Harry P.

Looks very sharp and clean to me. Nice work!

Cedric... you have your name misspelled under your avatar!

I'm thinking I'll do the tires on my Pocher 1907 Fiat now. WAY cheaper than buying the aftermarket white tires from Marvin!

Yeah, they call it interior vinyl and fabric coating. And no, it's not fragile at all. In fact, I tried to rub some off just to see, and nothing. After all, it's meant to be used on interiors (like seats!)... so if it rubbed off easily that would be a real problem! There are many brands, I used this:

A. Yes, it's Testors Transparent Black Window Tint in the typical 3 oz. can. It's sort of a blackish clear... like a mix of 90% clear, 10% black. B. I used basswood for the wood parts, the firewall/dash stained that orangy color per many reference photos I have and "varnished" with Future. The floorboards are basswood strips that I darkened with watered-down black acrylic craft paint... no other finish on them. I like using basswood because it has no visible grain to speak of, so you don't get any out-of-scale grain on a model. Also it's almost white, so you can stain it to look like just about any kind of wood species. And it's soft, so it's easy to shape and sand.

Like a way to steer it? And radiator hoses? I like the rear end treatment... the way the clearance hump for the spring is the mounting surface for the taillights. Pretty clever and very unique!

There is no way to glue a clear windshield together without the seam showing. It's impossible. As stated, your best bet is to either find a a replacement or make your own out of thin clear sheet acetate. As far as your crooked black trim, the way to do it is first mask off the part of the glass that will stay clear, then either spray or brush paint the black areas. Doing it freehand, with a brush, without masking... unless you have some sort of supernatural talent, you'll never get straight lines. And as far as Future goes... your windshield is already messed up anyway, so you have nothing to lose by trying the Future. It might make the hazing less obvious, or maybe even make it go away completely. The only other alternative would be to polish the hazing out of the piece using either a polishing kit or automotive plastic polish of some kind. It all depends on how much the lacquer thinner attacked the plastic and how severe the hazing it. If it's really bad, you'll probably have to begin by trying to sand the glass smooth using very fine grit sandpaper, then going with the polishing. By far the easiest way to fix all of your problems is to start over with a new windshield. Trying to make the existing one look presentable is only going to frustrate you to no end.

This is the Lindberg 1/16 scale 1910 Model T "Torpedo." Here's the kit I started with: Henry Ford didn't come up with his famous "any color as long as it's black" idea until much later–early Model Ts were actually available in several colors (red, dark green, dark blue, gray and black, depending on the specific model)… but to me a Model T should be black, so that's what I went with. The kit is very basic and simplified, so I added a few details that were missing. I replaced the kit's dashboard/firewall with a scratchbuilt one, made of real wood, stained and varnished. I also added real wood floorboards and a scratchbuilt pedal surround and steering column collar. All of the "brass" trim on the firewall is strips of paper painted brass, the brackets connecting the upper and lower parts of the firewall are tiny trips of paper, all "bolt heads" are tiny brass nails (hull planking nails left over from a wooden ship kit). I opened the doors by scribing them with the back side of my X-acto blade. The hinges are made of short lengths of aluminum tube, the hinge pins are more of those brass ship's hull planking nails. The doors really do open now, but I'm afraid the tiny hinges will break if I open and close them too often... so they stay closed! I also added the choke control from the dash to the carb. The interior "leather" panels were made by cutting pieces of sheet acetate to fit each interior panel (the area ahead of the doors and the doors themselves, then "sculpting" the leather by laying some Bondo onto the acetate panels and sort of swirling it around. Once the Bondo hardened, I smoothed down the surface with sandpaper, but left a little of the dips and bumps… so it sort of looks like slightly wrinkled or wavy leather. Then I painted the Bondo "leather" panels, popped them off the acetate (Bondo doesn't stick to acetate) and glued them in place. The tiny door latches were scratchbuilt, but they're so small you can hardly even see them on the finished model! As usual with kits of cars from this era, the "brass" parts have that mirror-finish polished and lacquered look, like brass-colored chrome. That might be fine on a restored show car, but my guess is that most Model T owners didn't keep the brass on their cars in concours condition, so I did my usual trick of spraying all the brass parts with transparent black window tint to tone down the brass and give the parts some depth, then Dullcote over the top to get that look of natural, unpolished brass. In the photos below you can see that my technique on the brass-plated parts comes pretty close to the look of real, unpolished brass (which is what the straps on the gas tank are made of). I sanded off the molded-in straps on the gas tank and replaced them with straps made of brass strip. I left them unpainted (they would have been painted body color on the real car). The kit glass was useless… it had swirl marks in the plastic, and it was way too thick… when you place it in the windshield frame it sticks out past the frame… sort of that "coke bottle glasses" look… so I used the kit pieces as templates to make new glass from a sheet of thin Lexan (actually leftover "glass" material from the London Bus I posted a while ago). As you can see, the windshield frames are very thin, there's not a whole lot of margin for error when fitting the glass! I "glued" the glass in place by running some Future into the joint between the edges of the "glass" and the frames. The engine in the kit is very basic, only 4-5 parts in all. I added the lower radiator hose (not included in the kit) and some basic wiring. The radiator "hoses" are lengths of aluminum tube painted a reddish brown (per some reference photos), and the hose clamps are made of aluminum duct tape. The tires were painted with automotive interior vinyl dye, and the seats, interior "leather" panels and convertible top boot were painted with acrylic craft paint (very dark gray), then sprayed with transparent black window tint, and finally Dullcote.

That's a nice looking little hot rod!

I agree, Joseph... those WWI planes are just so cool! And to my eye, the Albatros is the coolest one of them all. It was neat to see it take off in the video you posted, even if it's "only" a replica. Right now I have the wings covered, they're ready for paint. I should have a new update within a few days.

I don't know what color you were aiming for, but the one that you got looks great to me! As usual with you, practically a flawless model, the paint is your typical perfect. If it wasn't for the molded-in wipers, those engine shots could be used in "Real or Model."

How is that any different than injection-molded plastic kits not being safe for children? Ok, so they put a warning on the box, that seems to cover them, legally. Wouldn't a similar warning that you would have to agree to by clicking the "I accept" box, like the "terms and conditions" you have to agree to before downloading software, etc., serve the same purpose on a downloadable 3-D file?

We're resurrecting 5 year old threads now?

President badge? Don't have one...

Oops, my mistake!

Looks pretty clean, but you really should have sanded down those mold seam lines that run between the headlights and the grille.

Not to worry... it's the coveted Irrelevant Post of the Week Award... there's always next week!

Very labor intensive, but pretty slick! Nicely done.

Gotta agree with the gang... that's some some nice model making right there!

I guess you missed the fact that I was kidding!

In a few of those photos you'd be hard pressed to tell that it wasn't real. Very nicely done! Oh, and the bus isn't half bad either!

For going completely off topic in a thread in the "Off Topic" area... in other words for going off topic squared... I hereby award you the "Completely Irrelevant Post of the Week" award.

"Pay it forward" means that if someone does you a favor, you then do someone else a favor, and then they do someone else a favor... and so on...moving the favor forward. That's the way it's supposed to work. But there's no guarantee that people are going to play by the rules.

I didn't even notice that until someone sent me their answer and pointed that out!