DocRob

A late Wingnut Wing . The stand looks great, Kevin, but I would add some padding onto the supporting parts. Chipping is also nice, as it is visible in the markings as well. Cheers Rob

If there are relatively flat surfaces, Hubert, here you go. MFH has two different styles of these as adhesive sheets. I have the finer one here and if you are interested, I can supply a photo. 糊付極薄アルミシート [金属きさげ加工模様 ]/Adhesive aluminium sheet [ Circular brushed metal texture ]. The Bugatti is tempting, but it is also made by Italeri. I have two of their large scale car kits and will buy others, only after building one and get an idea about the quality. I´m more than a bit hesitant with Italeri kits. Cheers Rob

You are absolutely right, Count, after race finishes are charming as well, but opposite to planes or tanks, should be weathered onto decent paint jobs imho. I will experiment with this kind of finish later on, when I have a bit more experience with car kits. For now, I have to live with wear and tear due to abusing my Cobra during final assemblies, which was supposed to look newish . Cheers Rob

Thank you Mike, don´t sell yourself short, I´m sure you are absolutely able to build a MFH kit to absolute beauty. I´m just the guy, who sometimes likes to be in the water first while surfing, which the others usually call the current dummy . My experiences with car builds are sparse as well, but I like challenges. You are right about the car finishes, which need to be as close to perfect as possible. Even with a weathered and abused rally car, the base should be a good paint job as with the real one before the start. Mass production war machines don´t cry for a perfect surface finish or even perfect surfaces. De nada for the detailed build logs. I like to show my approach, my successes and my fails as well, because I think this can be helpful to others. I rely on build logs as well, like in this case the YT build log from Pooh´s modeling works, which show the Cobra build really detailed. Cheers Rob

Well, the stars Kevin, it´s only a kit, but a certainly not very easy one. If I wouldn´t be generally criticising myself, I wouldn´t have had the skills and cojones to even start Cobra build . Cheers Rob

Thank you FA, I really appreciate a challenging build, small or big and try always to learn new techniques and hone my skills during my projects. I don´t build for exhibitions or competitions or for club meetings, etc., which means, I´m my fiercest competitor and I can be really hard that way, because I detest fails. I even dislike to redo certain steps during a build due to errors, because it means, there wasn´t proper planning or execution performed. Anyway, I still like the Cobra and will make my peace with the build hopefully. Cheers Rob

Thank you Carl, sometimes it happens to everyone, I guess . I thought hard about my options, but couldn´t find a proper solution. I think, it´s generally a problematic area of the build, like I read in other build descriptions. There are so many parts involved into fitting the hood, it´s nearly impossible to foresee everything. Right now, I will concentrate on the remaining steps, wich are demanding as well. There are numerous vac parts to apply for the headlights, wind visors, air ducts windshield and rear hatch window, an area, where don´t have a lot of experience. Most of the parts will be hold in place with tiny rivets . Cheers Rob

Thank you for your sympathy and support Chris and Hubert. It´s not the worlds end to me and I really enjoyed most of the build, it´s only a degree of frustration, not be able to solve a problem, I had foreseen through the whole build. Usually, I find solutions for these kind of things, but this time I failed, but I will try it again. My next MFH build will be probably a Formula 1 car, which I suspect a bit easier to build. The Cobra was possibly a bit too much for my minimal expertise with these kind of kits. The engine will remain accessible, if everything works like planned. There will be two tiny rivets to be pulled out with a pair of tweezers, to open the bonnet. I have some more MFH kits in my stash for training purposes, so maybe one day, I roll one out, which i don´t consider a fail . Cheers Rob

The Cobra build will go down as a fail for me. Nonetheless, I will finish it, but my attitude towards the build has changed and it doesn´t feel good, as I gave my best and am sure, it´s only my fault and not the kits. What happened. From the beginning, I feared the fit of the huge bonnet to the body to be critical and spent numerous hours in dry fitting and manipulating parts to reach that goal. When I finally came to the last dry fitting, after marrying the chassis to the body, I hit the wall again, it was not possible to close the bonnet properly. After hours of searching again for the obstructive parts, sanding, routing and grinding them to fit, I gave up and cut the bonnets hinges, the final measurement, which made the build a fail to me. I will only be able to remove the bonnet, but never with it´s purposed function. Nonetheless, I continued with outfitting the bonnet. I added the front coolers and headlights. These have a cast metal socket, bolted on from the inside and consist of finely turned aluminum reflectors. The bulbs are clear resin and I decided to paint them with clear yellow for a dot of color. The headlights then receive a PE and cast framing and were glued in from the outside. The lower lights got a tiny polished reflector glued into the middle of the clear part. I will skip the internal wiring, to leave the bonnet removable. Cheers Rob

If you mean beside here, no Cheers Rob

Nice Carl, good to have not to go for historical accuracy with these MaK kits. It leaves you a lot of freedom with painting and weathering. Cheers Rob

ZM is going to release a two seater? I have the -A in stash and plan to build it soon, but am more interested into the two seater. Anyway, if I´m building both, I would go for wood and metal finish with the -A. Cheers Rob

Thank you FA and Paul. The hoses are all supplied with the kit. The two yellow oil tubes in the middle should have been a greater diameter, but I found that looking odd and chose the smaller ones. The only aftermarket used, I can think of is the red battery wire. There is only black supplied, but I wanted a touch of color. Cheers Rob

One day later and the engine bay is near ready. I added electric wiring, oil and cooling tubes and re glued the ignition wiring. I also made a lot of touch ups with white and black paint and added the fender fairings, which broke loose more than once. One tip for adding the tubes into pre drilled holes like the silver coolant tank on the left. I cut the hose diagonally and that made it easier to fiddle them in. Same goes for the yellow oil tubing under the stripes, which are really hard to reach. The small black oil reservoir on the right side is still not fit, because I lost the inner part, which I needed to break free for adding the manifolds. Cheers Rob

Thank you Mike, right now, I´m detailing the engine area further with plumbing and wiring. There is definitely a lot stuff under the hood. Cheers Rob

Thank you Chris, the whole exhausts were white, at least in 1965. Later some chassis had polished metal ones. My chassis was painted white in the engine area, where others were painted silver. The change for a bigger block seemed to have been not so easy in the confined compartment. Cheers Rob

Thank you Hubert, these spaghettis are definitely al dente, which was part of the problem. There are two manifold parts for each side and you have to explore, how to fiddle them in. It took some time to find out how, even with the extra sequence description. That MFH provides updated manual information shows, that they are really building the kits, which is good to know. Cheers Rob

Exhausts and manifolds, an assembly, I didn´t look forward to, because it´s multiple parts in very confined space. I took my time, dry fitting the manifolds before painting. After airbrushing all in Tamiya lacquer matte white, there was no way around continuing. Fortunately there is an additional manual page provided by MFH, which shows the sequence, how to mount the parts. With the sketches in the normal manual, I would never had made it. Especially the right side was delicate, as there are frame rods and the steering column to add, which are all intersecting, it´s a true 3D puzzle. It took some time and some damages occur during the process, but somehow I got it done finally. Mind, these are bench shots without touch ups and repairs, which will be done after test fitting the side pipes. Cheers Rob

First there were experiments with hard tops on normal Cobra roadsters to increase their speed. That became necessary, because Shelby wanted to compete in Europe, where the track designs were different. Longer race laps and higher speeds called for better aerodynamics. It proved, the hard tops were not enough and so Peter Brock designed an all new body, the Cobra Coupe. The first one was built on the chassis of a Cobra roadster in the US and proved fast, but underwent several aerodynamic changes, cumulating into the new rear spoiler, which added some needed rear downforce. Brock claimed, the design, specially the cut tail end was based on German constructions from the 30´s and he seemed to be right with his approach, gaining more than 20 miles top speed and reduced gas consumption. The remaining five chassis were built in Modena (Italy), because there were no capacities in the US. Cheers Rob

Pretty scary stuff, Carl. I think unsecured load was very common in past decades, but the situation bettered. What also changed is the power and aggressive driving style of transport vehicles. Back in Germany it was sometimes scary to had a white van in your vicinity. They were a symbol for traffic rudeness. Cheers Rob

I wouldn´t call it frustrating, Chris. Usually the research done by MFH is pretty decent and I tend to rely onto their information. The instructions show two different chassis, #2601 for different races and my #2286 for Le Mans and always refer to their differences. Cheers Rob

That´s a very contrasting camo Gus, but it came out great. Your weathering efforts blend the colors a bit, which I really like. Cheers Rob

The oil stains came out great, Chris. You will recover from the little mishaps and turn out a beauty. I usually spray the prop tips first and mask them off to spray the rest of the prop long before decaling. This sequence works best for me and allows consistent weathering on tis and blades together. Cheers Rob

Thank you Chris, I also did some research, but find it hard to get conclusive evidence about some details, as all the built chassis were different and were often modified later on. In your picture and the other rear section shot of your source, I can´t even see evidence of a spare tyre rack. I found some pictures on Rare Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupe to Auction - Racing Vintage Cars for chassis #2601, which show the rack, but without the possibility to add a center lock. There is also no evidence of the rear light wires on the sides of the trunk. It seems difficult to build the #2286 chassis to 1965 standard without compromises, which is ok for me. Cheers Rob

The rear section got finished with the spare tyre rack. I´m not sure about the rope and have to find some pictures of the real car to verify, but this is, how it is shown in the manual. I don´t want to have a collision with that huge heavy tyre behind my head. Next, I started to prepare the exhausts. The manifolds are made from white metal, which has to be fitted into the confined space of the engine compartment. The side pipes are produced from resin and the exhaust ends are 3D printed which added PE- and rivet fittings. Every time, little coil springs are involved, it gets creepy. These buggers are really hard to fit into the PE fittings properly and you don´t want them airborne. Anyway, here are the end pieces. Cheers Rob