The Creative Explorer

That is a very wide question, you might be a bit more specific. What do you want to know and about what kits?

David, The model is discontinued, so it will be hard to find them in stores. However, the Rolls has been made under a lot of different brands, even Revell and you have more luck and lower prices in the 'used' market. There is plenty of stock available in Europe.

@Henry; that is also exactly why I sold it twice, (see inital post in topic). It is a nice model, but needs a ton of work and since both I had were somewhat started, I lost the enthusiasm quite quickly and sold them. This time is different, I am motivated to build as it is and I just made my own wheels for them, so the incentives are there to make something nice of it. I have worked basically on the wheels alone for the last past days and I am happy, there are some improvements to be made, but will take that in the second batch of casting with slightly different molds. The Kelsey Halsey wheels And the Hallibrands Did I say that I made a few more?

I've gotten one, so yes. Check the Big Boyz section.

The Kelsey halsey wheels just got in the second part of silicones, but the Hallibrands are ready and I started to test-cast them. The first showed to give caution to the outer ring, airbubbles might get trapped there. But all in all, I am satisfied with them, the overall appearance and quality are more than satisfying.Giving preparation a bit more attention did pay off.

Looking at a video on that side, I am not very excited with the results, there is not that much fill as one might hope and there is still sanding needed to get it smooth.

oh, and the wheels are now covered in silicones :-)

Thanks John, I heard that Revell stopped making big scale models, at least making new tools. But then we got the 1/12 Ford Mustang GT500 and RoG made last year the 1/16 Volkswagen bus and this year comes the 1/16 Isetta. The Jaguar E-type was made 2-3 years ago for a German internetstore and now we have the Corvette back, appearantly there is a market for and I hope they catch on. The price of them is fair, they ask sticker 99 euro's for the corvette, the same amount of money as a second-hand one does 'on the market'. It is not like Tamiya were an old 1/12 tool suddenly goes over 200 dollars. And one can only hope if the Firebirds and Camaro's come back, although I seriously doubt that.

That is a massive change, I sincerely hope it will work out for you whatever way in the long run. It's just so hard to find the right words of support.

Well, I even had some time this evening to work on the Hallibrand wheels again, I glued a strip of styreen to the ring and I thinned the heart with about 1,25mm. Theoretically, it should now fit the tires and give it a bit deeper look, not as deep as I would've hoped, but deep enough to make it look nice.

I agree, it does scream for detail, both adding and replacing. The parts that come with the kit, can be crude and not very representative. But that will take some major overhauling for the kit. What I could do, since they are not for sale seperately, I could scan them high-res and upload them? This morning I started working on the wheels again, my little plan worked and the heart stayed nice in place after being on the lathe. But when working on the lathe, my eye fell on a 3D printed Halibrand part, which also looks nice. The gears in my head started working and instead of making a alternative for the '65 wheels, why not make 2? So I used the original wheels and made a hole on the lathe, big enough for the Halibrand heart. I tried to use the original adapters, but then they would be to shallow, so I will have to modify them and make them fit with the newly made adapters for the HK wheels. Slowly starting to get rid of the placeholders And added 2,25mm of styrene at the bottom, fixing the outer and inner part together. Will need some work on the lathe later on, when the glue has set properly.

After the Pocher Lamborghini in 2015, I am priveliged to review the 2016 re- issue of the well-known 1/8 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. The kit has been around for a long time and most should know it. I even owned it twice and sold it twice, it was a bit lack of detail that threw me off. But since I only have to build this box-stock, with maybe some minor changes, I can build it without feeling to bad. And since it is for the Dutch IPMS, I can share this in the USA without problems. I also love the new box-art, it's a keeper! Two of the few improvements: The decal sheet is so much better than the older issues, it is very complete and I love them! I suspect they are from Cartograph And the second is the improved instructions, they are just so much nicer than the older ones. the body is molded in black, fortunately all the bodypanels are molded in the same color, I remember from earlier issues that the hood and flip-flop lights were red and the rest black. My body had some distortions in the moldings, nothing to worry about though And the moldinglines don't get any smaller per re-issue Even though I haven't started this project yet, still need to finish the Sunseeker for the IPMS, I got an itch when I looked at the wheels, they still use the same wheels per issue and even though they are correct for a Corvette, I don't think they look pretty, nor make the Corvette proud. So I looked around online and even though I love the Torque Thrusts, they are a bit the usual suspect for a wheel-swap. I noticed the Kelsey Hayes wheels and I liked the look of them, next to the original steelies. I was going to scratch the wheels, but dove in to my kit-supply first and found pretty good looking wheels on the '82 Corvette. And with some modifying, they might be a perfect match. The diameter is spot-on, they use the same adapter, but they are 6-7mm wider than the '65 wheels. On the lathe I got rid of as much material as I possibly could, maxing it out. But I am still 3-4 mm short. So the plan is to make sure the inner part of the adapter will stay with the outer part and keep sanding the parts down, till I got rid of enough material, clean them up and cast them in resin to make a set of 4.

Thanks guys! I am also pleased with the look of it, it kind of came as an 'accident' and after I figured why it happened, I try to use it to my advantage. Not complete mastered it, but it looks good enough. The Lamborghini is already on-hold unfortunately, not even due to lack of motivation, but have to finish some other projects first. Kind of a bummer, but so be it. I hope to start this first quarter of 2017 again.

Wow, what a recovery! good to hear that.

That is also find it difficult to really make an opinion about it, I guess it is anybody's guess. We'll just wait it out.

and it would be factory original.

I've built one now and have one on stock, but would love to have another one as well, Since the last issue was 2009, would there be a chance they reissue it again in the near future? I can not imagine they won't reissue it again, making all the new tools for it and looking at the pricing of the 2009 issues going upwards.

I am very thrilled with this find, as a new kit will set one back 1000-1500 $ nowadays; I got these 3 boxes fro around 120$, with a lot of different parts and cars. Not sure what to do with them yet, I might going to sell some of them again, but may keep them as well for parts or custom parts.

One of the kits I've been looking for for a long time is the 1/8 Porsceh 911 by either Eidai Grip or Entex. It all started with the pictures from a secondhand website, the add caught my attention and when I looked closer, I noticed one thing; If that yellow car is the 1/8 Jaguar E-Type from Monogram and the Stratos and BMW are the 1/12 Doyusha's, than the 911 in the upper left corner is 1/8 scale and since there are only 2 1/8 911's (Eidai/Entex and Pocher), it had to be the 911 RSR from Eidai. I offered a decent amount of money and went all in, and waited. The seller took the bait and I bought 3 boxes of cars and parts. To my luck, the 911 is mostly complete, not painted. But unfortunately a 'glue-bomb'. Fortunately the windows didn't suffer too much and seems to be restorable. One of the bigger parts that is missing, is the rear deack-lid. Today was a nice day to break the 911 down, I started with the chassis and tried to get every part dissassembled to overlook the project and see what would be needed to get the car back to a nice showmodel. I already decided not to restore it to original as a RSR Turbo, but will give the 911 a restomod look, as clean as possible, without the large rear-spoiler, but will keep some of the car's features. These are the pictures from the ad: The car in a very sorry state: And the breakdown begins The engine was not very complete, but the most important parts are there. For the new plans; the RSR windshield and humps had to go Fortunatelly there was a normal windscreen beneath it And some comparo's with a 1/12 Doyusha and a 1/24 Fujimi. Even the 1/12 looks tiny, next to that 911.

And that's o.k. too haha! To each his own, or as we say it in The Netherlands; "Every nutjob has it's own sort of quircks"

I have 6 or 7 of the 1/8 Jaguar XKE's and still keep buying them....

Why? They're all white, why not one that isn't? Diversity is also nice ;-)

All images seems to be gone unfotunately.

Awesome!

I use these a lot, they are 3d stickers and curve well. http://www.hiroboy.com/Ferrari_LogosEmblemsBadges__E800--product--634.html