Bugatti Fan

Fixing together with screws appears to be the Achilles Heel with many of those big 1/8th scale hybrid die cast and plastic kits as they often can get compromised as a result of having to facilitate this type of assembly in the design. Acceptable to many builders within the market being aimed at, but not unfortunately to the more fastidious exacting model builder.

Some interesting items being featured in this thread following on to my original post. Keep 'em coming guys. Great to hear about things that work really well for each of us.

Interesting product. Looking at the rectangular shaped box in the photo, does it have two bottles in it. The chrome finish itself in one and clear sealant in another. Ron, could you elaborate further with a step by step tutorial on how you used this product? Looks very realistic.

No point in buying anything different Aaron if your Sherline Lathe and Mill are adequate for what you do. I don't have Sherline machines myself but know from reputation that they are well made. If I were looking for a new micro lathe and mill now, I would certainly be looking at Sherline as they have a UK agent/sales outlet.

You have made some very salient criticisms of this kit being familiar with the real vehicle Michael. It must be really disappointing having spent a considerable amount of money on that kit. Considering the cost in 1/8th scale you should expect a model that is highly detailed and accurate.

It's not one of those flash prone Hubley die casts Sid. This Wills Finecast Type 59 Bugatti kit is in white metal with full engine detail. I have one to build and it looks a nice kit considering its 60's heritage. The wheels though would be better if replaced with photo etched items made by Le Mans Miniatures. Attached a tribute photograph of this kit built by the late Martin Swire where he used the LMM photo etched wheels

Your little Unimat and your Sherline are both quite nice quality benchtop machines Bill. If they do what you want, that is all that matters.

Not heard of the Sakai machines. Looks a nice bit of kit. I take it that the 3100 bucks is for the larger ML360 machine brand new. There are probably a number of similar sized new lathes on the market for a lot less. Out of curiosity I will be having a look at the Sakai ML210 that you also mentioned Aaron. Always interested in looking at desktop machines about the size of my little Unimat 4.

That old Minicraft (originally Hubley) Rolls Royce kit really is poorly moulded. So using it for making a custom car is not exactly sacrilege ! This looks like a fun build to follow ! Pity the kit was not a lot better as there are no other kits of this particular car in 1/24th scale. I think that Danbury Mint did a collectable die cast Silver Cloud. There is a modeller I believe who has been dabbling with both kit and die cast to make something accurate. Thought about getting 2 and do a cut and shut to make John Lennon's psychedelic limmo. Too much hard work !

Interesting build. The newer Hornby/Airfix Pocher brand is in a different place quality wise compared to those old Rivarossi Pochers from back in the 70's and 80's. Surprised to learn that there is no printed set of instructions. When you buy kits costing that sort of money I would expect a set of printed instructions to be included. It was mentioned that there was little out there with regard to reviews and so forth, but this is probably because the kit is pretty new right now. More will come to light as time goes on I guess.

I bought a multi medium kit last year mainly in wood that demands a lot of accurate cutting and drilling. I already had a bench drilling machine so accurate drilling was already taken care of. My son and daughter asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Having seen a Micro Table Top Circular Saw being used in a forum thread I prompted me to put it on my list and suggested that they buy it between them as a combined present. That little saw has been in constant use since I got it. Absolutely brilliant for cutting things accurately and repeatedly. One of the best tools I have to hand besides my little Unimat 4 lathe regarding usage.

A real blast from the past. Nice build. Those ancient kits have quite a bit of potential with current modelling products used on them.

Thanks for moving this to where it should be Mike.

A difficult one as moulded on wiring and piping detail will never quite look right. It's one of those situations where we can learn a lot from our figure modelling brethren with regard to highlighting and fine shadow effects. One could possibly take a sharp pointed tool to slightly underscore each line and wire, but would need a dead steady hand to pull this off before painting those details. Very tedious to so and it would probably be easier to remove all the details and replace with real wire as Steve G suggested in his post.

Apologies guys. My mistake. Should have placed this in the racing / road racing competition cars thread.