DocRob

Thank you Hubert. The model is indeed of the highest possible quality. If you are aware of the number of kits, MFH produces and the process of designing these, you can understand the hefty price tag. I´ve seen some very good kits over my modeling career, but these are in league of their own. Cheers Rob

Thank you Mike. I actually sent the pics to MFH, as they have a customer gallery. Lets see, if they accept my entry. If it does kick their sales, I cannot say, but I became a willing customer . Cheers Rob

Thank you Kevin, FA and Paul, this won´t be my last MFH kit for sure. I have some others in stash and may start with the Cobra Coupe in 1/12 soon. Cheers Rob

For the price you have to pay for the 1/12 Tamiya McLaren, I would go all in and buy a Model Factory Hiro one, which I considered, albeit a MP4/5b. The Tamiya kit with some extras comes close with it´s price tag. I have several tempting 1/12 car kits and my favorites right now is the MFH Cobra Coupe. For 1/12 F1 kits, I only have the Tamiya Brabham BT44b at hand with some goodies, as well as the MFH Williams FW16. Cheers Rob

I may do that Phil, it´s resting in the box for now and possibly, I will pull it out again, build it closed up and forget about it. Cheers Rob

Due to my fault, I lost some parts, like the bezel glasses and the very prominent spring fork adjuster, which flew away during polishing and was never seen again. I emailed MFH and a bit more than a week later, I had spare parts along a hand written note, encouraging me to finish the Crocker, nice touch. Today, I added the saddle and the cockpit, after polishing said adjuster and can call my first MFH build finished. It was a pure pleasure build of a well constructed kit, with the chain, being the only troublesome area. It was a fantastic variety to work mainly in metal and be able to not paint everything, instead sand and polish or leave a natural metal finish. As a sidenote, I would like to have a `Finished Cars and Bikes´ section, like @Martinnfb suggested lately. This is not a tank by far. Cheers Rob

Like Peter says, Mom firs, Chris. The F4 will not run away. I doubt, screws are a solution to mount the resin wheels. I guess the LG axles are relatively thin and won´t take a thread without disintegrating. Maybe you can strengthen the assembly using brass tubes, one fitting onto the axle and the next larger one fitted into the hub. Albion makes ´slide fit´ brass tubes, which actually slide into each other with minimum tolerances. Cheers Rob

What a nice start to inaugurate the new cave, Hubert. The Columbia looks absolutely fantastic and from the small pictures, it is not visible, that it is not a real scale model. The place to display the beauty is also wonderful and I like the rigged sails. Cheers Rob

Thank you Chris and Peter, it´s not only the kits fault, that I´m now so aggravated with this project. Many aspects of the kit are finely reproduced, but with the GAP, I can´t see any errors, I made. Everything aligns well and is in the right position. F1 cars are always a bit tricky, when it comes to closing the body, as due to their nature, they have so many internal details, crammed in the tinies possible space. For now, I have shelved the McLaren and maybe, I´m willing to finish it later with a compromise, something I´m not good at . I thought about these options as well, Kirk and Carl, but when I start a project, I have a relatively clear image in my mind, about how the subject should look in the end. With the McLaren, one of the main goals was to finish it with a detachable body, to show the interior. I´m not good with making concessions to my initial plan. Normally I try to dig my way through the obstacles, but the McLaren stomped me on the wrong foot right from the start. Cheers Rob

Excellent progress, Peter. The front office looks fantastic. Makes me want to start a Spitfire as well. I have a Kotare one and two Eduard XIV´s in 48 scale. Cheers Rob

After some bits of progress, the MP4/6 project stalls again. It seems to fight me on all cylinders, but maybe it´s just me. Over the last days, I prepared body parts, front and rear wings for painting and in the process, I test fitted the body over the engine and monocoque. There was a huge gap to the lower floor pan. In the progress, some parts from the engine and monocoque cracked loose and the described gap can only be closed with sheer force. It would be possible to glue the body in place, but that was not what I had in mind, with all the detailing and decaling of the innards of the car. I hate to admit it, but the McLaren is getting on my nerves, which is rare with my projects. Normally, I pull through obstacles, but the constant struggle with this kit let my patience vanish. My whole bench is cluttered with the detail sets and all the partly badly and small printed manual sheets, which should be merged during the project. The kit´s manual isn´t to good either. But the neck breaker was the GAP, which you can see on the pics. I absolutely wanted a removable body and that´s not possible at all, so back on the shelf. Cheers Rob

I may found pictures from the engine you mentioned, it seems to be on display in a Honda museum and may doesn´t show the status used in the actual racing cars. The gearbox color seems to be a very dark metallic brown on the pictures in my reference book. Mine looks metallic black indeed, but I may pause or bin the MP4/6 project due to reasons, I will explain in the next post. Cheers Rob

Interesting aspects, Kirk, thanks for that. I have the MFH picture book as a reference, which seems to show only one car in one configuration, but in every detail. I´ve never seen the configuration of the Fujimi plastic with the cooling grilles on pictures. Cheers Rob

It´s the same paint, Peter, only under different lighting conditions. The first pic is taken under artificial light with 5200K, the second with natural light .

Thank you Peter and yes, it´s a very beautiful car. With the Williams FW16 blue from Zero Paints, I made some matching tests, with the color sprayed un thinned onto a spare part. It comes close, but it´s not perfectly matching and also depends a bit on the lighting. I may have to do some mixing, albeit Zero claims, the blue is mixed according to the kits decals. Cheers Rob

Thank you Chris, using a hairdryer needs to be tested on spares, but I found with some decals, like the Studio 27 carbon decals or Aviattic decals for WWI planes, it works really good. The gold for the brake calipers is Tamiya´s lacquer LP-62 titanium gold, which is a good fit. My last motorbike a KTM 950 SM had Brembos mounted and I remember the color clearly and they have been bitten like hell. Cheers Rob

I stenciled a Corsair and an Arado 234 with masks. The Arado was the worst, having some stencils in three different colors. Some years ago, I completely stenciled a 1/48 Kai Phantom and boy, this was exhausting. Some of the fuselage stencils were grouped though and the quality of the decals was so good, no silvering or carrier film showed. Cheers Rob

I don´t know how you do it, but your project is looking bright and clean and used and worn at the same time, simply amazing. It´s not that often, that a modeler has a signature style of his own to show, congratulations. Cheers Rob

A truly painful process with the stenciling Chris, but wait until 1ManArmy comes out with stencil masks for the big F4, applying these is true tormenting fun . Cheers Rob

Muchas gracias amigos, the carbon decals are really nice to work with. At first application, you think, they will never snuggle around the curved shapes, but with a dose of heat and softener, they miraculously do. @BlrwestSiR: I just saw, that you even cleaned your bench, what better time to start . Cheers Rob

Found this today and was wondering . Cheers Rob

I added the front suspension and the carbon side air intakes with some electronic device detail, but decided against wiring them. The engine and car bottom are not finally attached to the monocoque. For the next steps, I prepared the air intakes for the brakes, which needed to be decaled with carbon pattern decals. When you apply the decals to the sides of the intakes, they are slightly oversized, but with some doses of Mr. Mark softer and hot air from the hairdryer, the start to contour around the edges and the mid section can be applied the same way. Time consuming, but it works and the carbon decals behave good and are not to brittle. The carbon thread pattern looks absolutely beautiful in black and anthracite. I also finished the brake calipers with Titanium gold, some black panel line wash and finally the tiny Brembo markings. Cheers Rob

Thank you both, I hope to have it off the bench soon, but it´s somehow hard to establish a good workflow with the kit. Carl, I remember you telling about the MP 4/6. It was 1/12 scale, right. Should be a nice project. Cheers Rob

I can´t tell you Carl, but I saw some nice builds out of the Fujimi kit. It seems to be one of the better Fujimi kits and relatively accurate. Cheers Rob

Quality stuff as always Peter, The cockpit and interior looks fantastic with all the eye pleasing detail. I hope this will be a fun and motivating project for you. Cheers Rob