Nacho Z

It was good seeing you and talking with you today. Thanks for posting the pictures!

I like it Joe and I think it looks great. Nice job!

Very nice, Jeff. Looks to be an extremely clean build. Great job!

Hi Joe, no, I do not have metal wheels for this. There are pictures of the kit's wheels on page 3 of this WIP thread. Thanks for the kind words!

I plan on being there!

Once I had the front suspension fairings on I was able to plumb and install the front rotors, wheels and tires. There is nothing in the kit to represent the brake plumbing but I did have a couple of pictures to go by. I gave it a shot and it turned out fairly well. I started with #1 size fittings from Detail Master, some wire, #1 braided line that was installed at the beginning of this build some 10 years ago and lastly, a "T" that I made by soldering two pieces of brass wire together. I drilled two small holes in the brake calipers. Cleaned up the brass "T", painted it silver than used a blue marker. Fittings are made gold with a marker too. I used eyeball engineering to determine the size of the "T" and cut it to size. I installed it as it was on the 1:1. I used thread as a cable tie. I ran the thread through wax to get the fuzzies down to a minimum. There is enough line to allow the tires to be steered. I tried to get some symmetry between left and right. Not a lot of room to work and the lines and wires have a mind of their own. I think they came out fair, not great. Please keep in mind there is distortion in the first two pictures.

Wow Jason, just WOW! This is fantastic. These "Big Boyz" don't get a lot of attention but should. I am in no way trying to hi-jack your thread but thought I would let you know I have a '78 JPS build thread going on too, you may find something of use there. I bought the Acu-Stion PE set for my JPS and did not like it and barely used anything from it. Let me know if you have any questions that I may be able to help you with.

Very cool. I have always had a soft spot for the Stratos.

I'll be watching....

I think that it looks great! You did a nice job with it. I like that last picture too, there are some nice looking models in there.

Great looking bikes, Joe. I like your variety of interests in models. I think we have more than a few things in common.

Love your models, Tamas. This is another fine example.

Gorgeous!

Very nice. Very nice indeed. Great job Jason!

Looks great! Nice photography as well.

Another nice Lambo, Krishna. Great work!

Niiiice!

She looks good Jim!

Such nice photography! I think you could even make one of my models look good. That is a good looking Vette.

I always enjoy your models, this one is no exception. Beautiful work!

That is a thing of beauty, Larry. Absolutely gorgeous!! Wow!

Yup, it works for me . Good looking model, Brian.

Nice Vette, Snake. That color does look good on it.

Here is another part of the build that I struggled with. I am talking about the harness. I wanted to scratchbuild all of the hardware myself and actually made a number of the fittings. But nothing looks as good as metal. I had a PE set that was designed specifically for this car. It is made by Acu-stion. I used their hardware and I can tell you it is not correct. (Actually, I used very little from the PE set. Nothing seemed correct or to fit the kit parts correctly.) It has to do with 2" vs. 3" belt widths. Theirs is all the 3" variety and even then they are not correct. As I have said before, this is not a perfect build and some concessions have been made. The first picture shows the evolution of the straps, from right to left. My wife was a real trooper with this process. We bought several types of tape to use for the straps. She tried several ways to color the straps. Everything from markers to food coloring to clothing dyes with mixed results. We finally found a good combination of tape and marker. The tape texture is not perfect but I like it. I actually attempted to sew in the stitching but the results were less than stellar. My wife also helped me with the Willans logo on the belts. That process was also difficult. I had no instructions on how to thread the belts so I looked on the internet for pictures. I think I have them correct. The end results may not be good enough for a professional builder but for a guy who is trying to do as much scratchbuilding as he can with a limited amount of talent, I can live with them. Installing them on the car also gave me a few problems. Due to rivets detail where the belts mount on the body I have very limited glueing surface. I drilled a hole and ran a small piece of brass wire in it. I peened the end of the wire to hold the hardware in place. Since these pictures were taken I removed the black on the pin that holds the harness on to the body. I installed the harness on the car. I used plain old Elmers glue to hold them to the seat. I tried to get them to lay as naturally as possible. I also installed the roll hoop and the steering wheel.

If you try to cut the decal while it is wet, you run the risk of the whole decal shifting and that can lead to other problems. Best to wait for it to be dry or very near to being dry to cut the decal.