DocRob

Indeed, some great models, thanks for showing. Cheers Rob

Will there be folded wings Carl? Cheers Rob

After a little pause, caused by one of my birthday presents, a week trip to the beautiful town of Valencia, I continue with the Brabham. I left the kit with the prep work for the exhausts just started and dreaded continuation, as F1 car exhausts can be a nightmare to build up. I cleaned all the parts and grouped them, followed by drilling all needed connecting holes. I then test fit the manifolds and glued the parts together with CA. MFH claims silver for the exhausts, but what I saw on pictures led me to think of brownish stainless steel. I used metal etch primer, followed by AK´s exhaust manifold and accentuated it with metallic blue for heat staining. While assembling, I tried to install the always dreaded coil springs before ore after inserting the exhaust, but failed. If I have a good idea, how to install these, I do it later or improvise somehow. As a preview, I started to prepare the monocoque parts, which need to be finished in polished aluminum. I´m unsure, If I airbrush the aluminum or if I polish it, which will be difficult due to the shape of the parts. Cheers Rob

Some additional thoughts about the Giraldez edition. The trigger has changed and sports a kind of lip at the frontside, which may not be to everybodies taste. It is thought to move it more with the tip of the finger than normal. For me it works well though. The trigger went closer to the paint cup and descriptions said, it wouldn´t be possible to use the larger cup. I use it always, but it is very close to the trigger finger. Cheers Rob

Bad news, Gus. Airbrush recommendations are always a bit difficult, because of personal preferences, but I use H&S Infinity since many years and like them a lot. About two years ago, I bought the Infinity Giraldez edition, and this is my daily AB now. The trigger is better than the normal Infinity and it has the newer, better marked nozzles and needles, not to speak about the new precise collet for the needle. The nozzles seem to be more robust than my old Infinity ones. They are pricey, but for an almost everyday tool, it´s ok to me, as it comes with sturdiness, easy cleaning and good handling along perfect finish. Cheers Rob

Nice pattern Kevin, but on the pic, it looks very bright. A brown filter would blend the colors better and enrichen them somewhat. Cheers Rob

Thank you Hubert, I didn´t dig deeper, but maybe, the cabin of the night fighter was planned to be pressurized. Sitting under the plexy canopy with one of these weird looking plexy helmets wouldn´t be helpful at night with all the reflections. While testing the Arado 234, the reflections proved to be a problem for the night fighter role, even without the helmets. Cheers Rob

@belugawhaleman BTW: I don´t know, if your forum name has a meaning to you, but last week, I visited Valencia in Spain, as a present to my birthday and the huge aquarium there, in fact, the largest in Europe has a family of Belugas of about five meter size in a huge arctic aquarium. Fascinating animals. Cheers Rob

I have no experiences with soldering PR parts, Paul. I learned how to solder with a soldering iron and with a flame, but never used it in modelling. I may try it with a ship project, where extensive PE works are part of. I use CA from Colle 21 for my metal works, being it brass PE parts or cast white metal. Cheers Rob

I have a different rolling tool since years Paul and I use it regularly. Mine has a rubber backside, which also helps to roll PE parts to shape. Annealing makes rolling PE parts a lot easier, as it takes the springiness away from the brass. Heat the brass part over a flame, until it turns blueish. Don´t overheat and let the brass glow. Annealing takes away the tension in the kristalline structure of the metal. Cheers Rob

Kit is looking promising, Carl. I´m eying the two seater, as I have only the ZM kit. Are you sure, there should be a tub. After looking at some pics, I think there is only the tubing. Cheers Rob

Looking good Gus, the folded wings will be another eye catcher. Cheers Rob

Another parcel from Plaza Japan arrived at my doorstep. The Aoshima Liberty Walk 1/24 Nissan R35 GT-R Type 2 Ver. 2 is a real Prollkarre (German vulgar slang for a painfully overdone car). I only bought it, because it was cheap and because I loved the purchased before decal set in chrome gold JPS fashion for that car. The real reason for the purchase were the tools, another pointed tweezer (you can´t have enough) two scribers with 0,8mm and 1,5mm blade from HQ Parts, a scribing tool from Hasegawa and some etched mini sawblades from Tamiya and not shown, a bunch of Kabuki refills. A quick test of the HQ Parts scribers on a 1/24 car body proved very promising. I prefer "cutting" scribers to pressing needle scribers, as you don´t have risen edges of the scribe line. I had only a 0,25 mm wide Tamiya scriber which was too wide and skipped out of the grove often. Cheers Rob

Thank you Carl, There are so many details on these engines, it´s easy to hide tiny hick ups . In fact, there is a little touch up work to do later on. Cheers Rob

Chapter 9 of 20 in the manual is done and the rear section got finished sans the wing. Connecting the gearbox with the engine proved a little tricky due to numerous connection points, there is the suspension with adjustment bars, side rods and a shaft to connect all at the same time, trying to insert the screws for fixing everything. In the end it worked. Another annoying part were the brake lines. The angled tube fittings provided by MFH were badly cast and I used resin ones from the spare box, but two of them broke and needed to be drilled out again. I also substituted the white cast braided lines from MFH with braided textile hoses from Top Studio, which were far easier to work with. The cast ones need to be lengthened and bent, then drilled out with a 0,5 mm drill bit at the ends, to accept the fittings. Needless to say, that wiggling some of them in is nerve testing. The textile Top Studio stuff only needs to to be lengthened and then stuck on the 0,5 mm rods of the fittings with a drop of CA. Even my relatively liquid go to CA doesn´t soak and darken the braided hose. Cheers Rob

Thank you Mark, I think, I remember your McLaren build. Would be great to see it progressing and finished. There was also a Ferrari, you beautifully built, was it a 330 P4. Cheers Rob

The driver seems to be the same, riding my Tamiya Wild Willy RC-car, when I was a teenager. Cheers Rob

Yup Cheers Rob

This beauty arrived at my doorstep today, a little bit early for my 60th birthday due to the super fast shipping from Japan. Fun fact, the kit included a pin, claiming that MFH is exactly half as old as me, My self present is an Aston Martin DB4 GTZ in 1/12 scale, where Z stands for Zagato, who did the bodywork on this beauty. I borrowed a picture of the finished kit from the MFH homepage, because the box doesn´t show the DB4 GTZ Cheers Rob

I finished the gearbox assembly step and started with the braking tubes. The fittings were badly casted by MFH, so I substituted them with resin ones. I stopped with the tubing and wiring for now, as I think, it´s easier to do it later, where it becomes more clear, which hose leads where. If there is anybody out there building the same "Press Version" of the BT45 be aware, there is a mistake in the manual, which can only be discovered, when analyzing later steps. Part 248 (9) doesn´t go into the shown hole, but in the one to the left. It took me a while to figure out, how the supports for the coolers (248 (9)) will properly sit. The shown hole accepts the rear wing support later. Cheers Rob

Great job fitting the wings, Gus. It would have been a shame to sand away the lovely surface details. Cheers Rob

Circle masks are indeed very important, I have a Maketar set since years and I use them regularly for different tasks. For larger diameters a circle cutter is ok, but for the smaller ones, I prefer ready cut masks. Cheers Rob

Came out fantastic, Scott, I love the paintjob and subtle weathering, where everything blends perfectly. Cheers Rob

Thank you Gus, a while ago, I ordered some chrome markers and used them on different builds. I forgot, that they were of different brands and used them for headlights and oleos mostly. I always tried them out on a piece of scrap plastic and only one delivered. Then I realized, I had two brands and the Ak was looking like chrome, where the other two from Molotow looked grainy gray and were a complete fail. I made a quick pic on an unprimed piece, both markers shaken and pumped freshly, night and day. Cheers Rob

Next was the suspension, which is directly attached to the engine. The damper rods were painted with AK´s chrome marker and look really chromish, not like the to my experience really bad Molotow marker. This was followed by prep work and drilling for the gearbox section, where a lot of bolts and screws are to be added. For painting the gearbox, I used Zero Paints Hewland Gearbox Texture paint for the first time, because it is a Hewland gearbox and have to say, I like the result, at least for a 1/12 kit. I followed the recommendation of using a larger nozzle on my airbrush (0,4 mm) and raised the air pressure to almost 3 bar or 40 psi, to prevent clogging. The brake disks were sprayed with Extreme Color stainless steel, therefore the slight bluish tint and the calipers were sprayed with duralumin. Cheers Rob