Matt Bacon

Excellent... mine's on the way! Don't get carried away with the carbon fibre. I've got a recent big coffee table book called "Lamborghini Supercars", with large, high quality studio photography, and the "weave" is barely visible. I think I'll paint mine in Zero Graphite grey, and then overspray through a very fine mesh with black before clear coating it. The overwhelming impression in the photos is slightly metallic grey, with just a hint of regular texture/pattern to it. No CF decal I've ever seen is subtle enough... bestest, M.

Thanks very much, guys... @Dann Tier the wheels are the white metal parts as cast, with a light overspray of Tamiya Smoke to pop the detail and stop them oxidising to white. The "weather strip" is just a pointed black marker pen run around the angle of the flange... Betty-Lou's sister Samantha has apparently just boarded her plane for a visit... ;-P bestest, M.

Great job. I think it's a lovely kit, of a fantastic car. The wheels are probably the best around in injection plastic -- I have a set waiting for my E-type build. The engine detail is pretty good, as I remember -- any chance of some photos? It's certainly a distinctive car to add to your scale garage... well done. bestest, M.

indeed it does. Fascinating. Makes you wonder what the "original" source of info was for each one. They can't all be right, since they are rather different! "we carried ten tons of iron in five wagons, and seventy men riding on them the whole of the journey... the engine, while working, went nearly five miles an hour; there was no water put into the boiler from the time we started until our journey's end... the coal consumed was two hundredweight". So clearly, the fire was stokeable as they ran on. Equally clearly, there's at least an image or two from which the kit tooling guys worked, which is reasonably detailed in the fine detail, but not so clear in the "big picture!". bestest, M.

That's a great model, Harry -- I built the Airfix one as a sort of "Steampunk" display model in lots of different metallics a couple of years ago. Interestingly, I think both Airfix and Minicraft have got this a bit wrong. As people have pointed out, you couldn't safely drive or stoke the thing the way the kits are configured. The replica on Youtube is clearly driven from the other end And there's a replica in the Swansea Museum that also makes much more sense: You could probably swap the endplates of the boiler on the Airfix kit easily enough, but switching the piston, conrod and frame assembly might be harder... bestest, M.

Blimey... if it messes with Zero basecoats, it must be powerful stuff indeed. Makes you wonder what it's intended to be used over! bestest, M.

Thank you very much, gentlemen! As for Betty-Lou, she's putty in my hands... When we first met, she was in pieces, and it was only thanks to my help she pulled herself together. She's been at my beck and call ever since. ;-P bestest, M.

Certainly with the Tamiya "hot" acrylics (TS and AS sprays) they go on shrinking and curing for several days after they appear to be touch dry. They recommend (or at least the expert painter who wrote the notes on the Tamiya USA site/blog does) that you don't need a "wet coat". Just keep laying down light coats (very light at first -- "spatter" coats, he calls them) and build up the density slowly. The early light coats stop the paint "drawing back" from around details and panel lines, which it is prone to do if it is too liquid. Even if it looks like the surface is slightly orange peeled when you finish painting, after a few days in a warm airing cupboard or a few hours in the food dryer, it will have disappeared as the paint shrinks back into one consolidated layer. bestest, M.

I've had this happen a couple of times -- it's when the clear coat dissolves the base coat enough to free up the metallic flakes to move. so they cluster, and also don't have the random distribution of orientation that makes for a homogeneous "sparkle". There's not a lot you can do except respray. For future reference, you can either lay down more mist coats than usual, making sure each has dried before doing the next, so that when you get to the wet coat stage all that's immediately underneath the thicker layer of clear is more clear. Or you can can spray your base coat, and follow up with several coats of mixed base and clear, steadily increasing the proportion of clear until you get to pure clear. Of course, that only works if you're using compatible products (eg Tamiya TS spray and TS-13 clear). Good luck! bestest, M.

Thanks, guys. And yes, grrrr... I have missed the front indicators. Fortunately, I have now located them on an offcut end of formerly chrome sprue that has been stripped, and repainted them chrome silver. Tomorrow I'll do the orange and then I can add them and this thing will REALLY be finished! bestest, M.

Well, she's finally done! And finally a couple shot with a different lens that should be a better approximation of what a human eye sees looking at one of these: A really nice base kit, much enhanced by the Fine Molds white metal parts (plus you end up with a spare 427 engine!) bestest, M.

That looks like a couple more to add to my "McQueen's Machines" project... bestest, M.

That's taking the "angry shark" look to extremes, isn't it? ;-P bestest, M.

That looks fantastic, Harry! And what a coincidence -- that route ran right past the house I used to live in in South London in the late 80s (not that the trams, or even lines were still there, mind -- it wasn't the 1910s!). The depot that they started from was down in central Woolwich, and the power station that drove them was in this building: https://goo.gl/maps/ryzcGfFwsWG2 which, by the time I lived there, had become one of London's first comedy clubs and a popular music venue: http://www.glypt.co.uk/tramshed/ I saw Billy Bragg there, and Wilko Johnson's band played a storming evening... Anyway, enough of my nostalgia. Fabulous model, and probably rather large. Have you ever posted a picture of your "big Boyz" display area? bestest, M.

The GTO is exactly the same. Like you say, warming and bending works, and I found that thinning the hood hinge pins down a bit helped as well, so the bonnet has a bit of "wiggle room" to settle down when you drop it shut... bestest, M.

Very lovely indeed, and a fantastic (and familiar) colour combination. They are spectacular beasts, aren't they? Did you manage to get the bonnet/hood so that it closes properly at the front...? ;-P bestest, M.

On the home stretch now... just the windscreen and various detail parts to add: ...looks like I have some cleaning to do! bestest, M.

I'd go with Spielberg, Scorsese and Coppola, and probably Eastwood (though I suspect if I'd seen Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, I'd certainly include him...) bestest, M.

Hi, all... have any of you any reviews to share of the Heller BMW 328? Especially any build ups with the gotchas nicely listed out for me? ;-P bestest, M.

Well, crikey. I'm glad these are done. The Fine Molds parts include the makings of much more in-scale jacking hooks (if that's what they are) than the inch thick cast iron slabs represented by the plastic parts. Four bits of etch to fold, a length of brass tube to cut up into the mounts, and a reasonable number (ie more than you'll need) of rivets/fasteners. Fold the etch, wiggle the fasteners through, slide the brass tube on the end. Eight times. Did I mention that they're tiny? Tack'em with superglue, and this is what you get. These'll be painted black, because I don't like the look of chrome, and I found a car with black ones fitted (the same one that has the black roll hoop that I already borrowed...) bestest, M.

Sorry... that one's _clearly_ a kids' pedal car... bestest, M.

Thanks, guys. The next steps were pretty quick! bestest, M.

Thanks, guys... I haven't been idle the last couple of weeks, but progress has been slow. Got the Patto's Place decals on: mixed feelings about those. You could certainly do with some spares to stuff up before you get the hang of them. You should soak them much less long than you think you need to, because if they even start to separate from the backing paper in the water, you're in all kinds of trouble... Really, I should have painted the stripes, but I should have thought about that BEFORE doing the blue... bestest, M.

There are only four 330P4s (as was) in existence. You want a 1967 "Rosso Corsa": Scale Finishes Zero Paints Gravity bestest, M.

Depends whether you want a real, in-period 330P or not... The green one above is a David Piper rebuild "continuation" model that didn't exist in period, and the yellow one is an Ecurie Francorchamps Ferrari 412P... which is much the same but you'll need to tweak the engine. bestest, M.