DocRob

Sweet Craig, you´re on a roll with your car builds. I love your chosen two tone paintjob, which somehow fits perfectly to the sleek car. In my head spins some of my Reverend Horton vinyl, adding the right soundtrack to accompany your beautiful cruiser with some psycho billy tunes. Cheers Rob

I used AK´s Extreme Metal colors for bronze and liked the result. I was after a patinaed look and achieved it with different techniques, like different shades of bluish and greenish pigments. I also used AK´s true metal wax bronze, which also has a good look after rubbing it onto black primed parts. with the wax and primer, you can ´steer´ the effect a bit. Here are pics of my Nautilus build some years ago, which I wanted to finish mainly in a NE-metal look. This was after spraying on bronze and copper with some post shading: After weathering and patina: Cheers Rob

What a nice little ship Chris and your pre chosen paint scheme looks outstanding and supports the sleek lines of the vessel. Like you, I have to finish my first square rigged ship with my DoK still lacking most of the rigging. I hope you have more guts than me and have a nice and soon outcome. Cheers Rob

Thank you Craig, the build is at snails pace at the moment, because of the festivities and other obstacles, but I hope to continue soon. Cheers Rob

Thanks for your confidence Phil, I hope, I can stay focused with this unruly build. I still hope, things will turn to the better with the kit. Next will be a lot of decaling. All the carbon around the chassis and monocoque will make it do or die. Cheers Rob

Very nice dio. I like the idea of the removed engine. Painting and finishing looks spot on. These large 1/12 car kits are absolutely great for some extra detailing and toying around with presentation ideas. Cheers Rob

Late condolences for your loss Craig, what a tragedy. Your dragster looks spot on and your kit bashing will lead to a very unique result, which shows your great craftmanship all around. Thanks for the tip about the white Sakura pens, I will order one for exactly the same reason. tyre lettering. Cheers Rob

This kit is fighting me back all the way. I start to think, I´m the problem and this doesn´t feel good. Oh yes, this should be a mojo restorer feelgood project, Argh . Like always with my F1 builds, the exhaust assembly was a pain and I didn´t help myself, by adding the PE seals. The engine is not glued into the body pan, I only added it for the exhaust´s alignment. The exhausts were ´puttied´with CA and painted with AK Extreme Metals colors. First stainless steel, then metallic blue for the shadows and finally with pale engine exhaust for general highlighting. The effect isn´t too visible on the photo, but looks stainless to my eye on the kit. Cheers Rob

My work with the engine continued. After a lot of cleanup, I sprayed the block with Tamiya LP5 semi matte black and added some details here and there. I thought about using the plating to my advantage, after it caused so many irritations and scratched the black color away to let some details show through in silver. I think, I will omit wiring and tubing with this build. 1/12 kits are better suited for that, so on with adding engine details. The cover under the cylinder trumpets, was decaled with one of the Top Studio carbon decals, which unfortunately broke and I have to do some re touching. The engine without the exhausts is more or less ready now. Cheers Rob

Thank you Gary, albeit I don't share your optimism that much. The next steps will tell me, which direction the build will go, bin, middle detailed or reasonable detailed . My only F1 expertise is my recently finished Tamiya 1/12 Renault RE20 turbo, which I documented here. So far this kit was better than the modern Fujimi kit. Cheers Rob

Thank you Egilman and you are absolutely right, I should have stripped the plating, but naively I haven't been expecting such a bad fit and went for a quick start. I'm a bit wiser now at least . Cheers Rob

Hola fellow modelistas, due to different reasons, I neglected my bench and MSW for some weeks and the next weeks won't be much better. Despite all obstacles, I wanted to start a new feel good build to motivate myself and so I chose my favorite F1 car for the task. Since a while, I accumulated some goodies for this project and since some weeks everything arrived at my doorstep. The kit: The goodies: - Top Studio Cockpit detail set - Top Studio PE-set - Top Studio carbon decal set (was the hardest to find) - TBDecals sponsor decals - Tamiya seat belts - PE rivets - Colors from Zero Paints (a first for me) I considered starting with the body, but decided to start, like the manual suggests, with the engine. Big mistake, at least motivational. As you can see on the pictures, the parts are metal plated in an aluminum finish, what's not to like about it. First of all the plating has spots and foremost it's completely superfluos, because nearly the whole engine is BLACK. You might say, no biggie, but it is, because of the plating no part fits how it should, you have to scratch, grind, and re drill all holes. Beside this, you can't use normal modeling cement, so I was forced to use CA. That's not all. The engine parts sport all known types of plastic abnormalities, like prominent parting lines, ejector marks, burr and flash and the silver plating doesn't enhance general visibility. Strange thing, that other versions of the kit seem to include the engine on black sprues. In all the beginning was utterly frustrating, we don't speak about an ancient short run kit, cast in some garage, it's a relatively modern incarnation, Fujimi what have you done. This will not be a fast build, other than I sod the kit, if it continues to fight me back. Oh, I haven't spoken about detail. The positive so far, the engine is very detailed and has a large part count. On the pictures, only half of the parts are added for better painting. If you look at the picture above, you can see the cylinder heads with very prominent cooling ribs, which unfortunately doesn't exist on the real thing. This is how it looks, with the added PE parts from Top Studio. Fujimi, are you the Japanese Italeri? I'm still hoping the best for the non plated sprues and will not instantly bin the kit, but it's definitely on probation. Cheers Rob

No Craig, luckily it was only a test part. I never used the stuff again. I discussed the probs with some fellow modelers over on LSM and others had similar issues. Tamiya LP gloss black is a perfect solution, dries fast and has a durable surface, why bother with the sticky AK stuff. Cheers Rob

If you mean the black base from the Extreme Metallic range, you'd better skip it. The stuff is horrible, never really dries. It is sticky even after weeks. I used Tamiya LP gloss black as a base for chrome and polished aluminum and this is working much better. Thinned with leveling thinner to a 1/3rd paint 2/3rd thinner ratio, you get a high shine surface, perfect for chrome. I experimented a bit with chrome for my Renault RE-20 build and found if you spray on Alclad chrome with very light coats, building up until the metallic blackness of the base is barely gone, you have a perfect shine. Xtreme Metal chrome from AK was slightly less shiny, but is more durable, if it comes to masking afterwards. Cheers Rob

This is what the producer says: UHU | Product page Everyone in Germany knows this brand UHU and the product (Alleskleber or all purpose glue) and the old advertisement 'Im Falle eines Falles klebt Uhu wirklich Alles' Which means something like In every possible case UHU will glue everything. The stuff was first produced in 1932 as a complete innovation. I wouldn't use it for wooden ship planking, despite it's glory history . Cheers Rob

When I was a kid in Berlin, every family had a tube of UHU for all purposes, being it repairs or whatever kids glue together. It's an absolute classic, but I never used it in plastic or wooden ship modeling. It's clear (if it's still the same mixture) and gel like. For planking, I use generally white glue for the first layer, where I can use nails for fixing the planks and for the second layer, I use Colle 21 contact glue (Sacrilege for some here ). You have to be very careful with the application of the Colle 21 CA. It's relatively thin and I spread it on the plank using another plank rest. The good, it only glues on contact, which has to made relatively fast and correct, which means, the planks should be prepared thoroughly. I guess, UHU would glue the planks well enough, but the thickish gel would lead to residues, being pressed onto the planks surface. Cheers Rob

With my modest experience with wooden hulls, Tamiya Kabuki tape or the yellow Tesa equivalent worked good. It adheres good enough on wood and has a certain flex for slight curves. The white flexible Tamiya tape worked well for me on plastic models, but I never used it on wood and I can imagine, adhesion wouldn't be the best. Cheers Rob

Fantastic result Craig, your Bugatti looks exactly matching the story behind it, what is more to say. I enjoyed to follow your multiple weathering techniques during the build and learned a lot. One little side note, for my liking the tyres look a bit too black, given the state of the car. Cheers Rob

You can also use very crude steel wool, like used to clean pots in the kitchen. By stretching the materia, you can have different effects and you can play with the distance from the sponge to the surface. It's a good technique for places, where it's hard to set the mask properly and you don't have the risk of color running under the mask. Cheers Rob

My camera, a Panasonic Lumix G9 has in build focus stacking, which allows to show lengthy objects or distanced objects all in focus. It's a camera mode, which allows to select different focus points as reference or use the complete front to rear area as focus stacking area. The camera takes several single pictures automatically then, which are stored as a movie in mp4 format. Finally merged in camera, stored as a single picture, you get what you wanted, voila. I had good results, even without a tripod. Cheers Rob

I made some quick (bad) pics from the tip of the Tamiya bending tweezers for you. The tip is ca. 1 mm wide and looks like this, when closed without force The drill bit has a 0,8 mm diameter for comparison: With slight pressure, it closes like this: The tip from the front closes parallel and is slightly trapezoid, which helps bending right angles with the slight elasticity of the brass, which gives a tiny bit after bending: Cheers Rob

Actually these are my preferred tools for working with PE: The bending tool and the long bending pliers are good for long sheet parts, like landing flaps and larger parts on ships superstructures. The small tipped bending plier and the above mentioned tweezer is very universal with smaller parts and much faster in use, than the bending tool. The rolling tool is perfect for railings and AA nests on ships and was used a lot for my USS Arizona build. The back side has a thick rubber coating, which enables rolling parts with curved contours, specially when annealed. That's where the lighter comes into play. Annealing brass PE is often overlooked. Heating the brass above the tip of the flame, until it changes color to blue, changes the crystalline structure of the brass and softens the brass for easier bending, specially on curved contours. The pencil is a grease pencil, for holding or lifting up small parts. Not mentioned, different types of CA and a soldering iron. Cheers Rob

In 2018, I wrote this little review about the Tamiya bending tweezers over at LSM and the verdict still stands. I work a lot with PE and have a huge assortment of tools, pliers, bending tools, rolling tools, ..., but these tweezers are by far the most universal tool, when it comes to tiny parts, like with ship modeling. Buenos Dias, friends of the tool heavy workbench, I have a very special relationship towards photoetched parts in modelling. I love to work with metal, enjoy the enhancement of detail and after applying PE sometimes I whish, it would not be necessary to paint these parts because of the luster shine. On the other hand PE can be a real PITA and has the tendency to unify itself with the carpet monster even more than plastic parts. Over the years I used lots of tools for working with PE, there were bending tools, rolling tools, pliers and tweezers and all of them were helpful, but there was something missing between the pliers and a fine tweezer and then I bought this little gem. It is the Tamiya Bending Tweezers (for Photo-Etched Parts) with the Item No: 74117. I got it six weeks ago and I absolutely love that tool. It has become a nearly universal tool for small PE parts. Because of it's short tweezer tips which are finely grinded with sharp angles you can apply enough force to hold PE-parts in place and bend them around the edges. The smallness of the tips make it easy to bend complicated three-dimensonal forms. Another advantage is, that with mentioned small PE parts, there is a much reduced need for tool changes, because of the versatile design. I highly recommend this little helper. It improved my enthusiasm with small PE parts a lot, because of the easiness of use and it's versatility. Tools should make live easier and this one is a very fine example. Cheers Rob

Get well soon Chris. You had a nice trip, it seems. Looks like Lisboa and Obidos on the pictures, both places I really like and might have lived there, haven't I found my remote island. You are absolutely right about the looks of cruising ships, they are a disgrace for maritime vessels. I've seen a lot, cause they are cruising in our waters here around the Canary Islands as well. The nicer are the smaller, classic build ones. Would there be a GB for cruising ships here, I would pass . Cheers Rob

I have never used one of these models, but use different airbrushes since over thirty years. I always bought quality in airbrushes and compressors as well. What you choose for your purpose should be determined through some factors, like: - how often do you use the AB - what type of airbrushing do you plan, meaning, how fine or how artistic do you go - which color mediums do you plan to spray - what are you planning to invest - are you willing to learn proper airbrushing (if that is not already the case) - ergonomics Choosing the right airbrushing equipment is difficult as is airbrushing itself. My personal view is biased to top quality, like H&S Infinity or Rotring airbrushes, a Sparmax compressor with tank a spray booth and a respirator mask, but I use my airbrushes almost daily and also spray aggressive materials, like lacquer paints. Assumptions: The mentioned airbrush might have a pulsing airflow with the tiny or non existent tank, it is bulky and I guess will lead to camps in the hand with longer usage. The cheap fabricated airbrush might be unreliable with the pressure consistency and not too easy to maintain. I don't now the price of the pictured airbrush, but are there fitting spare parts around, a very important aspect in long term use. Are different needle / nozzle sets available? One last anecdote about quality, My old compressor died away this year due to expansion tank corrosion. It was a good model and costed me about 400 (hard earned at the time) German Mark, about 200 € in 1984. Cheers Rob