The Creative Explorer

I like it

I am able to work a little bit on the Kubelrod in the spare moments, progress is slow, but at least there is some progress. Basically because of the warping of the body I decided to put a cross-brace in the rod, giving the body some strength, but also adds to the looks. I put the original seats together and I think I am going to stick with them, although I might going to lower them a little bit, or tweak them into a bench seat. I also added the floorsills, giving the body some hard-needed strength at the mid-body joint. I will let the glue do it's work overnight and work on it in the weekend again. Even though it doesn't look a lot just yet, I think the modifications to the body are close to be done and soon will be able to start doing the prep work and getting the body ready for it's (intricate) paintjob. I am still in doubt of whether of making all the panels smooth, but something tells me I should keep with the original panels. And whilst I am waiting for parts to cure, I work on some small parts that needs to be glued together, gives me something to do.

I use acupuncture needles. To me they are exactly the right size, they are stiff enough and have a metal appearance.

Me too haha, There is a lot of work involved in this project, since it isn't a molded body, there is less rigidity and quite quickly panels are out of alignment, only to be noticed when it is basically too late. I worked on it yesterday for a bit, doing nothing more than undoing body panels and reglue them, trying to get everything as straight as possible. @Mike; I think it is a military scale, Esci had more kits in this scale, all military oriented.

there is one at the moment and the bids stalled at 21,my guess is you can have it for 25

no, not really. There is at least 2 or 3 available per month on our version of craigslist. I think it depends on how eager you are to get one, if you dont want any, there are plenty. if you want it badly, there are none..

that 1/16 is not rare at all. Over here, they are found regurarly for about 20 till 30 dollars, plus I wouldnt be suprised if they reissued that within a year or so.

And finally a bit more detailled look of the Kubelrod, this gives quite a good impression of what the car may look like. I need to lower the doors and I think I need to give the car a wider rear axle, but other than that, I think I got the base covered.

I changed the 'hood' of the car and made it fit, it now gives a bit better look to the hotrod At this stage, I lowered the left doorpillar and narrowed the top doorpillar frame, it gives a bit sleeker appearance. One of the things I wanted to do, is to convert the Kübel from 5 to 3 doors. I placed them in the new hole, taped them together and cut them at the same line, that way, one can be sure they fit easily to eachother For some reason, it still looks warped, but I think there is actually a warp in the floorpan. All the measurements are correct.

I drew some lines of the floorpan, that needs to be cut in order to fit the body to the floorpan When the body fits, I made some new bodypanels with white styrene, and it starts to give shape to the body. It does look weird at the moment, but I hope it will work out. Different view Even tough I measure everything a couple times, for some reason it looks odd and warped. Eventually the left doorpillar was 2mm longer than the other side and I must have messed up something somewhere.

And everything went into pieces after cutting it up, it is a multipiece body and meant to put together throughout the whole build, but I needed it to be a complete assembled body A little leap in time, in the meanwhile I got some wheels from Mspeanut (Thanks!) and got working on putting everything somewhat together. Because I shortened the body, it meant the wheelbase got shorter as well, which is not favourable for a hotrod. So I decided to keep the original floorpan and wheelbase and work my way from there. In this picture the body is as I put it together from the loose pieces and the I assembled quickly the front and rear axle for working on the body A small hint of what it is going to be I think I keep the original front wheel on the front, it is a important design feature of the Kübel and since there is no engine in the front, I need to keep it entertaining with something.

A while back I purchased this kit in Belgium because I like big scale and it was affordable, due to not building military I soon sold it again. Ever since I kept looking for a decent priced one and not that long ago, I was able to find one for a good price. I got it by mail and soon came the ideas, I did searched online for some reference material, but there are basically no Kubel hotrods, there is one, but it basically a Kübel without it's fenders. I wanted it a bit more radical, so I had to think something on my own. I closely looked at the traditional American hotrods and discovered that my Kübel had is needing a major modification on the body, it needed to be shorter, lower and more pronounced. I started with putting the body pieces together on a modelshow and when home, did some doodling to find a style I liked. Soon the idea's popped in my head and it was time to get the multitool and saw it into pieces. This is the box, it is released by Revell, but it is an older Esci kit A few views of the original body, just to give an idea of what it should look originally Note the tape on the sides, that will be my reference marks to cut it.

Depends a bit on the resin-caster I guess, I don't have much experience in ordering with the USA casters and the ones I have are good. I just ordered the 1/16 Daytona conversion from Ron Andrews from RMR and even though his e-mails are quite short, they are to the point and told me up front when my parts will be shipped (they still have to be shipped btw). just clear communication and when it is clearly communicated, I have no problems waiting a bit longer. Be honest; 90% of the time when we order new kits, we want them quickly, but don't actually need them quickly. ;-)

http://www.modelbrouwers.nl/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=8720&hilit=superbird it is all in Dutch, but just look at the pictures.

a lot, try for fun the nosecone to the body. That alone should be enough. I need to dig for a little bit, but I made a comparo once on the body's.

In contradiction of what Richard tends to believe, The Netherlands isn't a 'huge' modelling country. There is only one major club and there are barely any specialised stores for modelling. I wish it would've been different, but it isn't so. The belgiums are more enthusastic about the hobby, basically every major city andlarger town has his own club and meets regular.

That is exactly what scares me, on top of that; the quality of the Aventador looks better then the previous models they had and quality usually equals more dollars.

To be honest; I do find that affordable. Not for me, but in general, just look what those kits cost on the used market. They (the classics) barely start at 400, the Bugatti's go way over that. So yeah, I think 400-600 is realistic and reasonable. But it is for sure a lot of money and I don't have it haha.

@Joe: it is still worth building it, are you a modelbuilder or what? I just dissassembled a TR Spider and even though it isn't a Pocher classic, it still has some good points and it is a great canvas for detailling. It is for example way more detailled than the Monogram 1/8 offerings. Pocher is not a dreamkit and the more modern cars are more like die-cast. But a decent modelbuilder can get to get this models to the next level. My TR wasn't badly aligned with bodypanels, but it can be adjusted, it just is fiddly and time-consuming, but those are challenges. Just get them at a good price, usually for 100 bucks it should work, invest a bit more in detailling parts @Skip, I know, but I don't mind for it to come again, so I might be able to buy one for an affordable price

It would be nice if it would be some Bugattish material, A Napoleon, surprofile, Atalante or type 64. But I am not going to hold my breath on that. But for buying those older Pocher kits, I am glad to be on this side of the pond. A brand new RR Torpedo/ambassador goes for around 600-700 dollars over here.

@Bill: I still have no luck with your suggestion, I tried to follow your link, but gave me only a error (maybe due to location?) I then looked online with google, but no luck yet. I did found some decalsheets for trains, but only consisted of separate letters in a gothic style. @Johann: It took me a little while to find that, I looked at eBay and found a lot of stuff by Jim, but couldn't find anything by a seller 3 inches under, but by looking up that Jim, I ended up in the right store. A lot of very nice goodies, but no decals. @Greg; unfortunately, there is no Michaels anywhere near my house But I do thank everybody for helping and Still need some actually.

I didn't knew this news yet. I am quite excited to see what it is going to be and somewhat affordable.

Thanks to Bill I am already helped!

I just noticed that the BMC board is down and not to be found. Once in a while I looked there for the tutorials, but they are also gone. Is there anybody who saved the Zipfile as mentioned by Doug here? I would be thankful to receive it.

Thanks Danno and Bill, Danno; did you mean policecar.com? I have tried there, but it seems they don't have a general sheet no more. But it gave me some little leads I still need to explore. It is basically exactly what I need. Bill: I still need to browse your suggestion, I haven't had time yet for that, but you think they will be big enough for a 1/25?