DocRob

@ScottsGT Cool techniques Rob! When I built my 1/72 Space Shuttle I used cloth medical tape cut into squares and applied to the exterior to simulate the thermal blankets the exterior was covered with. I had to use very thick enamel paint forced into the weave to fill them up. Thank you Scott and Chris, there are indeed a lot of techniques, to come closer to realistic results in builds. Some of them I learned of here or in other places, others, I developed myself, like the cigarette paper technique. Only recently, a fellow modeler over on MSW showed a technique for replicating 1/12 carbon fiber, using tulle fabric over a metallic grey base and then spraying black over it. After removing the tulle fabric and sealing everything it looked very good. I stored the idea for later use. Cheers Rob

Interesting, what was in the box, Martin. Always good to replace as many parts on a Italeri kit . The meshes came out great way better then the plastic blobs. Will stay in your sandbox and watch you progress. Cheers Rob

I will add another wow to your already expanding collection Peter. Cockpit and especially the seat look fantastic. You are right about the sable brush prices, but there is no real way around them for figure and detail painting. I have some, but use them only for these purposes. I always clean them immediately and form the tip. For other occasions some good synthetic brushes are good enough. Cheers Rob

This looks so good, Carl. I was tempted to buy one, but now I am even more so. Cheers Rob

Nice start on the cockpit Peter and as others mentioned before the seat is a gem. I really like these high quality parts and it is demanding fun to paint them properly. Better than having to guess, where parting lines are due to soft moulding. I wonder why Eduard could or would not solve that rasterizing prob with their IP´s. I had one, which was close to unusable, the dots were visible with the bare eye. Others are so much better, like you mentioned Quinta, but printed PE ones as well, like Yahu produces. Cant wait to see your meticolous paint work with that four tone camo. Cheers Rob

Thanks for the hint, Mike. Never heard of MN Hobby, but a new chance to lay my hands onto this kit. Cheers Rob

Thank you Peter and Chris. The leather cover was on my to learn list since a while. I would only use it for larger scales. Even with 1/32 seats, I would either paint the leather effect or apply other techniques, like I did once with my Skoda RSO. Luckily my wife was still smoking by that time, so I took one of her cigarettes, cut the paper to fit over the bench and backrest with diluted white glue. Then I dabbed on some brownish tones with a stiff brush for tear and wear. Followed by carefully applied black tones, also dabbed on with a stiff brush in very thin layers, et voila looks like very old leather. Cheers Rob

I´ve been blamed for worse things Mike . Nice find with the Cobra. The MFH leather sheets are really thin and very stretchy, which helps a lot. I don´t know, if I would use it for smaller scales like 1/24. I often use oils or oils over acrylic, when I paint leather. It´s a bit time consuming, but looks great in the end. With normal thinner or matte thinner you can `steer´ the shininess. The AmmoKnights seat was painted with oils over acrylic: The leather jacket and gloves are solely painted with oil colors. Cheers Rob

... meanwhile, the Cobra Coupe isn´t vegan anymore. I bought some self adhesive leather from MFH lately and decided, I give the seats a try with this. What looks better than the real thing . The seats were primed and sprayed semi matte black and then, I cut the leather patches roughly to contour. The shape of the seats is a bit difficult to cover, but the leather is luckily very thin and flexible and adheres very well. I think, with the seat belts applied and some final trimming, they will look good. Cheers Rob

I think it´s not as bad as it looks in the pictures Carl. I hope, I can sort it out. Cheers Rob

Thank you Chris and Peter, until now, I have only ideas about how to solve the fit issues. I will add some more internal components for further evaluation and will decide then, how to tackle this. I will take my time with these issues as they are make or brake kind of probs. Cheers Rob

Great choice Mike, I thought about building this one too. The camo on the box looks not as boring as most of the desert schemes look. Hard to replicate, though. I could only find the Eastern Front boxing, so the Henschel was no more an option. Cheers Rob

Like Carl, I have three boxes for leftover parts, one for planes, one for armor and one for cars and bikes. I store only selected parts in there, where can see a chance, using them later on. I rarely store whole sprues, but cut the parts loose, which could be useful. Cheers Rob

Well, it was about time, to see how the body, hood and doors will fit to the chassis. I cleaned the excellent casted body parts and drilled all the needed holes and joined the hood to the chassis. There are cast metal hinges and the hood will be openable. When adding the body, which is not screwed on for now, I got what I feared, a gap, the hood being to high, because the air funnels don´t have enough room under the hood. I was prepared, as Pooh described the same problem in his YouTube build video. It looks a bit worse on the pics than it is in reality, because, I can lift the back of the body slightly. I inserted the doors on their metal hinges and found the right one fitting too low and the left one was ok. I´m close to the body painting stage and the fit issues has to be solved thorough and now, so next is analyzing, what to do best. Cheers Rob

The sandbox theme didn´t excite me a lot, initially. In my huge stash, I found only some sandy kits. A 1/48 Do-17 in desert camo, a Meng M3A3 Bradley, yawn, I have a Jeep kit and conversion along figures for a LRDG Jeep, better, but not satisfactory either. There is a hardly startet Meng D9R Doobi kit, but then I had an idea.... I will start late, as I need to buy some stuff during my Berlin trip, starting next week. Cheers Rob

What a great looking plane, Mike. The yellow wings and green tail make it a vivid eyecatcher. Later, when the eye is pleased so far, there are lots of detail to discover, like rigging and landing gear. I had always a soft spot for amphibious planes, but yours is one of the nicest. Cheers Rob

No chance Chris, there are a lot of points against doing so and I will name just a few: - A forum is exchange, if I write a WIP, I got ideas, help and hints from other members, so it´s a two way benefit. - I keep a build log as a personal file, like a notepad, but not more. - I have no idea, how much Cobra´s MFH produces. There can´t be many and most of them will never get build, I guess, so where is the target of an ebook? - I don´t want to spent more time on more professional photographing, editing, layout and texting. - English is not my mother tongue as you may have guessed . - For such a rare kit, there is a very thorough video documentation in YouTube (Pooh´s) and another more casual, but also helpful one. - I don´t need deadlines in my life. - If I decide to sod the kit, it´s only up to me. - I recommend used products on my personal view and experience, which is more difficult, if you earn money from your log. - It is a hobby to me and I have many others. I never get bored and don´t need other distractions. These are only some points, others, I don´t want to mention here. I used only one ebook accompanying my Wingnut Wings AEG G.IV build. It was very helpful and written by the much more talented modeler Karim Bibi Cheers Rob

Thanks Peter, at least I try and physical exhaustion helps a little. Next week, I will go to Berlin for a bit, enjoying my new unwanted freedom . MFH kits are very good, but they can´t be perfect, as a non mass product, with lots of different materials involved and a huge parts count. After the next steps, there will be bodywork and today, I started to clean body and bonnet, along the doors and started to pre assemble these, to show, if everything fits. Spoiler alert, it doesn´t. The doors need to be adjusted and the bonnet doesn´t close entirely, as I had expected, after Pooh had the same problem in his YouTube video build. It seems, I have to thin the hood, where the funnels sit, as they interfere. I hope, there is enough material. To sort this out, will take some time, as I will do it properly, the look of the finished car depends on these steps. Cheers Rob

Thank you for your condolences Mike, beside my wife, my dog was closest to me the last years, so yes, it still hurts. The Cobra Coupe kit is indeed amazing and you tend to forgive what little shortcomings there are, as it is very motivating to continue with all the detailed stuff. Tamiya LP colors are extremely good to airbrush, but you can use a brush as well, good for touchups. The black tones are especially recommended, wit an extra notion of the semi matte black, which is outstanding. Most of the metal tones are very good as well. Gloss white and red doesn´t have the same coverage as the others provide, but are still usable. Cheers Rob

No worries Chris, the discs doesn´t look too bad and like you said, little can be seen through the wheels. Thank you for commenting about the photo quality. I try to keep my standards and possibly enhance them a bit, but they hardly pass for professional products. I could do better, but my focus is on modeling and proper documenting my builds here. Cheers Rob

Thank you Chris and Carl, the kit is indeed a gem detail wise, but sometimes getting everything together proves difficult. @CANicoll: I have to admit, I haven´t thought about the braking disks. Maybe they look like this, after a race. Usually, there are PE parts for the shiny surface, but here it´s pure cast white metal and I can´t do anything about it. Cheers Rob

Progress is slowly due to off bench issues and a healthy dose of sports every day, trailrunning, surfing or swimming and mountainbiking, to get the head free. Nonetheless, I finished the rear suspension, brakes and drive shafts. My normal process with MFH kits is, select parts for the next step, cleanup and drill parts, priming and finally airbrushing, before the real fun begins, assembly. This time, it was not so much fun, unfortunately. All parts mount to the outer suspension part, which later accepts the wheel. Somehow this was impossible and I identified the drive shafts as too long. I have no idea, if this was my fault, but the main shaft leading to the differential was also to long. It needed a bit of metal surgery to get everything to fit and there are some touchups to be made. I also started with the pedals, which means, interior is next. Of course, there will be hydraulic lines later from the pedals cylinders. Cheers Rob

Thank you Peter, I hope time will heal some of the wounds and indeed I smile often over memories I have about times with my dog, despite the loss. The Cobra is a great subject to focus onto and yes, when there ever is the perfect kit, we will add some not so perfect aftermarket item, if only for the rant . Cheers Rob

Thank you Phil, but I meant the illness of my dog, before he passed, not mine. I´m healthy, but the soul isn´t. Actually, we don´t plan to get another dog soon, but lets see. Weather, well, it´s been crazy lately. We have a heat wave, but not where I live. It´s humid and around 20 degrees Celsius. only a kilometer away and less then 100m of altitude up, it was 32 degrees Celsius at eight in the morning. We have some strangely layered weather as of lately . Ah forgot to mention, down by the sea, there is a heavy blow going since weeks, up in my house, nearly nothing. Cheers Rob

Thank you for your heartful words, amigos. I can feel that you´ve been where I am now. The only good thing, I keep saying to myself is, my dog had very good eight years of life and he died with dignity and didn´t suffer much. Can´t say the same for me, as he was my steady companion and friend through the last years, so close, only rivaled by my wife. Some hours in the cave help at least a little, to free my mind. Cheers Rob