MrObsessive

As someone who has several of the MFH kits (1/24 to 1/12), all I can tell you is that you have to really take your time with those. They are by no means for the novice and faint of heart. Their prices especially for the 1/12 scales reflect the amount of work that one needs to put into them as you are essentially building the car as if it were a 1:1. One example which I have is the 1/12 '63 Ferrari 250 GTO. This one has an actual working V12 once you get done with it with moving pistons, valve train and all. I do believe somewhere on their site they show this working before it was put into the model. Pricey stuff, but IMO worth every penny.

I got Pack 5 a couple weeks ago and just finished that pack just the other day. In this one they give you the right rear suspension parts which I now have on and the rear is fully independent. The next step was getting the rear part of the passenger structure in place. Just a few screws to get this on the chassis. This pack also included the rest of the tires and wheels and to complete the front suspension. Agora gives you solid steel pins to attach the suspension arms. While I was not paying attention when trying to get the shock absorber parts in place, lo and behold I ended up putting the wrong part in. Thank goodness I have plenty of steel rods lying around as I was able to find something very close in diameter, took a hammer and placed the lower arm in a vice and I was able to knock the pin out of place and then reattach the correct part. It once again reinforces why these kits are not necessarily for the novice. Someone new at this might not have had any idea how to get a set pin out of place once it's been pressed in. The knurling on the one side of the pin ensures that it stays in place and you need something of greater force to wack it loose in case you make a mistake. All wheels and tires are now on and it's setting on all fours nicely now. As usual, I scuffed up the tread as there's no such thing as a shiny tread Cobra. Note the "duct" that just ahead of the rear axle. I've not seen that on a Cobra before, but I'm sure it belongs there on this particular chassis. I'll be glad when the tie rod parts get here in the not too distant future. When I pick this up the suspension really hangs down low letting the shock piston come out of its upper tube. The final stages of this pack has you putting on the inner fenders. A bit tricky as a couple of the screws were located behind the front axle centerline directly below the engine and was a bit difficult to reach to get those screwed in. Pack 6 should be getting here before the end of the month. Taking a peek at the instructions I downloaded, the dash/gauges and some more of the interior is to be done. I'm about halfway through this already and it would be nice if they send the entire body for this in the next couple months. We shall see........... Thanks for tunin' in folks!

Congrats Steve! It's nice to be surprised isn't it?? ?

Gareth, just a thought but your kitchen foil might be a bit too thick for something such as faint scripts. BMF is thinner and will conform better to those dips and dives that are in cursive script. I guess it depends on the foil, but I've not seen even cheap kitchen foil as thin as BMF. EDIT: Oops! I see that someone made that point.......I needed to read further! ?

Yes. I have Harold's kit and while that Gunze kit is nice, I'd rather have Harold's simply because you get more bang for the buck as far as content and price. Harold does an EXCELLENT job of replicating the little bits and pieces for this and it's definitely worth the money.

The more I see this Bruce, the more I'm really tempted to get this MFH kit anyway simply because it's sooooo good! PE needle for the gauge huh?? Nice! Interesting enough, you working on the gauges is right where I'll be focusing on in the next pack that Agora just sent for my Cobra. I notice that MFH included the tubular bracing around the engine bay on yours. As far as I know, I don't think mine has that, but I'm just halfway done with it. ?

I'm another that can certainly vouch for Steve's method! I tried this on a Ford Cougar II model I built and it came out quite well. In some cases, this is the better way to go than scripts as some of them are a bit..........big.

Sigh..........what could have been. I actually tried to "correct" this model many years ago, but my attempts were less than successful. Too bad NO ONE's ever seen fit to kit this car correctly in 1/24-1/25 scale. Not only is it rare, but IMO it's one of the nicer looking cars of the '50's and certainly one of the rarest. I might take another swing at this some day as the kit at least has the basic "bones" to make something out of it. I have a forlorn/beat-up Franklin Mint diecast (that one's not quite correct either)........maybe like I did with the '55 Ford WIP, combine the two somehow and once again try my hand at correcting this beast.

Larry, I hear and understand the frustration. It's one of the reasons I've been focusing a lot more on the big scale stuff I have and not doing the superdetailed stuff as much as before. As Lee said, things DO change as we get older and while I can still do the detailed real fine stuff, it's not as easy as it was even 10 years ago. Blurrier eyesight, hands not as steady and not as easy to manipulate the smaller stuff like in years past. I've found that building the much larger scales actually has been helping my mood in at least getting some building done. The only drawback is because they're so big (especially the 1/8 stuff), I'm going to be limited on space after a while. Carl mentioned curbsides........God only knows I've got LOTS of those especially resins so when I ultimately run out of space with the large scales, there's always those waiting for me to build 'em.

Very nice paint on your Caddie! ? As far as the glass, from where I sit it seems like the windshield frame may be a bit warped and not fitting the contours of the glass the way it should. If you bought this used it's possible the glass was swapped from a Monogram '59 Chevy Convertible. Those aren't quite the same, but I'm leaning more towards your frame being slightly warped due to it being molded on a separate sprue and not part of the body. One suggestion I have is to VERY CAREFULLY glue the frame to the body and let it fully set for a day or two. After it's fully dry and cemented to the body, try putting in the glass by sliding it in from the inside and then epoxying it in. Other than that, I don't know what else can be done with it except to see if someone has the glass for the kit to see it that will fit.

Oh I understand Ray! I'm sort of dealing with that with Eaglemoss right now. I can't seem to get past the rolling chassis of their Mercedes 300SL despite assurances that they're "getting on track". It would be a bit before they offer this as a complete kit. I'd say maybe not till sometime next year after they get parts built up and the bulk of the subscriptions are on their way to being done. A while back I did pick up a complete kit...........LeGrand's 1976 VW Beetle convertible in 1/8. This will probably be the last of the big scale kits I get because they suck up soooo much space! No pics or thread started for that one yet.......just getting going on it. If you've seen DeAgostini's version of the car, it's the same thing except it's done in a metallic Lime Green. I'm not too worried about things getting held up with this company. I've heard only good things about them and no complaints about parts not showing up. October is not that far away considering so this won't be a long-dragged out parts gathering project. Can't say the same for Eaglemoss though......... ? Thanks for following along and yes, Pack Seven is soon to be on it's way as far as download instructions on the 'net with parts to follow.

For anyone that's REALLY into Cobras, IMO this is one of those GOTTA HAVE IT kits! I was simply blown away the first minute I saw this on Agora's site and knew right then and there I wanted one. I realized that I'm about halfway done with this already according to the schedule that Agora has me on. The last parts should get to me by October as far as the subscription is concerned. I hope there's no hangups like I've had with Eaglemoss. I've had nothing significant from them for that Mercedes 300 SL since June of last year. They've sent a few parts here and there since then, but they are waaaaay behind schedule and I'm about to give up on them. Thanks for tuning in Bruce!

This one is still alive on my table folks! Just took some "semi beauty" shots of it mocked up on wheels. This has been quite the battle in getting it back together. Sometimes when you take models apart to repair or redo them, they just do not want to cooperate! Hopefully, I can get this done in the not too distant future. I've got that Green Hornet Shelby that's been languishing for the longest time and now that I have some very recent info on it, I'm inspired to get back to working on it again. OK............here's where I am so far........ Instead of fighting with bending clear stencil sheet, you all seen how I vacuformed my own glass using a buck. In this instance though, the glass dimensions changed the way the dash went in as I had to grind away that much more to get it to fit without causing interference with something else. The glass was tinted using my own mix of Tamiya's acrylic clear, clear blue and clear green. It was put on using a sponge brush which leaves no brush marks after it's fully dry. The model for now is just mocked up with a set of wheels and tires to get an idea how the ride height should appear before setting everything in permanently. Still got a ways to go yet.................

I guess this car could be considered a "street car", but since it did have a racing pedigree, I figured I can put the thread here? Mods feel free to move this if this is incorrect. I have to give a big shout out to @Brudda for turning me on to this car! I had no idea this kit even existed as I was looking for something totally different when I came across it. Agora if you opt to do so and want to pay the extra cost, will send you the first four packs in one shot. This hood came as part of Pack 1 and while the finish was not bad (Guardsman Blue with Wimbledon White stripes), the clearcoating was a bit too orange peely to my eyes. So out come the polishing cloths and soapy water...........rub out parts of the hood and polished it out with Meguiar's Car Cleaner Wax. The wheels had to be assembled in sections. An inner and outer rim with the "spokes" being attached as a separate piece. The tread of the tires was too shiny for my tastes, so I scuffed up the tread with 220 grit sandpaper to give sort of an "on the road" look. Assembling the disc brakes...... Neat knockoff spinners that attach with magnets due to the wheels being attached to the spindles with screws. Disc brakes now attached...... This was a bit tricky. Agora sends the air cleaner filter as a flat piece of PE. You'd need something to bend the PE around to match the circumference of the air filter. Then you have to "trap" the filter between the upper and lower halves of the air cleaner. It took several tries before I was able to get this to look right to my satisfaction. On to the engine which was in the next pack. The exhaust headers attached to the heads along with the water pump assembly. I thought about toning down the chrome a bit, but I want this to go along as stress free as possible. Well, the stress free part became short lived when it came time to wire the engine. Agora suggested that you need not use any kind of glue when putting the wires into the distributor. No. I ended up having to "pin" some of the boots as the plastic ends broke on a few of them and drill holes into the dizzy to make them sit right. As I mentioned in the buildup of my 1/8 Shelby Mustang.....Just because these are "screw together" kits doesn't mean they're for the novice. There are some things that will require you use some advanced modeling skills to get some things to turn out correctly. Here's the finished engine so far.........Some other items to be attached further along in the build. Just to show you how BIG this thing is! That's my 1/25 scale Ford Cougar II. In the next pack came time to build the frame. I thought at first they'd send the frame as one solid piece. Nope! You gotta build this up one section at a time. Next steps involved getting the floor sections put in and then setting the engine in place. Not too much trouble here. In the final pack for the time being, the left rear suspension is built. Parts were given to attach the disc brake, caliper and upper/lower control arms. Suspension is fully functional with swiveling arms and U-joints. Agora sent me an email the other day letting me know that Pack 5 should be arriving at my doorstep within the week. I downloaded the instructions ahead of time and this pack involves getting the front suspension together, the rest of the rear end and getting it up on all four tires. With other WIP's I have going on, I'll get this Pack together hopefully in the next couple weeks. Thanks for lookin' in and stay tuned!

I don't know if you've ever seen this Tom, but years ago I built a Modelhaus '59 Buick resin and I hated the way shallow interior those kits were notorious for. Not to mention that the hardtop used the same interior as the convertible and as we know, there's a difference between the two beyond the widths of the rear seat. I used the interior out of a beat up Monogram '59 Chevy kit and yes, it was some work to narrow the interior (rear shelf area) a bit to get it to fit inside the Buick body shell. ?

To echo what's been said............yes, GM started body sharing division wide with the '59's. They took a page from Chrysler who did that with their '57's and it's the reason GM's '59's look the way they do. In the model world however as Tom said, that's a whole 'nuther kettle of fish. When I was in the beginning stages of building my '55 Ford, I used the main roof section from Lindberg's '53 Ford since in the 1:1 world, the '55's were a restyle of the original '52 Ford bodyshell. Well, as you can see, the width of the Lindberg roof obviously was waaaay too narrow and it made me wonder was AMT's model too big for 1/25, or was Lindberg's too small?? Either which way, I had to widen the Lindberg roof for the AMT lower body to get things to look right. In your case with the 1960 Olds C pillar, it's up to you which route you'd want to take as far as fixing it. Johan back in those days was pretty dang on the money when it came to body shapes and I'm not sure swapping in a Revell pillar from their '59 or '60 Chevy for example would work without some widening of the Revell pillar and then it having the strength for further sanding, movement, polishing for BMF after putting it in. It might be better to swap the entire roof with part of the tulip panel such as I did between those Chevy's simply because to my eyes, the '60 roof looked better than what Monogram originally did with their '59's. This is an example that even between the same manufacturer, they can have different "views" of how to make something with basically the same car.

Tires are the same as what came with the builtup when I got it from the seller off the 'Bay. Since the wheels couldn't be salvaged (I wasn't going to go through too much hassle with this one), I figured whatever MPC rally wheels would work, should fit those tires.

Ed, those wheels came from another source. The originals to my eyes had vinyl tire damage at the rims (a couple of them). I remember getting them off of someone on eBay, but they could be from the reissued '75. I can't remember if they said which year they were from when I bought 'em.

I've noticed that the prices have come down..........just a little. They still command a STEEP price though considering the type of model it is and how much folks are willing to pay for what's essentially a one of kind car. No one else does one any nicer. Actually, anything that Paul does gets good money for good reason. His built-ups and resin kits ARE excellent!

Ray, that is LOOKIN' GOOD! ? Unfortunately, each time I see these turn up on the 'Bay lately, the windshield frame is almost ALWAYS damaged. I was fortunate that I was able to get several of these ('55's and a '57) with no bent windshield frames and it looks like Round 2 has put the latest '57 reissue in a much sturdier box, which should alleviate much of that. Keep up the good work!

Ismael, if you'd not said anything....I'd think this for all the world was a bonafide newly done plastic kit! It is THAT nice! As far as the 1:1, I've not quite warmed up to this car just yet.....still not quite used to the whole mid/rear engine design. In fact, I've YET to see any of these on the road here in PA. I'm sure the car is quite a stunner in 3D so I'm sure I'll be pleasantly surprised once I see the first one.

There's one he has on there right now and the auction ends on Sunday night at 9:00. You can betcha those last 5-10 minutes are going to be wild! I gotta give Paul a LOT of credit on this one. I was watching his thread as he was getting the body shape worked out. I've seen others attempt this, but he's done the ABSOLUTE BEST I've ever seen on this car! I was going to wait until the price ultimately settles down, but I got tired of waiting and went all out to grab it. And yes, once the mold wears out for it, there's no guarantee he'll make 'em again when it's done. It's one of the reasons I stress that if you REALLY want something in the aftermarket and can pay the money, it's best to go all out and grab it as it'll become sure fire unobtainium in no time at all.

Nice model! I spent the big bucks not long ago and got one of these too from Paul. Interesting to watch the auctions of these when they get near the end........the bidding frenzy can be CRAZY. ? Not sure when I'd build mine.........gotta be full detail though with engine and all and I've since got all the bits and pieces to do that. I got this as I've always LOVED this car ever since I saw the first one in high school when they were intro'd in late '76.

Mark, one suggestion to keeping your braided lines round when putting them in a fitting is to perhaps use some sort of stiff rod (brass or steel) insert this into your hose and then put on your fitting. Gently slide the rod out after the glue or epoxy has set a bit and gently place them where you want it. It might be a good idea to test fit where your braided hose needs to be to cut down on the handling of it. The less you have to handle the ends the better. Hope this helps you out!

David, I'd probably use the Polyhead V8 that I did in this thread here. Maybe modified a bit to represent a car with a single carb. I have another one of those engines as well so I may go ahead and build it for that car so I'd have a clean slate. I'm not sure where I'd get a flathead six...........that would be an interesting engine to use in that since those are seldom seen anymore. ?