Cobra Coupe - Le Mans - Model Factory Hiro 1/12

[DocRob]

12 hours ago, CANicoll said:

Rob,  you know, once the wheels are on you won't hardly see any of the discs so it is not an issue.  I should have thought about that before commenting.  Your close-up photos are fantastic.  You need to submit those for an e-book on building this kit.

No worries Chris, the discs doesn´t look too bad and like you said, little can be seen through the wheels. Thank you for commenting about the photo quality. I try to keep my standards and possibly enhance them a bit, but they hardly pass for professional products. I could do better, but my focus is on modeling and proper documenting my builds here.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

8 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Hi Rob, I've been out of town for half this month but finally getting around to catching up on my favorite build logs.  Your Cobra is looking fantastic!  The kit looks absolutely amazing.  I also learned about Tamiya LP paints - good to know about them.

Belated condolences for your dog.  I'm always devastated when a pet passes.

Thank you for your condolences Mike, beside my wife, my dog was closest to me the last years, so yes, it still hurts.
The Cobra Coupe kit is indeed amazing and you tend to forgive what little shortcomings there are, as it is very motivating to continue with all the detailed stuff.
Tamiya LP colors are extremely good to airbrush, but you can use a brush as well, good for touchups. The black tones are especially recommended, wit an extra notion of the semi matte black, which is outstanding. Most of the metal tones are very good as well. Gloss white and red doesn´t have the same coverage as the others provide, but are still usable.

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Rob

Glad you're getting out in the fresh air and most important of all, 'getting your head free'.  

Your progress on the Cobra is amazing and as Carl said, your work actually looks like a restoration - incredible work. I guess even MFH kits aren't perfect and after reworking those few parts, brilliant progress.

Thoroughly enjoying the journey. 🏆 

[DocRob]

6 hours ago, Peterpools said:

Glad you're getting out in the fresh air and most important of all, 'getting your head free'.

Thanks Peter, at least I try and physical exhaustion helps a little. Next week, I will go to Berlin for a bit, enjoying my new unwanted freedom .

MFH kits are very good, but they can´t be perfect, as a non mass product, with lots of different materials involved and a huge parts count.
After the next steps, there will be bodywork and today, I started to clean body and bonnet, along the doors and started to pre assemble these, to show, if everything fits. Spoiler alert, it doesn´t. The doors need to be adjusted and the bonnet doesn´t close entirely, as I had expected, after Pooh had the same problem in his YouTube video build.
It seems, I have to thin the hood, where the funnels sit, as they interfere. I hope, there is enough material.
To sort this out, will take some time, as I will do it properly, the look of the finished car depends on these steps.

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Rob

Good to know you will be taking a vacation in Berlin which is perfect.

I've followed a number of MFH builds and on a number of Ferrari if I remember correctly and there were a number of body fit issues, especially with the doors and bonnet.  My money is riding on you that you will work the parts to a perfect fit.🏆

 

[CANicoll]

Rob,

At the end of this, I still think you should work on putting this together as an ebook on assembling the Cobra.  Your work is meticulous and exact, dealing with the intricacies of a multi-media kit. You are full of excellent skill and advice. If you are interested in this direction, I know someone who publishes these eBooks for modelers.  I'll help!  your work is too good not to share.

Chris

[Peterpools]

Chris

Fantastic idea.

[DocRob]

17 hours ago, CANicoll said:

At the end of this, I still think you should work on putting this together as an ebook on assembling the Cobra.  Your work is meticulous and exact, dealing with the intricacies of a multi-media kit. You are full of excellent skill and advice. If you are interested in this direction, I know someone who publishes these eBooks for modelers.  I'll help!  your work is too good not to share.

No chance Chris, there are a lot of points against doing so and I will name just a few:
- A forum is exchange, if I write a WIP, I got ideas, help and hints from other members, so it´s a two way benefit.
- I keep a build log as a personal file, like a notepad, but not more.
- I have no idea, how much Cobra´s MFH produces. There can´t be many and most of them will never get build, I guess, so where is the target of an ebook?
- I don´t want to spent more time on more professional photographing, editing, layout and texting.
- English is not my mother tongue as you may have guessed .
- For such a rare kit, there is a very thorough video documentation in YouTube (Pooh´s) and another more casual, but also helpful one.
- I don´t need deadlines in my life.
- If I decide to sod the kit, it´s only up to me.
- I recommend used products on my personal view and experience, which is more difficult, if you earn money from your log.
- It is a hobby to me and I have many others. I never get bored and don´t need other distractions.

These are only some points, others, I don´t want to mention here.

I used only one ebook accompanying my Wingnut Wings AEG G.IV build. It was very helpful and written by the much more talented modeler Karim Bibi

Cheers Rob
 

[CANicoll]

Fully understand your views Rob - and completely agree with you.  Thanks for the thoughtful response.  I know the book you are talking about for WNW.  It's a good one and that is what I had in mind.  Looking forward to watching your build.

Cheers!

Chris 

[Peterpools]

Rob

Completely agree and right with Chris. I was a good forum friend with Karim on the LSP forum many years ago and he is an incredible modeler. 

 

[DocRob]

Well, it was about time, to see how the body, hood and doors will fit to the chassis. 
I cleaned the excellent casted body parts and drilled all the needed holes and joined the hood to the chassis. There are cast metal hinges and the hood will be openable. When adding the body, which is not screwed on for now, I got what I feared, a gap, the hood being to high, because the air funnels don´t have enough room under the hood. I was prepared, as Pooh described the same problem in his YouTube build video. It looks a bit worse on the pics than it is in reality, because, I can lift the back of the body slightly.
I inserted the doors on their metal hinges and found the right one fitting too low and the left one was ok.
I´m close to the body painting stage and the fit issues has to be solved thorough and now, so next is analyzing, what to do best.





Cheers Rob

[CANicoll]

Rob, Definitely looks like the body issues were something you expected, and you already seem to have a plan to tackle.  Can't wait to see the outcome but especially paint on that beautiful body.

Chris

[Peterpools]

Rob

Right now, I'm just inspired by the Cobras beautiful lines. 

Pooh's video build is surely proving a valuable resource in highlighting fit issues and construction tips and techniques. Always good to know what is around the corner and I'm glad you have a POA to deal with the fit issues, which I've seen on a few other MFH build projects.  

Can't wait to see you work your magic on painting the body shell the classic Cobra Colors.

 

 

[DocRob]

22 hours ago, CANicoll said:

Rob, Definitely looks like the body issues were something you expected, and you already seem to have a plan to tackle.  Can't wait to see the outcome but especially paint on that beautiful body.

 

21 hours ago, Peterpools said:

Right now, I'm just inspired by the Cobras beautiful lines. 

Pooh's video build is surely proving a valuable resource in highlighting fit issues and construction tips and techniques. Always good to know what is around the corner and I'm glad you have a POA to deal with the fit issues, which I've seen on a few other MFH build projects.  

Can't wait to see you work your magic on painting the body shell the classic Cobra Colors.

Thank you Chris and Peter, until now, I have only ideas about how to solve the fit issues. I will add some more internal components for further evaluation and will decide then, how to tackle this. I will take my time with these issues as they are make or brake kind of probs.

Cheers Rob

[BlrwestSiR]

Rob, some great progress. Interesting to see the fit issues with the body. At least you know where to start with in terms of rectifying the problem. 

[DocRob]

3 minutes ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Rob, some great progress. Interesting to see the fit issues with the body. At least you know where to start with in terms of rectifying the problem. 

I think it´s not as bad as it looks in the pictures Carl. I hope, I can sort it out.
 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

... meanwhile, the Cobra Coupe isn´t vegan anymore. I bought some self adhesive leather from MFH lately and decided, I give the seats a try with this. What looks better than the real thing . The seats were primed and sprayed semi matte black and then, I cut the leather patches roughly to contour. The shape of the seats is a bit difficult to cover, but the leather is luckily very thin and flexible and adheres very well. I think, with the seat belts applied and some final trimming, they will look good.



Cheers Rob

[Landlubber Mike]

Looking great Rob.  I love the seats with the leather!  I have a few car kits in the stash, but wanted to either learn how to paint leather textures better, or find the actual thing thin enough for scale.  From your pictures, seems like the MFH stuff is worth me looking at.

I will blame you, however, for inspiring me to pick up a 1/24 MFH Cobra kit.  Saw one listed on eBay last week and got it for a really good price. 🤫

[Peterpools]

Rob

Holy smokes - the seats look great with real leather - something I would never have thought of.

 

[CANicoll]

I had no idea... I wonder if that would work for aircraft seats as well??

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Looking great Rob.  I love the seats with the leather!  I have a few car kits in the stash, but wanted to either learn how to paint leather textures better, or find the actual thing thin enough for scale.  From your pictures, seems like the MFH stuff is worth me looking at.

I will blame you, however, for inspiring me to pick up a 1/24 MFH Cobra kit.  Saw one listed on eBay last week and got it for a really good price. 🤫

 

I´ve been blamed for worse things Mike . Nice find with the Cobra.
The MFH leather sheets are really thin and very stretchy, which helps a lot. I don´t know, if I would use it for smaller scales like 1/24.
I often use oils or oils over acrylic, when I paint leather. It´s a bit time consuming, but looks great in the end. With normal thinner or matte thinner you can `steer´ the shininess.

The AmmoKnights seat was painted with oils over acrylic:



The leather jacket and gloves are solely painted with oil colors.





Cheers Rob

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks for sharing that info Rob - you've got it down pat!  

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, Peterpools said:

Holy smokes - the seats look great with real leather - something I would never have thought of.

 

22 minutes ago, CANicoll said:

I had no idea... I wonder if that would work for aircraft seats as well??

Thank you Peter and Chris. The leather cover was on my to learn list since a while. I would only use it for larger scales. Even with 1/32 seats, I would either paint the leather effect or apply other techniques, like I did once with my Skoda RSO. 

Luckily my wife was still smoking by that time, so I took one of her cigarettes, cut the paper to fit over the bench and backrest with diluted white glue.



Then I dabbed on some brownish tones with a stiff brush for tear and wear.



Followed by carefully applied black tones, also dabbed on with a stiff brush in very thin layers, et voila looks like very old leather.



Cheers Rob

  

[Peterpools]

Rob

Amazing for sure. Love the leather effect you were able to achieve with oils. 

[ScottsGT]

Cool techniques Rob!  When I built my 1/72 Space Shuttle I used cloth medical tape cut into squares and applied to the exterior to simulate the thermal blankets the exterior was covered with.  I had to use very thick enamel paint forced into the weave to fill them up.