Spottedlaurel

Good to see some progress on this one. I did the same filling exercise on the hood of mine.

That's led a hard life! Looks like you're having a lot of fun there, very effective.

You're making me feel silly for not doing the same on mine - even though the bodywork is painted I suppose I still have time as I can redo the black.....

A great rescue job there Snake, must be very satisfying to see it looking this good after what you started with.

A good point David, thanks - I'll open out those holes slightly. There are also some moulding marks on the underside of the roof which need to be removed. I need to gain every little bit of clearance that I can. Without the glass installed the interior sides fit really nicely against the bodywork, with the shaped glassline matching up well inside and out.

This one has taken a back seat as I've worked on completing some other projects, but I got on with it again this weekend: 1:25 AMT 1967 Chevrolet Impala kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:25 AMT 1967 Chevrolet Impala kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Interior largely done, just a bit of tidying required. 1:25 AMT 1967 Chevrolet Impala kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr A shame this will be barely visible once it's finished. 1:25 AMT 1967 Chevrolet Impala kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:25 AMT 1967 Chevrolet Impala kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr I'm going to use the Corvette radiator set-up, as it incorporates the LT5's air intake. Looks like I need to lower that crossmember between the front end of the chassis rails. 1:25 AMT 1967 Chevrolet Impala kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Looked good out in the sunshine. 1:25 AMT 1967 Chevrolet Impala kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Something I've been very conscious of with this kit is the need to reguarly trial-fit as components and sub-assemblies get finished. I'd already had to trim the firewall to the get the chassis fitting tightly under the bodyshell. The big test would be with the glass, the back was OK....... 1:25 AMT 1967 Chevrolet Impala kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr But I'm going to have to do some work here. The front screen fitment issue had been pointed out to me on someone else's "Under Glass" topic. Even with the quarterlight glass tucking behind the door panels it's never going to work, so I either need to trim the front of the dashboard top or shave as much as I can off the bottom of the screen (without cracking it!). I also need to do everything I can to get the glass sitting at the top of the aperture. As a final measure I am also leaving assembly of the suspension until the body, interior and chassis are assembled. Slightly unusual maybe, but how it will sit is a big part of this car's look

Thanks Steve! I 've seen the odd custom example at a show, otherwise most of the retired hearses I see are at the banger racing (demo derby). I'll probably build my donor Ecto 1 that way, as it now has no glass. After 25+ years, I'm calling it finished 1:25 AMT 1959 Cadillac Hearse kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:25 AMT 1959 Cadillac Hearse kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:25 AMT 1959 Cadillac Hearse kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr It's far from perfect, but I was working with what I started when I had different standards and I tried a few things I'd never done before. And it's another very long term WIP that's finally complete.

This one is intended to be a quick, fun build, which I started by accident........ 1:24 Honda Today kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Honda Today kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Honda Today kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Quite a rare little kit here, I don't recall seeing many/any others since I purchased this one off eBay a few years ago. Body and some of the interior had been brush-painted, but none of the lights or glass had been touched and being a snap-fix kit there was no glue to worry about. It had the motor installed, I think I might have given it a brief run. It's very basic but still looks effective - @Italianhorses did a lovely OOB build on one last year which shows how good they can look, although mine won't be anywhere near Alex's standard! After taking a few photos last summer rather than put it back on the shelf with some other WIPs I ended up chucking the shell into a spare tub of brake fluid, and there it sat for a few weeks. I've never had a problem with leaving anything in there for a long time, and the thick enamel paint needed lots of help to shift it. 1:24 Honda Today kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Honda Today kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr After being washed this is what I ended up with. The scribing tool, wet-and-dry paper, a sharp blade and my thumbnail managed to get rid of everything necessary. 1:24 Tamiya Honda Today kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr With not everything fully disassembled, this is what the kit contains. The box is comically small. My chosen colour is TS-41 Coral Green, in a rather old tin. Honda offered the Today in a very similar shade, it feels like the sort of fun, vibrant colour they'd have on a kei car such as this. Wheel choice as yet undecided, maybe a set of 13" Watanabe/Minilite-style 8-spokes like this facelift 1:1 example: https://shakotantoday.com/home/2018/10/27/honda-today-ri-z Lowering will be easy at least, as the suspension is just metal axles front and rear. 1:24 Tamiya Honda Today kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr To give an idea of its diminutive size, here it is alongside one of my other projects. Having got the shell primed I couldn't wait to see the colour: 1:24 Honda Today kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Honda Today kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Just what I was after. That being said, the paint itself was borderline useable - the pressure in the can seemed quite low, perhaps unsurprising after so long, and it came out rather unevenly and with a lot of splatter. However it seems to be drying out OK, and I think with some sanding down and maybe a bit of clear it should give a tolerable finish. Thanks for looking.

What a fantastic little thing! Amazing bodywork, the whole package just looks 'right'.

Good to see progress and a couple of completions on here, especially as there was doubt whether this round would run. I'm almost there with the Cadillac: 1:25 AMT 1959 Cadillac Hearse kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:25 AMT 1959 Cadillac Hearse kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:25 AMT 1959 Cadillac Hearse kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Body and chassis have been permanently attached since these shots, biggest thing left to do now is to very carefully drill 10 holes in the roof and assemble the rack. Just about to head out to the shed and get that done.....

Thanks everyone for the kind words, it was very satisfying to see this batch of builds finally done. This Skyline continued to fight me right to the end - I dropped one of the mirrors on the floor and didn't find it untl the next day (when my wife nearly stood on it), and when I was pushing the metal axle into a rear wheel it pushed right through taking the cap and part of a spoke with it. Mercifully it glued back OK and the damage is barely visible. I've usually got one or two on the go, I think they're great to build and look good once done. Certainly better than early-mid '80s Fujimi. They take me back to what I enjoyed building when I was teenager and they were readily avilable in toy and model shops here.

That's a stunner Chang, so nicely done. That paintwork!

That works rather well doesn't it?! Looks excellent.

Fantastic! Clearly a lot of work in this one, on the restoration as well as the modifications. Do you have any 'before' photos?

Nice one! Any extra challenges in building at 1/32?

Good work there, and quite the MR2 collection you have! Compared to some Fujimi kits of this era it looks quite a decent portrayal of the real thing.

You've captured so much character on this build, looks really good.

Great work Tom. You've captured the look of that very nicely.

Nicely done. While a Veilside bodykitted Skyline is never going to be discreet, your paint colour choice does give it a slightly more subtle look.

Sounds like a classic bit of man maths there...... With huge thanks to @stitchdup I got this in the post: With no chassis and a few other parts missing it could never be restored and built-up without a donor. Luckily I have this brush-painted gluebomb complete with some of the optional parts. Out of the two of them I should have sufficient to build a decent road car and then have enough remnants left over to build a RWD converted short oval/autocross racer (basically anything that doesn't need glass, an interior or a vaguely accurate chassis). Thanks Les!

Wow, excellent kitbashing and parts box raiding there - from all those different sources it's come together really well. The finished result looks great.

Looks great. Very much of its time, very nicely built.

Thanks Carl.

Today I completed the final one in my series of builds to replace the sun-damaged originals, WIP thread on them all here: 1:24 Tamiya Nissan Skyline R30 kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr As with the others, it's a fairly simple curbside kit but nicely-proportioned (certainly better than Fujimi's miserable attempt at the same generation of Skyline). 1:24 Tamiya Nissan Skyline R30 kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr I was able to use the original floorpan and Fujimi or Aoshima Work Equip accessory wheels. 1:24 Tamiya Nissan Skyline R30 kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr The original version I did was painted silver. I tried that this time but the Tamiya SIlver Leaf looked flat and I had some issues when applying the BMF and painting the black trim so I went for Light Gunmetal instead. It was a popular colour for them, it reminds me of one or two grey imports I've seen here over the years. 1:24 Tamiya Nissan Skyline R30 kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Tamiya Nissan Skyline R30 kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Tamiya Nissan Skyline R30 kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Tamiya Nissan Skyline R30 kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Tamiya Nissan Skyline R30 kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Group shot with the others in this series, and the originals: 1:24 Tamiya kits, before and after by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Tamiya kits, completed by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

That is very nice, well done! The kit is amusingly small. I didn't know about the fitment issue, I shall watch out for that when I build mine.