Bainford

Good looking Datsun. Nice display, too.

Wow! It's coming along nicely. There is a lot of realism in the textures.

Very cool. Nice work on the Lotus. Did you go with the kit decals? They look great.

It's been a long time for me, now, but I'm willing to bet that a good quality high-school shop class is a hard to find. Perhaps replaced by computer labs, now.

Looking great. Very nice weathering. That photo reminds me of my trade school auto shop on the first day of school, with the shiny floors and well used equipment.

Very cool Jag! Love the C Type.

Looking very nice! Sharp tail lamps.

In many cases I find it much easier to print the gauge face on heavy weight paper or photo paper instead of decal paper. I cut the image using a hole punch made from the proper size brass tube. I often find these paper gauge faces easier to deal with then a flimsy decal. Also, I will often photograph gauges at car shows, etc. Then print of the photo, size adjusted as necessary, and cut out the gauge face. This is particularly useful when needing to replicate stock gauges (provided you can find the right 1:1 car). No need to limit oneself to round gauges either.

Which is exactly why most Japanese produced kits appear too flat & wide, and the wheels are too large in diameter. You can't account for perspective in the design phase, it's far too variable and subjective. It's my greatest peeve with these kits. They've got the engineering down perfect, but if they could just see fit to provide kits that are actually in scale, dimensionally and proportionally. If they would just make them 'right', rather than what they 'think is right', they would be extremely close to flawless. There might be lots of room for fudging, but in-scale is always right. Tamiya and Fujimi are particularly bad for this.

Very nice work on the Unimog. Your tires seem to have held up well. Apparently the tires in some Unimog kits melted horribly. Did you start with the fire truck issue?

1/24 scale is 4% larger than 1/25.

Coool! These old Monogram kits always take me back to my early days of modelling. They’re still fun to build. Very nice work.

Great looking 7. LOVE the wobblies. Super cool!

That’s a seriously good looking car, Bernard. I really dig the Campies. Very cool.

Good looking Jag. I like the racing screens. I have this kit on the bench myself, and it's a better kit then I thought it would be.

I’ve done this sort of thing using the chrome BMF/aluminum BMF method, and the matt texture of the aluminum does indeed shine up a bit. But it is a lighter colour next to the chrome and it doesn’t shine up like the chrome. The effect generally looks good. The trick is to burnish the aluminum evenly over the whole surface.

If you just want to take the edge off the shine without making it appear as flat aluminium, try Alclad clearcoat called Sheen. It's shininess is kind of between satin and gloss.

Check to see if the badge engraving on the front fender says 427. My Minicraft branded version, labelled on the box as a 289, has the 427 emblem on the fender.

Cool looking build of the 'real' and only Eleanor. You captured the vibe nicely. Nice mods. Well done.

I agree. One of the most frustrating things about scratchbuilding, or model building in general, is that the better you do it, the less noticeable your work will be will be.

I use assorted diameters of guitar string for all hard lines. I bend them with various pliers, often holding a pair of pliers in each hand to handle the wire during bending. Some craft pliers, available at places like Michaels, are perfect for this type of work, and are quite inexpensive.

Cool look. I dig the tire & wheel set.

Interesting looking project.

I use a salt shaker for applying embossing powder, though it’s not necessary.

The only thing that I would add is that I first paint the areas to be flocked with a colour similar tot he powder I will be using. Once the paint has dried, carry on as suggested.