BlrwestSiR

Late last year I contacted a vendor on eBay whom I had previously purchased a set of resin rims and tires for a 1/12 Porsche. I asked if he could do some rims for my 1/12 Countach and he agreed. At the same time I asked about replacement tires for my Tamiya 1/12 McLaren MP4/6. The originals were badly deformed from age and I was just going to build it without. He had a set of slicks for the other F1 cars in that scale but didn't have an MP4/6 for use as a template so I sent my rims to him. Today, I got a package full of rims and tires. The Countach rims along with a new set for the Ford GT40 which I also sent along at his request. The new MP4/6 tires. The black rims are the kit ones I sent him. He made resin versions as well as a rain tire version and sent me those too. You can see the tread pattern here compared to the slick. Here's what my kit tires look like after 31 years. Needless to say I'm thrilled by this and now I can consider getting my longest running kit build finally done. Maybe.

Not a bad idea.

I thought you were going to say the "sniffing glue" scene

Tried to get tires for my Best. Can't seem to find the sizes I need. Any suggestions? Sizes are F: 195/45/15 R: 195/40/16

Slug is right. Me likey! They remind me of the Enkeis I had on my '06 Civic.

For a moment, I thought the first pic was a forced perspective image. The tank looks awesome as does the presentation.

Thanks Peter. I've been trying to figure out the best way to fill the various gaps and smooth out the contours. I settled on planking the rear section and then sanding things smooth.

Looking good there Scott.

That looks great Dave. Nicely done. Carl

We were in a large park watching it so some folks had dogs with them and a few started to bark right before the totality. I think the birds stopped chirping at around the same time. It was definitely quieter during the eclipse. Well, except for Edward being loud with excitement.

Now I'm really jealous. I've got the Gunze 1/24 kit but it doesn't compare to that.

Gundam can be quite the rabbit hole to fall into. And potentially addictive too. If you're thinking of building a larger one, Master Grade is the next size up. They're 1/100 scale, Real Grade (the one you built) being 1/144. Master Grade have more detail, and generally more pivots. The top of the line is Perfect Grade. Those are 1/60 but quite a bit more in price. Then there's SD which is the eggplant style series of kits. They're generally simpler in build than the Real Grade ones. Recently Bandai has come out with MG-SD which combines the details of the Master Grade kits with the SD style. Like I said, quite the rabbit hole. Anyways, looks like you had fun and hopefully the grandsons will like trying them out.

Or possibly the size of the mess on one's workbench.

I'm liking the bronze look myself. I have a set of Koenig Heliums on my Beat in the bronze. They're great with the burnt orange that the car is. Had to do a +2 fit to find tires that would fit due to the stagger. I'm hoping to find something similar for our next car which might be dark blue.

Ernie, it does doesn't it?

Ours was just over 3 minutes long. Just finished. The clouds broke just enough to see it.

Nice scheme there John. I've heard the kit is like a smaller version of the Tamiya kit.

It's just started up here. We drove to Hamilton so hopefully will see a total eclipse as Toronto will only get a partial one. Right now it's overcast but it looks like we're getting some breaks in the cloud cover.

It does indeed.

Time to start filling in the gaps around the nozzles. Topside: Bottom side:

Scott, my bad. The F-4F has an unslotted tailplane which I got mixed up with the slatted wing.

Ralph, that's great progress that you've made. Nice to hear that the fit is still good all these years later.

Jeff, thanks for sharing. It's great to hear the back story on some of these subjects and with your hands on experience with the real things, it brings a greater sense of appreciation of your work.

The hard wing also comes in any of the Revell Germany F-4F kits too. There's lots of those kicking around if that helps. I have a couple extra Tamiya hard wing outer panels if you want those and try a kit bash.

At least you got the cover back on in time.