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I had trouble to find info on this build so I hope this will help some people who are trying to figure this out as well.
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from the moment I got the premium Ironhide there were two things that bothered me : the ridiculously small exhaust pipes and the silver birdcrap on the windows.
I was looking around on the internet to solve fix this but i found a lot of cool repaints but no solutions for my problems.
So i did some tests with sculpy but the biggest problem appeared to be that little shape that keeps the exhaust pipes in place... I was able to reproduce it but it kept breaking off when it was screwed onto the roof of the car.
So a few days ago I had a new plan. ....Aluminum !!!
I used the original plastic exhausts for the bottom and cut off the end so I could place the aluminum exhaust pipes on top of the plastic ones
you can get aluminum pipes in all different sizes in a store that sells art stuff for architects.
I found that this modification was tricky because you need to cut off the top of the original plastic exhaust pipes (basically destroying them visually)
Slowly bending an aluminum pipe without loosing its thickness.
saw it off correctly. then make an opening so the original plastic exhaust with the opening for the screw fits into the new exhaust pipe.
loose the sharp edges, make the aluminum shiny with steel wool.
well basically you should get something like this:
which looks a lot more like the original vehicle (in my opinion)
After this modification the transformation is still fine and it looks better. Especially the vehicle mode looks a lot more authentic.
If you have any questions or you would like more explanation don't be afraid to ask.. transformers@flix.be
PS
if somebody knows a great solution for the silver stuff on the premium Ironhide window without loosing the paint on the doors .
please tell me, I'm a few inches away from repainting this sucker completely!
