DocRob

Beautifully done, Gus, I have to start one myself soon, if I ever build a plane again . Cheers Rob

Phew, close shave on rescuing the Hornisse, Kevin. The cockpit looks great, even after the accident. Cheers Rob

Muchas gracias Count, The extra sets seem to be hard to find right now, so yes, your mentioned offer was a good one. I had the kit for a while, searching for the extras, which were available in Japan two years ago for good prices, but are seemingly gone now. Cheers Rob

Thank you Paul, the kit is a beauty and would look nice out of the box. The Tamiya extra sets raise the bar though. you can´t substitute metal for metal. The spokes are made from stainless steel and don´t need to be cut or bent. The chain set, I won´t use, it seems to be very delicate to assemble and after the MFH Crocker´s chain experience, I try to exchange motorcycle chains only for 3D printed ones. For the RC166, I have a Falcon Model chain set. Cheers Rob

Probably my next MFH project. Today, I received that beauty directly from the Company. It took five days to be delivered to my doorstep an absolute record, the big A takes as much time to even start shipping an ordered product to my place. The Brabham BT45 wasn´t a successful car, but it looks absolutely cool. 70´s formula one cars were so different from each other. The BT45 followed the very good BT44, which had the Cosworth DSV 8cylinder engine implanted. The 45 was redesigned for accepting a Alfa Romeo flat 12 engine, which was cheaper (or even free) for Brabham. Unfortunately the engine was not very reliable and the BT45 was not so popular. I´m more attracted by design so for me, the car is a clear winner. Cheers Rob

Next, I started with the wheels, an extra set made by Tamiya to substitute the not too shabby kit wheels. But what looks better than plastic, right, metal. The rims are turned and the spokes are pre lengthened and pre bent. I recommend to study the manual very thoroughly and check twice, as it is easy to make mistakes. There is a line engraved into the jig for alignment with the valve and I nearly interpreted a cast blemish for the marking. First you add the spokes to the ABS hub and roughly align them correctly. The manual calls for using whit glue to fix them temporarily, but I thought, I try masking fluid instead, Worked great and will be easy to remove. After the second of four sets are aligned in the opposite direction, it´s time to put the rim and the spoked hub into the jig. With a pair of tweezer and very light bending of the spokes, you insert them into the rims holes. Finally, you add the spoke nipples from the outside. I used an old, very sharp pair of tweezers for that, holding the nipples by their middle hole and inserted them. Sometimes, a little wiggling with the spoke was necessary to insert the nipple properly. Then the nipples were secured with CA and whoops, half a wheel is finished. Cheers Rob

Thank you Kurok and FA, these recent Tamiya motorcycle kits are phenomenal. I built a Ducati some years ago as my first motorcycle kit and then got hooked. Every now and then, there will be one on my bench. Cheers Rob

The engine got a bad hair day with the tubing. I used the supplied vinyl tube, albeit it may be a bit on the thick side, but I want a relatively quick build and not hassle with preparing all the connectors with tiny brass rods. Not much of it will be visible, anyway. The frame was sprayed with Tamiya LP gloss black, which again was perfect with it´s shiny finish. The light brown "things" might be capacitors, if I´m not wrong, which will be connected with the spark plug wires. The footrests are made from turned aluminum and are supplied with the original kit, nice touch, Tamiya. Cheers Rob

Thank you Carl and FA. The precise fit and great engineering make that engine a pleasure to build. I thought it would take much longer, being used t very demanding and lengthy builds lately. It was intended to be an in between build. The engine sound must be - unique - I guess, unlike you compare it to dentists drilling machines. Cheers Rob

I started with the engine and I have to say, this kit is absolutely fantastic, even by Tamiya´s standards. I built their big F4-U and the 1/48 P-38, which were excellent kits, but the Honda is even better. The engine is very complex, but so well engineered and the parts are fitting perfectly. The cooling ribs are a piece of art and are only possible to be casted in plastic, as there are several thin parts, which get stacked onto each other, genius. I used Extreme Metal colors for the engine, matte aluminum for the block, titanium for the oil pan and other parts and a mix from titanium and copper for the carburetors. The air funnels are turned aluminum and the clutch consists from PE clutch discs and a pre fabricated metal cage. I used a brown panel liner for accentuation and painted all the screwheads with silver. Cheers Rob

Since a while, I desired to start the build of the famous Honda RC166 from Tamiya, driven by Mike Hailwood, who won the world championship in 1966 and 1967 with this bike. What a change after the big Cobra of the same scale, I finished recently. Instead of the big block, there is a tiny machine build in, but it´s very special. It has a displacement of only 250 ccm but has six cylinders, generating about 60 PS with a max of 18.000 revolutions. The max. speed was 245 km/h. The Tamiya kit dates back to 2009 and I will add all the available extra sets from Tamiya, which I got for relatively small coin directly in Japan. There is a set of metal parts for the front fork, clutch and air intake funnels, another for the metal spoke wheels, one for the numerous metal rivets and one for building up a PE chain. The latter I won´t use, because I have a 3D printed chain set from Falcon. Cheers Rob

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