Bainford

Very cool! I love everything about this. A big Well Done to the builder. Give that girl another model.

Excellent build. Very realistic, the photos could pass for a real bike. In fact, I thought it was for a moment. Your work is very clean. Very well done!

Good looking T-Bird. I love the rich brown paint, such an under rated colour. The roadster style tonneau is so crazy impractical, but oh so cool. Very nice.

Beautiful Stude. Such great looking cars, stylistically way ahead of their time, and your build really does it justice. Love the colour choices. Well done.

I find the Revell Mustang is one of the most exciting announcements in the last few years. Really looking forward to it. It will great to finally have a decent, accurate 351 Cleveland in 1/25 scale. Hopefully we will see some proper 'Power by Ford' stamped steel rocker covers some day (but not on this Boss 351, of course). The 429 Mach I will be very welcome as well, as the gorgeous 429 from the '70 Torino needs to find its way into more kits. I'd be in for one of each (at least).

Been wanting another XKSS since I bought one years ago from ebay with parts missing. I haven't bought the XKE yet, so I would go for this for a favourable price.

Never heard of this stuff until now. Just googled it, looks like an interesting product, and sure is cheap. But every where the stuff is for sale, it is packages of 10 or more random colours (and possibly widths). Has anyone seen a site where one can specify colour and width?

I love checking out custom work done by others but rarely do customs myself. Having said that, I have two projects on deck that will involve a lot of custom work, one a roof swap and the other a chop on a difficult body. I really appreciate these tutorials on custom work as I'm largely clueless on how to proceed. Posts such as yours are very helpful indeed. Your approach is not at all intuitive, I would never have worked out a method such as this, but the result is pure magic. I really appreciate your taking the time to put together a well explained and illustrated tutorial. The chop is beautiful. Well done, and thanks.

The glass can be polished just the same as polishing paint. If the damage is very light, use Tamiya polishes (or your favourite brand) Course, Fine, & Finish, and follow up with Tamiya wax. If the damage is more significant, use a fine sandpaper such as 1500 or 2000 grit and wet sand the glass until the damage is gone. Then start polishing using your favourite paint polishing method. I use Micromesh pads wet, up to at least 8000 or 12000, then Tamiya polish in Fine and Finish. I finish off Tamiya wax, but if any decals are to be applied to the glass, don't use wax until they are applied. Be careful as the clear plastic is quite brittle and the slippery glass is hard to hold and easy to break during the polishing stage.

An impressive effort. I appreciate your going the extra mile to achieve historical accuracy. It looking great.

Spectacular! Your work is very clean.

That’s looking very nice! Like the wheel choice.

Man, you've captured the shape very well. That's looking great.

Everything seems to have fitted up nicely to the resin body. Nice shade of yellow.

Cool project, Mike. Always love the Mini. How does this kit compare to the Tamiya kit? I built the Tamiya kit a few years ago, and it's very good. The photos above look like a nicely done body.

Very interesting project. I'm watching this one.

Thanks for the good words, Ron. Please check your inbox, you have a PM. The .030" dimension was taken from the site info. I just measured a piece and it measured .035", which actually sounds a bit large, but not excessive. That would scale out to 7/8". The 90 degree boots are made by cutting a notch halfway along a length of the cord, folding it 90 degrees at the bend, then touching it with a spot of CA and trim the ends to length. The photo below shows a 90 degree boot, though that one is not particularly tidy and was rejected. The wire looms were made from .010" sheet plastic. I drilled a series of holes in the plastic until I had four that were sufficiently aligned and equally spaced, then trimmed away the material around them. I think the next time I make them I think I will try pop can aluminum instead of plastic. The plastic piece is pretty delicate when trimmed to size, and threading the wires through them was a bit nerve wracking.

As Bill mentioned, either .005" - .010" will work well. I prefer the .010" myself. I find the .005" to be flimsy and aggravating to get a nice, consistent curve across the windshield. The .010" is firmer and much easier to work with. For a first attempt at making a windshield I would recommend at least .010".

I haven't built the metal body kit, but the plastic body kit is on the bench right now. I was surprised at how good this kit is. I have just read the early posts on this thread, and comments regarding the horrendous bonnet fit are correct. After spending weeks trying to get it to fit properly, I ended up gluing it shut in order to maintain the clean sexy lines of the XK120 without blemish. I'll display that nicely done XK inline 6 on a stand next to the car. Otherwise, I find this to be a very nice kit.

I use a product called lacing cord (aka looming cord) marketed by RS Components. It is a 0.75 mm (.030") thin wall tube made of flexible, black PVC with a matte finish. It comes on a spool of 25 m (82') for about $10-12. The cord has some type of synthetic fibre running through it which must be pulled out of any piece you cut off the spool using pointed tweezers. The flexible and slow elastic nature of the stuff makes it easy to work with. The end of the tube can be bell-mouthed with a sewing needle, etc, and slipped over the ignition wire, distributor post, spark plug, etc, and eventually it relaxes and grips the item. I also use it for a number of plumbing jobs around the model, and many other uses. It is thinner wall and more flexible than next-size-up wire insulation, which was my old method before finding this stuff. RS PRO Lacing Cord Black PVC 0.75 mm x 25m | RS Components (rs-online.com) Apologies for the lousy cell phone pics. Some wire boots in the first photo, the ones on the distributor are 90 degree boots. The second photo shows oil cooler lines down deep in the engine bay. In the third photo I even sliced a length of the stuff in half and made door window weather stripping.

In the group pic, the top item is indeed the AMT Tuff Truck grill.

Sweet Jag. Nice work.

Looking good, Mike. I think I need to pick up one of these.

Now that’s cool! Just found this thread. Love what you’ve done so far. Nice clean work, and man, you’re nailing the look. Looking forward to watching this come together.

That’s looking really good. Nice work. Welcome back to the hobby.