mrm

Beautiful color and paintjob. I just read (again) the whole thread from the beginning and there is some excellent craftsmanship on display. I just think that you should adjust some things while/if you still can. Like some of the suspension links and components and some of the lines you are using, which look completely out of scale in comparison to other pieces of the model. Your tie rods and steering links are thinner than your fuel lines - by a lot. The rear links are also thinner than the lines. It is a great chassis with a lot of quality work invested in it and it would be a shame to have things like these be the first thing that jumps at you when looking underneath.

What was that saying about opinions and buttholes?………. I think it is great what some of these guys are doing. Both the real builders and Revell. My kids do to. And let's face it. People like me (younger) are going to be building kits after people like you (older) are gone. And my kid's generation will be building models after I am gone. In other words the future of the hobby does not quite care that much about stock Caddies and loves the new-era customs. What bugs me, is the tendency since Boyd Coddington died, for Chip Foose to freshen up cars built by Boyd while he was working for him and then introduce them under his own brand. This was the case with the 0032, which was originally The Boydster II. Foose repainted it in black (yellow originally) changed the wheels and campaigned it under his own name. The story with this Caddy is pretty much the same. And no matter how involved Foose was in the design of that car, it came out of Boyd's shop.

So the interior is completed... First I painted the interior tub. For a model to qualify for an Out Of Box class, it can not have flocking in it. So I sprayed it with a Krylon paint called Natural Stone, I got from Hobby Lobby. It is textured and I sprayed it straight from the can. I think the color of it matches the color of the Mysterion pretty good too. The seat and the front of the headrest were painted with Testors' One Coat Diamond Dust. The flakes in it are nice and chunky and once covered with Tamiya clear, they match the vinyl in the real car perfectly. The steering wheel rim was done in the same fashion and the casing of the headrest is in Tamiya Mica Silver. The TV did not have the buttons on it and I can't make them if I want to keep it box stock, so I drilled indentations, which I then filled with paint. Both the TV and the radio were done in various metalizers. The body parts were sprayed with Gialo Modena (Ferrari Yellow) with a little white added in it and then cleared with Y2K clear. Thanks for looking and stay tuned….

Interior is looking fantastic so far

Am I searching something short or are there none on e-bay? I see two of them and they are asking something like $70 with no box. I would like to get one, but can anyone help me finding it?

So I tackled the engines yesterday and today. They are made up of 27 pieces each, not counting the exhaust. To put it politely, they will test you. But with some adjustments and patience they come out pretty nice. I painted them with Tamiya gloss black straight from the spray-can. And left them not perfectly glossy (no clear) to make them look a little more period correct. Everything was painted and done by instructions, save for the starters, which were labeled to be white, but I painted with "steel". Pretty happy with them. Next I put the inside exhausts. Here is the time to mention that I believe it is better not to follow the instructions when they show the order in which the mufflers are fixed to the frame. I believe it will make your life a lot easier if you leave the two chrome mufflers that go in the middle of the car underneath, for after the engines are affixed to the frame. I was very skeptical, but the engines actually DID fit pretty good side by side. The only way to do this however, is by installing the right ("passenger") side engine first. Its starter fits inside the frame rail and if you put the other engine first it will be almost impossible to slide it in place. So the chassis and drive trail are pretty much complete, save for the outside exhaust and the mufflers in the middle. Honestly, I forgot to put the inside mufflers before the picture was taken. However the outside ones I will put after the body is in place, so pretty much last.

Thank you. Looks very good.

Wow! Fenders look great. Wouldn't it have been easier to fill the door seams before attaching the fenders tho?

It is, but that's half the pleasure, right?

Holly thread resurrection, Batman !!!!!!

So, the issues…... First there is an issue with the frame, more precisely with the front crossmember that the engines rest on. There are four crossmembers. The frontmost one is chromed and so is the the one on the very back. The two in the middle need to be painted. But the one the engines rest on seems to be too wide. So if you just install them the way they are, the rails will not be parallel. So, I adjusted that crossmember by filing it on each end. Now the rails are parallel, but altho I am not there yet, I have a feeling the engines will not quite fit side by side. Another issue with the frame is that the mounting points for all the pieces of the suspension are pretty loose. This can create issues as in my case, where some pieces were interfering with each other . Then there is the aforementioned issue with glueing bunch of chromed out pieces together. If I was building a highly detailed recreation of the Mysterion, I would probably rechrome the frame and replace most (if not all) the links with RB Motion pieces. But in my case I wanted it build Out Of Box. It was designed where you put everything on the frame together at the same time, so you still have things moving around to line up properly. Altho I can't see how it would be possible. Getting this frame to be square and everything to line-up was an adventure to say the least. My wife was definitely not happy about the things that were coming out of my mouth. Then comes the body, which is made from three main pieces. The one that comprises the firewall, creates a problem with the "vent" on top of the body, because the joints are visible inside of the slot and it is a major pain to fill them and sand them smooth. In my case there was a huge issue with the rear of the body, where the lower part of the body is a separate piece. If you glue the two together and line up there edges, the bottom of the body will not sit square with the top. So it needs to be pulled out on one side to square off. This opens a big gap on the side and requires quite a bit of filling on top. It is doable and once taken care of becomes a really nice shape. Another issue with the body is the frame of the bubble, which is hinged. But the way I see it, making it function properly going by the instructions is pretty much impossible. So IMO you should make it either open or closed. I opted for a closed look, so I glued it shut. Also behind the bubble there is a panel that is made to show detail inside with a separate cover. But there is no way attaching the cover to be functional. So you need to either scratchbuild hinges of some sort, or chose to glue it open or closed. Again I opted for the closed look. So far, these are the issues I have run into. Here are some pictures of the body being prepped for primer:

Great looking flocking job. Do you mind sharing your technique?

Beautiful model and a job well done. I think the 312T4 is the only Ferrari F1 By Tamiya I have never built or even owned. That may have to change.

thank you guys. The model offers quite few challenges. I will post pictures and try to describe them when I have more time.

The first one just looks outdated. I vote for the second one too.

Wow! This will be wild!

As the title says, this is going to be a Out of Box build. I have built the Mysterion once, about 20 years ago. I remembered it being quite challenging and always wanted to build one again. Well, it is not any less challenging now. It is amazing however, how well made it is. Today's kits from revell don't hold a candle to it IMO. Anyway…... Here is the chassis finally all put together. It definitely tested my patience.

NIce. I hope you are not going to "rat" this one out. It looks like a very good foundation for a nice, clean, modern rod.

Great color, but personally not crazy about the wheels.

Let me try a different way of saying the same thing a little more directly. You asked "what did I do wrong?" And i am telling you. You used the wrong paint. First you mixed two colors that not meant to be mixed. Because they are unstable. In general I would not mix anything that is labeled chrome with anything. Then you cleared over your mix with a clear that is incompatible with the paint underneath. On top of that apparently you did not wait long enough and applied the clear too wet. The solution to all these problems is a simple $7 jar of appropriate paint. It would have sprayed beautifully, it would have been ready for clear in about an hour and it would have handled the clear you sprayed without issue. This would have been true for no matter what color it was. But as a pleasant side effect you would have also had an exact match for any Lambo color you like. Now, the alternative way that would have allowed you to use your color mix, would have been using a polyurethane clear, since it is not a hot paint. But it is a PITA.

Nice flocking!

This is another one of those projects that I keep looking at from the beginning and just don't know what to say….. Just amazing work.

Thank you John. Again, the build is amazing. I have been following it, but never commented on it, because I just don't know what to say. It leaves me speechless. It is inspirational.

Very nice and super clean. I see one major problem tho. No Trabant came out of the factory with such nice of a paint job. LOL. I grew up with these things around me. When we were kids we used to play by taking small diameter pipes and making guns out of them. We used to cut thin strips of glossy paper and make thin and long funnels out of them (bullets), which we then blew through the pipes. Those things flew fast and really far away. Anyway….. One day in the summer we were sitting at the edge of the park in front of one of the kids building and there was this Trabant parked in front of it in the $hittiest of ochre colors. Being kids, doing kids stuff, we were picking whatever little fruit it was from the bushes behind us, which looked like tiny little balls and were shooting them through our pipes. One hit the Trabant and left I nice red splatter on it, pretty much like a paintball. We thought it was the coolest thing, so we shot up that Trabby 'till the whole side was mostly red. Oh boy, were we in trouble after that! Apparently it had such bad finish, that the juice from the little fruit soaked into it and it could not be washed off. The owner had to repaint it and our parents paid for it. I was grounded for a month and so were most of the kids that participated. These cars were total POS. I think you are building the best made Trabant ever!

Supa dupa cool. Amazing detail! What did you use for the seat cushions? Did you use some plastic stock with diamond plaid or did you cut them from some existing part?