shaunmza

Love the colour! It is very eighties.

I love these cars, this is definitely on my wish list of kit's to buy and build. Yours turned out great.

That might work, I have paint issues on a Mini I am building and I am trying to fix them by masking off an area as well. In my experience you need to take the masking tape off as soon as you can, or the glue on the making tape will attack the paint. Not sure if it will do the same to your paint too, but as a precaution, don't leave it on for hours. Worst case you have to strip the paint off anyway, so you lose some time and paint.

I think what the model shop meant was that you should be able to paint most kinds of paints over the primer and it wont have a bad reaction. If the colour of your primer is very different to the colour of your paint, then you need to use more coats of paint. Too many coats make the fine details disappear, so it's best to use as little paint as you need to, to get a consistent colour coat on your car. Having a white primer coat means you can use fewer coats of white paint. I have only built 3 models so far, so am a beginner like you, so am just sharing what I know

Seeing those rims on the chassis and the body separately, I could not see them working together at all. With the body on I am quite surprised how good it actually looks! Interesting building, thanks for sharing.

Thats a very nice colour!

Wow, just wow... I see you tape up portions as you work, is that to protect the details when you are sanding? I find it impossible to work with tiny details, so I am in awe of the work you do!

Is the roll bar part of the kit, or did you build it from scratch? I am enjoying the build, I like the odds cars

Grazie! Google translate is quite amazing My dad is quite an Alfa fan, only the rear wheel drive ones though! I would love to do a GTV 2.5 for him one day, but can't seem to find a kit in 1/24 scale.

I think so too, I have a Talbot Lago as well, but the wheels are different, I am still trying to figure out how to lace those wheels. Thanks!

Thanks for the support! I guess I feel I need to justify my posts, so many of the builds here blow my mind! @Oldmopars as you said, when you start comparing your work to others it stops being fun, so I am mindful of that, but it takes effort to not do it. I am still having fun, so won't be stopping soon.

Wow, just went through this from the beginning, the attention to detail is amazing!

With my mini shelved until the weather warms up enough for me to try and patch it up, I have returned to the Alfa. As usual I do bits here and there and never take photos, so here are a few to catch up. I added spark plug wires to the engine and tried to route them as best as I could to match the original motor. Unfortunately the rail that connects to the radiator is in the wrong position on the motor and I was really not keen to redril the holes and fill the old ones. With the supercharger attached. This engine has very little detail and differs quite a bit from the photos I have seen of both 158's and 159's I found a photo of an earlier version of this motor, where the distributor was down at the bottom of the motor. The correct place is right infront of the engine, by the left cam shaft, but I am lazy and do not see chance to make a decent looking distributor to match any of the photos I have seen. As you can see, my spark plugs are not exactly perpendicular to the cylinder head. I am in dire need of practice on this fine detailing stuff! The left side at the rear of the body is very thin and bends quite easily, so I gled in a small strip of styrene and trimmed it down. Much stiffer now. With the rainy weather I won't be able to paint soon, so am keeping busy trying random little things. There are a few details that are meant to have panel lines, but they are raised. These would be lost with pain (especially my painting) so I decided to try and scribe them instead. It's rough, but I am getting there. Hopefully the paint will hide the worst of it I also bought a micro drill set not to long back. I drilled out the exhaust, probably wont be noticable when don, but I love using those tiny tiny drill bits! I did the same on the shaft that I think represents the shaft used to manually turn and start the engine, a later photo shows why. Because I cut the hubs off of the original wheels to lace them up with wires, I decided to dill the vent holes into the drums. The original wheels would have had the holes turn with the wheels, as they would on the real car. I doubt anyone would notice if these do not turn though. The shaft from the motor was fouling on the front suspension, with a section drilled out, it now fits into it and looks a bit more complete. The leaf spring hides it though, so I may as well have cut either short. But it was fun to do. Partially assembled. Ignore the bad paint, it won't be airbrushed, but will get another coat. Top og the body on. Valve covers on, I still need to paint them. With the exhaust in place. I had to trim down the trailing edge of the hood as it would not lie flat. Another angle, showing the material removed. Now it fits flush with no force needed. What it looks like with badly painted wire wheels. The holes need some black paint, but I think the effect will be quite nice. In case you have not noticed, the quality of my builds is nowhere near the other builds I have seen on the site. I am posting it anyway as a way to record what I am doing. Once I have made my way through the kits I have, I will by more (cheap) kits and get more experience on them. One day, I will have an airbrush, paint booth and will not have to paint latge surfaces using brushes and enamel paints, but until then, I find the process of building to be relaxing, so eeven though the quality is not there, I am going to push on and finish as much as I can. Thanks for looking!

I too have fond memories of a Mini I owned when I was much, much younger. They are very fun to drive! Thanks! Thank you for the compliment. I am struggling to find any kind of polishing compund here, my local hobby shop is quite focussed on airplanes and tanks, so they are limited in what they stock. My next online purchase will include some rubbing and polishiing compounds so I can take away the orange peel, it's not very visible in the photo's One day when I am more experienced I would love to try weathering, for now, this and the other models I have are basically practice for when I buy and build my dream cars, so I am trying to get experience in painting and so on. Thanks for the comments.

I started gluing on other bits like the lights and also started on the decals. Right from the start it was doomed, I broke the decals for the windshield before I even managed to get it off the decal sheet. I tried the door number next, which was almost perfect but for one corner where it seemed to have folded over itself. I tried moving it, but the decal had set, so I broke that too. Eventually I washed it off with water, but the portion that had set, was stuck and no amount of water or rubbing would get it off. Out came the sandpaper, and here is where I am now. When the weather warms I will try patch up the paint. I was just so disappointed when that happened. Here are a few more pictures of where the body stands. The indicator seen on the right, I glued directly into the body, then used a silver sharpie to colour the silver on it. For the one on the left I first did the silver, front and back. The effect is quite a bit more pleasing, but the first one is glued in tight and I don't want to risk breaking something forcing it out. I love the detail on these headlights. Decals are proving hard for me to do properly. I even managed to break a bit out of the numberplate, not too noticeable, but it really irks me. So I have shelved this for now. The chassis and other bits have gone back in the box and at the top of the closet, where it will stay until I manage to patch the body.

The dash and other miscellaneous items were done and glued in. Engine and suspension glued in, with the wheels on. Test fitting the body. At this point I was very excited, it was starting to look like something.

That's amazing, I would love to see more of the build process!

I love the idea of the chassis made from paper! Looking at the photo of the original paint, I am struggling to see the flaws. Your builds are always very clean and well done.

I have glued it up already, thankfully it looks ok, to me anyway. I am a bit behind with the photos. Thanks for commenting!

Thanks for your comment and the pointers. I have already glued the engine into the chassis so its going to be a bit hard to make the changes you pointed out. I followed the instructions for the colours and the box art + a few nline images when I had no idea what to do. I will have a stab at the wheels though, even though they are glued on as well, I do think it would look good. I have progressed beyond what you see here, but after work I just want to close the computer so don't get around to posting the few photos I have taken. I am very green when it comes to model building, so right now I am aiming to get it done, more than getting it perfect. This is only really the second car I have built. But first I need to fix the paint last night I tried to apply the decals and ended up destroying one of th numbers that goes on the side. I had it damned near perfect, when I notced the one corner had a ridge, as I tried to move the decal around the get the ridge flat it broke. I think that corner had folded over on itself, then dried and set up permanantely. After I tore the decal in one spot, then another, I decided to remove it completely. That one corner would not come off though! Vigorous rubbing, with copious amounts of water did nothing. I tried scratchign it off with my fingernail, but eventually damaged the paint. At that point I gave up and sanded the decal off, as you can imagine I wenat through the paint too. The lovely weather here in Portugal is cold and very wet, so the paint repair attempt will have to wait a few days. This has me quite bummed, as I felt like I was so close to being done!

The black and gold is always a good combo. Can't wait to see more.

I have seen a few of your threads now and must say I admire your attention to detail. I look forward to seeing updates on whatever you work on.

That looks great, I enjoyed following your build. Congrats on a job well done.

I started this thread with the intention of posting updates often. Unfortunately work and after hours freelancing has eaten up my time, so I plug away at the mini in what spare time I can muster. This means I often forget to take photos. Pretty much the same engine, but in the subframe, then loosely mounted in the chassis for fitting. I used a silver Sharpie to do the detailing on the bottom. Found at a local Walmart equivalent store call Jumbo. I would never have thought to have looked for a pen like it if I had not been on this forum! I love this pen! A few more enging in chassis shots... The painted body, this is after having stripped it once before. I thought I hit the jackpot, finding acrylic rattle can paint. To my horror, when I sprayed it on it stayed tacky for days, eventually I cleaned it off with water detergent and a toothbrush. Eventually I found a primer that does not attack the styrene (I have spent more on different primers than what I paid for the model originally). I sprayed the primer, then applied the red acrylic. It still does not dry hard, but I don't have much of a choice so am pressing on, it won't get handled much once it's built so it's a lesson learnt. We will be moving in a few months time, hopefully to house and not another flat/apartment which means I may be able to get a compressor and try my hand at using an airbrush. I decided to paint the brake caliper blue for some pop behind the rim But it's not noticable at all... I thought darker rims than the original silver would help, alas no, here they are before I repainted them though. To all the people I have not responded to, thanks so much for your comments. I really appreciate you taking the time to write a response.

I am not 100% sure about the wheels but maybe they will grow on me when you have painted it. I am keen to see how it turns out.