117 replies to this topic

[Ace-Garageguy]

Fun to watch this one...

[jaymcminn]

Matt, I'm really enjoying this build. This is one of my "someday" models and it's really interesting to see an accurized version taking shape. 

[GeeBee]

Your doing some fine work on this build, and it shows, beautiful work ...

[Matt Bacon]

Thanks, guys!

 

 

OK... not shiny and red.

 

 

I decided it was definitely better to get everything fitting properly BEFORE I painted it! The bonnet and boot have some issues -- the boot at the sides, and the bonnet at the windscreen end. And there's some serious gappage around the doors at the "shoulder". 

 

I also decided that the rear lights as provided in the kit are pretty irredeemable. There's an entirely different style with a one-piece coloured plastic light unit which has a chrome "hood". It seems quite common, so I'll go for that instead -- I made a similar set-up for the DB4GT,  so I know that it can be done, and how...

 

Time to break out the plastic card.

 

 

I think for problems like this, plastic card and liquid cement is the best answer -- any kind of filler will just fall off, and the styrene is exactly as hard as the plastic of the kit part for easier sanding.

 

Some time later...

 

 

I fixed the hinge parts to be a little more realistic (not perfect scale, but not a toy, either).

 

In case you were wondering about the colour, here it is in sunlight:

 

 

There 's a fine, light, metal flake in there, which isn't so obvious behind the dust and reflections in this pic, mind...

 

And finally, here's where I am this evening:

 

 

I have test fitted the doors, boot etc before committing to primer. There are a couple of bit son the boot and one door that will need cleaning up, filling, and re-priming, but I think that'll be about it.

 

bestest,

M.

 

[Matt Bacon]

 

Rosso Brunello Micalizzato going on. Nice colour, eh?

 

 

You can just about see the "mica" in it... definitely slightly pearlescent in the flesh. Time for the 2K clear now...

 

bestest,

M.

[sjordan2]

Great color - can't wait to see it shine. All the work you put into the nose is really starting to pay off.

 

PS: Are you going to paint the insides of the body? A lot will show inside the trunk and engine compartment (should be matte black).

Edited by sjordan2, 12 March 2013 - 04:31 AM.

[Matt Bacon]

...certainly am. I just tend to do it with a brush and some Humbrol matt enamel after the outside is done. It's easier than masking against overspray, whichever way round you do it...

 

bestest,

M.

Edited by Matt Bacon, 12 March 2013 - 05:01 AM.

[mr moto]

Wow! Great thread and a great looking build. I have an old Aurora kit (blue plastic version) of this car that I've been preparing to build so I'll study this with great interest.

I think my solution for dealing with Aurora's horrible wire wheels will to be to replace them with a resin set of Minilites - not factory correct but the sort of thing a trendy owner might have done in the 60's.

[Matt Bacon]

Thanks! If you're going to buy resin wheels anyway, something like the Renaissance Campagnolos (for the Ferrari 275) with a dish hubcap would look pretty much like the factory options...

 

... and here we go with the shiny:

 

 

There are a couple of areas on the body that'll need a bit of a polish, but that can wait a few days until this stuff has set thoroughly hard. You can see the brownish tint to the red here, though.

 

 

Rectangular grille etch arrived today (along with a Nardi steering wheel) As you can see, the basic mesh turns out to be far too big. However, gluing two pieces together with an offset doesn't look too bad. I'll keep an eye open for something better, but if I can't find it, I think this looks OK...

 

bestest,

M.

[scalemodelworld]

Sadly, I've come in late on this build, but it looks fantastic. Love the attention to detail. Can't wait to see the finished product.

[sjordan2]

Hey, Matt -- check your forum mail for PMs.

[Matt Bacon]

Here's something I have NOT been looking forward to...

 

 

This Maserati is a GTi, it appears, with fuel injection. And two plugs per cylinder. And a duct for the wiring. So, armed with some more excellent reference material courtesy of Skip Jordan, we begin.

 

No way can I drill a distributor cap for 12 wires, so I used a piece of electric flex with the insulation cut back to leave twelve wires (with some superglue at the bottom to hold them in). These are glued into the widened end of some aluminium tube, which I then drilled for the individual plug wires. Those wires are fixed into holes drilled into the the plug locations in the cylinder head. Then I drilled the fuel injection system for some more shiny wires for the injector tubes.

 

 

The end result after some cursing. There's a whole lot of touch-up and detail painting to do, but this is as good as I can manage (no tiny hose clamps for this cack-handed modeller!). And yes, those injection tubes really are a mare's nest like that on the real thing... I wonder if it's something to do with having the same length for each tube, despite some cylinders being much closer to the unit than others.

 

bestest,

M.

 

[sjordan2]

Un-bloody-believable. I would never attempt the injector tubes, which you have totally nailed. This is 1/25 scale, and the engine is slightly underscale, so most watchers won't have a clue what's involved here. All of these parts are MUCH smaller than the photos would indicate. The engine block and valve covers, for example, are exactly 1" long. This is one for the ages. The distributor wiring is a work of great art and bravery, and everything here on the engine is better than has ever been done before. 

 

Stand in awe. This is the only kit of this car that exists, and so far you will never see a better build of it in your lifetime.

Edited by sjordan2, 19 March 2013 - 05:19 AM.

[Matt Bacon]

Thanks, Skip... I'm a bit scared of living up to the billing, now!

 

 

And today, I finally made it through the snow out to the workbench...

 

Something else I haven't been looking forward to:

 

Not the greatest pictures (the lighting seemed to confuse the camera), but you can see the effect. I've removed the trident from the original one-piece kit grille, which of course doesn't fit the reshaped nose. A combination of Humbrol polished chrome spray and BMF does the rest.

 

 

The engine with that detail painting and the last bits attached. Citadel metallics blended in various proportions for those details...

 

I think, looking out the window, that progress will be slow the next few days...

 

bestest,

M.

[sjordan2]

It just gets better and better.

[blunc]

great work on this, like the reworked grille and the detail work on the engine.

[Matt Bacon]

Thanks, guys...

 

A small update... the snow has melted, so I can get back to the bench:

 

The seats are way too skinny, so I have bulked them out with plastic card:

 

 

The next stage of detailing is the interesting hinges, which allow the back of the seats to fold forward and twist inwards at the same time. Mine won't do that, but it accounts for the complicated "Flash Gordon" shape...

 

 

I've been worrying about the state of the decals. You can see the cracks across the number plates. I painted this with Microscale decal solution a couple of weeks ago, and I've used Klear to snug it down. It looks OK though, and this is the most critical of all of the decals... the others are replaceable or paintable relatively easily...

 

 

These are about 1cm (0.4") long. These coils are quite visible on the firewall. Teeny-tiny, but took over an hour to make between them! I hope it's worth it!

 

There's some "bigger picture" stuff going on off-stage, but as my old editor used to say, "only fules and bairns should see a job half done..."

 

bestest,

M.

[dino246gt]

Very impressive work, I really love these cars, have the kit, but it does need a lot of modification out of the box as you've already done, really looking good!

[Plasticfanatic]

WOW..knowing the original manufacture date of the reissue and scale Detail quality of the kit you started with, the results are nothing short of superb and spectacular, all the mod. work and corrections make this an already beautiful model of a real beautiful car. Again SUPERB work.

[vintagedragfan]

very nice work Matt