if it holds true in blogs.

So, here's the meat of my first post.

I'm Mechajol. I'm a VW junkie (apparently) and since collecting real VW cars is economically impossible for me, I just make do with die-cast miniatures and stuff, all of which would be featured here.

Aside from Volkswagens, I also collect hotrods, muscle cars, and vintage pick up trucks.

I'm also a novice toy customizer, and I'll be posting some of my works as well as items from my collection.

This blog will serve as an online journal, not only of a VW enthusiast, but also of an avid toy car collector/customizer as well.

*******************

A few years ago, I put up a simple VW fansite called "UWANG" which is the Filipino term for "beetle" (old URL is http://uwang.port5.com). It was a good project, really. The old website contained some VW artworks I did, VW pictures I took, some old Filipino VW ads I scanned, and more VW stuff.

I did have problems with my bandwidth, and people stealing my images. Eventually, my webhost closed down my account for breaking my bandwidth limit. I'm still working on reviving Uwang, though.

But for now, this blog should do.