Spottedlaurel

Very nice. It might be a strange thing to single out, but the tyres have a realistic look to them.

Thanks Chris! It's a fun, straightforward build and it looks really effective built-up. I'd love to see another one done ?

Dashboard looks great, and the woodgrain has worked really well. Love the colour, don't you think the clear would polish out?

I really like what you're doing with this one, and your write-up made for excellent breakfast reading. Only last weekend I reassembled the one I built in the early '90s - it was probably down to my lack of experience at building rods which are assembled from a number of panels, but I struggled with getting everything to fit well around the front end. I should have paid more attention to how tightly the bodyshell fitted onto the floorpan. It looks like you've successfully achieved that.

Been a fair bit happening to this one since my last update: 1:24 Aoshima Toyota Ipsum kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Much of yesterday was spent whittling away at the suspension, getting it lower but in a vaguely realistic way. Struts and spring all cut down front and rear, I suppose by around 2-3mm so scaling at 50-75mm (2-3"). Front bottom arms then have had material added so the bottom of the struts still locates into something, and I can retain the steerable wheels. Diveshafts have been notched so I can bend them up to suit. Brakes are the next issue, complicated by adding larger discs on the front and swapping the original front brakes onto the rear (which originally had drums). I'm working with a cocktail of parts from Aoshima, Fujimi and Tamiya, so more cutting and shaving is required there. The wheels have a fairly open pattern, so it needs something behind them to look right. 1:24 Aoshima Toyota Ipsum kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Aoshima Toyota Ipsum kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Aoshima Toyota Ipsum kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Finished result, was it really worth the effort?! Compared to when I tried it on the stock suspension, I'd say yes - it looks realistic at this height. Getting it much lower would required more significant surgery and/or cheating (which I am happy to do to achieve the right look!). Feeling more positive than I did last weekend after the frustrations of putting the '37 Ford back together, I broke out the masking tape and gave it the 2-tome paint treatment it needed: 1:24 Aoshima Toyota Ipsum kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Tamiya TS-75 Champagne Gold, an essential paint for building 1980s/90s Japanese cars! I have several tins of it, goes down nicely. Anyway, getting it on the bodyshell was the easy part, what would it look like with the masking tape removed?...... 1:24 Aoshima Toyota Ipsum kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Aoshima Toyota Ipsum kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr I'm happy with that. Bear in mind this is my first ever sprayed 2-tone paintjob, any I've done in the past were in my brush-painted Humbrol days. I had a decent, well-defined recess to work to and I sprayed a mist of TS-13 clear on first to seal the tape edge and hopefully prevent any bleeding, which seems to have worked. Using decent tape might have helped there too. My main concern was the green paint peeling off when I removed the tape, but my fears were unfounded. Needs some TS-13 clear now to finish it off. Main job for today wil be assembling the interior. As seen in one of the shots above, lots of caramel and brown - the way I've done it isn't particularly accurate for an Ipsum/Picnic but I've based the overall look of it on my 1:1 Lexus LS400. P.S. Looks like there has been some inflation since I bought my kit for 99p - there's one for sale on eBay here in the UK for £49.99.......

Thank you Tim. How has yours survived? Feel free to post a photo here. Thanks guys! It's really pleasing to see it come together after so many years, and I think (or at least hope) I'm doing a much better job on it that if I'd have finished back in the 1990s. After some tedious preparation work, I finally got to the stage yesterday where I could fit the opening panels: 1:25 Monogram Maserati 3500 GT kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Looking at this shot now, I'm wondering why I didn't bother sanding off the reference numbers. Ah well, I'm more concerned about how I'm going to fit the front and rear screens - there's negligible overlap, although at least the front one seems to spring into place. Might need to add some tabs. 1:25 Monogram Maserati 3500 GT kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:25 Monogram Maserati 3500 GT kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Getting it this complete is a significant achievement for me. I'm impressed with how well the panels fit, given that the original Aurora moulding dates back to 1964 (my issue was from 1991). I used the kit-supplied hinges and attachments - the boot has worked well, bonnet is a little tight but might free-off (if not I'll remove them as the bonnet sits nicely in a strip around the aperture anyway). Doors need a little work, or I might just leave them so long as the panel fit is tight enough - ultimately it'll sit on display with them closed. I'm planning to get a lot of building time in when I have some holiday soon (when we should have been going away) and I'm definitely on track to get this one finished then.

Thanks Steve and Albert! When I got the original Nissan kit with these wheels I knew they were going to end up on something American, but with their generous width and low profile tyres they suited this Corvette project best of everything I tried. I haven't had to lower the suspension at all, I suppose it's sitting nicely because of the shallower tyre wall. More progress on it yesterday: 1:24 Monongram 1965 Corvette kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr After a couple more coats of TS-11 first thing in the morning. I was thinking about stopping at this stage, but it would have left me with too much polishing to do and on such an intricate shape I was worried about going through the colour coat. So I gave it a final 'wet' coat last night: 1:24 Monongram 1965 Corvette kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr 1:24 Monongram 1965 Corvette kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr If I went any further I'd start losing detail, but I think I have something to work with here. Did a tiny bit of detail painting on the engine, I now need to get more of the ancilliaries fitted to make sure I don't get an unpleasant surprise with its finished size.

Excellent progress. On the 1:20 Japanese kit I recently built, the straight-six engine was unnecessarily wide so they could fit one of those electric motors in there. I wonder if that was once the case here?

Well done for persevering with it! You had some tricky shapes to contend with, I wouldn't have enjoyed it either. The fun of fitting alternative components eh? I seem to have been doing much the same thing on my B.O.Y.D Corvette and another kit over the last week - a continual process of trial fitting, then shaving, then trial fitting, etc etc...... Must be satisfying to reach that stage? Looks like quite a bit of scratchbuilding there. Careful storage now required as it looks quite vulnerable? As to my own entry, it got what I hope should be its final coats of colour yesterday evening - photos to come in my WIP thread. Looks good, once I reach the stage of getting a decent paint finish them I'm inspired to keep going with the rest of it.

I agree, that interior colour/finish is very effective. When I recently built my '66 Chevelle wagon I achived a similar effect in the loadbay with a sheet of 80-grit wet-and-dry paper. That wouldn't work so well over the transmission tunnel though. Look forward to seeing it progress.

I glimpsed this in the background of another of your photos and wondered what it was. Good luck with it! Certainly looks it can take some decent-size wheels. Was there a real one? Supervan to me in the UK means a mutant Ford Transit, they did several one-off versions of it over the years.

That's worked out really well, the beige colour scheme is a great choice. This is probably a kit I'd overlook, and the box art doesn't help, but I'll definitely keep an eye out for it in the future. I remember one being down the road from us in the early '80s, I presume it belonged to an American off one of the relatively local USAF bases. Certainly stood out amongst the Cortinas, Marinas etc of the day, and filled the driveway quite well.....

Looks very simple but really effective, great work!

Looks really good! As I'm currently going through the process of dropping a '92 LT5 into a '65 I can appreciate how much work you've had to undertake on this more extensive upgrade.

Good to see more progress! No, nothing as sporty as a 240Z - I have a 1980 Laurel with the L24S engine. You didn't get that model in North America, it's about the size of an 810/Maxima.

Looks mean! Very, very nicely built.

If only the L24 engine in my 1:1 Datsun was that clean.....

Excellent progress so far, good luck with the rest of it! You'll have quite a large Corvette scrapyard when you're done.....

Thanks all! It'll look great I'm sure, just for some reason I had imagined something a little more orange. I need to slow down a bit on this and move some of the others on instead.

Nice job there on a rare and unusual car.

Great progress! Slow down and give the rest of us a chance ?

Thanks, and I must admit I have got used to it in the primer. So much so that when I added the colour it took a bit of readjustment! Latest progress: 1:24 Monogram 1965 Corvette kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr After more snipping, shaving and notching the front of the sump, I've got the engine down enough to get the bonnet shut. 1:24 Monogram 1965 Corvette kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Got to hope the owner lives in in area with smooth roads and no speed bumps! There is some clearance..... 1:24 Monogram 1965 Corvette kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr Getting the engine in was one thing, what about the exhaust manifolds? I thought I should add those supplied with the LT5, but they're a lot fatter than what came with the '65. A look underneath the '92 revealed how they managed it, with low mounts that run 'uphill' - I toyed with cutting this arrangement out of the '92, but I don't want to completely trash it so I'll look to concoct something out of the parts box (possibly with the help of pins, as suggested by Tom Geiger elsewhere). I've now cut the original mounts out and the engine rests on the upper suspension arms, so any new mounts will be decorative only. 1:24 Monogram 1965 Corvette kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr I might have to notch that flange that drops down at the leading edge of the floorpan, but I'm nearly there. After that fiddly work I couldn't resist squirting a bit of the eventual colour onto the bonnet: 1:24 Monogram 1965 Corvette kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr It's Tamiya's TS-11 Maroon, not one I'd used before. It has come out a bit darker and more purple than I had imagined, but I think polished up it should look good. This morning I found a few minutes to get the first couple of coats onto the bodyshell: 1:24 Monogram 1965 Corvette kit by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr As it has a rather fiddly shape I hope to get it down without the need for too much polishing.

Looks really good, and without doubt an improvement on the box rendition!

Hmmm, that's given me some inspiration as to how to mount the LT5 in my Corvette.

No time for pic's in my WIP thread at present, but the '65 Corvette is progressing nicely and seems to be taking priority over my other builds. Spent quite a bit of time working out how to fit the LT5 and exhaust manifolds without destroying too much else, and the body has just received its first couple of coats of colour.