gsdpic

Thanks to everyone for looking in and laughing at my lame Barbie joke. Hope I at least brought a smile to a few faces. I've now pretty much completed the chassis as supplied by the kit with the addition of the spark plug wires. I hope to add a few more wires and hoses around the engine based on pictures of the real thing, just to make it look a bit more realistic and a bit busier. The one remaining part of what I'll call the chassis is a sort of shelf unit in the back. The mufflers hang off of the underside of that shelf and then there are additional exhaust pipes to connect the headers to the muffler and then pipes out the back of the car. The kit also has a fully detailed compartment under the front bonnet, including spare tire, and that is next.

Wonderful result! All the details and minor weathering look great. But it really is a strange looking bird, or should I say bat. Long wings, stubby fuselage, big engines, short propellers, cartoonish tires. I assume it is an accurate representation of the prototype, but it still looks odd.

Blender is much more for artistic stuff, character animation, etc, in my experience. I did recently learn about a "CAD Sketcher" add on that is supposed to provide more CAD like capabilities to Blender but have no experience with it. I imagine the learning curve for Blender dwarfs the learning curve for something like FreeCAD. At one time I started on a few different online Blender courses from udemy and felt like I was just scratching the surface. One of those courses did specifically address designing things in Blender for 3d printing, so it is possible.

Very nice update. Your joinery, especially considering it is bass wood, is very precise. You are justified to be very satisfied with the nibbling, it looks great. That is something I did not even attempt. And I like the way you have chosen to do the reveal on the deck. For reference, below is a picture I took of the America on display in the Bluejacket store from when I visited back in 2017. They did not reveal quite as much as you have.

Thanks for the comments and for sharing experience with vallejo paints. I just used the "air" brand straight out of the bottle with no thinner or flow improver. And yes the colors are based on internet pictures of actual cars, showing the tan interior with the black dash and other accents. Now, perhaps mostly for comedic value, is the Dino with a few coats of pink base. I guess I could leave it like this and say it is a Barbie car.

@juhu as I recall there are no drawings in the plans of the individual frames. I am not sure if there were any sort of lines drawing on the plans. The frames did require a fair amount of tweaking to get things lined up but it was not insurmountable. But it perhaps was a bit more of an exercise of "that looks good, looks reasonable" and not an exercise of "that is the exact correct shape".

Thanks to Phil and Glen for the comments, and for anyone else who has clicked the like button since I last said thank you. Much to my surprise, the replacement parts for the missing stand parts arrived on Tuesday, so it took just 8 days for the mail from Spain to Austin, Tx. I was a little unsure about what glue to use and finally got over to Home Depot today and bought some Loctite for Plastics glue. It is two parts....you spread an "activator" on both surfaces, let that dry, then apply the glue to one surface and stick them together. Seemed to work quite well and did not haze the acrylic. Anyway, here are three more shots of the Camel on the stand provided in the kit. In the bottom picture, you can see two of the three little cross pieces between the upright pieces of the stand. Those are the pieces that were missing from the kit originally.

Wow, the cedar root really takes this project up a notch, especially with the branding that Ron pointed out. Wonderful result, I am sure this will make a treasured gift.

Thanks as always for taking a look and hitting the like button. I forgot to mention when I discussed painting the body that I also have the Splash Paints "Pink Base". So, I'll put a coat or two of that on top of the light gray primer, and then proceed with the Rossa Corsa red. That is the same sequence I followed for the Ferrari 330P4 that I built but did not log here. Prior to painting the outside of the body, I wanted to spray the headliner area. And since I was doing interior colors I decided to just go ahead and build the entire interior. For the interior, I used Vallejo Model Air beige, followed by a light mist of Tamiya "Dark Yellow" to tone down the beige a bit. I tried to apply a bit more of the dark yellow to the carpet and headliner areas. Then I also applied some microscale clear satin finish to the seats, doors, and back panel...basically anything that is leather instead of textiles...to try to show that difference. I bought the Vallejo paint for some other project a while back and never used it, so this was the first time using any vallejo paint. I liked it pretty well, though it did form a glob of partially dried paint in the built-in dropper and since I was lazy and dripped the paint directly into the airbrush, I ended up with that partially dried glob clogging the airbrush a bit, which was annoying but not not a big deal. Anyway, here are the pictures of the assembled interior. As usual I did not bother taking an in-process pictures.

I have now finished the engine. As is often the case, the exhaust was a bit of a struggle and who knows if the ends of the headers are in the right place. I guess I'll find out later in the build. For the "enthusiast models", Fujimi includes a stand for the engine if you wish to display it outside the car. I used that stand for the photos but I intend to install the engine in the car. I will likely add more hoses and such when I do that. In the pictures you can see that I added spark plug wires. Yea, maybe they should have been red instead of blue but that is what I had. And yes that exhaust wraps around the front of the engine. The engine is transverse mounted and there are additional pipes to connect to mufflers that will be to the left of the engine as viewed in the first picture. I've also done more prep work on the body and various loose body panels. I first primed the "inside" with the alclad black primer/microfiller. That leaves a nice semi gloss black that I may not even paint over. I taped down the body panels to protect the black; for the body I did not bother taping over the black as most of it will not be visible, and then sprayed Splash paints light grey surfacer. I'll use Splash paints Rossa Corsa...I think I have enough left over for this car after using it on the Ferrari 330 P4 I built. The panel that is third from the left will be tricky as it spans the interior and exterior of the car. It is the frame around the engine compartment opening. If I glue it in first, I think it will be difficult to get coverage of the interior parts. But if I glue it in after painting, there will be an ugly visible seam. I think I will have to paint the interior part (to the right in the photo) first then glue the part in and user filler on the seam, then paint the rest of the body. I will also glue on the front underside (far right piece) before painting the body. But even before all of that, I plan to paint the interior headliner area and then mask the entire inner part of the body before spraying the red paint.

I have not seen that show in quite some time. I don't recall a Dino 246 gt episode but it certainly seems like the type of car that would appear there. In a sort of related and funny note, I was googling for reference images and stumbled on a blog from a father/son team who had a company that specialized in restoring Dinos. The company is now located in Spicewood, Tx, which is a small town/rural area about an hour west of here. Just seems like a very unlikely location for a Dino restoration company. But some of the blog entries spoke of a Dino 246 GT "barn find" in Llano, Tx which is another hour or two north west. I've started some assembly, with the major parts of the engine. It is a bit of an odd configuration as the engine seems to sit on top of the transmission. The Fujimi instructions indicated all these parts should be painted silver, so I put them together and used Alclad II Aluminum. But then looking at reference photos I see that at least in some cases the main engine block was painted black. Oh well. I will do some detail painting and add some darker wash and highlights to this, and then there are numerous smaller pieces, such as oil filter, distributor, fan belt, air intake, etc. to be painted and added as well. I've also started some prep on the body.

Jack....if you click on the magnifying glass in the upper right where it says "Search...." it will bring up the advanced search page. Then click on the "+ Search by tags" and type in "niagara" and click on "Search content" it will show all posts that have been tagged with "niagara". Many of those posts will be build logs for the kit you are building. You may be able to find what you are looking for in one of those build logs or find someone who has recently completed the step you are unsure about.

Thanks everyone for the very positive comments. I really appreciate it!

Inspired by @CDW's Ferrari 288 build and also by the way he immediately starts a new build after finishing the previous one, I present the start of my build log for the Fujimi Ferrari Dino 246gt. I actually also have the 288 in my stash but did not want to be too much of a copycat so I pulled out the 246gt. The Car: In the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, Ferrari had a sub-brand of cars named "Dino", after Enzo Ferrari's son Alfredo "Dino" Ferrari. Initially they produced only race cars for some of the lesser racing series with smaller, less powerful cars and engines. In the mid 1960s they displayed a concept car for a road car in the form of a mid-engined coupe. That concept car was well received and became the Dino 206gt. In those days the model number was derived from the engine size and type. The 206 indicated a 2.0 liter engine with 6 cylinders. Before long, they upgraded the engine to 2.4 liters, and so it became known as the 246gt. In the late 60s, this car competed with the then current Porsche 911 in terms of price and specs. The 246gt was sold from the late 60s into the early 70s, with a few minor modifications along the way. For example, the early cars had the "clapping hands" windshield wipers while later ones have parallel wipers. They also sold a spyder/targa version with a removable roof known as the 246gts. The Kit: The kit I acquired is the original version from 1986, according to scalemates.com. This is from Fujimi's "Enthusiast Model" line of kits, so it is quite detailed, including the engine, chassis, and interior, with over 200 parts. And they were not afraid to make small parts, some are literally pin head size. This early kit had some very attractive box art, as you can see below. You'll also note the "early type", indicating this is one of the early 246gt cars. Fujimi reboxed this kit many times over the years, and in later versions they included parts for both the early and later versions of the car. They also created a "curbside" version of this kit with far fewer parts but no engine detail. This kit includes opening front bonnet, engine cover, and trunk cover, giving at least a little bit more of a view of the details included in the kit. The body parts are molded in white plastic. The engine, chassis and interior parts are all gray plastic. There is a small fret of chrome parts, which I may or may not strip. The wheels are a very nice satin chrome and will be left as is. My Plans: While I like the yellow on the box art, I am more likely to paint it red, with a tan interior. As noted, the kit is already highly detailed but there may be a few more things I can add, such as spark plug wires. At least one bank of three cylinders on the v6 should be visible when opening the engine cover.

Finished I sort of limped over the finishing line but I am calling this one done. It was a bit of a roller coaster at times but I am pleased with the end results. I completed the rigging, at least as much as I plan to do. There was supposed to be some rigging on the landing gear as well but I am going to leave that off. Overall it was a very good kit with a lot of positives, but just a few really glaring negatives as well. And it definitely had some challenging aspects too....I accept at least some blame for any flaws in the final product. Initially I had thought about maybe creating some sort of diorama, or at least a base, something like @chadwijm6 created for his Sea King helicopter. I still could do that in the future, but for now I will just display it on the stand once I get the remaining stand parts that were missing from the original kit. As for the rigging, post #129 of @DocRob's AEG G.IV build log was a great help. I used a lot of those techniques, except with the stainless steel braided thread and slightly larger aluminum tube. I put a bit of CA on the end of the thread to hold it together, then passed the thread through the tube, then through the hole in the model, then back through the tube. I then put a drop of CA on the thread near the eyelet and slide the tube up to the eyelet and it worked like a charm. All that after trying several different types of thread or wire and several different methods of attaching it. That method was easy and also very effective so thanks to docrob for that post. Thanks also to everyone who has followed along and commented or at least hit the like button. And finally the pictures. This model is too large for my DIY photo stand/light box so I just put it on a somewhat beat up card table for its photo shoot.

I agree, I like the mirror too. Perhaps you already plan this, but any chance you can inset the mirror into the base instead of just having it sit on top? Maybe with the help of the fancy new laser engraver?

Nice job on the bird, and the base looks very realistic.

Thanks Peter. A few months back, I ordered a few things that I could not find at any US-based store from spotmodel in Spain. Those took about 2 weeks to arrive, so that is my guess for these parts as well. But since it is just parts for the stand, I can finish the model and move on before they arrive.

Just a quick note that I already received a reply from Artesania Latina and they are sending the missing parts for the stand. So, happy with that level of service. I assume they are sending from Spain, be interesting to see when they get here.

Excellent work! Interesting that it appears to have a compact spare tire. I guess that is all they had room for.

Just a couple quick notes. I've not yet tossed this thing in the bin but the temptation has been going up of late 😬 I decided I wanted a glossier finish for my propeller, so moving in that direction and brushed on some microscale clear gloss. Was also wondering about/tempted to try some thinned down Tamiya "Clear Yellow" to warm up the color a bit more. I started on the rigging with some of the rigging around the cockpit and it has been tricky. Not entirely pleased with the results but they are good enough, though in doing the rigging I also pulled loose one of the upper side metal cockpit parts. I decided to take a break from the rigging and assemble the acrylic stand, only to discover that three of the six pieces of the stand are missing. In the very first post of this log, with the unboxing photos, you can see the shrink wrapped stand with a large base and two curved upright pieces. There are supposed to be three additional smaller pieces that connect the two uprights. I went to the AL website and submitted a "parts request". We'll see how that goes. Looking at those photos, I also do not see the clear windscreen piece so I suspect it may have also been missing from the kit and not misplaced.

And here's the prop sanded to shape and with one coat of satin wipe on poly applied. I'll let it dry a bit more, sand a bit more, apply another coat, and repeat several more times.

Thanks as always for the likes and comments. Ken, you may be right, though I thought this kit was fairly new. But I do not know its full history for certain. But I can say that I cannot imagine this kit without laser cut wood. Trying to hand cut all of the "lightening holes" in the ribs would drive me insane. Anyway, with a bit of a struggle, I've attached the landing gear, the engine, and the front cowl. I already noted issues with the landing gear. The engine was mostly easy though I did have to snip off a couple "locator pins" on the back of the engine that did not have corresponding holes in the firewall. The cowl was definitely more of a struggle. The biggest issue was that it was a rather tight fit and it is tricky to figure out how to grasp the model firmly without breaking things. At this point, there are just a handful of small parts remaining, plus the propeller and the rigging. The prop is laminated from 6 or 7 laser cut pieces of a dark wood...mahogany or walnut or something...and then sanded to shape. I've started on that but have a way to go with it. Oh, they also provide an acrylic stand that needs to be assembled and glued together if one wishes to use that.

Thanks for the likes and comments. @PvG Aussie it is strange to me....though I admit I know nothing about manufacturing, I am a software guy....but the laser cut wood pieces for the most part fit together great. It has been the cast and photo etch metal pieces causing most of the problems. I would have expected the casting of metal to be more "precise" than laser cutting wood. Though in the description below I guess there was a counter example to that. And yes, I am getting close to completion, definitely in the dangerous "just want to finish the project" mode. I got the windscreen and third small gun installed. The windscreen does not look as scratched/fogged as it does in the picture. All those bits were a challenge to get in place. A lot of that work would have been easier before installing the top wing, but you really had to put the top wing on first to locate the struts. I've also started on the landing gear. Below is a picture of the two wheels. The tires were cast metal, painted flat black, while the spokes were photo etched parts, and the hubs and axles were also cast metal, all glued together with CA. The design of the wheels was such that they should be able to spin, but I guess I got a bit too much CA where it should not have been, so my wheels do not spin. The cone shaped outer spokes were a bit of a challenge to get them in place. I've now started trying to put the landing gear struts on the fuselage, but that is proving to be a challenge. Each strut attaches to the frame in two places. In the front, some of the cowling and internal photo etch are getting in the way a bit. At the rear attachment point, it is not fitting due to a prior tweak I made. Way back in post #17, in the second and third pictures, you can see that I doubled up the frame across the bottom in the cockpit area, to compensate for the poor fit of the wood pieces at the side of the cockpit....the laser cut wood pieces were too short for my model. Anyway, the rear attach point of the landing gear is supposed to sort of clip on to that fuselage frame but it cannot because my frame is twice as thick right there. So I need to figure out if I can cut away a bit of that doubled up frame or if there is some other way to compensate.

As always, thanks for the likes and comments, and to those who just take a look from time to time. The kit continues to be a bit of a roller coaster, as some parts go well and others are a bit frustrating. The most recent bits fall more into the latter camp. I've put on the rest of the metal parts around the cowl and cockpit. The fit of those parts ranged from mediocre to poor. The one "poor" fit was the piece between the two machine guns....I admit the instructions did call that part out and say "adjust if necessary" showing someone taking a file to the side of the part. Sadly, no amount of filing would make the part 1/8th of an inch longer, which probably would have helped. As for the other parts, they did not always line up well and it was difficult to tell where the back side of the part came in contact with the rest of the model....e.g. where to apply glue. Further, those parts had three different "access holes" to allow access to the filler caps for fuel or oil tanks. Two of those holes do not line up at all with the tank filler below and the third partially lined up. Oh well. Below are some pictures. Oh, you can also see some loose rigging...those lines had to be glued to the back of the metal parts before installing the metal parts. The other ends will be attached in later steps. Next up is the windshield, though I seem to have misplaced the clear plastic bit for that. But it should be easy enough to recreate it from the ton of clear plastic packaging used to contain all the cast metal parts in the kit.