Bugatti Fan

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.

MG Metro 6R4 model made from grafting resin parts cut from the old MRM kit and refitting onto a more accurately shaped Burago die cast Metro body. Both purport to be 1/24th scale but in reality are nearer to 1/20th scale. A year after building this, guess what? Belkits bring their 6R4 kit out that is actually 1/24th scale. Ahh well that's life!

We all buy those little items that we think that we will use one day. I have bought items on impulse that have sat in the tool box drawers sometimes for years on end unused. Just when you start to think 'I'll never use that!' It becomes the perfect tool to fall back on to do a particular job.

One can only answer the OP of they happen to have those two particular airbrushes to do a direct comparison. A very unlikely scenario. Difficult to advise o what airbrush to use as this is such an emotive subject. Badger, Iwata, Paasche, Harder and Steenbeck. All very good airbrushes that have their faithful adherants. There are others of course. To be honest most recommendations about a particular brand come from probably outright familiarity with one type usually that the user has come to love over the years. We all have our particular biases when it comes to this sort of thing. Any good quality, and I emphasise quality, airbrush will serve well if looked after. One has to make a decision about what one from a range will suit best the type of work that will be required of it. For example a very expensive double action airbrush will be well over the top to lash out on it one intends to just spray overall colour. Horses for courses. Just buy the best quality brand for the job intended and steer well away from those very cheapo airbrushes of dubious origin is what I would recommend.

Finishing auto models ! It depends on how 'driven' you are, it you will excuse the pun. Over the years my psyche has changed with regard to building models. I used to have fortunately a manageable number of incomplete models sat on the I'll finish it some day lack of motivation shelf. Then I began to realise that unless I change my butterfly mindset with regard to finishing models I would end up with just boxes of part built kits worth next to nothing just sat there. So I set about completing them as a target before doing anything else, accomplished that and sold off many complete kits that realistically I would probably never get around to building. So what do I do now? I tend to look at larger scale stuff and build something that really interests me and seek challenging kits and stick at the one project until it is finished. Over the last few years though I have gone over to the dark side of scratch building subjects that in no way would ever be kitted. Very satisfying in the long term, but definitely not for the model maker that likes to see a quick result of simply not have the time for extended model building projects. However, it does not really matter what sort of model maker you are as long as you get pleasure out of the hobby as it gives great enjoyment and probably good as a therapy towards health and well being.

PetevI think you might be getting confused a bit about that modular Unimat being similar to Proxxon machines as to my knowledge they do not make anything like the Unimat I modular tool. Proxxon make top quality miniature machines more like the Shsrline and the now defunct Unimats 3&4. Take a look at their website as they make a very good range of power tools for model makers besides the lathes and milling machines.

Never knew that wooden kit even existed ! Interesting project to follow.

The modular machine with the aluminium extruded bed that Daniel has shown us is the Unimzt 1. It has been around a very long time. I bought mine about 25 years ago at a big modelling exhibition in London. A number of years before my Unimat 4. It is ok for very light work and is actually quite a good set of kit if into wood, brass and aluminium. As the extrusions are fitted together with special inserts that screw into and lock the T shaped grooves I found that rigidity was a problem. So I made up some flat steel plates that could be screwed on the outside across 2 extensions to both align and make rigid when assembled. Earlier versions like mine did not have those plates available, but I believe that they are now offered by the manufacturer. Some people look at the Unimat 1 kit as a bit of a toy machine, but it is a very useful and inexpensive way of dipping your toes in the water of machining without lashing out a lot of money on one of the serious machines like the Sherline, Taig/Peatol or the now discontinued Unimats 3&4. I believe that the Unimat 1 modular machine was developed by Majer in Austria as an educational hobby machine besides the other Unimats aimed at model engineering enthusiasts. So it fits that purpose quite well and is well served with accessories to expand its uses.

A really attractive concept car and beautifully engineered and finished. Cannot say more !

Very interesting feedback Aaron. Thanks for the update about why the parent company ceased the little Unimat machine production. A friend of mine has one of the very early Unimzt machines where the bed of the machine is two round bars. It looks a bit quaint compared to my Unimat 4 that has a cast iron bed. Besides the Taig/Peatol and Sherline you mention that there are others from Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan. I will have to look on the internet out of curiosity and see what I can find out about them.

Thank you for all your kind comments guys !

Fun going through a!l that accumulated pile of parts to visualise a unique build project. Paul. I seem to associate your name with a Renwall Revivals Bugatti build but could be wrong.

Impressive collection Lars. Thanks for listing them. You have put many hours into the Corvette that would have been a very challenging built. Those old Monogram 1/8th scale kits although very big still left lots of areas for serious modellers to work on extra detailing. I see the Agora Shelby Cobra was amongst your builds. I saw one built up on their stand at IPMS UK Scale Modelworld Show last year and it looked very impressive. What are your impressions having built one.

A number of years ago I was given a 1/16th scale Bandai Bugatti Royale kit where much of the kit's bodywork was severely damaged. My friend jokingly said ' You like Bugattis. See what you can do with this!' Long story short, it languished under one of my work benches for about 15 years or so. I was looking at some of the late Gerald Wingrove's work and came across some pictures of his Bugatti Type 41 Royale bare chassis models about three years ago. It inspired me to obtain some of his plans for the car that included detailed chassis drawings, so decided to utilise what I could from that ancient kit and build a chassis model myself. The kit's own chassis was very simplified as most of it was going to be hidden by the kit bodywork. Lots of additional scratch built extra detail parts brought the whole thing to life a bit.

Stunning upgrading work Lars. You say it is No 10 of your 1/8th scale builds. What are the others you have built out of curiosity?

Interesting build to follow as I like models of older classic cars. I have a Lindberg Bugatti T41 Royale kit that looks nice in the box and must have been made alongside the Mercedes Benz.

It would be interesting to find out why the Unimats stopped production. At one time they appeared to be the go to miniature machines here in England, and had links with the late Gerald Wingrove. He wrote a book named Unimat Lathe Projects. I used the drawings in it to make a four way tool post for my machine that saves me a lot of time whilst using it. My particular machine is a Unimat 4, pretty much identical to the Unimat 3 as far as I can see, but there may be subtle changes that I am not aware of. The 4 I believe was made in Taiwan whereas the 3 is probably the last of the Austrian built machines. Maybe the 4 is simply a designation number for the machines that were built in Taiwan? If I were looking for a miniature machine tool setup new today, I would probably be leaning towards the Sherline that has a UK agent/sales outlet. Relying on memory the name Millhill Supplies comes to mind as the name of the supplier. Besides Joe Martin's book Table top Machining that I mentioned in an earlier post, having looked on Millhill's site there is a download for the building, setting up and using of the Sherline Lathe and Milling machines. It is very comprehensive. So if anyone is looking to invest in the Sherline machines this free download will be well worth obtaining. Having looked through it I noticed a link for a video within it too.

Trevor, not knowing if you will be new to machining or not when ready to go ahead, I would suggest that you obtain a copy of Joe Martin's book about miniature machining. It will be on the Sherline website. Having been in engineering all my life I still found the book to be fascinating, showing many examples of miniature engineering work.

Looked up the Taig machines and discovered that they were (are) sold as Peatol in the UK, in which case I have heard of them. I believe that they were marketed as quite basic machines without a motor that needed to be sourced elsewhere. In fact I think that I did see them at the Model Engineering Exhibition a number of years back, so they have been around for quite some time now.