DocRob

Thank you FA, it was a relatively easy project for a MFH build. It took me less than three month, and it was all joy and not a lot of problematic areas. It seems, I slowly develop my car building skills. Cheers Rob

Here is the song. If the Reverend says so it must be true Cheers (I mean it) Rob

There is a song from The Reverend Horton Heat, which is called "It´s Martini Time". The song is like a anthem to me as I love cocktails and specially Martini cocktails, albeit, I never prepare them with Martini. Anyway, the BT45 would fit into the bar, but no chance, no models in the living area . After two more sessions, the BT45 was done surprisingly rapid in the end. The innards of the nose section fit perfectly and on went the nose. It is removable as are the cockpit and engine fairing. It felt nearly indecent, to paint the beautiful turned aluminum rims, but my car had them in black. After drilling all the needed holes very carefully, not to scratch the precious parts, I primed them with Mr. Surfacer 1500 black and found the matte black looked so good, why spoiling it with a color coat. Finally the tyres were mounted onto the rims and then I added the air vents, which proved fiddly. The tyres are absolutely perfect, with pre printed branding and much heavier and durable then e.g. Tamiya tyres. They need to be with the weight of the car, which is also supported by two spacers under the chassis. Well, let the pics speak: Cheers Rob

Lovely detail with the plumbing. If you ever want to do even more, you could use hose joints, which are available for car models. possibly 1/24 could work, which is made for 0,8 mm wires or hoses. There is one example from Decalcas, but others produce them as well. Hose joints for 1/24 scale models: 0.8mm Hose joints set 3 (ref. DCL-PAR061) Cheers Rob

Thank you Martin, at the moment, it´s about hiding all the details under body parts, but they are removable, luckily. Cheers Rob

Slowly, I´m nearing the finish line. I added many details to the body, like fasteners, bolts and rivets and worked on the final fitting of the body parts. I am always a little scared when it comes to vacuum formed parts like the smoke clear windshield. It´s always best to cut it with a pair of scissors, than sanding, because the burr is very hard to remove. Finally I got it done, using Tamiya flexible masking tape as a guideline. The clear part was glued to the body with 1mm wide double sided clear adhesive tape and then received the tiny rivets. The side air intakes are not finally glued to the body, I may let them removable for better sight on the engine, but then, I add some guiding bolts. Now I´m preparing the rims and the nose section and then wroarrrrrrrrrrr. Cheers Rob

Thank you Mike, there is indeed a lot of detail included. Luckily the design of the kit is very good, which helps to get everything into the body. Cheers Rob

Today, I joined the engine with the monocoque. Test fitting was done before, but a last aggregate with three tubes attached needed to be fittet in between. That proved very difficult, but after some attempts, I got it done. If you ever build the kit, don´t glue the metal end plates (M142, M143) to the monocoque, like shown in step 13. Luckily I didn´t, because other ways I would have had to remove them to fit the engine in step 17. And finally, I tried the fit of the center body parts. Cheers Rob

Thanks FA and Carl, the radiators are indeed protruding far out, but they are relatively robust. The process of getting the complete front section glued to the monocoque needed some hefty handling and they hold up. Cheers Rob

The front section was really difficult to build together due to many intersecting parts. Finally, I got the coolers glued to the framework and let dry for a while. The next difficulty was to add the front section to the monocoque. You had to plan ahead and follow the instructions to the number, to get it done. Finally, I got the four connection points glued in, while fiddling all the other ducts, hoses and wires. I´m lucky that this part of the build is behind me now and I can look forward to marry the monocoque to the engine section soon. Cheers Rob

Great result, FA. Detailing, painting and weathering are spot on. Most modern tanks have little interest to me, but yours looks fantastic. Cheers Rob

Nice work overall, and also well photographed. I like your cockpit with all the details. PE flaps can be fiddly at times, but they improve the look a lot. Cheers Rob

Here the belts are 4 mm wide with applications being 3 mm wide. I have some 1/20 sets as well and they are less wide, but I didn´t measure them. Cheers Rob

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

Nice job on the rigging Mike. I thought about a simplified method of rigging, when I start mine, but I don´t know, if it will satisfy me. If not, I have a tutorial now . Cheers Rob

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

Who´s normal here, we nuts try to reproduce the reality in scale and I often wonder why . Cheers Rob

Thanks Carl, I first used the MFH seat belts with my Tamiya 1/12 Renault Turbo build and liked them better than the ones Tamiya supplied and bought them for all my F1 1/12 kits and even some 1/20 kits. Cheers Rob

Sorry, no hit, I checked my pix from a P47-D from Chino, but non showed it clearly. Problem is, the wheel well cover sits so tight around the axle and brake line, that it is barely visible at all. You should check, if it would be visible with your kit LG. Have you checked technical drawings? Cheers Rob

Looking very good. I don´t know, if you are aware of ION Models 1/200 figures and deck furniture sets. IONION MODEL Titanic furniture set 1/200 ION20th CENT. CIVIL SHIP PASSENGERS & CREW 1/350 Cheers Rob

The copper of the braking lines was supplied with the kit and actually is a tube with a very tiny bore. The copper from the exhaust coil springs was wire from the leftover box. Cheers Rob

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

Beautiful plane and a great kit, denders. I built it some years ago and absolutely loved the experience. I can´t remember any real issues with the kit, in fact engineering and fit were near perfect. I wanted to try something new with the build and brush painted it with oil colors, which worked better than thought. If you are interested, here is a link to my build, where we had some interesting discussions about the original and especially about the paint scheme Cheers Rob

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

Thank you Mike, test fitting, preparing and understanding how everything goes together is essential for MFH builds. You have to think and browse ahead often. Subassemblies like the engine are easier this way, but when everything has to fit into a body and being closed, it´s always a bit more complicated. The sequence in the manual is not always the best, but that might be personal biased, it´s not really wrong. Cheers Rob