Scale-Master

The frame has been built up and painted. I used the recommended colors and was pleasantly surprised at how the color, sheen and texture came out. The engine is a tight fit, but the instructions are clear on how to easily to twist it into place.

The yellow is the new line of LP bottled lacquers, the red is a TS spray lacquer. I don't think there was a fluorescent red in the X acrylic line.

That would have been cast in the early to mid 1980s. If you haven't figured it out yet, the material is White Metal. An alloy of mostly lead with some tin and antimony. FDS tended to use an alloy heavy on the lead and sometimes not the cleanest at that. The porosity and dirt are the by products of that. I used to cast white metal car kits starting in 1980. FDS was in business then and while one of the early "mainstream" manufacturers, their quality was surpassed by many in that same era. You're doing a great job with it!

The body was painted TS-36 Fluorescent Red with an undercoat of LP-8 yellow.

The shoulder winglets in my kit were both for the left side. Since the kit provides PE wing tips and supports for "extra detailing" I used them to convert one to a right side and then made the left to match.

Thanks Trevor! After a few rounds of fine tuning the body seams it's time to start using white primer.

The exhaust and turbo set-up is cast as one piece. I drilled out the exhaust pipe.

The interior was added after the suspension. I made decals for the gauges too. Like they can be seen once the car is done…

The rear suspension was built up on the chassis as the parts are intertwined with it. The chrome parts weren't as bent as on the front end, and none were broken so it went together pretty well.

Time to go to the beginning of the instructions and build on the engine. I think I spent more time painting bolts than anything else and now I can see that some of the details will get covered by guards.

The decals were worse than I expected; typically the kits from SMTS during this era are a bit thick and yellowed and not all that detailed, but they are useable. Unfortunately these were stuck to the PE sheet and some of the images were damaged by that. When I went to use the tire decals I discovered even the strongest decal solvent I have (and I have several to work with) would not soften them enough to conform to the sidewalls. Just as well, they were a dingy yellow-white and they didn't have the gold pinstripe. I drew and printed an entire new set of decals with more accurate and cleaner artwork. The first ones I applied were for the tires The wheels are nicely rendered and cast. The tires aren't too bad either.

I built up the front suspension but did not attach it to the chassis. The upper arms need to go inside the body and the chrome plated white metal is extremely fragile. One of the arms was already broken off so I'll fix that during final assembly.

The wings have the end plates cast onto them and they are pretty thin, all things considered, but optional PE end plates are included in the kit for better detail. I filed off the end plates on these and used the PE items, definitely worth the effort.

SMTS 1/43rd white metal kit. First round of clean-up of the main body parts. It's a pretty clean casting but the nose was a little crusty. The side pods look like they fit well, but will need a fillet where they meet the main body. Back in the day I would have probably soldered the side pods onto the body, but I went with CA this time. First coat of primer shows what needs attention; not as much as I expected but still more to do…

Like most motorcycle models I build, I do the brake rotors early on if not the very first thing. Since these came pre-drilled all I had to do was paint them. But that took a couple days with drying times.

Thanks again everyone for the kind words! I really appreciate it.

Yes, I had to ream the spoke holes, not big deal since I have a nice set of reamers. I think the white version is the best looking of the three. The silver version has no personality compared to the red or white. The instructions on how to assemble the wheels is very detailed and specific even down to the cements to be used. The jig that is provided to lace the wheels works great. They also instruct to use the same jig to install the tires; unfortunately it has three little ribs to center the rim that chipped the paint when I tried to install the front tire. Since the spokes were cemented into the rim I had to repair the paint damage as an assembled unit, so I made cardstock mask and blended the two colors. I did not use the jig for the rear tire or for the front after I repaired the paint damage. The tires fit without too much effort onto the rims. I guess if you don't paint the rims the jig is a good idea for mounting the tires.

Thanks for the heads up Wolf. I have no problem making additional decals and adhering to the out-of-the-box "limitations" I'm staying within. The rims are two pieces affairs and fit very well, but there is still a fine but unwanted seam where the halves meet. The color called out for the rims is Gold Leaf but I thought the anodized gold look in the reference photos looked cooler so I used Titanium Gold under Clear Yellow from the LP colors. The spokes after being painted.

Next up, something simple, well by comparison to the Lola T70… I'm building it straight out of the box, but not following the proper sequence as the instructions show because I wanted to see how the chain builds up. I considered getting the detail-up kit for the chain, but I thought I'd try to stick with the true OOB spirit just in case it looks good enough... The kit provides a nice booklet of photos for reference and the instructions have detailed color call outs. However the two don't match on every item so I'm using both as a guide. The info for the chain falls in between the two.

After 46 full months I think it's done. WIP thread:

It's done:

Final assembly was pretty standard. The rear wing did not need to be cemented in place due to the grooves I scribed into the body for it. WIP Thread:

Thanks Bruce! A coat of clear hides a lot of the decal issues, but not all of them.

Lots of incremental progress spread out over a couple weeks; can't rush at this point. The engine cover is installed, hopefully for the final time and the electrical loom has been run to the rear lights. The latches for the front clip are on as are the mirrors and fuel & coolant filler caps. The windshield has been set in and sealed (only took 15 hours…) and several more detail decals were made and applied. Too bad the weather is so nasty and I can't shoot it outside, or in the sun…

The decals are very thin and surprisingly not too brittle compared to what I was expecting, but several of them did break apart during application and had to be pieced back together. The fit of the hood stripes leaves something to be desired, but I was able to get them to be very close to parallel as they should be. The sides of the rear glass are supposed to be carbon fiber and silver decals were provided that look more like a poor rendition of diamond plate. They do not fit at all and broke into several pieces. Since they should be closer to a black than silver I just painted over them with a couple coats of smoke. I didn't waste the effort to use the "C/F" ones for the wing end plates.