Inner Focus

With the exterior of the Hellcat now complete, we can move inside to the interior. Here is where the Geronimo Works detail set comes into play because the only area the Clearly Scale set does not cover is the interior. If you decide to do a box standard ‘05 Challenger then the GW set is a great way to boost the detail. Photoetch is superb and it has some nifty 3D printed resin parts we will cover later. The part I got most excited with was the inclusion of a manual transmission conversion. I decided to go standard because it makes this Hellcat more unique.

I begin by performing surgery on the center console. I used a small PCB drill in a hand vise to set the corners of my cut. Not only does this help guide the cuts but also helps in after care when I don’t have to sand the corners with a teensy round file. Cutting corners the right way. If you do decide to keep the automatic, GW does have improved PE to up the detail there as well.

With the auto removed carefully and the sides trimmed up to match, I dry fit the manual boot to check for clearance. Once it was to my liking ( I kept it a bit on the tight side), I trussed underneath with some 0.5mm styrene sheet to have a floor so the shifter sits more level in the console. This didn’t affect fit whatsoever. I’m surprised in GW’s instructions that this is not mentioned, but that is what you have me for.

Here you can see the boot and shifter in place and ready for paint.

For the seats and upholstery, I wanted to do something different to the usual stark black alot of builders go for and match the trim pieces that the 1st gen Hellcat had as options. I decided to go for full grain leather on the seats, rear bench and the door pockets. It was a new experiment for me to try a new technique to use down the road on some other muscle cars and here’s how you can use/ adapt it to many different situations.

So we start with the kit seat, pretty bland and in need of some TLC and sprue goo in order to fix the mould seams and part steps.

After sanding and priming, we lay down our base color. Now I was going for a more orangy ( is that a word?) coloured leather, so my base layer was a tad lighter in the tan aspect, again if you’re going for a specific reproduction or some other crazy combo, use an old test piece before you start sacrificing the final part. I like to live life dangerous so I applied it directly to the kit part.

Next we need to find something to replicate the material texture or pattern, whether thats streaks or swirls, you’ll have to play around and see what works best for the material you’re trying to replicate. In this instance, I found that the sponge provided in GW set clamped in some self locking tweezers worked the charm, as the full grain looks quite similar.

Now we add our “layer” or in some cases, "layers. As this worked with just a single layer and color, I laid some masking tape down on the desk and put down a few drops of water based acrylic paint and the ever slightest bit of water to get the opacity I want. You can certainly use just straight paint but just be aware that you will almost totally erase any construct of depth and layer when it comes to blending it in. With the sponge in tweezers and the thinned paint, its a matter of dabbing it in fresh paint, then dabbing it off to the side until there’s the slightest hint of paint on the sponge. This is similar to dry brushing raised detail. Then its just a matter of applying it to the object in a randomized fashion to break up any uniformity

Using thinned water based paint over a lacquer layer means any mess ups or unsatisfactory work can easily be removed or adjusted. With the translucency of the thinned paint, its also alot easier to build up layers and depth with the texture. depending on the complexity of the texture or surface you are trying to mimic, this can be helpful when using 2 or more colours. For me this was still experimentation but I found that the one layer for me was enough for the result I was after.

When I had completed the rest of the pieces I was after it was into the spray booth. Trial and error as well as test pieces is the name of the game here. Understand the base hue colours of the material you are trying to replicate. In this instance the orange tinted leather is pretty easy to do. Some clear orange thinned about 90% thinner to paint gives enough colour to see where you have covered and not so much paint that its easily over-tinted. Slow and steady wins this race so get one smaller piece done where you want it then use it as a reference on everything else.

When all the pieces were dry and finished, I gave them all at least 24hrs to fully dry out and cure, then thinned some semi-gloss 50/50 with straight lacquer thinner ( gives a better leather finished look in my opinion), and finished off the interior bits.

I am quite satisfied with the results here and definitely something I’ll try to push further with multiple layers and finishes in the future. Great SUCCESS!

The remainder of the interior got the usual satin black for the vinyl and some textured flooring using Mr. Surfacer 500. I think in 1/24-25 scale flocking is far to harsh of a texture plus unless the doors open nobody will see that far in. The kit pedals were removed and the extended clutch pedal and new PE pedals were installed along with GW PE belt buckles. The kit decals for knobs and dash are more than sufficient as the side windows are quite narrow so you wont see much.

That just about does it for the interior. Ill be moving onto the chassis next, getting it all ready to button up with the rest of the kit.