Spottedlaurel

Use the first Flickr option to "Share" instead of BBCode, which will give you a short link to drop into your post. I got foxed by that on another forum.

I'm used to some of the changes as a couple of other forums I frequent use the same software. Great to see that quoted posts don't show all of the photos! I am getting a lot more ad's however, even between sections on the home page.

Thanks all! It's coming together well, as to be hoped for a relatively simple kit. I had to trim the front of the floorpan and arches to get it fitting in and out of the bodyshell without fear of something breaking. 1:24 Fujimi Nissan Skyline GT-R kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Micromesh and resin polished the bodywork in the week. The automotive clear smoothed out nicely. Time for another trial-fit: 1:24 Fujimi Nissan Skyline GT-R kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Fujimi Nissan Skyline GT-R kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr I will probably cut out the side glass, as I like to do on anything that's pillarless. It also has one or two moulding marks and scratches so it will be good to get rid of them, although I'm still going to have to try and polish one out on the windscreen. 1:24 Fujimi Nissan Skyline GT-R kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr I've lowered it by around 3"/75mm in scale. Back was easy, just slotting the holes for the metal axle. At the front I took material off the top of the struts then cut off the original lower mounts and attached new ones higher-up on the crossmember. Interior is largely painted and there's not much left to do on the basic suspension so it's now down to BMF brightwork, detailing the grille, lights etc then final assembly.

Looks good to me! Great to see you tackling something a little different. I have the Spring 1965 issue of Popular Customs on top of one of the many piles of old magazines in my shed, I flick through it every so often and marvel about what they were doing back then. Although it's not such an obvious basis I vaguely recalled that there was a '57 in there...... Seems like this car also featured on the cover of Car Craft and somehow it survived, more about it here: https://kustomrama.com/wiki/Don_Pritchard's_1957_Chevrolet

Good luck, what you've done so far looks excellent. Very well-considered and carefully executed. Looks like a real "once in a lifetime" project that has a lot of sentimental value. Great to see the old photo, is the orange/copper colour a metallic shade?.

I like the wheels as they are, I think the highlights add something and they'd look a bit plain just black. Great to see your progress on this. I'm amused by your term of "cross frustration" - I try not to let that happen with my kits as they're just about fun and relaxation, but it neatly summarises a work situation I have right now.....

An interesting concept, why shouldn't it work? A lot of the '70s Japanese cars that have this look applied to them have late '60s/early '70s American styling traits. I look forward to seeing how it progresses.

Great start Tom, look forward to seeing it progress. You've given us odd glimpses of it here and there, good to in its own WIP thread.

Looks very good, a great companion to your Alpine A110.

That brought a smile to my face, Bugsport is completely new to me. Your build is very well-executed, it looks great. The use of the Avanti reminded me of the Sci-Fi film Gattaca, where I remember they used things like Citroen DS and Rover 2000 as swoopy cars of the future.

Have you tried leaving the chrome plating and going over them with a flat or semi-gloss clearcoat? I picked that tip up on here, it works very well.

Thanks Russ. Just done a search on the Safari Gold, looks good on the C10 and Fairlady. Not a million miles off the Ochre colour of my 1:1 Datsun 1200. I think they racked up many successive victories until the rotary-engined Mazdas took over, and Nissan didn't race the next-gen C110 GT-R (which was presumably a bit heavier). Got some colour and clearcoat onto it today: 1:24 Fujimi Nissan Skyline KPGC10 GT-R kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Fujimi Nissan Skyline KPGC10 GT-R kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr It certainly needs the black undercoat. There were a couple of points where I'd gone through to the grey primer and I had to put a few coats of the metallic grey to cover it. Next time I'll make sure the black undercoat gives absolutely full coverage. For the clear I used an automotive Halfords acrylic, which went over the Tamiya paint with no issue. I had a really good result with it on the recently-completed Celica and I only had a partial tin of TS-13 left. I like the dark grey 'colour', although I was surprised about the heavy flake effect. 1:24 Fujimi Nissan Skyline KPGC10 GT-R kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Varying shades/finishes of black on everything else, with a bit of plastic wood inside.

Thanks JC. As a fast road car I'm going to work towards something like the second image with open vents: 1:24 Humbrol Fiat 131 Abarth kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr I've since glued a solid piece behind the opening. Looks like I need to add a bit of flat flush with the bodywork then some mesh at the back - I'll use an offcut from a scrap radiator. 1:24 Humbrol Fiat 131 Abarth kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Quite a few sink marks to fill around the front end. I'm also going to fill the spotlight openings so there's just a slot in the front panel. 1:24 Humbrol Fiat 131 Abarth kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Wheels were primed then given a coupe of coats of TS-21 gold. I didn't bother stripping off the original plating, which had quite a matt finish. 1:24 Humbrol Fiat 131 Abarth kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Front end filling in progress. 1:24 Humbrol Fiat 131 Abarth kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Humbrol Fiat 131 Abarth kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Looking forward to getting some colour onto it, but I'm a little way off that stage yet. I'm not rushing this one, but it's slowly making progress. One of the spare engine/suspension sprues I had has been primed so I can start getting some other pieces together for a change from filling and sanding.

Looks handy, and great to see the Dymo tape labels! Recently got a couple off eBay at a decent price: 1:24 NuNu Mitsubishi Lancer Turbo kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr This will probably end up as a hi-po road car, to go with my Audi Quattro andFiat 131 Abarth rally cars done the same way. 1:24 Tamiya 1966 VW Beetle 1300 kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr I've been after the Tamiya Beetle or Karmann Ghia for a while, ever since I got a cheap version of their 911 Speedster and wanted to see if the wheels would fit: 1:24 Tamiya 1966 VW Beetle kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr They do, and that's with the standard tyres - will be even better if I can find something lower profile and/or skinnier for the front. As a bonus, the 911's headlights fit perfectly, so I'm thinking of building it as an '80s Cal Look custom, completely with pastel paintwork. The kit had been started but was ideal for me as a builder - it meant I could do this mock-up straightaway. It also contains some extra sprues, so I have fresh parts to paint and a few spares to donate to @stitchdup once I'm finished.

Great progress so far. That colour looks excellent on it. Is this the Monogram kit? I built one back in the '90s, I remember it going together nicely and it still looks good on my shelf.

Having completed several other kits recently I was in a position where I could start something else. It was my birthday last weekend and I thought it would be appropriate to pick something the same age as me, so delving around amongst the stuff from 1970 I picked this Skyline: 1:24 Fujimi Nissan Skyline KPGC10 GT-R kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr I think it's a 1990 issue and I've had it since 1992/93. About time I should get on with it....... 1:24 Fujimi Nissan Skyline KPGC10 GT-R kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr I have no shortage of reference material as it features in many books and magazines, I even have this old Japanese sales brochure. As I also have the more detailed Tamiya version of this Skyline I had originally planned to build this more extreme/silly than my usual style, with arch flares from a Fujimi accessory set and very wide wheels. However, I wasn't crazy about the look of them and I didn't want to get into a more involved build as I already have another couple on the go, so I'll go for my usual style of straight, original bodywork, lowered and sitting on aftermarket wheels. But what colour? Gunmetal seems to be a popular choice, as per this replica I saw at a show a few years ago: 1972 Nissan Skyline 2000 GT (C10) by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1972 Nissan Skyline 2000 GT (C10) by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr However, I rarely go for the obvious. I came very close to choosing an orangey-gold as on the brochure car, but I think that would look better on one of the several 4-door versions I have in the stash. 1:24 Fujimi Nissan Skyline KPGC10 GT-R kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr I was going to do it metallic black, than I found this tin of TS-94 metallic grey which I think should suit it well. I thought that it might need a bit of help from a black undercoat, so I took advantage of the decent weather today and managed to get a few coats over the grey primer: 1:24 Fujimi Nissan Skyline KPGC10 GT-R kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Fujimi Nissan Skyline KPGC10 GT-R kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Fujimi Nissan Skyline KPGC10 GT-R kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Mocked-up with the Star Formula wheels I'm planning to use. They are wider than the standard open steels it comes with, but with the chunky inner rim sawn off they fit neatly beneath the arches (nowhere near the surgery I had to go through on the Celica). It also means I have some very useful 4-stud 14" steel wheels for a future project which I aready have in mind...... The filler was just to cover up small sink marks at the front of the wing and where I shaved the badges behind the wheels. Only bodywork mod undertaken is to open up the exhaust cut-out so I can fit something with a larger tailpipe. It's a fairly basic curbside kit and the suspension detail is limited, but it doesn't suffer from having been motorized. Overall proportions seem good, it's certainly a better effort than Fujimi's saloon version of the same generation Skyline. Like I say, when I want to do a more detailed build I have the Tamiya kit.

Great to see an oddity like this being built, good luck with it. I saw this Italian import for sale in France back in 2018: 1982 Autobianchi A112 Elite by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 4,500 Euros to you sir.

Great work Roger, that looks very sharp. If you hadn't written about the issues you'd had, or the varying sources that the parts came from, I'd never have known - it's come together very nicely.

Thanks everyone! Just a fun little build not to be taken too seriously, but it turned out nicely. I don't recall seeing any other versions of the Tamiya kit come up for sale since I got mine, when I did a quick image search the other day Worthpoint showed me the eBay listing that I bought it from. I didn't realise that there's a also a Fujii version. We didn't get them either, Civic was the smallest we got in the '80s (apart from a one year when we got the City/Jazz). I do try and mix it up a bit. The Revell #9 enamel is really useful, it's my go-to colour for anything plastic or rubber. It doesn't leave any brush marks and it can easily be touched-up. And it avoids masking!

Very silly, but you've done a great job on getting back into shape! What would it be like to drive as a 1:1?..........

Very nice build of such a delicate kit, and great to see it in a different colour.

Fantastic work, you must be very pleased with that - it looks great.

Very nicely done, the accessories look really good!

Well done for persevering with it, the finished result looks excellent.

Great to see it finished, I really like the understated colour and low-spec combination.