1960 Corvette by gsdpic - MFH - 1/12 - Multimedia

[gsdpic]

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.

 

[DocRob]

You got me Gary, I´m in. Enjoy the cruise, it will not be easy at all times, but building MFH kits is very rewarding. Take your time and always check twice, specially where large components, like body or chassis are involved. You often have to browse through the whole manual, to see, where everything fits. Special care should be taken with doors, bonnet and trunk, moving parts, where a good fit is essential.

Cheers Rob

[CDW]

Looking forward to your build, Gary. Test build everything to make sure all fits well. Only commit to permanent adhesive after you are certain all subassemblies go together without a hitch. Same goes for paint. No paint until all test fitting is complete. 

[Canute]

Two coaches to guide you. Very nice. 😉👍

[gsdpic]

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.

 

[DocRob]

Nice choice of color, Gary.
When I built the Cobra Coupe, I primed the body parts with Mr. Surfacer 1500 and airbrushed Number 5 paint on top. I found the adherence of paint and primer not too good, it was easy to chip off paint during sanding and polishing, not to speak about final assembly.
With the Brabham BT45, I used the same combo, but slightly sanded the resin body parts before priming, much better.

Cheers Rob

Edited January 8 by DocRob

[gsdpic]

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.

 

 

[gsdpic]

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.

Edited Tuesday at 12:35 AM by gsdpic

[gsdpic]

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.

 

 

[Egilman]

Hey brother, good review will be following....

 

And a side note, The "Orange" used on Chevrolet engines in the '50's & '60's would be described by anyone actually looking at it in real life as red... They named it as "Chevrolet Orange" so they could take ownership of the color, hence anyone who wanted to repaint their engines with authentic color had to pay a premium so Chevrolet got their cut of the profit... Everything a US automaker did was done to make a profit... (a Ford practice from the start that continues to this day, remember where Kingsford charcoal originated from, shavings from Henry Ford's spoke lathes, rather than burn them they made another product out of them)

 

Most people look at it and call it red...

 

For all intents and purposes if you weren't rebuilding engines back in those days you wouldn't know that... GM changed it sometime in the late '60's - '70's where they went to all black for most of their brands....

[gsdpic]

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.

 

[CDW]

Gary

 

Nice start on the engine. Do you recall what the four engine options were in 1960? I am guessing they were all variations of a 283 ci V8 engine. The 327 didn't come out until later.

[CDW]

I looked it up and here is what I found concerning engine options for the 1960 Corvettes:

 

For the 1960 model year Corvette (C1), Chevrolet offered only one engine family, but with multiple power levels depending on induction and tuning.

1960 Chevrolet Corvette – Engine Options

All 1960 Corvettes used the Chevrolet small-block 283 cubic-inch (4.6L) V8. There were four factory horsepower options:

Engine Code	Induction	Horsepower	Notes
283 cu in V8	Single 4-barrel carburetor	230 hp	Base engine
283 cu in V8	Single 4-barrel carburetor	245 hp	Higher compression
283 cu in V8	Dual 4-barrel carburetors	270 hp	Performance option
283 cu in V8	Fuel Injection (Rochester Ramjet)	290 hp	Top performance option

Key Details

• All engines were naturally aspirated (no superchargers or turbos).

• The 290 hp fuel-injected 283 was famous for achieving 1 horsepower per cubic inch, a major milestone at the time.

• Fuel injection was expensive and rare but offered exceptional throttle response and racing credibility.

• Transmissions included a 3-speed manual, 4-speed manual, or 2-speed Powerglide automatic (automatic not available with fuel injection).

[CDW]

This is close, but not an exact match for the fuel injection system for the 1960 Corvette. This particular system was used on later, 327 powered Corvettes. This fuel injection system is available as a downloadable, 3D printable file. Too bad MFH doesn't offer the correct system as an add-on item for the 1960 Corvette. I tried to find a match for the 1960 version but this was as close as I could find.

Edited 7 hours ago by CDW

[gsdpic]

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.

 

[DocRob]

Nice start Gary, I do more or less the same, using organizer boxes for the white metal parts, which helps a lot during the build. You are right about drilling holes, there are zillions. Make sure, you don´t forget to drill some, which may be hard or impossible to reach later. Check, if the parts, which fit into the holes really fit.
I prefer HSS drill bits, because they are more forgiving and not as brittle as tungsten carbide ones, which also tend to eat into the material more aggressive than HSS bits.
Make sure, that you drill adjoining parts together for better fit. The casted holes in resin or white metal are only  guiding holes, which needed to be drilled with the correct diameter.
Bummer that your engine proves troublesome with the fitting from resin to white metal, I haven´t experienced something like this during my MFH builds.

Cheers Rob