jaymcminn

Wish I'd caught this thread earlier, I could have warned you about the distributor clearance issue. It's super tight in there. Beautiful job on this build, the color is great!

Engine is ready to go into the chassis. The engine in this kit has excellent detail and looks really nice built up. I added ignition wire to dress it up a little. I tried to match it up as closely as possible to the engine in the Spyder I built previously. The textured finish on the air cleaner was just done with TS29 from the spray can held far enough away (about 18") that the paint started to dry before hitting the surface. After three or four coats a nice scale crackle finish built up. Rolling stock is assembled as well. The Fujimi Enthusiast Daytona Borranis are fantastic. They build up from three layers of spokes. The Michelin XWX tires are beautiful as well. The wheel diameter is maybe an inch too large to be correct but I'm not going to split hairs. I do still need to add valve stems before I mount them. Next up will be the interior, stay tuned!

So pretty. Is that the Splash Paints Bentley Racing Green?

The Citroen 2cv (For Your Eyes Only) is being rereleased as well. Looks like they're retooling it with rectangular headlamps to match the movie car.

Or the DBS from On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Sadly I'm guessing that's gonna be a big ol' nope on either of those.

Looks like that old crock of a Gunze Sangyo kit is good for something after all! Can't wait to see how this progresses!

Mini update... the chrome plating on the bumpers was full of dust specks and what I swear was a cat hair. There were also sinkmarks and highly visible attachment points to contend with. I stripped them with Easy Off and sprayed with airbrushed Molotow Chrome. I've had good luck with airbrushed Molotow in the past. The key to a relatively durable finish is to allow the maximum drying time possible. A week or two is generally sufficient before handling. Airbrushed Molotow isn't quite as "chromey" as brush painted, but still looks great. When Revell Chrome Spray starts to be a little more available in the US I'll give it a shot.

Lol, the Big Guy is probably the most-photographed animal of all time. He even made it into the pages of MCM last year! Honestly my first time spraying TS13 over any of the Tamiya silvers. I've sprayed the old Testors Wet Look lacquer over them before without any bad effects. This was applied as normal, two wet coats after giving the color coats about 30 minutes to flash over. From what I understand TS13 was reformulated about 4 years ago since the old "hot" formula would dissolve decals. Maybe you were using the old formula?

We haven't actually gotten any pics from the OP of the paintwork in question to be able to determine whether it's an adverse effect between base and clear coat or if it's an application issue. One thing the OP mentioned was building up multiple thin coats, which is not how the Testors Extreme Clear Gloss likes to be applied. Generally two or three medium-wet coats will provide the best finish. It sounds like it might be drying before it hits the surface and building up texture. That being said, I stopped using this stuff years ago because the spray cans are just so bad. They don't atomize the paint well and leave it prone to bubbling and even runs. The product itself is fine and works well when decanted and airbrushed. Milo, if you could post up pics of the issues you're experiencing it might help everybody out.

I tend to stay away from red for 60's Ferraris as, outside of competition cars, red wasn't really as prevalent as it was from the 70's onward. There were so many great colors available for these cars that building a bunch of red ones just doesn't appeal to me. That being said, when I build my Fujimi 250GTO it will actually probably be in Rosso Corsa. Agreed the LP paints are fantastic, my LHS doesn't stock them yet so I have to stock up at the hobby shop in Port Charlotte about an hour away when I make it up there. My 250 Spider California was the Academy generic release as well. I'm not bothered about Ferrari losing out on the licensing... they already make almost as much off of selling branded tat as they do from cars anyway.

I'm always keeping an eye out for more 250SWBs. I was all set to buy several a few years back when RoG announced they were rereleasing it. Of course that never quite happened!

Paint is on... Tamiya Light Gunmetal with TS-13 Clear top coat over Tamiya grey primer. My technique with TS paints is to apply two light coats of color followed by three wet coats 10 minutes apart. For metallics I'll then hit it with two fairly wet coats of clear after 30 minutes flash time. I'll give it a week or so to gas out before polishing with Meguiar's Ultimate Compound and Polish. Given the less-than-optimal painting conditions (90°, 79° dewpoint, 70% humidity) it turned out pretty good with minor orange peel and no blushing or junk in the paint. Next up will be the tedious part of any build... removing parts from sprues, pre-assembly and cleanup, then mounting to craft sticks for paint.

Really enjoying this build. I did the GTS (in dark green as well!) a few years back. I will tell you that the body-to-chassis fit is something you only do once, it's really nerve-wracking. It does fit neatly into place without glue, though.

Thanks Matt! Yup, there's no way that joint would hold up without reinforcement. I have a nice thick bead of gap-filling CA running all the way around. Thanks Gerry! I have the 250GT in the stash as well, that's another one I'm holding off on until I figure out exactly how I'm going to build it.

Several years ago my LHS got in a consignment of vintage car kits. I scored a Fujimi Enthusiast Dino, an Enthusiast Porsche 930, and this... the rare Italeri Ferrari 275gtb. This kit has been released twice as far as I know... once by Revell in 1991 and then a year later by Italeri. When these kits (rarely) show up on Ebay they tend to command some pretty high prices. My LHS had it priced at a whopping $29.99! This has been in the stash for a few years now waiting for the right time. I've got some experience with this kit having built the Spyder version already (paid $100ish on the 'bay for that one!) and it's a great little kit with a few caveats. The wheels and tires are Italeri's usual two-piece Borranis with Dunlop "truck tires". The headlights aren't great either. But the proportions are great and the detail is very good and the kit responds well to simple detailing. I'm several hours into the build, pretty much body prep so far. The front and rear valances as well as the headlight buckets have been attached and minor divots and gaps were filled with Tamiya putty. Panel lines were rescribed and trim edges were sharpened up a little. The body was then block sanded. The kit headlight locating hole was drilled out for parts box headlights with actual reflectors. Primer is going on soon! Wheels and tires are going to be Fujimi's excellent 3-piece Borranis with Michelin XWX tires from the Enthusiast Daytona kit. You used to be able to get these as a wheel set from Fujimi but that set has been OOP for a while. I have a Daytona parts kit that I'm going to use for these. I was tempted to order up a set of RMCM Campagnolo wheels but I used a set of these on the Spyder and wanted to go with something different on the Berlinetta. Color is going to be Tamiya Light Gunmetal, which is a pretty good stand in for Ferrari Grigio Fumo. Interior will be navy blue over grey carpet. Here are some pics of the body so far... Bandit obviously approves of my choice of subject matter! A couple of pics of the Spyder below...

Perfect color combination and absolutely flawless build! I did the 695 Assetto Corsa version several years back and loved every minute of it. Those 90s Tamiya "modern classics" kits are among their best.

Last night about 8:30pm Bandit bolted straight for the patio door and started pawing at it. I figured it was one of the neighbor cats, but not quite... This standoff went on for about 5 minutes until the "trash panda" wandered off (absolutely NOT due to being scared away by 17 pounds of ginger fury or me taking pictures and laughing). The mighty defender of home and hearth was rewarded with Temptations and belly rubs.

Beautiful build of this kit. The color is subtle and perfect for the 80s. Awesome!

In the display case with two of its contemporaries, Italeri's Fiat Mefistofele and Alfa Romeo 8c.

I actually just snagged the 1/12 Italeri Fiat Abarth 695SS for $119.99 shipped. Not a bad deal. I got it from Model Expo through their Amazon storefront.

Thanks Pierre! I'm really happy with how the metal finishes turned out. A lot of it comes down to the Vallejo Metal Color paint. The pigments are Metalizer-fine, but Metal Color is water-based and pre-thinned for airbrushing. It doesn't mind being brush-painted over small areas either. A lot of the chassis components were painted with their Gunmetal Grey and then drybrushed with the Chrome to give it depth and shine like the alloy components of the 1:1. Salt weathering is FUN. Definitely going to go into my bag of tricks for future use. It's a really random effect, which is a challenge for me since I like to control every aspect of my builds, but I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. The barn-find aspect of the build suffered from "mission creep" as it progressed. The more you research these cars, even with tatty (or sometimes no) paint and wrecked leather, you realize they are still loved. Which makes sense as they are mid 7-figure cars these days. By keeping the mechanicals shiny and everything else a bit rough, I think I hit that aesthetic.

Thanks man! The exhaust manifolds were done using Perfect Plastic Putty, which is an acrylic putty. I thinned it down to a very thick paint consistency and stippled it on with an old brush. Once dry I primed with Tamiya red oxide primer, misted with Tamiya grey primer and gave it a wash with thinned Revell light brown acrylic. The leather was pretty easy, the hardest part was getting straight cuts on 1/32 in thick leather that wants to bunch up on you as you're cutting. Ask away whenever you'd like. I built the 8c a few years back and it's just as good as this kit. Here's a pic below, I didn't go as crazy on the weathering as I did on this one.

Yes, but not 100% accurate to how Bugatti did it. The locking bolts are 3d printed by a company out of the UK called Unobtanium. THey're an ingenious design that uses a jig to drill .3mm holes for 30 gauge wire through each bolt. They're designed for the 1/12 Italeri Alfa 8c, which is a slightly different design to Bugatti's locking bolts. It looks good though, and this design is less fragile than the accurate ones would be. The wire is 30 gauge soft jewelry wire. Thanks!

Just noticed the nasty fingerprint in the last picture, must have happened yesterday when I was applying a final touch up of acrylic wash on the metal plates on the sills. Already cleaned up with a little alcohol and water mix.

Link to Under Glass thread below. I was expecting drama in the final assembly stages, and it never materialized. This is a real sweetheart of a kit and was a blast from beginning to end. I can't recommend it enough! http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/182869-le-chaton-112-italeri-bugatti-35b/