Bugatti Fan

Real shame that the ship will end up as a sunken wreck to make an artificial reef. America has enough billionaires to have rescued this ship and made it into a museum ship and hotel like the Queen Mary. Even more so as the ship is American built and bears the name of the United States.

Went to look for some parts on the UK company Motobitz's website yesterday to discover that they had closed down operations. The notice of their closure stated that their G mail address would no longer be monitored and their Facebook activity curtailed. Sad to see them go as they marketed a nice range of high quality resin and 3D printed parts plus some very nice decal sheets. Hopefully someone else might buy out their stock, tooling, 3D files etc. So maybe we might see their products being marketed under another banner sometime soon.

Same scale interpretation by different manufacturers is bound to have slight differences, particularly on older kits defined by how measured and tooled up for ease of manufacture originally. No such thing as laser scanning of a prototype back then. As for after market, check that the parts are actually for the kit from a particular manufacturer to avoid discrepancy.

A combination of the UMM saw that has a blade that is thin and similar to an old fashioned Gillette safety razor blade and the small aluminium precision mitre block with the adjustable stop pictured to the right of the three in an earlier post is perfect for cutting smaller styrene extrusions and narrow strips accurately. Having a screw held stop built in is invaluable for repetitive accurate cutting to length of short pieces. The stop can be removed for cutting longer pieces to length also.

There are special mitre cutting boxes available that are designed for tools with extra fine thin blades. Dspiae might be a source for such a tool set.

A Dremel tool of similar can cause a lot of personal injury used incorrectly. misused As for industrial machinery. Lethal if misused ! For those who do not know the 'Bridgeport in the Garage' referred to in an earlier post is an industrial milling machine.

Even the lowest speeds of a Dremel might be a bit fierce for plastic. If the Dremel could be plugged into a speed reduction device it might be able to reduce the revs right down to a suitable speed. I think for accurate cutting the various fine hand saws would give much better control than using a Dremel or similar that might prove a bit cumbersome for this type of work. Don't get me wrong. The Dremel is a superb tool as I have one with some of their sccessories. But it's horses for courses and in this instance I would be going down the razor saw route. The Dremel would come into its own if building a rusted out vehicle using burrs from the inside to create where the dust is breaking through.

I have a Badger 200 and a Badger 100XF that have served my needs for many years. ( 30 odd ). Good, well made reliable workhorses. Paasche has been around a long time and make good airbrushes. There has been a number of changes happening over the years in the airbrush market. DeVillbiss, a UK company made a range of very high quality airbrushes way back under the trade name Aerograph, but never seriously targeted the model making market. Iwata plus Harder and Steenbeck arrived later with high quality instruments. Biggest change has been the large influx of bottom end airbrushes quality wise offering all bells and whistles included to entice the buyer. But you only get what you pay for. Constant usage demands a high quality airbrush for reliability alone. The cheap clones might be ok for the very infrequent user however. As far as compressors go, best get one with a reservoir tank to maintain constant pressure and a moisture trap.

Very realistic looking build Pierre.

You have to hand it to those guys who design those Metal Earth kits to go together by slot and tab assembly considering their finished size when built. That Terminator Endoskeleton looks really good. Mike, if you are looking for a large scale Terminator model one of the die cast part series kit manufacturers has one. Not life size, but big !

Further to my last post, a picture of the Merlin Engined Custom Rolls lookalike. For those who are not into aircraft the Rolls Royce Merlin Engine powered versions of the Supermarine Spitfire and North American Mustang P51D.

Could be right Gary. If the tooling has not been scrapped there might be a chance of Atlantis getting it. Who knows?

Cool build !

Nice project. Wonder if Revell might repop this one to go with their own kit ?

Lovely restoration.

Great to see all those pre war cars in action ! All credit to the owners taking part in meetings like this where we can all get to see them.

Easy to criticise Scalemates. But if it relies on voluntary contributions for information about timelines of when kits were issued, in many cases from way back when, then discrepancies will occur. Criticism is easy. Contribution takes a bit more effort. To put this into perspective, at least someone has taken the time and effort to create the Scalemates database. It's not always correct, granted. But I would prefer it to be there to refer to regardless of some of its shortcomings than not to have it at all. Those folk who contribute do so to help others with the best will in the world. If they happen to get it wrong (to err is human by the way) and get regarded as dumb is a bit disingenuous. It would be a pity it folks hesitate to contribute anything out of fear of being considered dumb !

I like the Harlequin pick up truck on the front cover. No doubt inspired by the VW Polo Harlequin car from a few years back.

Geopolitics, tarriffs, shipping costs, local and import taxes unfortunately all have a bearing on the cost to the end consumer and we just have to live with it. As far as rip offs go, the wooden ship model market has been affected most badly by illegal copying of products as they predominately use laser cut wood and photo etched metal parts that are so much easier to counterfeit then plastic or diecast kits.

Still not a lot !

Still not a lot !

OK. No problem Mike. Reading your posts I thought that you were seriously looking for some replacement decala. Anyway, you can always refer back to my suggestions of you change your mind at some time in the future.

Makes sense of that old statement. 'All the gear and no Idea!'

A Crazy conversion of that Silver Shadow and very well executed. Back in the 70's I think a UK customiser built a one off road going custom car with fibre glass body and stuck a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow grille on it. Not only that. But wait for it ! The power plant, a Rolls Royce Merlin aircraft engine ! My neighbour had a Silver Shadow and I got to drive it to a local motor show where he was displaying a couple of his cars. Quite an experience. All that expansive Connolly leather interior, walnut veneered dashboard and that Flying Lady Mascot out front. Smooth and almost silent.

Like Bill has said, it is generally lack of proper regular servicing that lets many cheap cars down. Bought on the cheap and ran on the cheap unfortunately. I had one of the original tiny little Fiat 500's back in the 70's. Dead easy to maintain and dead cheap to run. Only drawback was the poor old thing succumbed to rust like a vampire doused in holy water! Lovely little cult car now though, and restored versions fetching high prices, especially the Abarth equipped ones. Don't know about the States but in the UK there is an acronym for FIAT. 'Fix it again tomorrow'. A bit unfair I think.