jbwelda

i thought i would start up an old hasagawa mazda cosmo race car that has been sitting on the shelf tempting me for some time now. got it down and examined it, come to find out the decals have really not survived very well. the decal film, and therefore the decal graphics themselves, have crinkled up on the backing. the decals are actually three dimensional now and obviously are not going to improve when introduced to water. so thats the bad news. the good news is that the sheet is still more or less intact and none of the crinkled film has flaked off, so the sheet could theoretically be photographed or scanned and reproduced on decal paper. the colors are bright and vivid. however there may be some white decal area which i understand is a problem...i would be willing to work out something on those areas like using another color than white. it would probably require some cleaning up of the image to get rid of the crinkled look but even reproducing them just as they are would be acceptable and better than nothing. would anyone here care to volunteer for this project? i can pay a bit of money but it wont be a software engineers hourly salary or anything. i would probably want 3 or 4 copies of the sheet (i think three would probably fit on one 8.5 X 11 inch sheet of paper) so i could have spares. the graphics are pretty extensive. i can take a photo and post it here to illustrate but i have not as yet done so. please if anyone can help me out PM me or shoot me an email at jbwelda at gmail dot com many thanks in advance!

i have a few extra bases from this kit, or at least one i think, so if you cant come up with one send me a PM many thanks again for the comments and compliments!

>I've still never gotten an answer to the one thing I've been wondering about this kit ... does it include the optional Big >Drag headers that were in the Big T? i got one the other day off ebay and when i looked in it i did not see extra headers beyond the end capped ones from like the Big T (not the big drag). it could be they (big drag headers) are in there somewhere but i didnt see them. kinda disappointed about the 3 carb set up like mentioned but thats ok, its nice to see this back on the market. even though...when i was a kid this was the least desirable of the big scale stuff. thats why it became so rare: no one really dug the phaeton vs the big drag or rod or t. so its kind of strange to see it get reissued while the big drag remains much sought after.

ok heres a few last photos, on the display stand, with and without motor exposed. many thanks again! very nice king T by the way, i am hoping to get that done in the next year (im not too fast with this stuff).

hey thanks for looking and all your kind comments! one thing i have noticed with every buildup of this i have seen (and i have only seen them on this message board to be honest), is that the interior bucket doesnt really fit the shell too well. it needs to be less deep so the body can sit down over the frame a bit more, and also so that the rear of the seat can fit over the shell a bit better. in attacking those two problems, a hopeful side effect would be to eliminate that small bit of the interior bucket that sits above the body on the sides, esp right next to where the seat starts. for my next one (who knows when...) i think i will do a little more work on making the interior fit better. it would be really nice to see that seat sit down over the rear lip of the body. as i recall from test fitting though, that just isnt going to happen without some modifications to the top of the seat. the other thing about the interior is it screams for some added details. there are no pedals for instance and you can pretty clearly see down there so at least a chrome moon pedal for accelerator would be nice. i might actually add that to this one later because it really screams out at you. i did leave off the grille ornament though because it looks too big to me. i kind of like it though so maybe it will end up on the car eventually. it really was a pretty fun build and i really should use the lessons from this one to build a next one that looks really great. more pics to come in a few minutes... thanks again for the comments, i really appreciate that someone else appreciates this kind of lost kit.

yeah thats what i thought. it just seems to be a fact of life. in this case i think tamiya is even worse, though its actually better because you can build up thin coats. but it takes a lot of thin coats especially if youre shooting over varied under surface like red putty on white plastic or patches made with dark plastic on a white body. ive just found you have to build up some coats which might take a while. another thing, maybe you can get the surface uniform with the grey primer and then do a final with white. i assume you want a white base for whatever color youre going to shoot? no matter what, painting is always tricky and ive found if you skimp on even one little step you pay for it later...

thanks for the answers and thanks for sharing the photos, that really turned out great!

some of you may have been following this in the workbench section, just finished it up tonite with epoxing the windshield frame into place. saving the best for last as usual! anyway it sure turned out a lot nicer than i may have even wished for. stuff actually fit together well, or at least could be made to pretty easily despite lack of stable gluing points. i changed up a few things, for one thing got rid of the dragmaster slicks on all four wheels...replaced the front with smaller rolling stock, though kept the wheels. honestly i dont see how you could have used the slicks on the front axle as it is extremely delicate even with the smaller tires you can see it stress whenever you move it. thats why i think i will put it on the kinda cool but not really display stand that came with the kit, to keep from having to move the model itself. anyway i can only imagine what the load would be on the stress points with heavy tires like those slicks. another thing is i got impatient with trying to find a near correct color so i went with an old favorite of mine, model master deep purple pearl or something, followed by a couple coats of clear. everything laid down nice and smooth which was good because i didnt want to deal with trying sand this delicate body after already having ruined one body by breaking off the tip of the rear fender! as it turns out though it would be pretty easily repairable because of the big chrome fender liners form the same tip. another amazing thing i learned for next time (and i have a couple of these kits to build) is you can build the body complete and it will fit, barely, into place over the rear suspension and frame. that means you can seal up all the seams which i (ahem) failed to do because i thought the instrux (!&%#) implied you had to fit the body around the frame which would have been an interesting and velocity inducing experience, im sure. yes well here are some pics and i will post some more on the stand as soon as i can. the left side hood fits a lot better than some of these photos show. i didnt notice it wasnt settled down properly when i took some of the shots.

Finally finished this one up and I have to say it turned out pretty good! heres a cool profile and there will be more pics posted in Under Glass section soon. thanks for tuning in and adding your comments!

this might be heresy but i remember building that model long ago and i never really saw the benefit of having opening doors. there wasnt much to see in the interior to begin with, and only so much detailing to really do in there. that combined with the ###### hinges like you mention...i glued the doors on and didnt look back. not sure i would do the same today, but...naw wait a minute, yeah i would still glue them!

you may be wondering, why is he telling me to use plastic to fill the hole when it just seems simpler to put some putty on there and sand it smooth. the problem is that putty isnt a very stable substance, it will take a long time to truly cure and will shrink or do other things during that time period. especially when you paint over it, it will shrink and your smooth body work will get lumpy. using plastic, which is a much more stable substance, will help make your repair permanent. you should try to fill as much as possible with plastic and then only use the putty in the joints between parts. you will really minimize the "ghosting" of the repair over time. believe me it took me a long while to realize the wisdom of what seemed like a lot more work at first.

is the problem cracks (too much paint) or the opposite, lack of coverage?

as i understand it, and not sure ive verified this via actual experience, but a sanding pad or just using folded up paper, is soft and it is very difficult if not impossible to get near perfect smooth surfaces with that tool or technique. near perfect as in looking good on long expanses of gloss black surface. but if you wrap the paper around a block or stick or something of that nature, it remains flat when attacking the surface and encourages a flat surface rather than following the existing contour of the surface and just making the whoop-de-woos deeper. i do know that ive used a block that came with the polishing kit i used for some time now and indeed my panels seem to be straighter looking, though with my eyesight thats all conjecture! the problem often is holding the paper taut while you are processing the surface. that and having the room for the luxury of using a block or stick or something firm like that. any raised surfaces will lose their paint real quick if youre not careful. thats fine if youre chrome foiling or otherwise covering those surfaces but if not its going to be more difficult to get into corners. trimming coffee stirrer sticks or similar to size and gluing on sandpaper will help in that though. so what i generally do is a compromise: do as much area as possible with a block but then move toward just bare abrasive as i try to get into corners or around raised objects i dont want to cut through paint on.

just watched the video again. wish there were more walkthroughs like that actually. very nice. still those back fenders bother me though now i am beginning to see how they might appeal as they sort of backward mimic the front fenders visually. but i still think my preference would be to cant them back from where they are out of the box, and then, bob about 1/3 of them off so they wouldnt nearly drag on the ground. i should have done that on the tub i built last year but now they are readily available so i got lots of fenders!

ok maybe they would grow on me...

yep i agree, i really checked it and its host vehicle and trailer out this last sunday and it is super nice, great design and well carried out in all three vehicles. best of show contender for sure.

wow those are nice! and i see the tamiya paint stands are universal!

thats too cool. i still cant really get my brain around "printing" actual 3-d parts but i am coming around.

>We'll also have a standard trans bellhousing and fourspeed trans for the Offy. thats first on my list! let me ask you, this irs, is the center line of the axle at the same or less a distance from the frame crossmember as the stock halibrand axle? in other words will using the irs as you have it pictured raise the rear end of the T vs using the stock axle and transverse spring? it sure looks wicked!

hey a real world question here, ive been playing around with my offy and am getting to the point of wanting to primer it...typically with other resin parts i soak them in westleys bleach white to remove any molding compound. usually soak them for a day or so and then hit them with a toothbrush. is this step necessary with these castings? i dont want them to dissolve or anything! right now though i wish i had opted for one of these e type motors instead of the offy but lets see how the offy goes together and i may need to buy the xk too!

yeah super cool! so is the beatnik bandit a separate kit or did it come with this robbin hood figure? if it came with the figure are there differences between it and the beatnik bandit that is available separately? aside from the distorted wheels and tires i mean? thats a totally finiky model to build, the bb i mean, and yours looks very well put together. i take it the decals were old and not usable or did you redo them to get a better color?

wow the paint on that red ford looks super! deep and rich!

thanks terry, i will keep an eye out for it. 20$ is more like what i had in mind.

whatever possessed that guy to rotate the rear fenders *forward*? looks super dumb. i have never seen that on a real car and it doesnt make sense mechanically, much less look aesthetically pleasing. nice video review though.