Anglia105E

That is good thinking on your part Dennis, thank you . . . You could say that is thinking outside the box ( pun intended ! ) Thinking outside the steering box. I was already toying with the idea of cutting the column from the box, and I did start thinking along the lines of inserting a metal pin into the box . . . Anyway, I am pleased to report, on Tuesday evening it all came together at once, and the steering box with column attached is glued in place. The solution was to move the model to a table in my kitchen, where the overhead tube lighting was much better, and I used a handheld torch to align the steering box hole with the pin on the chassis member and it all fitted beautifully ! Thanks again for your constructive suggestion Dennis, and I shall post a full report with photos later today . . . David

Thank you Thomas . . . David

You are right there David, this is indeed quite a puzzle . . . I would be interested to know if any of the Gunze Sangyo designers actually completed a build of one of their kits. They have done a marvellous job of putting the whole thing together, which is no easy task, so I would rather not criticise any aspect of the build . . . As far as possible, I have followed the instruction sheet with this Phantom III and then used my own common sense when I can see that a certain method of assembly cannot realistically work. I am confident that I can overcome these temporary setbacks, and of course this is all part of the learning process I guess ! The subconscious solution has often worked for me, because it seems that when you ' sleep on it ' , the problem does not look so scary the next day ! David W.

For a large part of today, I was attempting to align the steering column and steering box with the floor board, firewall and chassis. This is actually proving to be extremely difficult . . . There is a hole on the side of the steering box which has to be glued onto a pin that potrudes from the side member of the chassis, close to the engine block. The pin for the steering box is only just visible from above the chassis, as there is a plate below the chassis that obcsures the view . . . Then it gets interesting, and challenging. The lower body goes into position, and this has an upper plate that hides the steering box completely. According to the Gunze Sangyo instruction sheet, the floorboard is glued to the lower body, before the steering column has to feed through the hole in the floorboard . . . My difficulty with this, is that once all five pieces come together, including the firewall, I shall have no means of making sure that the steering box is glued onto the chassis pin, as I can neither see it nor get at it . . . There has to be a certain amount of up and down movement to allow for the steering column to feed through the floorboard hole, but the lower end must be glued onto the pin ! This will not be the only difficult stage in the assembly, as there will be a similar coming together of around six pieces when I attempt to assemble the division, the inner door posts, front and rear seats and the upper body . . . all of which must mount on the floorboard, lower body and chassis. I can fully understand the instruction sheet, and I have carried out countless test fitting exercises, but these two stages of the build in particular are the most worrying for me . . . I really want the car to be quite strong and therefore easy to handle, but many of the attachment methods seem to be too flimsy from my point of view . . . David

Okay Noel, and point taken . . . The vertical slats are Gunze Sangyo original chrome (40 years), and the upper section of the grille is my Molotow Liquid Chrome applied with a brush . . . I noticed the price on the C1 website is £12.00, so cheaper than eModels : https://www.c1-models.com/c1-metalizer I shall let you know how I get on with the C1 powder if I give it a try ! David

Thanks Noel . . . I see eModels are based in Stoke-on-Trent, and they seem to have the C1 product priced at £13.49 . . . The issue that I have at the moment, is basically what to do with this Phantom III radiator grille. One fellow MCM forums member has suggested stripping all of the chrome off the radiator grille part, using the ' purple pond ' type method, and then starting from scratch by coating the part with liquid chrome. This would mean that the work I have already done on the vertical slats has been a waste of time, and would need to be redone later . . . I am still trying to find a an alternative way of dealing with the problem, without resorting to a complete stripping of the chrome, although that may turn out to be the only option, I fear . . . David

Okay Noel, I will have a look at C1 directly . . . Thanks David

Nice to see the Lincoln Futura directly alongside the Batmobile, and that is a good choice of paint colour, sort of a pale Turquoise . . . I guess it is not a huge leap to transform the Lincoln into the even more futuristic Batmobile, which is what George Barris must have realised back in 1966 David W.

Thank you Noel . . . I just Googled ' C1 Polishing Powder ' and I found two suppliers, but one is discontinued and one is not in stock. That does sound like an interesting product, so a shame it is not currently available . . . Two photos below . . . David

As I was feeling rather despondent about the radiator grille chrome issue today, I chose to put together a mock up at this stage, which was more of an exercise to familiarise myself with the assembly order . . . The lower body was fitted onto the rolling chassis, followed by the floorboard and firewall . . . Then the upper body was lowered onto the chassis and floor assembly, without adding the seats and division components at this point . . . The hinged bonnet panels were placed over the firewall, and the radiator components were added. Guiding the driver's side doors assembly into place was tricky, but they are roughly where they should be. To complete this mock up, the two spare wheel casings were inserted into their wells . . . A. J. Webb was on hand to supervise the mock up procedure, which has served to provide a useful preview of the whole car. David

Mr Webb is happy now ! . . . Regarding your suggestion to use a product like SuperClean, I do have an oven cleaner product somewhere in my loft space that was very good at removing the chrome from the Minicraft Silver Cloud parts. I shall give this matter some thought, and I do know that Molotow Liquid Chrome produces a nice finish when sprayed through an airbrush. This is an acrylic paint also, well to be precise it is an acrylic ink product . . . The following photo shows the radiator grille viewed from the front of the car, as a mock up exercise . . . See the following update as a daily report . . . David

Now that is a good observation on your part Skip, and well spotted ! . . . Yes, I have plenty of felt material remaining from fabricating the carpets, so I should be able to cover the lower panel of the interior doors. To be honest, I hadn't picked up on this detail, so thanks for pointing it out to me . . . The following photo is actually a Sedanca De Ville body, but it is the same for the Sports Saloon that I am building. The blue carpet can be clearly seen on the door lower edge . . . I do think this is worth getting right, because when the doors are fully open the carpet is very visible at the bottom. David

It was time to move some of the components of this build, from my downstairs room that was being used throughout the Winter period, up to the loft space on the second floor . . . This included the rolling chassis with the V12 engine, the floorboard assembly along with the front and rear seats, the division and glass, also the steering box, steering column and steering wheel . . . I noticed that the exhaust tailpipe and also the silencer had become detached from the chassis, so I super glued these parts back in place, Two of the three foot pedals had also become detached from the floorboard, so these were swiftly glued back in place, using styrene glue. Having examined the chrome radiator grille closely, after 24 hours the Liquid Chrome application has not been successful . . . You are absolutely right by the way David G., this radiator grille is THE most important component of the entire motor car, and as such, it does need to be perfect. I am thinking that the only way to deal with this issue is to scrape off the chrome and redo the part from scratch . . . This is not how I had intended to proceed, but there does not seem to be an alternative . . . I took the opportunity to test fit the firewall and how it aligns with the floor board, and also test fitted the steering column at the same time. Started polishing the front wings of the lower body, and further polishing is required before lowering the body component to the chassis. David

This build of yours is very interesting David G. . . . For some reason the 1955 Lincoln Futura reminds me of the early Batmobile !!! Your use of micro magnets just makes me want to use mine for some aspect of the Phantom III build. Those ' little marvels ' have been sitting immediately to my left as I sit at the workbench, and I am waiting for the right moment to incorporate the magnets in my build . . . Maybe the opening doors or the bonnet panels? I understand how you feel about the figures for your Lincoln not being permanently fixed, and your solution with the removable steering wheel is pure genius . . . Regarding the paint colour for this car, I do agree that pale green is much more suited to the car than white, and one possibility might be a two-tone pale green and white paint scheme, which would be so 1950's . . . David W.

Having examined the chrome radiator grille for the Phantom III, there are clear signs of damage to the surface of the front face, on the driver's side. This has been caused by several failed attempts to remove black enamel wash from the 40 years old chrome, using enamel thinners . . . I decided to deal with the vertical slats of the radiator grille first, by applying Humbrol Matt Black enamel with a fine brush, between the slats. Then, using the pointed end of a cocktail stick, rather than a cotton bud, the excess matt black paint was carefully removed from the chrome slats. This seems to have worked quite well . . . Once the black paint has been allowed to dry overnight, I shall attempt to cover the damage to the chrome area at the top left as you see it in the following photos, using Molotow Liquid Chrome applied by brush . . . Fingers crossed ! David

Brilliant work on the soft top Francois, and I can see that was not an easy task . . . You deserve the break having got this far ! Nice set of photos . . . David

Cheers, David G. . . . I shall be turning my attention to the front end of the car shortly, including the chrome radiator grille and the Spirit of Ecstasy ornament. The grille mascot supplied out of the box is a standing figure, and I did notice that most of the Phantom III cars had a kneeling figure . . . David W.

Thanks very much Bob . . . The best is yet to come, so keep watching ! David

The luggage compartment fitting appears to have been accomplished successfully, and seems to be correct. The boot lid opens cleanly, the two boards hinge freely, the boards lower onto the boot lid as they are intended, and the suitcases sit well. The luggage bay has stuck firmly too . . . Here are some photos of the rear area of the car, with AJW in attendance ! By mounting the upper body onto the lower body, this spreads the rear wings to position correctly, now that the luggage compartment is fitted . . . Test fitted the rear chrome bumper and also the rear bumper mounting bar to the upper body rear. David

Sunday was quite a productive day, at a nice steady pace . . . The sub assembly comprising the tools tray, the two hinged boards and the boot lid itself, were brought together by lowering the tools tray into the inner base of the boot lid, and this was glued in place. There is a clear warning from Gunze Sangyo on the instruction sheet ' Do NOT allow any cement to come into conatct with the hinges ' . . . Then, with the outside of the boot lid taped onto the upper body, the inner luggage compartment bay was carefully aligned and glued into place, complete with the two suitcases inside. Leaving this to set overnight, I shall examine the inside of the luggage compartment tomorrow from the outside, with the boot lid open . . . David

Thanks David, and I forgot to mention in my last post . . . Here in UK we have Ebay sellers who offer packs of three Tamiya Polishing Compound . . . All three grades are available in one pack, which is what I usually purchase online because we do not have any high street stores selling Tamiya products. David W.

I particularly like the open door and the curtain hanging out over the window ledge Erik, because it is these sort of details that really interest me for any diorama. This is nicely done in 1:87 scale, and I hope you find your pocket notebook sketch ! David

Good to be back yes, but part of me is still down there in Cornwall . . . The four inner door panels have now been glued in place onto the outer door panels, using Revell Contacta Professional, and the rear number plate ( license plate ) has also been glued in place using PVA glue for the thin card. David W.

Well, I just returned from my annual holiday trip, which extended to 10 days as things turned out . . . Within 24 hours I was back at the workbench, as progress resumed on the Rolls-Royce Phantom III . . . Like a dedicated model builder I was determined to press on. Today was all about applying Tamiya Polishing Compound to the outer cream door panels. The inner door panels have not yet been glued in place, because I needed to grip the doors firmly in order to apply the polishing compound properly, and the chrome door handles would have been easily damaged. I used all three grades, so Coarse, Fine and Finish, and I can see a significant improvement . . . With the doors polished, I set up a simple mock up of the passenger side doors with the upper and lower body. Also, test fitted the inner door panels on the driver's side. David

Nice to exchange interesting sailing stories ! Cheers and Au Revoir, David