Bainford

Very cool! Been curious about the Monogram 904 kit. I love the 904. The one in the shop is sweet lots of cool machinery there. Never heard of the Hasegawa/Monogram alliance before. Were there other kits from this venture?

Great looking wagon, Mike. Nicely done.

Agreed. Sharp looking convertible. The colour complements the lines.

Interesting model. The old school treatment works well on it. I like it. Is this 1/32 or 1/25?

Interesting. Never heard of it, but just checked it out. Interesting stuff, available in many colours. I can’t tell if it’s a foil or mylar. None of the reviews say, but it appears more flexible than I would expect of mylar. For your chrome stripes, Line O Tape offers their pinstripe tape in chrome. It’s available in widths up to 1/8”, which is .007” (about 3/16” in 1/25 scale ) wider than 3 mm. I have some of the 1/64” chrome tape and just measured its thickness at .0035”, or 3 1/2 thou. It’s a mylar type tape.

Nice Triumph. Good, clean work, there. I never knew this kit existed.

Nice work. Looks great.

Very nice! It's good to see a Mk IV build as Mk I and MK II seem to get all the glory. I'd love to put a Mk IV on my own shelf. You've done a stellar job on this one. Excellent work.

Nice work, Bob. Good and tidy. It's going to be a looker.

Very interesting. Usually such cars do not slip my notice, but I never heard of this one. Sounds interesting, especially the engine.

I do hope you show us your Europa when you finish. I have this kit on the bench right now, myself. A very nice kit. Seeing how nice your Alpine is, I'm looking forward to seeing your Europa. Cheers.

Gorgeous Alpine. The colour looks right. Beautiful, clean build. I looked into buying a 1:1 a few years back, but had missed the boat as the prices started to climb. They're out of reach for me, now. Sure would look good in the garage next to the Europa.

For complicated shapes like like the example above, your best bet is to cut it from .060" or .080" sheet stock, depending on the size you need. For example, for 2x3 rectangular tubing, use .080" sheet. Glue two pieces of plastic together face to face with white glue, measure out and draw the shape on the plastic, then cut/file the two frame members simultaneously. Ensures both frame rails are identical, and often a lot easier then trying to bend two pieces of rectangular stock to the exact same shape.

Oh, very cool! I'm definitely watching this one. I love the little Dino. I've made three attempts to buy this kit, including bring straight-up ripped off by an ebay seller, but so far I haven't landed one. Currently have one on back-order at HobbyLink Japan, so fingers crossed.

NOBLING has great advice, invest in an inexpensive caliper. Absolutely necessary for good scratchbuilding. My personal preference, both professionally and in my hobby work, is a dial caliper. It would help to know what sizes you need in 1:1, but when working in 1:25 scale, the following Evergreen round stock will get you close; - #211 measures .040", equals 1" in scale - #221 measures 3/64" (.047"), equals just shy of 1.25" in scale - #222 measures 1/16" (.062"), equals 1.5" in scale - #212 measures .080", equals 2" in scale - #213 measures .100", equals 2.5" in scale There are other sizes both smaller and larger available, but these sizes should get you pretty close for most chassis work. If you look at the numbers above, you may notice a very handy conversion for working in 1/25 scale, and in most cases 1/24 scale as well. In 1/25 scale, 1" = .040". That makes the math easy; .020" = 1/2 inch, .060 + 1.5 inches, .080 = 2 inches, etc. Also, as has been pointed out on the forum in the past, 1 mm + .0397" (roughly). .0397" is only .0003" away from .040, a negligible amount in our hobby, so millimeters, for our intents and purposes, equals 1 inch in 1/25 scale. Very handy.

Yeah, excellent point. I have found that when using Tamiya extra thin on Evergreen .010" or .005" styrene, the glue nearly dissolves small parts. I certainly softens sharp edges and other hard-fought detail. Sparing use of CA can be very helpful in these situations.

Future will ruin the sheen of the satin black hood.

I think the '66 Malibu Street Rat had a variant of those wheels, too. EDIT: Just checked, they are not the same wheel as the Vette.

Looking good. The colour looks period perfect.

I use BSI almost exclusively, also. My brand of kicker is BSI, and I have found absolutely no deleterious effects to paint or clear parts. I apply precisely it with pipette, and have done so a thousand times. Never any damage to paint or glass.

Very cool! Nice clean work. That’s a couple of sweet Chevys, there.

CA does stick to paint (almost anything really) but the bond will only be as strong as that of the paint. In my experience the bond is not appreciably weakened by kicker, if at all. I’ve been concerned about this too, so have looked for weakness but not detected any. I use kicker pretty much every time I use CA.

Very cool. I’ll be watching this build. I just bought the Merit version last month, myself. I didn’t realize Atlantis had reissued these.

It depends on what you are looking for, but I can highly recommend Hobby Link Japan. Great service, great selection, fair prices, and their Private Warehouse feature is useful. scale-models (hlj.com)

I have not used it myself. It may or may not remove chrome, but pretty sure it will not screw up your parts, so ok to have a go. Other chrome strippers include bleach, Castrol Super Clean, Easy-off HD oven cleaner (NOT the fresh scent stuff). There are other chrome removers as well. Many products will remove the shiny chrome, but the clear lacquer undercoat is more difficult to remove. It is not necessary to remove the undercoat if all you want to do is paint the part. However, the undercoat can obliterate a lot of fine, molded detail on the parts. It is often desirable to remove the undercoat in order to restore this detail. Fresh Castrol Super Clean is sometimes successful at removing this undercoat, though I have had better luck with brake fluid. Brake fluid can be messy to work with, though. Perhaps 91% or 99% isopropyl alcohol with remove the undercoat, too. I have not tried it, but it does work well at stripping lacquers.