gsdpic

Congrats on the commission, Glen. Looks like another interesting and challenging project to follow. That bottle looks great but something tells me you would not have chosen it, if it was up to you. And I learned something....I never knew the origin of the word "speakeasy". I am not familiar with City Post. I have been up to Georgetown plenty of times, though about the only time I've been downtown was when I was called for jury duty. I live in Wilco even though I have an Austin address.

And I am prepping for the next step, step 4. That is one of the larger steps with the most parts, to build the frame. You can see below that each of the two frame rails are built up from 6 separate pieces. The pieces require at least a bit of massaging to get them to fit together perfectly. The fit is pretty good as is but I think it can be made better. In the upper right corner you can see some of the various cross braces for the built up frame. I am tempted to try soldering the frame pieces, and have done some research regarding that. I've done a small amount of electrical soldering in the past but would definitely say I am no more than a beginner. I found a youtube video specifically about soldering MFH kits but I have not been able to find the type of low temperature solder that he used, at least not in hobby quantities. Virtually all of the parts in this step end up painted semi-gloss black. I will likely build it all and then paint it as a unit. One nice thing....the instructions actually have a full size schematic drawing of the completed frame which should help to ensure that everything is together properly and straight and square.

And just like that, steps 1, 2, and 3 are done, completing the engine. It is certainly not the most detailed MFH engine, but I think it looks pretty good. Of course in the prototype, the plug wires are hidden in that chrome shroud above and around the engine, so that hides one of the most obvious details one could add. The rest of the engine went together fairly well, though the fitting of that shroud and the distributor were a bit bothersome. Of course there were more holes to drill that I missed the first time around, but fortunately they were all accessible. I know they say to pre-build these things first to catch such issues but I just don't see how that is possible. I may attempt to add a few more details, but likely only after the engine is mounted on the frame and the firewall and fender liners are in place, or perhaps as I am doing those steps. In these pictures, the air cleaner is just pushed on, not glued, so it can be removed to provide better access to add details. e.g. the real engine has the throttle linkage on the left side of the carb, heading back to the firewall, under the plug wire shroud. The bell housing was stripped and painted with alclad aluminum, per egilman. The transmission and exhausts were painted with alclad steel, which I find to be far too dark, so I started with a very thin coat of steel over the metal, then misted over some aluminum as well. The instructions suggest painting the valve covers silver but I just left them as is, with a little polishing and clear coat.

Thanks @DocRob that looks like a great idea.

Oh man, thanks. The various car auction houses' web sites can be a gold mine of pictures but I could also drive myself crazy looking at those pictures during the build. This particular detail was a bit tough to find, though they often have pictures of the underside of the car. On several cars, it appears that the lower part attached to the bottom of the bell housing was painted orange but I never saw one where it appeared the main part of the bell housing was painted. It was often hard to see, and not a lot of light up there, but it clearly was not orange, so you are correct. And I double checked, the MFH instructions did call out red for that part, so I was just going based on that.

Thanks all for the likes and the hints and the good discussion. The orange parts are looking pretty good. But, I probably really should have used the pink primer instead of the gray primer for parts being painted orange, but I did not think of that until too late. I may do one more coat of orange after these cure a bit more. Then might do some highlighting and detail painting. A couple other unanticipated obstacles.... - the partially assembled engine with 5 metal parts is actually quite heavy. I don't have a small scale but I would say 6 ounces or so. My usual methods for holding parts while being airbrushed do not handle such heavy items so well. - I also just realized that my airbrush spray booth is just barely big enough to contain the main body part of this kit. I have used it on 1/12th scale F1 cars but they did not have any single part nearly as large as the body of the corvette. It would be disaster to bump the inside of the booth with freshly painted body parts. I might invest in a larger, better spray booth, as I have a couple other 1/12th scale cars in my stash and even a couple of 1/8th scale Pocher cars, so there will be more times in the future that I need a larger booth.

Yea, I bought mine at least a year ago too. It was one of the few MFH kits that I have seen that did not sell out right away, though I've only been aware of MFH for a few years. It is definitely a little different experience with all the metal parts and with the size of the body. I hope I can do it justice.

Craig....that's close to what I found though the reference I read said that the 245hp engine had dual carbs but same compression. The 270hp engine was the one with higher compression and mechanical valve lifters instead of hydraulic. Though the references I found were text paragraphs, not nice tables like you had so maybe I misinterpreted the text. But yes they were all variations of the 283 cubic inch engine. I recall also reading somewhere but not sure where now, that only the base engine had the intake manifold painted orange, the others were bare metal/silver.

Thanks for the comment, Egilman, and glad to have you following along. While you can never trust pictures on the internet, or the color calibration of the recording device or monitor (tho my monitor is calibrated thanks to the photography I do), the engine color to me definitely appears orange. Yes, it is a very reddish orange, but still I would call it orange, not red. For example, this youtube video of a supposed barn find 1960 corvette shows the engine with an orange tint. If that truly is a barn find, then I presume that is original color. Regardless, while buying the paint for the body I also added a bottle of "chevrolet engine orange" to my cart, so I will use that. Oddly, from my research, it also appears that MFH replicated the least powerful of four engines that were available in 1960, the base engine with the single 4 barrel carburetor, which appears to be shown in this video. Anyway....here's the kit engine with some parts glued up and primed with grey primer from scalefinishes.

As you can see here, I've finished my prior project, a 1931 Rolls Royce coupe based on the old kit from Monogram (and yes I fixed the passenger side mirror that I knocked askew during the photo shoot). I then cleaned the hobby table and got started on the Corvette. Here is a picture of most of the "part 1" engine pieces just stuck together, no glue yet. Getting to that point required drilling out quite a few holes, as the holes in the resin engine block for the alignment pins in the metal parts were generally not deep enough and in some cases not wide enough or not spaced correctly. And I have more to drill....the valve covers are attached to the cylinder heads with 4 "rivets" each, and those holes all need to be drilled in both the valve covers and the cylinder heads. My first impressions of the kit from going through all the parts and organizing things were great but I have to say my second impressions are a bit less positive. It felt like the resin engine block was about 97% of the size it needed to be. The pins on the back of the cylinder head were 38mm apart but the holes in the block were about 37.25mm apart. Likewise, the front of the oil pan hung over the front of the engine block by a tiny amount, causing the front cover to not fit well. I glued a 1/32" square styrene strip as a sort of gasket for that front cover to get it to line up with the oil pan. And then there is the incorrect paint call out: the instructions specify red for the engine block but in 1960, GM used orange for its engine blocks. And, as for the "rivets", the instruction sheet says I have 22 "rivet-S" and 14 "rivet-L". The S and L might mean short and long or maybe small and large, who knows. All I know is that I have 36 identical rivets. Other things I have learned so far.... - as others have said, it is important to have a good pin vise and many bits as you will be drilling a lot of holes. - it is also very useful to have a digital caliper handy to measure things - and handy to have a printed table showing the size in millimeters of the various drill bits, assuming you have a numbered set of drill bits (e.g. #50 to #80). With the above, I can use the caliper to measure the pin on the metal piece, then consult the table to find the best bit size to use, then put that bit into the pin vise and drill away. I have to do a bit more part clean up and hole drilling. I then plan to glue together most of the parts that are destined to be painted orange then prime and paint those parts.

Nice, looks like good detail on the prints. I'll be interested in your experience with the paint. I recently bought my second Gaahleri airbrush and they threw in a free bottle of the Kaleido paint. I have not used it yet, mostly because I am not sure when I will want "Mint Green" paint. I've noticed a few youtube videos discussing this paint but have not taken the time to watch any yet.

Thanks all for the likes and for following along. I don't know if this will be useful or if it was a complete waste of time, but I now have most of the metal parts sorted by the step number where they are used. This is just the cast metal parts, not any of the photo etch. Obviously I left out the large parts off to the right, and across the front are some tiny parts on little metal sprues that are often used in multiple steps, so I just identified them by part number. You can see the step numbers/part numbers written on the little scraps of blue paper. Each step has one white storage bin except for step 4 which has two bins. That step builds the frame of the car, so has many larger parts. And if you are curious, the white bins and the not very visible blue trays that they sit on were all 3D printed, based on the "gridfinity" system.

One more picture of "what's in the box". I've cleaned all the metal parts in the tumbler, at least the ones I plan to do. Some of the smaller and more delicate parts I did not tumble. I then laid them all out again. Within each batch of parts, they are laid out the same as the pictures on the web site, though the batches are a bit scrambled so I labelled them. Oh, and I even found the missing part #81 though mine looks slightly different from the picture. I guess my plan now is to put the parts into new containers based on which step in the instructions the part is used in. There are additional photoetch parts, tires, wires, screws, rivets, etc that I have not shown. In fact I have not really even inventoried them. Perhaps I should do that. I received the paint today. Some time soon I will do a test spray on a small sheet of styrene and see how I like it.

Thanks guys for the comments and coaching....now and in the future. Below is a link to my inspiration. That car is Honduras Maroon Metallic, which is the paint color I ordered that should arrive tomorrow. I also ordered Ermine white for the contrasting side part. This car has a replacement convertible top that is black, so perhaps I'll have to try to make the folding top after all. I see they also removed the front license plate bracket, which I am likely to do as well, as it looks a bit ungainly. https://www.stlouiscarmuseum.com/vehicles/1139/1960-chevrolet-corvette And here are all the resin parts after I washed them in some warm soapy water but before I removed a few extra tabs left from the molding process. You can see a particularly large one on the body behind the driver side rear wheel. Fortunately that area of the body will be covered by the rear bumper in case I do not get it perfectly smooth. The two pieces lower right are jigs, one for making the convertible top and one for bending the aluminum wire that serves as trim on the body. Otherwise it is mostly body and interior pieces as well as the engine block. Note that while the doors are resin, the hood, trunk, and soft top cover are all metal. I hope I am able to get an identical paint finish on the resin and metal.

Wow, excellent build. I am even more impressed now that I understand the relatively small size of the model, thanks to the upside down picture with the Tamiya paint jar under the tail, and of course the picture of your photography set up. The earlier pictures of the model on the cutting mat should have clued me in, but I am used to a cutting mat marked in inches not centimeters!

Yay, that looks great. You'd never know there was an issue. I like the yellow tinted wind screen, I did not think to do that on mine. You had so much fun with this build, is the Lotus 78 next?

Hello all and welcome to my first build log of 2026. I am jumping straight into the deep end, attempting to build my first MFH kit, the 1960 Corvette. I have two other MFH kits in the stash at present. I've built several plastic cars of late that I have not bothered to do build logs for, but I expect there will be more interest in this build, so will do a log. I know that @DocRob has completed several MFH kits and @CDW has some in his stash, including this one I believe. I am actually still finishing up the prior unlogged plastic car build but expect to start this build in earnest by next week, after I complete that build and clean up the work area. But I am excited for this build so figured I'd go ahead and start the build log. I have looked through the instructions, and looked through all the parts as well. It appears that I have everything, or nearly so, and all looks to be good. There was one very small metal part (part #81) that I think I am missing but looking through the instructions, I did not see where it is used. So, for now, I am ignoring that. I did some test fitting of the hood, trunk, and doors to the body. That looked promising though at least some tweaking will be required. The kit also has provision for an actual folding soft top, as well as providing a hard top. I may not even attempt the soft top. I expect it would just stay folded up inside the car and the kit only provides a black soft top while the color I have chosen only came with a white soft top, so that is my excuse. I ordered some paint from scalefinishes.com. It has not arrived yet but should show up soon. I also acquired one of the magnetic tumblers off of amazon and have begun cleaning the metal parts with that. I've done about a half dozen "loads" and am probably half done with that process. I also still need to clean the resin parts.

Oh no! Hate to see that happen to this fine looking build. I hope you are able to salvage it!

Looking good! The rear wing is tricky as I recall. Mine is actually a little bit askew, though I don't remember enough to give any good hints.

Micro-mark also has one very similar to the chopper. I have no experience with it, just remembered seeing it on their site: https://micromark.com/collections/cutting/products/chop-it

My steering works fine. The suspension, not really. The front wheels move up and down a bit but I think that is mostly (or maybe entirely) due to the looseness of the connections that snap together. Fortunately the kit has small, clear disks that sit under the car to support most of the weight of the model and provide an appropriate ride height.

Nice build. Brings back memories....I recall being a kid in the '70s and I went thru the phase where I had a keen interest in trucks. Any time we were out on the highway, I'd be looking out the window identifying the Freightliners, Kenworths, Peterbilts, Mack, etc as they went by the other direction.

Looking good, glad you are overcoming your mishaps. And yea, the suspensions and exhausts on these F1 cars always seem to be fiddly to assemble, three or four hands would be useful to have.

Looking good. A few posts ago you said it was "slowly shaping up" but from my vantage point it is moving along pretty quickly.

Wow that looks like a detailed kit with a lot of parts. I'll follow along to see how it goes. I think the only airfix kits I have built were some tiny WWI biplanes that had about 15 parts each.