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DocRob

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  1. Rat Fink would have liked the Rat Rod, Craig. Great work and proof of being doable. Cheers Rob
  2. Today, I finished the front office. Before installation, I glued all the tubing and wiring to the backside with CA and let dry. Then I fiddled the steering column with the instrument panel in place and laid the wires in their correct places, a delicate affair. After adding the x-bar to the instrument panel, I made the final installments to the front side, namely the fire extinguisher pull ring and the steering wheel. Cheers Rob
  3. Today I finished the steering wheel, which was first airbrushed gloss black for decaling, then received the rivets, followed by a coat of semi matte clear. After drying, I masked the inner part and applied a coat of Tamiya LP flat black and dabbed in some black StreetBlister textile flocks for texture with a brush. I was not satisfied with the matte look and added a coat of Tamiya LP flat clear, again not flat enough. Finally, I used good old Tamiya XF-1 flat black. The fibers were finger dabbed into the fresh point and there are still some of them waiting for a shave. It looks a bit coarse in the pic, but this is heavy macroed. The instrument front panel, made from PE was also sprayed gloss black, followed by decaling the switches and dials, followed by a semi matte clear coat as a finish. I then added some brackets to the instruments, before gluing and riveting everything to the front roll bar, which was polished beforehand. The bezels are supplied as clear acetate circles, which I glued using Future. Last were the white metal switches, with only the fire extinguisher pull ring missing, because it´s to fragile Cheers Rob
  4. Looking very good, The wash enhanced the finish a lot. The plane is so positively ugly, I had to buy one myself . Cheers Rob
  5. One subject out of an earlier phase of the build was still aggravating me, the coil springs, which hold the exhausts in place. There are eight and I couldn´t add a single one, despite trying really hard. Then I had an idea. What if I insert a copper wire into the coil spring, to bend it easily into the needed curve. I tried and it worked. Half an hour later, this issue was fixed and I have an open issue less on my schedule. Cheers Rob
  6. The cockpit tub starts to become busy. I added the seat belts to the seat and then this was glued into the tub. I really like MFH seat belts, as they look good and are relatively easy to assemble. There are white metal buckles and PE parts and two widths of blue ribbon. All got assembled using double sided tape, which has a strong bond and is supplied with the kit. I bought seat belt sets for other kits too, like for my 1/12 Tamiya kits. The manual placed the headrest/rollbar before the seat, but I chose to do it after, because it was easier to fiddle in the seat belts behind the seat. Cheers Rob
  7. Thank you Craig and OC, besides modeling, photography is one of my hobbies. I used to work semi professional in analogue times, but stepped out with the digital age, because I didn´t like the results earlier digital cameras were able to achieve and my go to analogue material became next to impossible to find. Long story short, since some years, I own a decent digital camera with good lenses and try my luck. Photographing model kits is not so easy. You need good lighting, solid depth of field and macro capabilities. I´m still in a learning process and have a long way to go. Photographed skillfully, the MFH kits nearly pass as real cars with all their brimming detail. Cheers Rob
  8. Today I achieved some very important and daunting steps, but firs things first. I finished the front section with all the parts added for the axle, brakes, steering and suspension. Some were a bit fiddly, but in all, the fit was great with that delicate section. It´s also quite robust. The axle screws are loose by design and therefore hanging on the pic. Next was the daunting part, the closing of the main body. There are so many intersecting parts, that even test fitting is a time and nerve consuming affair. Finally I got it done and everything fitted with a tiny bit of tweaking here and there. The floor pan and body are hold together with eight screws. Finally, I test fitted the engine section to the body and luckily everything fit as well. Cheers Rob
  9. Thank you Ken and Alan, the build is time consuming, but a lot of fun. I like to do one or two steps in the manual at a time, preparing the needed parts and add them to the model. The detail is indeed fantastic, these kits are little marvels. Cheers Rob
  10. After all the body work, now it´s all about subassemblies and not to damage the polished body with scratches or CA fingerprints. The polished tub went finally onto the floor pan and got screwed there permanently. I further added some details like the pedals. The rear of the tub received the gas tank with all the needed attachments. Then I finished the front suspension sans the steering. Most delicate were some turned pins and the intersecting tubes, which hold the nose in place later. There was a need for absolute precision, to prevent gaps from the monocoque to the nose part. Cheers Rob
  11. Absolutely fantastic result Dan. I love, how colors and decals blend and the restrained weathering. Getting the spinners right must have been a chore. Cheers Rob
  12. There are few steps more rewarding in modeling than to finish a car body to a high shine surface. All the work going into took a while, but I love doing the polishing as a last step. I used Tamiya´s polishing compounds starting with coarse, then fine, followed by finish. I didn´t apply wax now, because there are still many parts to add to the body, so this will be kept to the finish. The coarse polishing is by far the most important and also time consuming one to my eye, as you remove all the tiny imperfections, check against the light and continue until all looks good, always taking care not to polish through the clear coat. I couldn´t resist a little workbench mock up. Cheers Rob
  13. Airbrushing is already done and didn´t take up much time. There are three sessions, first primer, than three coats of body paint and finally three coats of clear. The prep and polishing time exceeds the spraying time by far. Cheers Rob
  14. Clear coating went very well. I used Zero Paints lacquer clear, which did a fantastic job on my Cobra Coupe. My approach is similar to the application of the base coat and it works for me. First, I spray a thin un-thinned layer, which dries very quickly with the help of the airbrush blow, to hinder the aggressive lacquers to attack the decals. The second layer after about 15 minutes consists of about 25%-30% leveling thinner and is applied "wet" After again 15 minutes of drying and leveling time, I applied the third layer, this time with 50%-60% of levelling thinner, this time very "wet". The brief drying time leads to later layers "melting into the layers applied before and give a better surface. I may could push my luck with the application of pure leveling thinner as a fourth coat, but I fear running paint. The result looks far better to the real eye than on the pictures, but I learnt through other builds, that´s always the case with high shine finishes. Anyway, today or tomorrow I will slightly sand and polish the surfaces. Cheers Rob
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