MMK cars are truely delightful models with a real nostalgia buzz about them - they look great and are fun to drive.
One of the few downers though is that these cars come without headlamp "glass".
What to do? Well, I had an idea for making some but achieved mixed results.
The first step was to protect the car by wrapping it in clingfilm. I then rolled up a couple of small balls of DAS air drying clay, pressed them firmly into the clingfilm covered headlamp sockets and contoured them to the body shape.
Once dry they were removed from the sockets coming away easily with the clingfilm wrap.
I painted them silver resulting in a pair of quite nice metalised style headlamp covers:
Note that in the photo they are just loosely placed in but they are actually a good fit!
So far so good but the next stage was not destined to be much of a success. I created a simple mold by pressing the lamp covers into plastercine that had been sprayed with release agent. I then dropped a couple of blobs of clear resin into the mold and left it for a couple of days to set completely. Unfortunately the resulting headlamp covers were thin and indistinct not really adding anything to such a nice car.
I do intend to give this another try as the first attempt was a bit of a quick lash up but, in the meantime it would be interesting to see if anyone else has any comments, tricks or ideas for casting tiny parts such as these.

One of the few downers though is that these cars come without headlamp "glass".
What to do? Well, I had an idea for making some but achieved mixed results.
The first step was to protect the car by wrapping it in clingfilm. I then rolled up a couple of small balls of DAS air drying clay, pressed them firmly into the clingfilm covered headlamp sockets and contoured them to the body shape.

Once dry they were removed from the sockets coming away easily with the clingfilm wrap.
I painted them silver resulting in a pair of quite nice metalised style headlamp covers:

Note that in the photo they are just loosely placed in but they are actually a good fit!
So far so good but the next stage was not destined to be much of a success. I created a simple mold by pressing the lamp covers into plastercine that had been sprayed with release agent. I then dropped a couple of blobs of clear resin into the mold and left it for a couple of days to set completely. Unfortunately the resulting headlamp covers were thin and indistinct not really adding anything to such a nice car.
I do intend to give this another try as the first attempt was a bit of a quick lash up but, in the meantime it would be interesting to see if anyone else has any comments, tricks or ideas for casting tiny parts such as these.