DocRob

Thank you Carl, luckily there are no working pistons and other in that engine, it would make the construction even more complicated. Cheers Rob

You can´t have enough of these buggers for a MFH build. I drilled dozens of tiny holes, the most complicating are the tube connectors, ultra small and need a centered 0,8 mm hole drilled out. I broke one or two bits per year with my usual modeling, but the Crocker made me brake three already. Cheers Rob

Thank you Peter, I simply hate touch up work. I always try to do everything right the first time, but of course sometimes fail, like here. The engine with all the added aggregates is quite complex, dozens of tiny holes need to be drilled and it´s easy to forget or misalign something when not fully concentrated. The toll of broken drill bits raises as well and soon I have to restock these. Cheers Rob

Glad you are not doing 1/700 scale, Kevin, I would need a larger screen to watch . Cheers Rob

Just twenty seconds of googling, try Scalemates, as I´m to lazy to post the link. Cheers Rob

The engine is on it´s way and it is a bit fiddly, but due to great engineering and tight tolerances manageable. Adding all the V-shaped cylinder parts proved tricky, when the rocker came into play and the connecting tube (carburetor) needed to be added at the same time. Unfortunately, I mis-orientated this part and had to pry it loose later, which was no fun at all and caused some spots for later touch ups. Cheers Rob

Lets hope so Phil, building metal kits is a whole new experience. Thank you for the info about soldering, I will test it if necessary, when time comes. Cheers Rob

I guess, that´s the reason why, Carl. If I remember it right, Tamiya made the same with their 1/6 Fat Boy Harley. You have to raise your hat to MFH´s precision with the casted parts. Cheers Rob

Thank you Peter, working with white metal is quite different than working with plastic. The engine casing looks fantastic as it is, with no need for Alclad´s. The holes in the white metal parts are pre cast very precisely, luckily. You have only to drill them out with the appropriate drill bit. There are lot of parts being attached to the engine housing, and all these need to be joined with tiny rivets, bolts or screws and all these holes need to be drilled out. I´m sure, I will miss some, but hope they are in places, where I can reach them later. Cheers Rob

Until now, I haven´t used any. I will mainly use my trusty Colle 21 CA and hope to not need epoxy, as I have none. I will test soldering with some cast residues, but have no experience soldering white metal, let´s see.... Cheers Rob

Thank you Paul, it was a true pleasure project and easier then thought in the end. Thank you Mike, I always try to force myself to include figures to a build, but sometimes chicken out. I´m not comfortable with it and it feels, there is no real development over my feeble tries, but I like the way, figures tell a story, like in a snapshot. Cheers Rob

Well, first building steps are prepared. Note to myself, test fit often and understand the manual, specially where parts need to be drilled. I don´t know about the MFH car kits, but with the Crocker engine parts there are dozens of holes to be drilled and some are hard to reach in later stages. The foot pedal and drill stand for my Proxxon mini drill help a lot to make the job faster. The good thing with drilling white metal, there is nearly no burr to be removed. The engine block, with one cylinder mostly mounted, showing the parts of the other: Mock assembly for test fitting of one cylinder. The ribs and heads are actually removed and primed and will be sprayed semi matte black later. Cheers Rob

Bummer Mike, I´m not on FB and do not intend to. Ebay, I looked a bit, but found nothing of interest so far. Many MFH builders recommended the trays in their build logs and I do understand why, It makes life so much easier with these kits, it´s like the equivalent of the plastic sprue. Cheers Rob

Never followed a Gundam build. But your detailed kit seems to be a very interesting building experience, Carl. I like your weathering approach, as many non weathered robot kits look a bit boring. Cheers Rob

The base looks super cool, Kevin. It adds a nice contrast to the deck tan and grey with it´s red finish. Cheers Rob

Indeed Paul, in many ways and it will definitely be a challenge. Cheers Rob

The smaller parts like nuts, screws and bolts are the most complicated here, Peter. They are grouped on cast sprues and several are needed for different building steps. Cutting them off the casting makes them really hard to identify, so I will keep these separate and numbered. Proper organizing is the key here, there are no sprue numbers to help the builder. Cheers Rob

Tranquilo Kevin, don´t do the @HubertB gig on me, or I ask you, if the time is ready to put the champagne into the fridge for the launching of the Scharnhorst . What I make out of these parts is still in the off, but I hope for the best. Cheers Rob

Today, I spent some exhausting hours to sort the parts, mainly the white metal cast ones, as they are the most numerous. I made it a two step affair, first using the parts layout prints from the MFH homepage, to check if everything is there. These photos of the parts are especially helpful, as they are scaled and this helps to identify the parts. In the second step, I sorted the parts into a plastic box with different sized trays, ordered after the steps in the manual. The tiny parts, like screws and bolts, I left out, as they are easier identified separately. Tomorrow, I will add resin and rubber parts along with screws, nuts and bolts. Cheers Rob

Oh yeah Kevin, there is a load of different materials to master, mainly white metal, but also chrome plated metal, rubber, resin, some wire and tubing, but no polystyrol . Lets wait with the magic part until later, Martin . First some basic steps of preparation. Cheers Rob

Thank you Peter, Scott and Jeff, who knows, if I ever had started the big bat without the GB. Many lessons learned through the build, especially, it´s not the size or emphasize of difficult tasks, that should back you off of desired projects. This was 95 percent fun and never boring, like some ´simple´ builds sometimes are. Cheers Rob

That´s a very appealing color scheme, Kriss, which supports the the flowing design of the airframe, nice work. Cheers Rob

I was immediately in love with the Crocker on first sight and knew, I had to buy the kit. Lets hope, I can do it justice. Browsing through the box is another beautiful sensation, as the parts look so crisp and sharp and no sprues for a change . Cheers Rob

An adventure it will be for sure, Peter. I´m not sure, if I build the Crocker exclusively, as there is the 1/24 Fokker DR.I waiting as a quick build and the started 1/20 McLaren MP4/6 is waiting too. I also learned a lot from other build logs concerning MFH builds and borrow a lot of the described ideas. Cheers Rob

I think, I´ve seen nearly everything about MFH in short time, including these very interesting videos, Carl. I learned, that they mostly have no plans to measure and use photos for the purpose. The magnetic tumbler was indeed a good invest, as I plan to build more of the MFH kits, when this adventure turns out on a positive tune. Cheers Rob