DocRob

Thank you Alan, at least, the engine and front suspension will be visible under the large openable hood. Cheers Rob

I am shipping some difficult waters lately, not with the kit though and that´s why I made myself sparse. Nonetheless, some progress with the mighty Cobra. Having thought, everything would build up easier than the engine was partly untrue. The chassis as the central element has so many parts to add, that you need a lot of patience and discipline to get it right. Every hole - and there are many - needs to be drilled with the proper diameter. To achieve this, you have to identify the various parts or sub assemblies through the hole manual and understand, how it joins and what is used for joining, nuts, bolts, screws, pegs, whatever. Finally, I build up the suspension arms and completed the front axle and tubing with a real metal leaf spring. Steerable wheels are not planned with the kit. I made some mistakes on the rear end with the differential housing, but managed to correct that without too much damage. Again Tamiya LP semi matte black proved to be the perfect weapon of choice for the black chassis parts. The engine is only loosely attached for now. Cheers Rob

Three weeks ago, I considered buying this kit for a very good price from Japan, but hesitated, as I don´t like the original car too much. It just doesn´t have the ingredients of a classic to my eye. Nonetheless, I´m sure you will build a beauty out of this kit and I will follow your progress with the Porsche. Cheers Rob

Today, I reached the first real milestone, finishing the engine and transmission. The ignition wiring was a bit delicate and needed a lot of CA to proper glue everything together. Using tiny rubber connectors seemed not to be the best idea from MFH to my eye. The provided wire is very rigid, which helped to pre bend each single wire before gluing them in. Now Tamiya have a look, here is something to learn. the belt on the front of the engine is black adhesive tape over cast iron wheels, looks way better, than Tamiya´s rough cast parts on the 1/12 kits I knew. The transmission housing is made of a mix of resin and metal parts, with white metal gear shifting rods added. The manual suggested steel color for the housing, but I went with metallic grey, to have a cast iron appearance. I read, later modified or rebuild chassis got an aluminum casing, but the original was cast iron. So much for weight reduction . Cheers Rob

Thank you Craig and Yves. the engine is a piece of beauty with all the detail, but it´s also hard to get together in parts, but what´s modeling without a bit of a challenge . The oil filter was primed and then sprayed gloss read. After the third pass with the airbrush, the edges still were a bit translucent and I decided to let it like that, to generate a bit of depth the cheap way. Cheers Rob

The engine got near finished, lacking the ignition wiring and the drive belts in front. To mount all the carburetor parts into the tub was extremely difficult, done by the manual, it would have been impossible. I spare you the details, but you should put in the four carburetor blocks at the same time, only connected by a fragile steering rod and then add the coil spring mechanism with no wiggle room at all. It took some thinking and manipulating of parts to get it right. The carburetor housings were beforehand accentuated with black panel liner. I also added some decals onto engine parts. Cheers Rob

Today, I prepared all the carburetor parts and finished assembling the first pair, which consists of almost thirty parts. The inox pipe in the middle of the funnel was pretty rigid. It had to be cut from a tube and the manual suggests rolling it under a sharp blade. I tried, but no success. I took out my mini mitre and razor saw and managed to cut eight parts, while loosing all the teeth on the blade. Again the holes on the PE parts were to small, to accept the bolts and needed to be re drilled. Pretty annoying, given it´s not brass, but very rigid stainless steel. I also added the distributor, where tiny rods of steel rod are glued into each connector for accepting the tiny rubber isolators. These needed to be drilled wit a 0,3 mm bit to later (hopefully) accept the ignition wiring. Cheers Rob

Great looking car with a beautiful finish Craig. Am I right, that you haven´t even painted the body? It´s good to have these in between projects, without too much fuss for a relaxing change and if the result is beautiful like yours, why not. Cheers Rob

The last days, there was not a lot of bench time to have with our dog being seriously ill and an actual heat wave, but I managed to work a bit on the engine. What you see on the picture consists of about 70 parts. All screws and rivets need to be drilled and glued in. I gave the rocker covers another work intensive go and grinded and sanded, until I was halfway satisfied and then polished the parts with Autosol metal polish. Somehow, my camera struggles to capture high shine finishes, but the rocker covers look ok now. The PE exhaust seals were a bit of a pain, because the holes needed to be drilled out for the fitting `screws´ which are in fact bolts. I would have preferred to have the whole engine in metal. The resin parts needed a lot of work to make them fit. Cheers Rob

Your build triggered something with me, Craig. Never have been a Nascar fan, other than I liked a PC simulation decades ago, but browsed through the Salvino´s portfolio yesterday, which I always ignored before and ordered a 1972 Charger kit. Cheers Rob

This builds up pretty fast, Craig. Detail looks a bit toyish in places, but fully closed up will be more the sufficient to make a nice representation. Like others have said, these type of kits could easily attract new people into modeling, similar to those Bandai Star Wars kits. You may try a hairdryer onto the decals after the Mark Fit Strong soaked in for a bit. Worked marvels with Aviattic decals for WWI planes and as well with my carbon decals on my stalled MP4/6. Cheers Rob

Only to show, that I´m actually working on the Cobra, I made some mock up shots with the prepared main engine components, which will be airbrushed next. The resin body needed quite some adjustments to fit properly and there are about 100 holes drilled into these parts, to accept other accessories. The cast quality of the rocker covers is unfortunately not very good, with a lot of pitting. The photos show the state after two hours of sanding and polishing. The pics exaggerate the effect a bit, but the covers won´t do like this as polished finish, so some more elbow grease is needed. Cheers Rob

It´s a beauty, indeed. Thanks for the motivational push, Ken I like the 250 GTO a lot and might be tempted to buy one (in 1/12 scale ), if MFH decides to re-release it. Would make a nice display, if shown together with the beautiful Cobra Coupe. Almost, OC, there are lots of parts, indeed and building up this kit, will e a lot of work. If it´s equally rewarding, like the Crocker build, I´m a lucky guy. Cheers Rob

With the MFH Crocker build under my belt, I gained some experience with these kind of kits. The Cobra needs less bare metal surface preparation, as most of the components get painted, but you have to unify metal and resin parts more often. The Crocker was 95% metal, with only the seat, the tyres and some smaller parts made from other materials. I can´t really comment about the difficulty of working with metals, as I proper learned it when I was young, but that was a long time ago. At least, I found the metal working aspect more tempting than daunting. The cast white metal parts, MFH provides are of a very high quality and well engineered, however, you have to clean them and drill hundreds of holes into these parts for every connection. Even more than with plastic models, you have to fit the parts perfectly and dry fit a lot, because tolerances add up on complex assemblies, like the Crocker engine and you may run in trouble later on, if you hadn´t taken that into account enough. This needs a proper planning and following the manual, as some areas are hard or impossible to reach for drilling in case you have overseen something. You need a decent tool set, mainly consisting of quality drill bits of every size under 2,5 mm, a pin wise (or better more than one), pliers, cutters and tweezers. For clean up, normal files and sand paper is sufficient, the metal is very soft and good to work with. A power tool, like a Proxxon is very helpful for drilling and polishing, I use mine in a stand and more important added a foot pedal. A good and reliable CA glue is needed. I didn´t use Epoxy with the Crocker, but there may be places with the Cobra, where it could help. Preparation of the metal parts is a key, too. Yo can do it by hand or leave maybe 80% of the cleaning job to a magnetic tumbler. I liked the results with 0,3 mm polishing needles best, as these clean even the tiniest crevices and don´t soften details. A good primer is needed, I use Mr. Surfacer and the usual model paints, in my case mostly Tamiya lacquers, where i really like their gloss black and semi gloss black. I was a bit surprised, that the Crocker build took only about two months, I expected more, but it was motivating fun (a bad weather stretch was also helpful), but except from the chain, which I finally got assembled as well, I didn´t run into bigger problems during the build. Verdict: If you really like to build one of these magnificent kits, do it, take your time and prepare thoroughly. Like Craig said, some of the subjects were never released by other companies. Cheers Rob

I´d like to do that, Ken, but I would be so careful and caring and polishing the Crocker all the time. I better stay with my E-mountain bike . Cheers Rob

Very nice solution with the tubing, Gary. Are the large metal nuts and screws for the front still visible in the end? If so, I would matte them down a bit or paint them with the same silver tone like the other fittings. Cheers Rob

Muchas gracias señhores, I just started some cleanup and drilling to get a feel for the kit. I don´t want to rush the start, as I learned through the Crocker build, that a proper sequence and lots of dry fitting are the key to success. @Dave_E: The finished Cobra Coupe will be approximately 36 cm long and 16 cm wide. The price, well, I don´t like to discuss prices in logs and will send you an email. Cheers Rob

Hola friends of American heavy metal, My next project will be the famous and fantastic looking Shelby Cobra Coupe from Model Factory Hiro in 1/12 scale. Only six of these cars were built in 1964 and 1965. It was a successful design and incorporated early aerodynamic aspects. My build will be the second build chassis with the number CSX 2286, which competed in Le Mans, but didn´t finish due to clutch problems. I may add a bit more history later during the build. I purchased the kit directly from MFH in Japan and after one week of record breaking shipping time, it appeared on my doorstep as my second MFH kit after the Crocker. I will show some pictures of what is in the box, but I will not unwrap everything, therefore the quality of some of the pictures is a bit sub optimal, but I will show everything during the build. First of all there is the magnificent two part resin body, with the hood and doors and back will be openable. Casting quality is fantastic and only a minimum of cleanup will be necessary. There are aluminum turned rims, which later receive cast metal inserts and fantastic tyres with producer print and blue hairline. Three plates of photo etched parts: A bag full of multi media accessories, like turned headlights and funnels, clear resin parts, screws and coil springs, cables and tubes, seat belt material, ... The windshield and headlight covers are clear vacuum formed parts, which need to be cut out and the rear window is tinted brown vac style (not shown) For the side windows, there is a flat clear acetate sheet, with cut and drill markings and a rubber framing for the windshield. There are decals for four different cars all in the same Shelby Guardsman blue. I hope the white stripes are opaque enough to not let show the metallic blue underlayer through. And then there is a heap of cast white metal parts, which I cleaned with my magnetic tumble polisher and 0,3 mm polishing needles for about an hour. After picking the parts out of the dirty black water, I spread them on paper towels and started the tedious process to identify all the parts, sort them into box compartments according to the parts list and manual for double checking and after two eye straining days found, all the parts are there, phew. The last box contains bits like screws, bolts and rivets, smaller parts, which will be used in different steps of the build and lastly the parts used for other chassis. So far for now. Cheers Rob

Muchas gracias amigos, I have to do some refining with my daylight model photo skills. I still like the photo box better, as it´s easier to control the light. Cheers Rob

Thanks for your input during my build Egilman, there is a special for you. Cheers Rob

Muchas gracias Alan, I try my best with my logs with my sometimes feeble English, as I have profited from so many other´s build logs during the years. I like to reflect the days work in a log, which sharpens the eye for some skills learned and optimizing these. Photography is also one of my hobbies, but taking model shots still proves to be tricky, but I try my best. Cheers Rob

Thank you Egilman, for your praise and for your well appreciated support during the Crocker build. I learned a lot about classic bikes through your input and valid your sharp eye for my tiny hick ups. Cheers Rob

Thank you Yves, it would be great, if the Crocker would be real, as it is the most expensive motorcycle in the world. I really enjoyed working with metal for a change. The kit´s white metal is very pleasant to work with, easy to manipulate, but strong enough. You can alter the surfaces appearances very easily from semi matte finish, which looks like aluminum, to brush or polished finish. The astonishingly high weight of the kit is also a nice break from light plastic kits. Cheers Rob

I own a huge collection of vinyl and some turntables, another of my passions and remembered the perfect soundtrack for your dragster scene. It´s from the record `Tales of the Rat Fink´ by the Sadies, which I naturally possess. Cheers Rob

Well, figure painting, bring it on, Craig. Together with the dragster, it will be a nice and sinister display. The dragster looks cool, when I read loaded with chrome, ... , you may have to redo it, other ways it will reflect like a disco mirrorball.