DocRob

That weird chroming and pre printing is strange, shouldn´t be too hard to get it right with such a relatively well known subject. Interesting, that they used ABS, Carl. I didn´t knew, there existed ABS glue from Tamiya. In my recently started Tamiya RC166 build, there is a sprue in the spoked wheel package, which is labeled ABS, maybe, it was easier to produce it with the tiny holes for the spokes this way. Other than that, I never came across ABS parts. Cheers Rob

Sorry to hear about your loss, Winnie. I have been there last year and like Gus and Kevin said, I never felt so miserable with the loss of relatives. Beloved pets are like inner circle of the family. Fortunately a sweet cat, which was around for a log time, but was always chased away by hour dog, took it´s place and adopted us soon after he died and took some of the weight off our shoulders. Rob

First raced one year after the Cobra Coupe in Le Mans. Great project, Carl and the surgery came out nice as well. Cheers Rob

How I envy you about having a LHS in reach, Carl, even more with Alclads for that price. I have problems getting Alclads at all, no matter how expensive, but I´m happy for you . Cheers Rob

Nice to be in a aircraft museum again, even virtually. Thanks for showing. Many moons ago, I built that tiny 1/72 Finnish Mig 15 UTI from an Eduard kit. It was my first natural metal finish. Cheers Rob

I´ve seen that video too, very interesting. The BT44B is on my immediate building list as well, possibly my next project. I love the aggressive looks of the BT44. Like you, I have so many choices in 1/20 or 1/24, but will end up with 1/12 more likely. There is the MFH Lotus 77 or the MFH Brabham BT52B or even the MFH Williams FW16. The Jordan 191 is also a very sleek car, but I don´t have one in my stash. Not my cup of tea. Some days ago, MFH showed a French flag on their site for the April release and I had high hopes for a Citroen DS, maybe in rally outfit or even an Alpine A110, but I was expecting something like the MS670, because they already have the engine ready, as it is more or less the same like in the Matra MS11 F1 car. If I really can convince myself about the toyish Matra blue, it would be the MS11 for me with the visible 12 cylinder engine beauty. Cheers Rob

Count me in, Kevin, I have a Meng 410 in my stash and was sometimes urged to build her. If I remember right, the prop and spinners are off and I added some from Aires or Profimodeler. I can look if you´re interested. Cockpit looks really good. Cheers Rob

Thank you Martin, the build was a chore sometimes, but most was outright fun. I´m happy, that the beast is nearly done. I felt, I had put on a bit too much onto my shoulders with the late stages of the build. I think, it was the hardest build of my increasing MFH stash. Cheers Rob

Peter Brock designed the Cobra Coupe from a sketch on some spare paper to the final design. He developed the car parallel to the normal Cobra Roadster racers under his own responsibility. It proved, the fast development was successful, as the Coupe was much faster and fuel efficient than the Roadsters. The Dodge Viper shown, well, there are some similarities, but it lacks all the aggressive elegance of the Cobra Coupe with it´s bulbous 90´s design. Where the Cobra looked modern for it´s time, the Dodge Viper looks like yesterdays newspaper . Cheers Rob

Thank you FA, the sidepipes looked very white on the original car as well. It´s maybe hard to see on the pics, but I added a bit of depth, using two different shades of white. I haven´t used any panel liner on the outer shell of the Cobra and may find the contrast a bit too harsh on the exhausts. Cheers Rob

It was a menace at it´s time, Carl. The Coupe was developed for better aerodynamics, which was necessary to compete on European circuits, like Le Mans or Spa, where higher speeds were reached. Different drivers, new to the Cobra Coupe achieved immediate lap records during training sessions. My example driven by Dan Gurney and Jerry Grant in Le Mans 1965 some days after my birthday. They did not finish though. Cheers Rob

Thank you Count, guilty as charged . What car would that be? Cheers Rob

The Cobra Coupe is almost done, what a relief. Last steps were adding the exhaust sidepipes, adding the wheels, mounting the wiper and also doing a lot of touch up work. The exhausts were fiddly to attach, but again, clever design by MFH helped a lot and with a little wiggling they snapped in place, without breaking the manifolds loose, which would have been very bad. The wheels were a joy to assemble and easy to attach with their turned and threaded aluminum axles and fitting nuts. The nuts also received the three winged securing nuts and a tiny PE logo in the middle. The wiper was a multi part affair, made from cast white metal and several bended PE parts. There are only a few parts missing now, which I hope to find during cleaning the bench. Last and most dreaded was the assembly of the hood. I cut the hinges and was only able to close the hood perfectly with a tiny bit of force. I added two tiny aluminum rivets with 0,5 mm diameter to secure the hood in it´s appropriate place, phew, done . Some outdoor pics will follow later, when the sun is shining and all the touch ups are done. Cheers Rob

I know it is slow, Count, because I started with 400 grit and then went to 800 grit, but still, lots of nasty burr. Cheers Rob

Thank you amigos, I´m happy that the glazing is almost done, as there is no real second chance, when something goes badly wrong. Other than many companies, MFH provides only one set of vac parts and these are easily scratched and polishing out scratches is nearly impossible. The seal was great to work with. It was something like a 3D-decal, somewhere between stiff and flexible and was perfectly shaped to fit. I only wish, MFH would have said how to work with it in the manual. Cheers Rob

Lovely detail there with the cockpit framing, Carl. Cheers Rob

Thank you for taking us with you, Carl. It seemed to have been a great show. I especially like the relatively great amount of off the trotten path kits shown. Cheers Rob

Thank you Count, this is valuable information. I found cutting as close as possible with a pair of good scissors made a finer cut, than sanding, which caused lots of burr. Cutting precisely with scissors might prove difficult with 1/43 parts, but with 1/12, it´s preferable, where possible. Sanding was done with sponges, but the most difficult part was to get rid of the burr with a scalpel and sometimes fingernails. Cheers Rob

Thank you Hubert and Martin. My mind was blown as well sometimes during the build. I try to recover and get the Cobra over the finish line soon. Cheers Rob

I continued with the glazing, starting with the windscreen. This is again a clear vacuum formed part, which needed to be cut to fit. There is a tiny sill, where the screen sits recessed into. After fitting it properly, I used transparent adhesive double sided tape of 1 mm width again (best stuff ever for these cases) and with a deep breath pushed the windscreen in. There are two possibilities supplied with the kit for the sealings, one made by rubber (upper) and another, which the manual calls UV print. Never heard of, but luckily found a descriptive video build from Pooh´s on YT, which described it as a kind of decal and this seems to be the case, maybe like the Quinta sets. After removing the protective foil, it looked like this, not very appealing. ...but it worked very well. I dampened the backing paper and after a minute, it came loose from the sheet and was easily applied onto the windscreen. Thanks again to Pooh, because nothing about the how to with this part was mentioned in the manual. I was on a roll and added the bubbly plexy side ducts behind the door´s windows, again with double sided tape and in this case with some rivets. Most of the glazing is done now, except for the vizor screens on the side of the windscreen. Cheers Rob

Thank you Carl, I´m happy with how it came out. Next will be the windscreen, which hopefully will be a bit easier, but then there are more clear parts to add in form of wind vizors and air ducts, phew . Cheers Rob

I liked the look of the hatch without the rivets, when you see the whole car, nice and sleek, but after applying the rivets, I thought it´s the cherry on the cake. Cheers Rob

That´s the benefit of these vac form parts, Chris. They are thin, distortion free and absolutely clear. Cutting them to fit can be difficult and they scratch very easily. Many companies provide two sets of vac parts, MFH is none of them unfortunately. Cheers Rob

Beautifully done, Chris. Detailing and weathering blend for a beautiful model. I have no idea about the XVI antennas and wiring. On your pic, I can detect a line going up from the middle of the spine. It can easily be a scratch in the pic or a wire leading to nothing, because the photo was retouched not very professional. Could be the explanation for the missing stains as well. Cheers Rob

Wow, cool photos, which make your splendid build look alive. Paintjob and weathering look so real. Cheers Rob