1959scudetto

First class modeling, Rich - these sleek machines look so much better than today's F1 monsters. It's a shame, however, that a lot of these fine details disappear under the cowl.

Maybe that I've exaggerated a bit, but I didn't like the way the kit wheels were made (if you scroll up a bit, you may or may not see it). Moreover, they had no tread. Anyway, here is how they look now (some tread and different depth front and rear, not only diameter): Spinners are still missing, and a little drybrushing with Humbrol matt white enamel is still needed.

After a 10-day break, I finally found some time to return to the bench: first I carried on with the wheels (already tired of puttying and sanding and puttying and sanding...) First, I glued the 5-point-star centers into the narrowed amt-rims. Then they were primered and shot with red from the can - I decided to use Tamiya TS 49 bright red (will also beused for the body): Here is how the wheel inserts look now (they will get silver spinners and inserted into the aluminium wheels) - before painting I masked the outer diameter and glued them with reversed painters tape onto a piece of cardboard:

Very nice build and a fine collection of WRC rally cars -hard to believe that this is about 25 years ago....

Motobitz' E-type wheels look great - but unfortunately wheels and tires are printed as ONE piece:

Jason, these seats are superb looking !

Very nice and clean build as usual, Anders - showroom quality !

Mighty impressive model, Matt - especially considering the fact that the basis was a 60-year old white-metal kit !!!

Charles, this is unbelievable - I don't know what I should say without repeating myself over and over again. But each time I think Charles cannot top this one, you raise the bar a little bit higher with your incredibly real-looking dioramas!

Pierre, I knew that you would not leave that body untouched! To me, it first looked like it had undergone a top-chop. But now - with your roof alterations - it looks quite ok to me. Are you going to you use again Jason's outlaced spoke wheels?

Superb model, Marcos - as good as it gets. Highly detailed kit done with even more (aftermarket) details - wow! (Professional photography, too)

Simply fantastic - this is one of the most beautiful racecars ever, driven by my favorite, the great Jim Clark. Though deadly dangerous unfortunately, the racing cars of the 60's are the best looking ever (in my opinion) and required a special, highly skilled generation of drivers.

Great looking Toyota - the decal issues go unnoticed if you hadn't told us about. Those Hasegawa group C racers are impressive curbside models!

Excellent build - very impressive !

On to the next problem: the wheels: after finding out that they must have 5 spokes, I decided to do something with the original kit rims and the aluminium slotcar wheels. First step was punching out the spokes with sharp wood-carving tools of my father-in-law: result: 2 successes - two failures. So I cut out 5-point-stars from thin styrene sheet and glued the "spoke puzzle" roughly back on them. after bringing them into the right shape, they will be glued to plastic rim inserts as their diameter is too small to put them directly into the aluminium rims. I found some old amt leftover parts that were of a too large diameter to be put into the rims. As I have no lathe (that would not have been of use anyway, because neither material was thick enough) I simply cut about 2 mm off the circumference of the plastic rim, glued the ends together with liquid glue and inserted them into the metal rims to keep them in position - voilà, worked perfectly. You will hardly notice the cut - at least not after filling and painting. Here is a quick mock-up : 2 spinners could be saved, the others will be taken from a Fujimi GT40 kit.

Interesting cars to look at, Rich: the main object here is looking very tail-heavy - no wonder that is has not been raced at all: the (Tamiya) Nissan R 380 looks much more purposeful (kind of "Japanese Chaparral"), the R380 6 cyl. looks like a 906 clone, whereas the R383 Grp.7 racer shares resemblance with Ferrari 312 P, the 713 P CanAm or partially the McLaren M8A (at least from the front up to the roll-bar) - nice collection!

This was my favorite Matchbox model, together with the Ferrari Berlinetta Lusso - I had both in 1966 as a kid.

Sorry, Pierre - about 30 years ago I cut up this LM - wanted to turn it into a 250/275 P, but then Monogram reissued their old 275 P kit, so it was obsolete and I used several parts for other kits (have two further 250 LM in my stash, though), most remaining parts will find its way into Tamiya's 275 P2 slotbody kit (with wheels from Jason). I definitely will build something OOB next time !

This is going to be a very interesting WIP, Ken ! I will surely be following this! The XKSS kit dates back to 1993 according to Scalemates - is it really that bad? (I have the original issue and the first reissue from 2005 somewhere in my stash)

Yesterday I drilled the hole for the fuel filler cap (after puttying and sanding flush the contours of the cap cover in the body). It has to be modified, still: The lower part was cut out from an old, molested 250 LM body (first use of my new Tamiya saw): and glued from the underside with liquid cement trying not to interfere with the dasboard (black): Metal fuel filler cap from Scale Productions (Germany) will be used for this, also the roof-mounted mirror. P/E Wiper from Detail Master or from the Fujimi GT40: More to follow soon...

A masterpiece, Dave - this is one of the most spectacular racecars ever, and you turned this 3D printed body into an excellent model ! Congratulations !!! (I would already be happy if mine turned out half as nice)

Thanks, Trevor and Pierre, for your moral support. Rest assured that I won't give up on it. This was always one of my favorite racecars (because of its looks only!) - more to come soon.

The trial and error method strikes again - with ERRORS ! The biggest task here is trying to correct some fundamental things about the engine cover. First I removed the steel wire mesh in the end plate and under the 2 deck openings: the deep grooves along the whole engine cover have to be flattened - they were not present on the real car. The window had to be relocated a bit further back, it also was l little bit narrower than in the kit. After carefully removing the glass I made a paper template and transferred this into thin plastic sheet (the front end was slightly curved, whereas the back end was almost straight), then glued it onto the body. After drying, the NACA ducts had to be carved into it: The 2 openings have been closed with thin plastic sheet - And finally, the 2 fins connected with the rear spoiler had to go, the spoiler was too wide and had to be narrowed, its ends had to be modeled from the ground up using plastic sheet,cut into small triangles:. a small strip of plastic to level out the engine cover with the cab roof: Everything was done using Tamiya white putty - used it for the first time - highly recommended! As the rear end is still too wide and I did not want to go even further, I tried to make the slab-sided rear body more rounded: grinding away material from the lower contours , then apply 2 layers of sheet plastic and lots of putty for blending everything in! At last, I wanted to remove the rear lights, but they seemed to have been molded in one piece with the back panel which had been painted matte black by the former builder. Solution here: cut/grind away the lights and make a new back panel with a smaller opening. Testing with a paper template... At last make a new spoiler from plastic sheet, punching it from the backside to simulate rivets/screws. A small plastic strip around the rear panel to give it a bit more depth, then gluing the new one onto the old panel with putty around the edges: After lots of sanding and applying more putty, it was finally taking shape... After building an additonal NACA duct opening on the left for the oil-cooler, I finally realised that the window opening was TOO SMALL !!! As I did invest a lot of time in this one, I wanted to get it - well, if not right - then at least more correct. Back to the start - I broke out all the frames and scraped away the putty for my plan B: use the original glass (it was almost intact apart from the outer edges which would be blended in with putty anyway) and mask the area that should not get any paint (I even managed to cut the ducts into the brittle clear plastic without breaking it): Trial and error, as we say...

Correction department: Dave was right, I was wrong: the rims of the P68 DO have 5 spokes , so the GT40 and Mirage wheels are not an option - I will try to work over the kit's wheel inserts with the aluminium rims.

A small update: first the roof-mounted mirror has to go... (here the car is on its kit wheels - these are wrong and have to go, too) After carefully removing the glass trying not to break anything which I did succeed in, I made a quick 1:1 sketch with the car's silhouette and the dimensions of Fujimi's GT 40 wheels (my first choice): Cutting the rectangular hole into the roof was a delicate task as the plastic is very brittle: s**t happens as we all know: So glueing, puttying and sanding was to be done. Additionally the body dropped onto the floor and the left A-pillar broke - this was quickly reglued with a drop of Revell liquid cement. I had even more respect before cutting into the glass, but this was not a big problem - you just have to work slowly and carefully in order to avoid damage. The window hatch was cut from packaging material and glued with 3 tiny drops of white glue (maybe I will re-do this because it's shape is not correct (I happened to find a picture where this can clearly be seen a day later): I also fabricated a cardboard template for an engine cover : Let's have a look at the original kit wheels (back and forth side) : made of rubber with a chrome insert mimicking the spokes. As the real car had 6 instead of 5 spokes, these are an absolute NO-GO and can't be used ! Either I will use Fujimi's wheel/tire combo or I will try something with my alternatives - see below: tires are amt(?) Goodyears, resin wheels are from Mini Exotics Ford Mirage transkit, the aluminium (slotcar ?) rims were included in one of the kits I aquired recently - they have spoke inserts glued in - maybe I can do something with them. That's it for today - next time: my first big setback !