DocRob

I like the badness of it´s looks momentarily, Scott. No chances for a transatlantic Cobraism right now . Cheers Rob

Could it be, that the drag was too big, when flown with the open canopy? There would be a much better airflow with the rear windows removed. Cheers Rob

Looking good, Chris. The wash on top blends the camo colors better. When there is a matte coat on, it will be perfect. Cheers Rob

That came out nice, Carl, I can imagine your nervousness cutting out the canopy. Cheers Rob

I´ve seen the GPmodelling engine, but plan to keep it relatively simple with this build. Only some PE where needed and the thinner and tinted Decalcas acetate windows will be used. The rear should be closed, but I have to inspect the kit a bit further to definitely decide. Cheers Rob

Today, I received a car and some car build supplies from Spotmodel. Besides being always reliable, they have the best packaging in the modeling world. The Lancia Stratos is one of my favorite cars and I didn´t own a single kit of it. I pondered about the new 1/12 Italeri release, but it´s Italeri.... When I saw the Hasegawa 1/24 Stratos in Rally Acropolis livery, I was sold and had to buy it. I added some extras, like Reji PE parts, decals from Studio 27, because Hasegawa only included the blue borders for the orange arrows and I´m to lazy, to mask all of it and very thin green tinted clear acetate windows from decalcas, which give the possibility, to show the side windows half open. Some random stuff, like Zero lacquer clear coat, which is fantastic, some texturized Zero paints for gearboxes and brakes and not to forget Tamiya´s fantastic lacquer gloss and semi gloss black jars. I also added some Tamiya masking fluid, let´s see, how good that is and some tiny sponges to apply polishing paste. Seatbelts and intake funnels for my Lotus Type 88 from MFH , some USCP 3D printed engine parts for my 1/24 Ferrari GTO and Falcon Models radiators, to substitute the kit parts of Tamiya´s 1/20 Lotus Type 79. The detail of the printed radiators is fantastic, you can read through the fine mesh of the radiators, if you like. Cheers Rob

You don´t seem to own a smartphone, Scott . Cheers Rob

Thank you Paul, Chris and Carl, it´s a 95% recovery and that´s barely enough. Given, there is a lot of further assembling to do, there will be more dents and bruises, I guess. I want to start as clean as possible, as it becomes harder to solve body color probs later on. @BlrwestSiR Washing the parts before priming seems to erase a lot of static. I had to constantly wipe or brush the Cobra´s body parts during the prep process with drilling and sanding. It was like a dust magnet, which bettered with the claeansing. Cheers Rob

My heart was sinking too, Mike. I couldn´t have lived with that result, given there are more dents and bruises to come during continuing the build. It just has to look good from the beginning and then hopefully stays like it. In this case, the used paint was from Number Five, only the clear coat was from Zero. I had absolutely no issues, while spraying these colors, they behaved perfectly, thinned with leveling thinner. The Cobra has a resin body, which causes no issues with hot colors. I experienced difficulties with Zero Paints during my "plastic" McLaren MP4/6 build, where the Zero white body color ate through the primer and affected the plastic. I solved this issue, after a lot of sanding and re-priming with only misted coats of Zero white airbrushed onto the primer and let dry for some minutes. I also use a higher air pressure (about 1,6-1,8 bar) for quicker drying. With the coats slowly building up, I had no more issues spraying the later coats "wet" for archiving a nice surface. I had no spots or don´t feel a higher sensitivity to finger prints with the dried paint. Thank you Count, the goo was from my airbrush holder, an old piece, where the thinner dissolved some old paint, which waited until the very last second of airbrushing to run in front of the nozzle. I keep my airbrushes very clean, specially when spraying car bodies, but the goo blob had escaped my attention. The post race look was one idea, the other was a barn find, but when I start a project, I render an image in my head, how everything should look in the end and the Cobra was supposed to look brand new. I´m not good at changing ideas and see it more like an epic fail, having to do so and I don´t live easy with fails. Cheers Rob

Phew, I think, I have saved the Cobra from binning for now. After carefully sanding the splatter dots. first with 1500 grit, then 4000, 6000 and finally 8000 grit, there was one culprit left, the most visible unfortunately. I carefully dotted heavily thinned Tamiya LP-2 gloss white with a fine brush into the tiny crevice, building up the spot, until the color looked right. After drying the same sanding treatment like the others. After all was wiped clean, I applied two coats of Zero Paints lacquer gloss with about 50% of added leveling thinner and an hour of drying time in between. I think, I have a 95% solution achieved and later, when everything is properly cured, I will sand very carefully and polish until it´s an absolute high shine finish. Cheers Rob

Thank you for your thoughts, guys ( @HubertB, @BlrwestSiR, @belugawhaleman and @CANicoll). I did one thing some of you recommended at least, I let the Cobra where it was and went to bed and in the morning, I had a long two kilometer swim in the ocean, to get rid off the frustration. Maybe tomorrow, I will look, what I can do and I will try fine sanding, like Carl recommended. The fiberglass pen seems a bit aggressive to me, as it scrapes into the material relatively on spot, where sanding is easier to blend with a clear coat. @BlrwestSiR: Carl, I cleaned the body parts very thoroughly with warm water and some drops of detergent, using sponges and brushes. After all the sanding, drilling and prep work, the resin parts sported a lot of static and it was nearly impossible to get rid of dust. The proper washing helped to reduce that a lot and I had nearly no dust in my paintjob (only splattered blobs in the end . Cheers Rob

This camo looks great, Gus. Good the Extra Thin only hit the mat. Cheers Rob

Nice looking engine and cockpit, Kevin. Hasegawa has some very nice and good fitting kits of Japanese planes. I once built a Raiden and liked the kit a lot. Cheers Rob

The PL made the details pop, Chris, muy bueno. Cheers Rob

Like Martin said, looking very good, peppered by a unusual look. Cheers Rob

Have you ever had that modelling moment, where you wanted to rewind time for a minute. I had one today. After checking, if all the decals settled perfectly, I cleaned the body with soapy water, to get rid of any residues from the decaling phase. Then, I applied a first coat of Zero Paint clear gloss, with maybe 20% added leveling thinner. The first layer is only misted, to seal the decals in and due to rapid drying time (relatively high air pressure and low thinning ratio) reduce the risk of harming the decals with hot liquids. After about an hour, I applied the second layer of clear, this time more liberal with about a third of leveling thinner and after another hour, I applied the (planned) last layer thinned with ca. 50% of leveling thinner and sprayed on wet. So far so good, until, I took out the airbrush out of it´s holder, to blow the body color dry a bit and didn´t notice that some goo was on the front of the airbrush casing, which squirted onto my just finalized paintjob Now, I´m really frustrated, as everything went well since days of prep work, until the final seconds. I was about to bin the kit instantly, as I absolutely hate these kind of mishaps. I usually prepare my work thoroughly, trying to think ahead of everything, but when something goes seriously wrong, I´m impatient, restless and uncompromising. I´m not sure what to do, leaving it as is or waiting (again) for the clear to dry completely and then carefully try to sand the dots away and re-clear, risking of ruining everything or finally binning the kit. Here are the pics, it looks not too bad, but it is not acceptable. The orange peel look is due to the lighting of some hundred LED´s, the paintjob itself is near perfect and will be perfect after polishing. The dots on the roof´s stripes are the worst, but there are some more. Cheers Rob

Beautiful Phil, but no. I will reveal my plans, when I start the build, whenever that will be. Cheers Rob

The human eye is a fascinating organ, Gus, specially coupled with a working brain and stored experiences. Hard to beat, even by modern cameras, when it comes to certain light conditions, like harsh backlit objects. You can count my relatively smart camera to the fails as well, as it is not capable to render the blue tone of the Cobra´s body correctly, where my eye does a good job . Cheers Rob

Yes, its a beauty Chris. I had to have the kit, when I first saw it. I mean the MFH one, naturally. The Real size kit wouldn´t ever pass the German TÜV or Spanish ITV for technical acceptance. Cheers Rob

Thanks Paul, I understood that, I had looked at some videos from Factory Five during the build. The more "classic" builds look good, but I don´t like the winged monstrosities some made out of it. Nonetheless, the FF Coupe might be the bigger project, but the MFH Cobra isn´t piece of cake either, at least modeling wise . Cheers Rob

It´s unbelievable how precise a trained eye can measure and evaluate, Phil. That is specially true, with a curved object like a car body, where measuring is not so easy. Decaling was more of a challenge than thought here, because MFH forsees, that the decals conform around the edges of the body and wrap around the borders of air intakes and delicate cut off´s on the rear spoiler. It takes time, but looks better than simply put on decals. Cheers Rob

Thank you Paul, sometimes I think the same. It´s a demanding project and not the best entry into the MFH car kit world. The Crocker was much easier to assemble, as there are no huge resin parts to take care of and no bonnets / doors to open. Nevertheless, it´s still a lot of fun and a rewarding project. Nothing against a challenge to keep fresh. Cheers Rob

Nice Phil, I ever liked the Scammell and am eager to see, what you do with it. I have the artillery tractor version from Thunder and special plans, about what to do with it. Cheers Rob

Nice and smooth Chris. Are you planning further weathering on top, maybe a unifying wash or a hint of brown sprayed veeeery lightly overall? Cheers Rob

Thank you Chris, the blue is only what my usually reliable camera is making out of it. I altered every setting, but could not match it to my eyesight. The body color has a slight petrol hue, which looks closer to the original, when I look at photos. Today, I revised the stripes, adding a dot of Micro Sol here and there and looking for mishaps. After clear coating, it will be difficult to repair such mistakes. Cheers Rob