Bainford

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.

I'm also a scrounger of stuff for model building. Pop can aluminum, cat food can aluminum, and disposable turkey roaster pan aluminum make great scratchbuilding materials. Every piece of electronic equipment that is disposed of is first disassembled to harvest the model parts & supplies hiding within. Old o-rings have possibilities. Cigarette package foil (from the days when I smoked). Any piece of plastic or metal with interesting shape or texture is scrounged away. I used to save any automotive light bulbs for the filament, but I just buy cheap ones now as unused filaments are more robust. So many things. Been doing it since I was a kid. It fun making use of some random bit of scrap for a model project.

I love it. Nice work. One of the sexiest rails on the scene.

Nice replica. There's a lot of work to build it from the kit. Nice work on the decals. What kit is the tunnel ram intake from?

Good looking Camaro. Nice paint work.

Could the Revell '77 Chevelle be converted? edit: Reading Marks answer below, I realise Revell didn't do a '77 Chevelle, it was a Monte, so scratch that.

Good looking Caddy. The roof swap looks natural. Nice lines. Cool!

Looking good. Nice foil work on the scripts.

The awesomeness continues. Love the colours, and that alternator is too cool!

Sexy pipes. I like the second set better.

I like this idea, too. The end of the brush could probably be trimmed a couple times if it gets gnarled up with glue. If the brush gets totally pooched, one could snip it off and attach a shortened micro brush (in Pete's post above) to the remaining stem with a cable tie or similar.

It continues to amaze me when kits show up that I never knew existed.

Very cool build. The red paint has a beautiful, rich colour. Looking great.

Interesting project. It's coming along nicely. That's a lot of plastic to wrestle with.