Anglia105E

The silver Sharpie chrome ink does have a nice realistic appearance, but the only problem seems to be that the surface of the dried ink is easily smudged and rubbed off. This is even more delicate than the Molotow Liquid Chrome ink in terms of handling . . . I don't think the areas that have been Sharpie'd will ever be safe to handle without smudging. Even worse, is that when I have touched the silver and not realised, then I go and create silver marks on the polished black bodywork with my fingers, which looks terrible. I think these marks will polish off, although not easily. My guess is that the hand sanitiser is keeping the ink from ever drying out completely, although it does a good job of getting the pen to flow from the nib. David W.

Thanks a lot John . . . David

This evening I removed the radiator grille shell and bonnet (hood) panels from the test body and then test fitted them to the actual build body. The radiator grille shell had been mounted using PVA glue, and to my surprise it required quite a bit of force to lever the part away from the front of the body shell. As you can see from the following series of photos, the four recessed holes that are provided to mount the radiator grille shell were not fully drilled through on the body, so I pushed through the plastic with a small round file . . . Once the radiator grille was mounted using a Bostik glue dot, the two bonnet panels were placed into their hinge sockets. These parts seem to be a good fit, with no issues that I can see. The radiator shell serves to hold the bonnet panels in place. I think the Silver Cloud model looks pretty good at this stage as a mock up only . . . David

Okay here are the details Mark . . . The actual car is a 1957 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud that was supplied new in 1957 to Bernard Dixon, by the London dealership Jack Barclay, and the registration number was BD 12, with the chassis number SDD54 . . . The car was finished in black, the engine was a 4.9 litre straight six (299 cubic inches), and this car remained in the ownership of Bernard Dixon from 1957 to 1959. The car appeared in a famous film " The Fast Lady " in 1962, by which time the registration plate had been changed to 200 DYO following change of ownership. This Silver Cloud later found a new owner, who changed the paint scheme to black over gold two-tone and fitted a Webasto sunroof that covered the whole roof area . . . As regards my model version of this car, this one is a 1:24 scale kit that uses parts from both the Minicraft version of the kit and also the Revell version, as well as the Entex kit. The kit was originally produced by Hubley in the US, and then Entex, Academy and Masterkit of Brazil . . . It was Hubley who produced the first promo version of the Silver Cloud II in 1959. David

You mentioned your next build, and I find that 1:16 scale is a very nice scale in which to work. Having built my Dad's Ford Cortina MK I as produced by FROG in 1:16 scale, it was a real pleasure to go on to build the Gunze Sangyo Rolls-Royce Phantom III, also in 1:16 scale. The Ford Cortina was advertised on Ebay as a two door car, and the box art by FROG also shows a two door car. What I needed was a 4 door car that was my Dad's, and I saw an article online which stated that the kit inside the box is actually a 4 door version . . . This turned out to be true, much to my delight. The 1:16 scale model cars do take up a lot of space once they are assembled, especially the Rolls-Royce which is 13 inches in length, but I don't mind as these large models display so well. Of course, I would love to build models in 1:12 scale and even 1:8 scale ( Pocher ), but I cannot afford to purchase such kits. David

The sill mouldings have turned out quite nicely, and I spotted a grey patch on the beige headlining on the underside of the roof, so this was overpainted with some ' Earth Balance ' emulsion . . . I also used some grey emulsion paint on the rear window seal. Over the years I have seen model builders who have painted the rear window surround on the outside with chrome, but this is not correct and it should be a grey rubber seal. David

I wrongly assumed that both of the photos that I sent you were of real 1:1 cars. However, I think you are correct in saying that the second photo is a scale model car, but how can you tell that it shows a 1:64 scale model? David

Always good to make progress Steve . . . I was pleasantly surprised to see the hand sanitizer work so well, especially when 100% Isopropyl Alcohol did not seem to work in a previous attempt . . . It does look like the silver finish of this Sharpie is easily rubbed off, so I must handle the body with care when carrying out other tasks, such as polishing for example. Of course, with hindsight, I should have polished first and then done the silvering / chroming afterwards. David

Both of the sill mouldings have been re-chromed and these are being allowed to dry overnight, before removing the blue masking tape . . . I would like to get the window glass in place pretty soon, so the body needs to be polished completely prior to fitting the windows. David

Really nice smooth finish on that gold roof Mark . . . I can see why you like that particular colour too. Here are a couple of photos of the Ford Fairlane . . . David

Yes Mark, I agree it looks pretty good. The hand sanitiser is causing the metallic Sharpie to be more fluid than it would be normally, and it is taking longer to dry. Usually, you would be able to handle a part that has had Sharpie applied almost straight away, but this needs a more cautious approach. What is your current build at the moment ? David

The silver Sharpie pen was allowed to soak in hand sanitiser overnight for 12 hours plus. Today, the silver ink was flowing from the nib in the same manner that Molotow Liquid Chrome ink is known to behave . . . I am now able to put the cap on this pen, then place it vertically with the nib downwards, and then continue using the pen several hours later. The door strips are chromed on both sides of the body, and I even managed to get the two sill mouldings done as well. Next step was to apply silver to the rear door window frame on the passenger side of the car. However, this resulted in a step backwards, because while handling the body I rubbed off much of the silver ink on both sill mouldings . . . That was careless of me, wasn't it ? These will have to be redone tomorrow. The Sharpie ink that is applied from the nib that has been soaked in hand sanitiser clearly takes longer to dry before handling, due to its liquid consistency. David

Yep, that is the plan Mark . . . The silver Sharpie worked without any shaking needed tonight, but it only managed to cover half of the door strips, before the ink stopped flowing. I have returned the pen to the container of hand sanitiser, and I shall leave it overnight to soak. Getting there, slowly ! David

Well guys . . . Admins and moderators and those members who have kindly offered their suggestions and advice, I am pleased to report that I have just posted five chunks of text that divided up from the main block of text. Not one of those five chunks of text generated the error message that I was getting previously, and they all posted normally . . . Just to be sure, I also posted the same five photos that were part of the larger text block. That also posted normally, with no error message. This does not make sense, mind you. The logic of this is lost on me. Why does the whole block of text fail to post, but the five individual portions of this text posted normally, without error, suggesting there is nothing contained within that text to cause a problem ? Thanks very much guys ! David Watson

The following five photos show my progress so far. David W.