Matt Bacon

This very one: https://cars.bonhams.com/auction/29334/lot/140/1933-mg-magnette-k3-supercharged-sports-racing-two-seater-chassis-no-k3003-see-text-engine-no-r772-ac/ best, M.

Since I have a spare Tazio Nuvolari driver figure and a white metal Auto Kit MG K3 Magnette, it seems almost rude not to build the man and his machine... Particularly since reference is not at all hard to find: https://cars.bonhams.com/auction/29334/lot/140/1933-mg-magnette-k3-supercharged-sports-racing-two-seater-chassis-no-k3003-see-text-engine-no-r772-ac/ So, what do you get in a typical Auto Kit originated kit, now sold by SE Finecast? I think this must be one of the later ones, because it has more fine detail parts (see the "tree" with half a dozen bits on above the front axle and the cast dashboard with holes for all the instruments) than the others I've done. There's a fair bit of straightening out to do, but this one has all the parts, and they are all intact, which is a blessing. Although the body is multipart, the tabs that lock it all together are well engineered and precise and will put everything where it should be. And if I make the main joins with low temperature solder, they will remain tough and a bit flexible to allow fettling. The most important things are to clean up the parts really thoroughly, and test fit and adapt repeatedly until the parts stay together of their own accord before doing any soldering or gluing. The wire spokes for the wheels will need winding, but I have a plan for that of which more later. So, we begin: The floor, firewall and chassis rails are separate parts (the previous owner had stuck the front cowl in place ahead of time -- I don't know why). There's no glue in this picture -- note the neat interlocking tabs at the bottom corners of the firewall and the rear corners of the floor. The journey of a thousand miles, etc... best, M.

That looks fantastic.... what a find! Beautifully executed and finished. Though as a dyed-in-the-wooI Jack Aubrey fan, I kinda think that the "crew" is looking a bit lonely and relaxed if the ports are open... Great job of a very neat vignette. best, M.

Something a bit different for me: a classic American kit of an iconic American automobile. More detailed thoughts at the end, but the short version is that it is one of the best thought out, highly detailed and amazingly accurate kits I've ever built from any manufacturer. The plastic is a bit unforgiving but the fit is quite extraordinary and the box is absolutely packed with options, many of which are functional. This one has been buried in my stash for a while, along with a couple of the later white boxings, the Mercedes and the sister 1931 Cadillac Sport Phaeton. This is an original that had been slightly started. First impressions were that there were many, many parts and the chrome was a bit thick and uneven. The styrene is also quite brittle, and some of the finer parts had broken and needed fixing (the unopened boxes featured a really clever system of stacking and locking the trees together which protects everything, including trapping the tires in an isolated cage, but it does mean once you unpack them they are NEVER going back in the box...). I stripped the chrome, cleaned the parts up and throughout the build recoated as needed with SMS Hyperchrome and AK Chrome markets. The last picture is the car I chose to reproduce. It's not the subject of the kit, which is moulded in green and black as well as the chrome and in theory could be built without paint. But throughout the build, I kept going back to the 50 or so pictures from the auction site, and this kit has every detail in. And I mean EVERY detail. Whoever mastered it loved these cars, and had access to fantastic reference or the real thing. Every tiny badge is engraved, the door hinges are different heights, the landau bars reach the trim on the car rather than stopping at the hood, the whitewalls of the tires have clearly readable embossed lettering and the AC Delco sculpted labels are clearly legible on the accessories. The instructions are in a few large stages with detailed step-by-step build notes: read them and follow them! Everything fits without modifying bar cleaning off any flash. The latter is easy on this first-release kit, but the later releases have a lot more. The engine and chassis are very well detailed and complete. Fortunately, those Cadillac engineers deliberately tucked away the plumbing and wiring of the awesome V16 to keep it neat and tidy, so the only addition here is some white-glue-coated thread to represent the insulated plug wires exiting the distributor. You might be thinking "the windshield doesn't fit"... except on the real thing you can see that the glass does open at the bottom for ventilation., and that's how it's modelled. if you love old kits, or you love old cars, or even both, you owe it to yourself to try one of these. I was genuinely surprised by how well detailed it was, how well it fits together, and how very, VERY well it reproduces the real thing. If you can. though, try and find one of the original boxes as shown above... It'll need a lot less remedial work than a white one. The full build is here. Enjoy: (I don't know why that picture is appearing as a thumbnail for the thread. It's not my build, and it's not anywhere in my thread...) best, M.

Thanks, @espo. They're not my pictures -- someone pointed me at them for an entirely different reason. I just thought folks here might enjoy the automotive nostalgia... best, M.

I think this will be the last set of in-progress pictures. I'm just adding the last pieces of vulnerable chrome trim and the license plates and it will be done. Even though you can't see them, the three-legged "spiders" which support the spare wheel carriers have petite detail on both sides -- the bolts that hold the three legs to the center hub and the central spindle are represented. Mastering this was clearly a labor of love for someone... And yes, the hood fits even with the spiders in place, despite the risk of interference between the front leg mounting into the fender and the lower rear corner of the bonnet. The upright hood is now also finished. Another neat bit of design is the way the lower end of the landau bars is actually below the bottom of the hood, because in real life it pivots on the trim line of the bodywork. Other folks tooling something like this might have been tempted to terminate it on the hood given that the two hood positions are swappable. If you've followed this so far, thank you! See you over in Under Glass... best, M.

Some nice nostalgic shots here to play “name that car” with… https://flashbak.com/new-york-city-in-kodachrome-color-photos-found-in-a-trashcan-from-the-1950s-and-1960s-465476/ best, M.

Slow progress in the last week as some family issues occupied a lot of my time, but some things got done in the odd bit of downtime... The light bars were among the finest and most fragile parts, and the main element had a distinctly cross-eyed look. I got it straight and reinforced though, and I think it looks pretty reasonable now. The main headlights have both a lens and an outer ring to install; the "pilot" lights at the bottom (which _are_ meant to turn to align with the steering, I gather) had just the clear lens to be added. Both have a clever bit of molding at the back of the dish that actually looks like a bulb when seen through the lenses. I wrangled the windscreen back into place. The spare tire covers required a combination of BMF for the central circumferential cover strip and chrome pen for the inner circle. The hubs also need chroming but I wanted to finish trial fitting and prepping before I finally apply it to avoid handling as much as possible. The folded hood is now finished. For the erected hood, I still need to apply the opened-up landau bars, and it looks from the photos of the real thing as though there are also some silver fasteners around the edges when the top is up as well as the tonneau cover fixings on the folded version. best, M.

http://www.usww2uniforms.com/BQD_114.html @Wickersham Humble these are what I used for reference… best, M.

I bought the Formula 560 back in the day when I actually wanted to glue canopies to model aircraft, and I've bought two bottles in 20 years and the second one is still on my bench. It was what I could lay hands on, and it's done all the the jobs I've asked of it reliably ever since. It was what I could find easily in the UK (albeit at Scale Model World, which is our IPMS Nats), and I've never felt the need to hunt down an alternative. Microscale might be easier to find in the US, but I've never used it. You won't go far wrong with Formula 560, Others can comment on the Microscale option. best, M.

I know the original question was how to glue on chrome parts, but it's probably worth adding that on modern cars, when the mirrors/spoilers/embellishments are the same color as the body, it's a good idea to look ahead in the instructions and glue all of those parts in place plastic to plastic and prime and paint everything together in one go. That way you can be sure they are well fixed, but more importantly make sure they are all exactly the same color. If you don't have exactly the same coverage, especially on finishes that are made up of two or even three layers, you can end up with different shades of the color which are very obvious when you DO finally stick them together... best, M.

"Formula 560 Canopy Glue" is a white PVA that dries completely clear, won't affect paint, and cleans up with water. Or you can use a "tacky" white glue from the craft store. And if it exists in the US, a tiny dot of "Evo Stik Serious Glue" is tacky, tough when cured and and also clear. It won't affect paint, but don't get it where you don't want it because it is hard to clean off. If you do get a bit where you don't want it, let it cure thoroughly, cut matchstick into a chisel tip, and use that to break it loose. If the paint is glossy and cured the glue will eventually just come away in a lump... best, M.

Very nicely turned out — he has good taste and you have skills to match. Are you starting up a production line, or just spending too much time on the configurator? 😜 best, M.

Grrr....aaargh! Looks like the windscreen managed to work its way loose as I was fixing the body to the chassis. Anyway, it's now back in place where it should be and the glue is setting.... again! best, M.

OK, there's a bit of wiggling to do to get from closed to open, but the rumble seat seems to work fine! If you have a set of 1/24 golf clubs and bag spare, the accommodation awaits, even if it is behind an inch of armour plated door... That's the cockpit finished. The wheel has the correct concentric levers for the throttle and something to do with parking (I can't read all the wording, but "parked" is the first setting) moulded on the hub so I faked up some labels. Look closely at the windscreen in the pictures above. I haven't worked out how they did this, but the natural resting angle when you trap the tiny bearing pivots between the front and back halves of the windscreen pillars is slightly open at the bottom. I thought it just didn't fit, but then I looked at the pictures of the real thing above, and lo and behold the windscreen does open at the bottom for fresh air ventilation, so it's 100% accurate. I'll wait until the glue is set tomoorow, and very gently (very small pins in fragile clear plastic) see if it can be nudged fully-closed as well... Radiator now fixed permanently. I tacked the bracing to the firewall first, then glued the base of the radiator and the leading point of the brace in their locations, and while the glue was tacky and not fully cured dropped in the hood assembly and pressed everything together before leaving it to set. As you can see, this means that the hood fits neatly at the edges and clips positively into place. Lights tomorrow... best, M.

If I wanted to build one of these: it looks like the tall trunk spoiler is only in the AMT Baldwin Motion kit. Does it have a regular hood and the chin spoiler like the one above as well as the BM special parts? I think that buying two different AMT 70 1/2 Camaro kits to get all the bits I would need probably rules it out.... ;-( best, M.

Let's get ready to rumble! Bottom line is that the cunning plan for building the rumble seat up on a closed panel didn't work. Nor did several other attempts. The tolerances are tight, and the fact that the plastic is hard and brittle makes it very hard to create and use "wiggle room". What I've ended up with is this fudge. I've cut a slot in the circular sockets on the seat arms, so that when the seat is fully open and upright, it should be able to drop down onto the bearing pins from the top and gravity will keep it in place. When it's closed the remainder of the socket should rotate around the pin and locate the bottom/rear end of the panel. The top edge rests on a ledge at the front of the opening in the body. As you might be able to see, given the fragility of the plastic, I've used some clear epoxy above the "hook" of the fudged arm to reinforce it. This is now curing until tomorrow! In other news, the body interior has been detail painted and inserted. Go in downwards from the top rear, pointy end of the interior through the gap in bottom of the body at the front, get the rear bulkhead of the interior over the parcel shelf panel on the body, then pivot the front of the interior up into position flexing it past the interior flanges of the footwell vents one at a time. The controls have also been fixed, which means the chassis is more or less done. I don't think attaching all the head and tail lights at this point makes sense. Which means I can try this. I just love this engine bay... Only this side so far (the masking drives me nuts!). Masked the arrows on the vents with thin strips of Tamiya tape, then AK Chrome pen to highlight them and all the other handles, embellishments and fasteners. A couple of touch-ups to the yellow to do, I see... The dash is a tribute to the astonishing finesse of the molding in this kit. There are three parts here. The windscreen frame and dashboard has finely-textured "engine turning" which catches the light perfectly. The wood veneer "bow" has very fine grain molded in, which is easily drybrushed -- or gently sanded to reveal the black underlying plastic. But the instrument panel is the piece de resistance - all the dial markings are molded in relief. I painted the whole thing silver, filled the dials with Citadel "Black Templar" contrast paint, drybrushed the raised markings with Two Thin Coats white, and applied a couple of layers of Citadel 'Ardcoat varnish as glass. It took longer to type this than it did to do. Amazing detail, the like of which I've only ever come across in classic Monogram 1/48 aircraft kits of the 70s and 80s... Tomorrow, it's time to see if we CAN rumble... best, M.

Looks fabulous, Justin. All those add ins really lift the base kit. Super clean building and painting, and all in a very stylish colour scheme to boot. Love it! best, M.

Great work on this @Dave B. It’s such a beautiful car. This will also be very helpful when I come to build my Fujimi issue, so thanks for that! As to the rear vents, I guess youthful enthusiasm — plus there seem to be different options. This one has two on each side: https://petrolicious.com/blogs/articles/the-beauty-of-the-alfa-romeo-tipo-33-stradale-is-more-than-skin-deep Basically your top one plus a single vent combining the lower two. And this one has one large vent, mirroring the one behind the front wheel arch: https://www.autozine.org/Archive/Alfa/classic/Tipo_33.html So you may well have seen an original picture with three, or just thought it looked more stylish that way… best, M.

Popped the rather imposing radiator on for a test fit, which is pretty impressive given that everything is just resting in place... I'm going to diverge slightly from the instructions, and build the rumble seat and mechanism up from underneath with the opening panel taped in place like this, rather than assembling the whole thing as a unit and then trying to plug it into the open hole at the back. best, M.

Took the masking off after letting the decanted and airbrushed Tamiya Gloss Black cure for 24 hours in an unseasonably warm workshop... The running boards, believe it or not, are the much-maligned "New Improved Chrome" Bare Metal Foil. I've finally run out of the old stuff, and this envelope had been sitting unopened behind the bench for years, so I didn't have high hopes. But it worked brilliantly. There are a few touch-ups to do, and detail painting on both the main body and hood sections, but overall I'm pretty happy with how this has come out. best, M.

Back from a lovely break in the midst of the Forest of Bowland, I can now see how all the bits I left to cure thoroughly got on while I was paying no attention... That's the chassis (and the first part of the four-stage instructions) completed. The steering column and box need to be clipped in place before attaching the floor and fender part, and then rotated to the correct orientation and fixed permanently into the location on the kick-panel of the floor. I'd stripped the chrome from all the parts to clean them up and glue together the various assemblies firmly, and this is the first to be repainted. I stuck the grille, radiator housing and mascot together, and then sprayed with SMS Hyperchrome over a base of Tamiya Gloss Black from a rattle can. Quick test assembly. Now time to do a few hours of masking before painting the black body mouldings. best, M.

Not cheap (but only PCB-bit expensive): I bought some of the Tamiya modelling bits for the smaller sizes. They really are designed for modelling, and the trick is that the standard 3mm diameter shank has a shorter and shorter cutting bit on it as you get into smaller diameters. Let's face it, if you are drilling a 0.2mm or 0.3mm hole on a model, you probably don't need a 15mm deep cut. So the smallest cutting bit is only about 4mm long before the shank, but you are a lot less likely to put lateral stresses on it, or apply high torque to the smallest cross-section. The worst case scenario for the PCB drills is hard to cut plastic at the tip with 15mm of 0.3mm bit between the load and the chuck, which makes the stress at the point where the thin bit meets the thick shank incredibly high, especially combined with bending loads from the pressure on the drill. The Tamiya small-section bits are long enough to go through a 1/48 airplane wing for rigging, or drill a reliable anchor for a 1/24 spark plug wire, and I can't think why you'd need anything much longer. PCB drills are designed to reliably and repeatedly cut through metal and a very hard plastic substrate when mounted in a computer controlled drilling machine with a chuck positioning motion that's accurate to 0.001mm and rock solid in the vertical plane, unlike you or I... best, M.

So, I have found the missing part that stalled the build -- the back half of one of the wheels, which is the same as one for the spare wheel on the fender. However, I have another Jo-han Cadillac in the stash so I have stolen a bright blue alternative to the green piece in the kit. Having now gone rummaging, i would very highly recommend that if you want to build one of these, seek out an original 60s issue rather than the "white box" re-issue version from the 70s/80s. The newer kit is plagued by very heavy flash everywhere, and rough textured moldings, including the transparencies and chrome. I think if I'd opened the "Dual Cowl Phaeton" first, I'd have filed the Jo-han kits under "more trouble than it's worth" and moved on. But I didn't, and the newer kit is an excellent source of spare parts... The chassis is now fully assembled and painted: "What's with the red brake drums?" you are probably thinking. Well, I have settled on a real car to act as the prototype and solve my color conundrums, and here it is... It's a deep cream/yellow beige in real life, not a virulent chrome yellow. This is a more or less 50/50 mix of Tamiya TS-34 "Camel Yellow" and TS-7 "Racing White" decanted and sprayed with the airbrush. The fender molding is just the kit part with the plastic polished, which looks OK to me. I don't think priming it, painting it in gloss black and polishing it again will make it any better! The wheels are a bit more sophisticated than the kit colors and chrome would allow. The picture of the real thing above demonstrates that the wheels are basically black with chrome details, not chrome all over. The two wheel/spoke parts are glossed in black, and then the spokes colored in chrome with AK and Hyperchrome pens. The rims on the real thing are mostly black, so only the outside edge is also colored in chrome. The hub is chrome, but I'm going to leave that until after gluing the wheel parts together so I can apply pressure to the hub while they dry. The whitewalls have been primered in white and then painted with Gunze "off-White" spray. One of the reasons I love this color scheme is that as well as the red brake drums, it's been refurbished with a glorious red leather interior.This is Citadel Evil Sunz Scarlet diluted slightly with water and with some acrylic flow enhancer added. I don't know why it's taken me so long to figure this out, but while it takes several coats to build up the color density, you end up with no texture from the paint at all. Lots still to do, but I feel like I've taken all the big decisions now, so I can just plug along building it. best, M,

Try a craft shop that sells material for flower arranging, or an actual florists. You can get 1mm, 1.5mm and 2mm diameter aluminum wire that they use in arrangements this side of the pond, but I don't know what sizes might be available in the US. If you only want a few inches, a florist might just give you an offcut... best, M.