Plastheniker

Perfect in every respect!

Thanks for the latest replies! I was asked recently by a German modeler who was too young to remember the fifties what the sign on the rear platform gate means. If anyone is interested this is the story: In the fifties many German companies produced enamel signs with their company logos (often insurance or petrol companies) as giveaways meant to be attached to trucks. Most popular were pin-up girls and slogans for more road safety. The most popular of the latter kind were "Hör' auf deine Frau - fahr' vorsichtig!" (= Listen to your wife - drive cautiously!) and this one on my model (= Take your time and not your life!), a timeless advice still worth to be considered.

Thanks for all comments! Since there are only 70 vehicles still existing this might be the same car: The only 507 I ever saw was a turquoise-metallic roadster at the Technik Museum Sinsheim maybe 20 or 30 years ago. I found this probably non-original colour not convincing to say the least. The first 43 cars were called "Serie 1" and always had round filler inlet compartment lids on top of the rear deck as seen on Revell's model. Production of "Serie 2" started on March 1957. All "Serie 2" cars had rectangular filler inlet compartment lids in the right rear fender. I suppose the reason for this modifiction was that removing the petrol nozzle after filling the tank was difficult without spilling fuel on the rear deck. I suppose this is a problem that most of us have. So if a good fairy should ever promise me a 507 or 300 SL, no matter if with or without hardtop, I would not be fastidious.

Thomas, indeed the forum search is not very useful. Nevertheless finding a forum member's previous topics is quick and easy: On the profile page of every forum member there is a rectangular white button "See their activity" right of the avatar. When you click this button a list of all previous posts of this member appears. When you then click "Topics" on the menu on the left a complete list of all previous topics of this member is shown. Clicking a particular topic on this list opens the topic with all pictures. If only thumbs are shown clicking a thumb shows the picture full-size.

Hi, After three months in the Big Rigs sub-forum I started to dust some further old car builds. This 507 is the first. Looking back the 507 could be regarded as BMW's answer to the 300 SL: equally spectacular, equally expensive, equally rare Most contemporaries in the fifties, however, thought that the 507 was no real match to the 300 SL. Though a fast car in those days it was technically rather simple, lacked power, and BMW's image was poor by comparison. Therefore the 507 was no sales success, only 252 vehicles were built. Nevertheless some of the rich and famous preferred the 507. Elvis Presley e. g. drove a 507 during his military service in Germany. He took it to America where it was found a few years ago. It was shipped back to Bavaria and to my knowlwdge it is still under restoration. A final sales price of two million Euro is expected. My old instruction sheet says that Revell released the kit in 1992. After more than 20 years I still remember that there were no major issues except the poor fit of the hardtop. Nevertheless, if there should be any reissue of the 507, make sure that it can be built as a coupe. The roadster is only half as beautiful.

Perfect in every respect!

A beautiful model of an IMO not so beautiful 1:1 Lambo.

Beautiful, excellent details, but unfortunately not mine ...

III. Gluing louvers Louvers should never be applied freehand. Any irregularity in a row of louvers would be very conspicious. Always use a stop rail or a jig for perfect alignment. In most popular scales louvers are rather small and by this there is only a tiny area where glue can be applied. Any visible glue, however, will spoil the result. The best choice is gluing with acetone. Align a louver, dip a small brush into acetone, and let the acetone flow between model and louver. The acetone evaporates in seconds welding both parts together without any trace. The joint is strong enough as long as it is touched with care. If the acetone joint is prone to rough handling it must be secured with liquid super glue. If there is access to the back of the panel first drill a small hole where the louver will be placed. At last secure the acetone joint by applying an small amount of super glue into the hole. If there is no such access fix all louvers with acetone. At last using a very thin piece of wire pick up a minimum of super glue and apply a tiny droplet into all gaps betwen the louvers. IV. Considering manufacturers' inaccuracies Never rely upon manufacturer's accuracy when using styrene strips. There are often more or less different dimensions even in the same package. Regarding quarter round rod there is one issue more. The two plane sides are mostly different, i. e. one side is wider than the other. Therefore proceed like this: If you need more than one rod use a caliper and choose the most similar rods. If the two plane sides are differently wide, mark either the wide or the narrow sides. Always make sure that the marked sides have the same position when reshaping the rod, f. e. always glue the marked sides onto the piece of styrene before decapitating the rod sections. Otherwise you would decapitate sections of varying height. It is obvious that this would result in louvers of varying shapes. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I hope everything was understandable. If not please let me know. Thanks for your attention!

Jacobus, this is another very unusual and attractive model from you. Would be very interesting to see some slightly sharper pictures.

Nice and super clean (and orange) as always, JT!

Nice weathering and excellent work on the crane!

Really unusual and convincing in every respect, very realistic!

Super clean and a perfect colour scheme!

The front louvers of my model were made using quarter round rod of the above mentioned dimension. The thickness of the used saw blade is the only limiting factor of this technique. Micro Mark's saw blade shown above is 0.015" thick. The actual cut of any saw blade, however, always becomes wider than the blade thickness because of the more or less visible imbalance of the rotating saw blade. It is obvious that from a certain point decapitating very thin rods cannot leave anything usable. In this case simply test thinner saw blades. If they aren't too flexible they may work. If everything fails I use the following slightly different technique. II. Making small louvers Here the result are less uniform, but since the louvers are much smaller the result is still acceptable IMO. E. g. I had to replace all those rather small louvers on this crude 1/24 kit, whose original louvers were hardly perceptible. Again use quarter round rod of a suitable dimension. With a Sharpie paint both plain sides of the quarter round rod red for better visibility. For more stability put the rod f. e. into a groove and fix it provisionally with pieces of tape. Then scrape off the part of the rod marked red on this drawing with a #11 blade: The remaining Sharpie-red surfaces show when you have to stop scraping to achieve a uniform shape. Nevertheless it is likely that scraping is overdone here and there, so prepare more rods than you need and choose the best sections. If all rods have been finished cut equal pieces of the required length giving all ends an equal bevel of f. e. 45°. Glue these louvers in place and shape the ends to a more round and uniform look. ________________________ To be continued - any questions and comments welcome

Hi, I have just started a tutorial about making louvers inside my topic Scratch Built 1958 Mercedes-Benz LP 333 Twin Steer Truck aka "Tausendfüssler"in the MCM sub-forum Model Trucks / Big Rigs: Under Glass. The louver technique should be useful for car modelers as well. If you are interested in the tutorial, and for possible questions or comments please use this link: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/107735-scratch-built-1958-mercedes-benz-lp-333-twin-steer-truck-aka-tausendfüssler-plus-tutorial-making-louvers/ Thanks!

Replicating louvers is always a problem. Louvers have a cross section like this: Unfortunately no manufacturer of styrene strips as Plastruct or Evergreen supplies something similar. Two apparently obvious solutions fail in most cases regarding scales 1/25 and larger: 3D transfer louvers are made for model railroads, thus they are usually too small. Transplanting kit louvers mostly fails because it is not very likely to find exactly the size and the number of louvers you need; moreover cannibalizing a kit is costly. I am going to describe two slightly different techniques of making louvers. Making louvers I. What do you need? For the samples shown here I used Plastruct quarter round rod 1.5mm/0.060". Your projects may require smaller or larger sizes. Indispensable is a drill stand with accurate height adjustment. As shown here I use an inexpensive Proxxon Minimot equipment. I simply added a modified clamp from Proxxon's Universal Holder and fixed it with the horizontal grey wing screw to the column. By turning the vertical chromed wing screw I can adjust the height of the rotary tool by fractions of a millimeter. Probably you remember this device from my wire wheel tutorial. As shown you need a large-diameter, non-flexible, thin saw blade. Mine is Micro Mark's #14137 with 2" dia. It works perfectly. II. Making medium and large louvers From the quarter round rod cut equal sections of exactly the length of the desired louvers. Assemble four of these sections to form a four-piece round rod and hold them together with a piece of tube. Fix them additionally with a small strip of tape in order to prevent any slipping. Insert this asembly into your rotary tool and sand the protruding end to make a nice hemisphere. Do the same at the other end. Remove the four parts from the tube. Now they look like this. Superglue them onto a piece of styrene sheet. Adjust the height of the saw blade and "decapitate" them as shown here. Dispose the red part on the drawing. The green part is the louver. Deburr the louvers if necessary. The final result looks like this. ________________________ To be continued - any questions and comments welcome

Of course I do, secretive modelers shouldn't join forums. Probably I can start a tutorial here in this thread next week or a week later. Anyway please give me some time, I won't forget it.

Thomas, sorry for my late reply. You are right. 3D transfer louvers are made for the smaller scales of model railroads. Indeed I also considered "transplanting" kit louvers but I dropped the idea because I couldn't find anything usuable. After some pondering I finally found a technique of making absolutely identical louvers by reshaping ordinary inexpensive quarter round rod.

Michael, Robert, thanks a lot! All my models, i. e. also my scratch builds, match the most popular scales unless a different scale is stated in my topics: American trucks 1/25Euro trucks 1/24Road cars 1/24 or 1/25GP & F1 cars 1/20Military vehicles 1/35

Usually I am not that much interested in R/C models, but indeed, this deserves the word masterpiece, really spectacular! I watched the video several times, what outstanding modeling abilities!

Thomas, thanks a lot. The pictures are excellent. The green vehicle shows the early version as my model does, but notice the unusual position of the wipers on top of the windscreens! As far as I remember this particular vehicle was for sale recently at € 300,000. The orange one has a non-standard luxurious cab offered by the (in those days) renowned coachbuilder Wackenhut. JT, I agree. There are so many differences between American and European trucks technically as well as externally. Building them both and comparing them is really interesting.

I agree, a very attractive combination and a beautiful colour scheme. Toll gemacht!

As a first resin project this is a very nice result!

The decals are a really good choice and make the model look complete. All colours go together perfectly.