Bugatti Fan

Funnily enough, recently I came across an article about weathering this model. It was something I saved out of an old Model Car Science from way back and kept in a folder.

Welcome from across the English Channel Olivier. Look forward to seeing your work.

The Amalgam models one has to remember are sold as fully built models, and probably when you consider their price more highly detailed than the Agora kits aimed at a different market altogether.

Santa's Bentley Sleigh. Now there's a thought for a scratch build or 3D printed model

Nice to see a model being fashioned in metal throughout using traditional engineering techniques.

The Micro Mark and Taytools centre squares appear to be better than the plastic ones and the keyring versions as they have positive locating edges to place against the circumference of the circular piece like you would also find on a premium expensive branded product. At between 12 and 15 bucks each, less than one would pay for a fret of PE parts! Like all small tools it's a case of horses for courses! Plenty good enough for most of us modellers. Skip has pretty much summed up the differences between premium make tools and the inexpensive tools that most hobby tool suppliers carry. I still have and use all the quality tools that I bought way back when I was an engineering apprentice. But, in most cases in reality modellers would use those sort of tools infrequently unless into true model engineering, so the inexpensive tools would serve quite well for most.

Santa Claus is a complete and utter idiot! My house has 3 external doors and fifteen windows, but this guy still insists on coming down the chimney!

The meeting about decision-making has been postponed as no one could make up their mind when to have it.

I have a Pocher 500K to build similar to Pete's. Considering the cost of those gargantuan car kits, the fit of parts could have been much better on many of them. They don't just screw together and in fact it is advisable to tap all the threaded holes as those tiny screws have a habit of shearing off in the holes. Well built Pocher classics hide the sheer amount of work involved in building and finishing them. Great if you like a challenge and have the patience. If not buy Tamiya.

Bam! Splat! Kapow! Cool build of the Batmobile from that old camp TV series. The later film versions of Batman himself are much darker characters and makes the Adam West take on the character look puny by comparison. But the series was always meant to be a bit comical to be fair. Imagine a fist into palm of the hand movie action by Robin here. 'Holy broken bones Batman what a great build of our car!'

That's the nice thing about auto modelling as many subjects lend themselves to the builder's imagination.

Inter war classics tend to be a bit of a Cinderella to kit manufucturers, so it is nice to see one being built to a high standard like this one.

That's a nice looking car that you built there Louis. I do like seeing those old American classics modelled.

Mercur I am responding to an old thread here and you might well have got your problem sorted. The MCW enamels you are having trouble with. Assuming that your airbrush is clean and you have thinned the paint correctly as far as you can see, maybe upping the nozzle and needle size on the airbrush might help to make your paint flow better. It sounds like the viscosity being thicker might be due to that particular paint having pigments a bit larger than the others.

Todd, it you have complete sets of magazines long gone and current, the International Model Car Builders Museum in Sandy, Utah would probably be very interested as they are in the process of archiving all the old model car magazines they can get. Not sure if they already have complete collections of not so they may well be looking for more archive materials. If monetizing your collection is not too big an issue I am sure that they would welcome any donation. Copyright regarding scanning has been mentioned. But would this still be an issue regarding magazines and the companies that were publishing them at the time may not exist any more? I would think that scanning magazines that were printed back in the 60's and 70's might be reasonably ok to do provided they were placed on the web as a totally free archive to be accessed.

Thanks for coming back about the kit being a 2 in 1 Bob.

Nice custom truck taking shape here. Does the kit allow for one to be built stock? One of these would make up into a nice old well used beater.

Nice model taking shape here. So many iterations of the Batmobile down the years from all the different movies and TV series I'm losing count. This one looks more feasible as a road car to many of the others.

That's what top class model making is all about Ira! The pleasure in overcoming problems with the kit parts by either replacing or reworking them takes your model to a different level altogether as can be seen by what you are doing here.

Things fell in perfectly for you there Bruce to enable you to build those lovely kits. Bruce. I too have had some success over here at IPMS UK Scale Modelworld with my scratchbuilt Napier Railton getting a Gold medal in one of the civilian vehicles classes this year. Agora had their stand at the show right in front of the competition area And yes, I would dearly love to build one of those kits for Agora like you do and guess that many other car modellers too would also like to have your good fortune. Your builds are very impressive, so good luck with your future builds for Agora. They are very interesting builds to follow on this forum. It is nice of you to share the builds on here of car kits that I can only aspire to and admire from afar.

At 15 bucks the Micro Mark (probably Chinese) centre square will be plenty good enough and inexpensive enough for the needs of the vast majority of modellers out there. Accurate enough for most of our needs I would say. Agreed that as an engineer myself that Brown and Sharp, Starrett and Mitsutoyo are much better quality tools like the Rabone Chesterman and Moore & Wright brands in the UK. If any of these quality tool brands can be sourced second hand, great! But how often do they come up on evil bay at the right price?

Bruce mentioned in his first post that Agora modellers are an exclusive club to be in along with MFH modellers. Agora had a stand at IPMS UK Scale Modelworld this year and I have to say that the models on display were very impressive. I particularly liked the AC Cobra. Also what caught my eye was the James Bond Aston Martin DB5 they had on display. It depicted the car as seen in Skyfall and later 007 Films with the gatling type machine guns in the front wings. De Agostini did a Bond DB5 a few years back but not sure if it was based on the original car in the Connery era films. As far as being an exclusive club, with the kits retailing at about £1200.00 each, I am inclined to agree! Nice if you can afford it though!

Lovely model of a lovely car taking shape here.

Have a look on the Micro Mark tool site and see if you can buy a miniature centre square. It is a tool specifically designed for marking across the centre of circular pieces. Drawing lines taken from two positions on the circumference the lines will intersect at the centre of the circular piece. Micro Mark has a 2.5 inch one for about 15 dollars. Look in the measuring equipment part of their website. The photo will be self explanatory as to how it is used. A good long term small investment for the tool box. Scratch builders and converters will find one of these tools invaluable. The other tool I use constantly is a miniature engineers 90 degree set square. Also a good investment. In the UK, Squires, Shesto or Proops might be the best places to source one. Bill suggested a lathe as a bit of tongue in cheek humour, and yes it is dead easy to do on my little Unimat. But not all of us have access to one so the centre square is the best alternative without having to resort to using geometry on plastic card or whatever.

Why not save yourself a lot of problems trying to perfectly match the paint colour and do the cab in a different co!our altogether? A dark blue or even white could look good. Alternatively you could overall prime the model, and then spray the whole thing in the light blue you want. Life's too short to spend hours trying to match paint that depends on a number of things like matching the paint colour of the plastic or a previously applied paint itself and determining whatever primer to use. Personally I would just prime and paint the whole thing and that would guarantee the overall colour of the blue shade that you choose for the model.