New bling

After much delay thanks to the US Postal Service not recognizing that "Sweden" is not a state in the USA I have received my new bling.  A friend of a friend makes these so I had my friend pick up a pair and mail them to me.

I really like them and they're better than I had hoped they would be.  It was definitely worth the wait.

If you're interested they come in several other variations, in both men's and women's versions as well as different sizes.  Head over to X7X-Yubo.com if you want some of your own.

In our thoughts

Just a short note to say that all the people affected by the tsunami in Japan are in our thoughts today.  Glad to hear that my friends in Japan are a bit shaken but none the worse for the wear otherwise.

When will it end?!?

So yesterday was a beautiful day, about 3 degrees celsius, sun shining wonderful weather.  I got the car washed finally, figured it was about time as the car is black and it was starting to look grey from all the dirt.  This morning I get up and it looks like it's going to be about the same kind of day, the road is wet from snow melting, sun shining again.  Ten minutes later I look out the window again and there's a damn snow squall.  The roads are now covered with snow, yet again....

 

Crappy iPhone 3GS pic

Pics of the Mark II Chaser shell will be up later today, got a few tiny areas that still have some paint in them that I need to clear up first.  Won't be much different than the last pic as it is still just a clear body, but now I have the holes drilled so it can be mounted to the chassis and you can see what it will look like when there is some paint on it.  I'm thinking of going with a pearl white and just leaving it at that.  We'll see...

 

JZX100 Mark II RC Shell

Success!  I was able to get all of the paint off of the JZX100 RC shell so now I can make it look like the 1:1 JZX100 that I want to get.  Pics later.

RC Drift shells in the works

 So I have two RC Drifting shells in the works on my desk at the moment and thought I'd share.

The first is a limited edition R31 Skyline Wagon that was made exclusively for R31 House which is a 1:1 (full size) tuning shop in Japan.  You basically had to pre-order the body and they only made the number that was pre-ordered.  Some shops cheated a bit and ordered a few extras but not many of this body were made overall in comparison to most bodies.

I haven't really decided on how I'm going to do this one.  The neon yellow TE37s are just there to see if I like them on this shell, still haven't decided yet.  The black panel lines are also just temporary, I find it helps to see them when I'm planning out a color scheme.  Most RC bodies have a plastic film on the outside to protect them during painting.  So you can draw on the plastic film and when you are done painting you just take it off.  The paint goes on the inside of the body so that the clear plastic of the body creates a gloss finish and protects the paint from scratches if you hit something.  I'm thinking I might go with a factory color scheme from a PS13 Sylvia coupe which was a light metallic blue on top and metallic gray on the bottom and then add white TE37s.  Here's an example of the color scheme I'm thinking of:

The other body I'm working on is a Toyota JZX100 MarkII.  I had painted this one a custom blend of pearl white and tan trying to get a creamy white.  However once it cured it turned more tan than white and I hated it so I'm in the process of removing the paint.  The paint I use is water based so you can just soak the body in a bathtub of hot water and the paint will soften and come off in bits.

If I can get all the paint off of it cleanly it will be getting a new coat of just pearl white.  It's not very visible in the pic but the wheels have chrome lips and white spokes.  It will also be getting a lot of other custom bits to it as I want to make it up the same as I want a 1:1 JZX100.