DocRob

Congratulations to a very nice build of a very strange vehicle. There is lots of details to pleas the eye and the added cargo makes a nice contrast. Cheers Rob

Wow, delicate PE work, tedious, but will add a lot of realism to the kit. Cheers Rob

One of the ugliest planes ever to my eye, Peter, but when I saw the kit, I was interested, as I have a soft spot for weird designs. There is no form follows function with this one, it´s pure function. I hope the kit is as good as it looks promising on the sprues. Have fun with it. Cheers Rob

Great work Chris and I hear you about stenciling, have been there too and that caused a jet hiatus with me. The added Reskit racks and missiles look fantastic, way better than their plastic counterparts. Good to hear, that Top Notch masks are good to work with, but bummer with the sizing. I have some sets as well and will check them closely, when I start these builds. Cheers Rob

Looking good, Carl and quite profitable to have a look into the toolbox once in a while . Is the paintjob borrowed from the anime? I would have thought something more flashy would suit the futuristic design better. Anyhow, the Plus-Eagle came out splendid and it´s good to have a good story about no stenciling. Cheers Rob

On to the wheels, which proved easier to build than thought, luckily. It took two days to assemble them, but the second went together much faster, which keeps me hopeful for the five wire wheels of my recently purchased Ferrari kit. Some words of advice, if you plan to build a MHF motorcycle: - Check the rims and the building jig for perfect flatness. In my case, all were warped a bit, due to sanding and polishing the wheels. - Drill the holes for the spokes angled, as shown in the manual and indicated through the cast or you will have difficulties to thread in the spoke nipples. - Don´t use your best nippers for the spokes. The material is VERY hard and left dents even in my hardened tools. First spokes, aligned to the vent hole, one from under and one from above. All spokes need to be bent further and cut short on the bent side. First quarter of spokes is mounted per manual, then the spoke nipples were added from the outside and secured with CA One side finished, I then cut the protruding spoke ends, flipped the part in the jig and on with the second half. MFH chose to print their manual slightly larger than the real thing, unfortunately. One wheel ready, except for shortening the protruding ends. You can see, how the nipples fit into the rim´s holes. The front wheel is done: And the rear wheel followed "short" after , really not too hard to do, but you should work with concentration to prevent from mistakes: Cheers Rob

Thank you Martin, it´s definitely a new building experience, but a very exciting one. Motivation is the grease to successful modeling and this is very much the case here. Cheers Rob

Thank you Jeff, but I thought it would be harder to build a MFH motorbike. In fact, I had much more difficult projects, like the USS Arizona. The great design of the kits helps to get everything right. I´m more than astonished, that I have managed through more than half of the build in less than a month and mostly without big hick ups and had a lot of fun and motivation. Don´t sell your truck building short Jeff, every kind of modeling has it´s challenges and your finished kits are fantastic. Cheers Rob

Thank you Peter, it starts to look like a bike now and the finish is nice. The Crocker could be one of the rare kits, which makes it into my living area. The engineering is really superb on MFH´s side with only some little errors in the manual. Cheers Rob

The Yard Office looks fantastic Peter. Your brother will be proud to have it as a part of his railroad. Nothing better than a motivational build, whatever it is to regain the good modeling vibes. Thank you for showing something different here. I took mental notes for when my first wood and plaster kit looms. Cheers Rob

The Crocker starts to look like a bike now, with the rear fender attached. Primarily, I gave the fenders clear coat a polish with Tamiya´s polishing compounds. A bit of dust and fingerprints remain visible for the moment, as these are work in progress pics. To align all the struts, a positioning peg and a screw for mounting the rear fender was a bit fiddly, but in the end, it worked out. I added the rivets and taillight and started with the wheel hubs. Spoking is next . Cheers Rob

The itch has started Jeff, you may convince me to start a truck project sooner or later. Fascinating technical creatures they are and the start of your build looks fantastic with the added detail. You should try Alclad chrome or AK´s Extreme Metal, which is a tad less shiny but not at all bad. Polished aluminum is also an option. It´s not that hard, just strip the chrome, remove the seams, spray it high gloss black (I recommend Tamiya LP-1 and never use the AK black base for Extreme Metals, as it will stay tacky forever) and then on with the chrome in very thin layers, building up the shine, until the blackness of the base barely vanishes. Never flood the stuff. Glad your engine purchase with SpotModel worked out, it´s my trusty vendor, when it comes to car modeling and the best packaging model shop ever. Cheers Rob

Fantastic Peter, first, that you found your mojo back and second, enrichen our forum with something new. The walls and windows look fantastic and I take mental notes, as I have some plaster cast dio buildings in my stash. I will follow close and hope for many happy hours to follow for you during the build. Cheers Rob

Thank you Peter for your thoughts and experiences on clear coating. Over on MSW two resourceful members said, the cotton candy effect is a cause of not enough thinner. They use a 1 part to 3 part mixing ratio or even more thinner. I tend to see it the same way after my experiences yesterday. Clear gloss needs more thinner than other colors. The results look fine now with the Mr. Color GX-100, I may even get away without polishing. I recently ordered some jars of Zero Paints 1k lacquer gloss clear and I really like to see, how this works out. The AK 1k stuff was promoted in the following video : I have to say, I was heavily shocked about the terrible result. How could they promote their stuff with this video. I always wear a good respirator mask and work in my booth, when spraying and tend to vent the room for at least an hour, before continuing to work there. Cheers Rob

Wrong question to me, Jeff. It´s a modeling site and sometimes you have to generate some interest while showing something different. Be the advocate of your niche of the hobby. I can only add, I posted many strange subjects here, some where widely followed others less. With your quality truck building and weathering and your live time experience with the subject, it´s exciting for me to watch your trucks and other kits grow. To me, posting a WIP is not only giving, it´s also taking, in form of background information, or input about techniques or skills needed and I was rarely disappointed. Like Hubert said . Cheers Rob

I can understand your feelings Peter, as I had a working mate and friend back in Berlin, who was live time Corvette addicted. He owned every Corvette model ever made and sometimes, I accompanied him to his club buddies. One of them owned an old firefighter house, where the complete basement was his Corvette garage now. You could even use the old climbing poles, to slide down into the garage. Fascinating cars they are. Cheers Rob

Gloss coating to me is always adventurous and this time was not different. I used Mr. Color GX-100 clear gloss, which really looks perfect, when everything fits, but can be a nightmare to work with. I had cases in the past, where I had an effect like cotton candy, when spraying the GX-100 and thought, it was, because the clear was contaminated during the process. This time, I picked a new jar of GX-100, opened a new bottle of Mr. Color leveling thinner, poured both liquids directly into the metal cup of my airbrush and stirred with a cleaned metal rod. The airbrush was thoroughly cleaned beforehand. Cotton Candy again on my test sprue. As the whole process was clean and uncontaminated, I added more thinner, step by step and finally, it worked. The mix was not too thick at the beginning, but seemed to be the reason for that strange effect. I would really like to master that stuff on a reliable basis and take the thrill out of this step. Cheers Rob

Oh it was very visible unfortunately, Peter. At least, I had my first strip job, now I´m a real modeler . The polishing came out beautiful after some hours of work and I like the result as well. When do you have the chance in modeling to let metal look like metal. No fake metal / Alclad shine, but the real thing . It´s all sealed now and tomorrow I will show some pics. Cheers Rob

Thank you Tim, I´m relatively new to car and bike modeling, where super glossy finishes are needed. The problem here was not only the "edge" between the colors, it was also impossible to get the white exactly matching the decal. I tried to repair it and it looked better then on the pics, but it was not good enough as a base for gloss coating and polishing out. The problem with models is, if you sand or polish too much, you will wear through edges and protruding parts. Cheers Rob

I may leave it in the polished finish, Phil, albeit with the decals as shown below. That´s how the Crocker looks with the applied flame contour decals. I added the rear fender loosely to get an idea how everything looks, before I start to clearcoat everything. there is also another option included, which includes decals the front part of the tank to be pre painted gloss black. Looks attractive too, but somehow, I like the polished finish. Cheers Rob

If I leave it polished with or without the decals, I will clearcoat the tank. The polished metal looks exactly, like a polished aluminum tank and there are several examples where a Crocker was left without paint. The decal solution is a bit weird, as it needs to pre paint the more curved areas of the tank and then add decals in two layers for more opacity. I may have cut some masks after scanning the decals, but have no cutting plotter and fear my free hand cutting wouldn´t be perfect enough. Cheers Rob

Of course, I have an Ebbro one, Carl . Cheers Rob

It seems, I´m a bit more European biased, Peter, but I do like American car classics as well. The DS is a rare combination of ingenious design, innovative ideas and and futuristic shape in what you can call a family car. It looks somehow modern, even today, had steerable front lights and could drive on three wheels, due to it´s hydro pneumatic suspension system, among other interesting features. There are not many cars around, appealing the engineer and the artist as well. The DS 21 is the goddess, the others are just cars I borrowed one example from Spirou et Fantasio, to show the designs, used there, which were a kind of inspiration to me, when I was young. Cheers Rob

I gave the fuel tank another try and oversprayed the white, after sanding away the visible seam, using a different white color. The result was better but not good enough, so I stripped the tank, something I never did before. I always try to have the perfect plan, the appropriate tools, but this time, no luck. There are several decals for the fuel tank included in the kit, so my next try will be a polished finish with next to apply pinstripes in flame shape, similar to the black and white design. I filed and steel wooled the surface, before I polished with Autosol and my Proxxon cotton bit and finally by hand with cotton cloth and again Autosol. Somehow the sheen is hard to capture, it looks near mirror like in reality and the grey ´smear´ on the lower pic is some kind of reflex , no bad spot. Cheers Rob

Open a MFH box and feel it oozing quality, Peter, a special moment. The price tag is high, but the kits are in a league of it´s own. Availability is always an issue, as the kits sell fast and are out of stock forever or at least for a long time. There is no need for aftermarket with the Crocker, the only item used, was some millimeters of wine cap foil. I was heavily inspired not only by real cars, when I designed some, but also by Comic books, like Michel Vaillant and even more the fantastic designs by Franquin and other authors, who draw Spirou et Fantasio stories. They had such futuristic designs and I tried to follow their paths. The Ferrari comes close with it´s design. My favorite car is and will ever be the Citroen DS, the goddess, but I never owned one. I would have bought one back in Berlin, but on my island, it´s hard to maintain and the terrain is not perfect for a classic car, so I stay with my Jeep, an also classic design. About the Cobra Coupe, I don´t know. There are so many kits to build and my projects tend to be lengthy, so we´ll see. Cheers Rob