ShawnS

Thank you Gary. I spend a LOT of time on the drawing of the graphics. I'm a terrible font Nazi so I set high standards for myself when I do the graphics. (incoming rant)I just wish that the guys who do the graphics for the touring car restorations here in Aus had the same attitude as there are some brilliant restorations with some very lazily done graphics. (rant over) Thanks everybody I'm glad you all like it. CheersSS

Thanks, The trim on the body is exactly as AMT made it as the body didn't need any mods other than to scribe the door lines. When I decided to take on the project I did some research on the wheelbase measurements and I realised that I didn't need to make the body longer I just needed to make the front doors shorter and throw a roof on it. Thanks everyone.

Hi guys here's another new one. No this isn't an escapee from the MAD MAX movie set it is a real beast that graced our race tracks in 1972. It was built with many design philosophies from Formula 5000 as well as being powered by a Repco Holden F5000 308ci engine. It was too under powered against the well sorted 350's and 351's but due to the open wheeler style suspension setup it handled well enough to snare a couple of podiums during the 1972 championship season. It's the Kingswood kit from DDA with my own 3d printed wheels and tyres, brake ducts, seats, pedals, gearstick and exhaust pipes. The flares were made from Apoxie sculpt and the decals were printed by Custom Hobby Decals from my own artwork. The bumpers and wheels are painted with SMS Hyperchrome and the orange paint is a custom Tamiya mix and the black stripes are also painted. The kit went together well and the only issues I had were self inflicted. Thanks for looking. Cheers ShawnS

Hi, Thanks for your interest in my recent posts. Here is another Galaxie, this time with four doors. I built this along side the light weight version but the final assembly took extra time as it started to fight me a bit. Over ten years ago I grafted the roof from a Revell Thunderbolt kit onto AMT's Galaxie body. I also made the Starliner chassis fit and started work on the interior, Then I lost interest and the project stalled. I restarted again last year and after many battles I have finally finished it. I made 3d printed interior door panels and the rear seat is reworked from the Starliner kit item. I rejected the original Galaxie kit front seats as they were too small for the spacious interior space that the Starliner chassis conversion provides. So the rear seats from the Galaxie kit were cut up and rebuilt with Apoxie sculpt and evergreen strips, This allowed me to have wider front seats that took up more space. It was worth the effort. I also modified the engine bay sides to fill out the engine bay a bit more. I wasn't intending on going crazy with the engine detail so it was just a case of adding plug wires from fishing line that were blacked out with a sharpie. I totally forgot that it needed a battery until it was too late so I couldn't add wires because the engine was already installed. The car had it's headlights taped over in a simple attempt at aerodynamic streamlining and I replicated that with more Apoxie sculpt. The white walls were painted as well. The chrome was redone with SMS Hyperchrome for the bumpers and mirrors and copious amounts of BMF and I added the 427 Bird badge and the C pillar crest from the MCG Thunderbolt PE set. I don't know a great deal about the car itself but I do know that it was owned by wealthy businessman Len Lukey and he imported it into Australia with some Holman and Moody tweaks and it was raced by both Norm Beechey and Lex Davison (grand father of Supercars driver Wil Davison) many times on circuits around Australia. The car was raced in historic races in the 1980's and still exists in that form. Obviously I've done a fair bit of work on it so if you have some questions please don't be afraid to ask. Thanks for looking. Cheers ShawnS

Side by side comparison. It's not the roof line as such but the top of the door frame is too straight compared to the real car which has a downward curve. I'm not too sure how easily that could be fixed as there have been issues with the plastic DDA uses that doesn't like to take glue. The other issues are with the wheel arches. The front wheel arch flare is too wide at the bottom (easily fixed with the Dremel) and the front of the rear wheel arch flare needs to meet the door shut line. Also the rear lower swage line is a bit too high where it meets the bumper. Honestly, the model is still buildable so these issues shouldn't really be of concern to the casual modeller. Cheers ShwnS

Thanks, The windows aren't tinted it's just the photos. Thanks Pierre, The wood panel dash is painted and I'm happy with it too.

Hi again, Here is my second finished build of the year. Before the internet is inundated with everyone building the impending re-issue of Tamiya's little red rocket, I figured I would get in first with my own take on the little Alfa. Although we had a couple of GTAs racing in our improved production touring car races it wasn't eligible for the Bathurst 500 which was for locally made or assembled production cars but the GTV was eligible. I have had this one in progress for quite a while but with my new found love for designing and 3d printing my own parts I decided to finally get on with converting the race spec GTA to the road spec GTV. Here is a list of the changes. Door handles, mirror, wheels, grille, RH dash, seats, steering wheel, radiator and hose, arm rests, window cranks, engine parts to downgrade from twin spark to single spark. I stripped the chrome from the bumpers and used SMS hyperchrome. The paint is Tamiya TS-26 for the body and Vallejo red leather acrylic for the interior. I hand painted the wood grain dash and was happy with the result. Unfortunately the 27 year old Tamiya decals were no good so I had to use some spare gauge decals that I had. The car was driven by Paul Hawkins and Syd Fisher and they finished 25th after contending for the race lead early but suffered overheating during the race. I know it was a lot of effort to make something so seemingly mundane but since everyone makes a red GTA I wanted something different and I am pleased with the result. Cheers ShawnS

Thanks guys, The big Gals had some success in the UK so they definitely had potential but the nature of Australia's long straights/hard stops type of circuits meant that the brakes became mush after a couple of laps and the pure speed from all that horsepower ultimately came to nothing.

Hi everyone. I've never built a big American car before and as my display cabinet is packed wall to wall with 1980's/90's touring cars I figured it's time too diversify my building experience and go big. The story of the light weight Galaxies is well known so I won't go into that here but wealthy Englishman Sir Gawaine Baillie bought his touring car spec version over to Australia to have a bit of fun with a view to sell the car off once the fun was over. As you would expect it was fast but brake failure was a common problem and it wasn't all that competitive. Local driver John Raeburn got to drive it in the Australian Touring Car Championship race at Sandown in 1965. He qualified on the front row but was only able to finish fifth. This is the version I decided to build. Obviously it's the AMT kit with the Starliner chassis conversion and my own 3d printed interior (except for the dash). The front seats are a close enough representation of the racing seats used at the time, I designed and 3d printed them myself along with the door panels and window cranks, the rollcage , gear stick,pedals and the tacho. I added rear 1/4 side windows. I also made new tail light lenses to replace the very strange kit parts. Many other mods were made here and there. The chrome was redone with SMS hyperchrome. The paint is Tamiya racing white that I lightened with pure white. The decals are printed by custom hobby decals from my own artwork. I opted not to do the engine and glued the bonnet shut. It was a bit of a challenge getting the slightly warped Starliner chassis to sit nicely under the equally warped Galaxie body but I got there in the end and I'm happy with the result. Thanks Cheers ShawnS

Hi guys, I've dragged this thread up again to let you know that I have been working on my HQ Holden Kingswood and I have noticed that the plastic that DDA uses isn't regular styrene as I have tried to use Tamiya cement (both extra thin and regular) on some parts and there was no adhesion what so ever. The cement just dried on the surface between the parts and at no stage did it bond two parts together convincingly and there was no evidence of any solvent effect. So if you plan to modify one of these kits use CA glue to avoid any frustration. Cheers, ShawnS

Thanks guys. I'm glad you like them as much as I do.

Hello everyone, These are my final finished builds for this year. These first 3 are ones that raced in 1983-84 under our Group C touring car rules. Between 1960 and 1992 Australian touring car racing had always been based on production style cars, Group C started in 1973 and finished at the end of 1984. There were many different rules for Croup C but the main overview was that the cars still had to retain most production car visual and mechanical similarities. Non production wings and flares were introduced in 1980 and made the cars look meaner and allowed bigger wheels and tyres. Another aspect was that the cars had to retain a full interior with two front seats, a rear seat, factory door cards and full carpeting, although by 1984 rear seats and carpeting seemed to disappear on most RX-7s. Hasegawa's '79 IMSA GTU kit was a good place to start but it's the early version of the SA-22 RX-7 and as most Group C RX-7s were the later version I had to combine the GTU kit with the late version of the road car. The differences are the tail lights and the bumpers. Another big difference is the front air dam. The GTU air dam is too big compared to the Group C so I made my own by combining the late version front bumper and the air dam from the Monogram RX-7 and some evergreen. You can see just how deep the kits GTU airdam is compared to my modified version (the one in primer). This first one is the 1983 Australian Touring Car Championship Winner of Allan Moffat. The wheels are my own 3D designs and prints and the decals are from LB Productions. The decals are great to work with and respond beautifully to setting solutions. I rebuilt the kit roll cage, detailed the dash and added some minor detail under the hatch. I also designed and printed out a new muffler. This one is the ghostbusters car from Bathurst 1984 driven by Graham Moore and Peter McKay. They started 30th and recorded a DNF after 116 laps. The wheels are my own 3D designs and prints and the decals are from LB Productions. I rebuilt the kit roll cage, detailed the dash and added some minor detail under the hatch. I also designed and printed out the exterior mirror and a new muffler. The decal sheet has some minor inaccuracies but I was still happy to use it. This one is the Yellow Pages car of Tony Kavich and Phil Alexander also from Bathurst 1984 they started 43rd and also DNF'd. The wheels are my own 3D designs and prints, I rebuilt the kit roll cage, detailed the dash and added some minor detail under the hatch. I also designed and printed out the mirror and a new muffler. The decals were printed by Custom Hobby Decals from my artwork. This is one of my favourite liveries of Aus touring car racing so I just had to do it. and finally this one isn't a Group C but a Group A from our first full Group A Bathurst race in 1985. Driven by John Bundy and Norm Carr. They qualified 50th after battling a stubborn car that just didn't want to go and DNF'd after blowing the diff. This build was done using left over parts from the other 3 builds. It has a scratch built roll cage, 3D printed wheels, tyres, exterior mirrors and muffler. The decals are also from Custom Hobby Decals from my artwork. The build time for these 4 was around 12 months on/off, I absolutely enjoyed the Hasegawa kits and I can recommend them to anybody. Cheers ShawnS

Thanks guys. I did document my progress and the extra work that went into this build so I will throw in some extra pics with explanations. The kits come with full exhaust molded in to the underbody so I had to remove the exhaust and fill in the gaps. The front suspension and cross member have a big guard molded with it and I had to remove the guard and rebuild the whole lot. I removed the fuel tank from the underbody and rebuilt the area to represent the pressed steel floor of the 1:1 AE86 I used the under bonnet bracing from ZoomOn. Unfortunately the ZoomOn PE is made for the long nosed Trueno kit so I had to trim the front to fit. I got it to work. The engine bay in the kits doesn't come with a detailed firewall so I had to make a new one. Also note in this pic the engine mount bases I added to the front cross member as the kit also doesn't come with any type of engine mounts and the steering shaft that I made as well. Engine detail in progress with the heater hoses and a water pump from a Fujimi BMW. This pic also shows the engine mounts that were scratch built too. Most of this is hidden on the finished model. The oil cooler is more hidden detail. Winged sump, dipstick, alternator with brackets, and a pulley and belt setup that is cut down from the original kit item. After the fan belt broke during assembly I replaced the pulleys with individual 3D printed items and used black tape for the fan belt. (sorry no pics). The stripped out interior in the TRD Levin kit doesn't come with door cards and the road car items weren't accurate for my model so I had to scratch build the door cards. 1. The wheels were too deep so I had to fix that too. 2 and 3. To get the correct depth I made a spacer and glued it to the side of a razor saw and pressed it down firmly on the mat. 4. I gently moved the wheel across the saw blade to get an even cut around the wheel. 5. With the wheel now separated into two pieces I sanded them down to the correct width. 6. Original wheel on the left and the modified one on the right. The tyres come from the old Fujimi BMW M3 racing kit. And finally please don't think for a second that everything went well. Just as I peeled the tape off the roof after touching up some of the red paint the white paint decided to spectacularly let go of the roof. After 20+ years of using Tamiya TS sprays I had never seen this before. I stripped the paint from the rest of the roof and repainted the whole car except for the black and managed to prevent a full strip and repaint job. I was so annoyed that I walked away from the model for over a year. There you go guys, just a little sample of the big effort I put into to this little car. Thanks for looking and thanks for your kind words and comments. Cheers ShawnS

Thanks guys.

Hi Guys, Here is the Toyota Sprinter that started 63rd and finished 26th in the 1984 Bathurst 1000 driven by Australian legend Bob Holden with co-driver Alexandra Surplice. This build took parts from these 3 different kits. The GT apex kit supplied the most parts with the wheels and racing interior coming from the TRD Levin. The Trueno kit supplied the Sprinter tail lights. Those Aoshima AE86 kits were pretty good to deal with with crisp detail and great fitment but they don't all come with engine detail so do your research if you want one with an engine. This is the car in action. and this is the model. Too many changes, tweaks and additions to mention and there is a lot of hidden detail on the engine that was ultimately a waste of my time but as we all know it just has to be that way. I did the fabrication and the painting at the same time that I did this Corolla 1600 GT last year but I did the final construction just a couple of weeks ago. It was good to finally finish this one after walking away from it last year and it makes a nice addition to my shelf. Thanks for looking and if you have any questions please feel free to ask. Cheers ShawnS