Bugatti Fan

That may be Daniel, but the magazine and whatever its predecessor was before have never been sold over the counter over here in the UK. I only got to learn of MCM a few years back when I bought Cranky's book Rats, Rods n Rust when I saw the mag mentioned inside. Scale Auto and Fine Scale Modeler were always sold over the counter here. SA has gone, as you probably know, but FSM is still available, albeit a shadow of its former self. As for SA being absorbed into FSM, it did not raise the Auto content in that magazine or help it get bigger as far as I could see. I understand that Model Car Builder Magazine ceased production some time ago. Another one never available in the UK. Bob and Tom, As the magazine layouts would all have been done and stored on computer, maybe a digital archive could be created if none of the work has been deleted. Scanning past issues would be a big effort. There might just be a retired reader out there who has every copy and the time and willingness to volunteer for such a task.

I think that Tamiya missed a trick in not making a Jurassic Park version of this jeep. Maybe we will see the kit reissued again. It would be nice as the Tamiya kit is the only one of this particular jeep version.

Another way if the tyre is hollow is to slit the tyre just enough to insert a flat piece of material inside enough to push the walls of the tyre out in the desired position to give the appearance of a flat. You may have to cut a bit out of the bottom of the tyre to get it to lay properly on the ground when fitted. Plastic card used for this sort of packing out will eventually react chemically with the tyre if it is made of vinyl so use something else like a flat piece of metal or thin plywood to insert.

I would think that most automotive metallics in aerosol form would give a scaled down metal flake effect. The Alclad candies over craft aerosol gold, silver, bronze and copper metallics could yield some interesting metal flake effects too.

Plenty of chromes about. Molotow, Alclad and AK just to name some of the most popular airbrush types. Now Revell are wading onto the scene with their aerosol chrome too. It will be interesting to see how durable it is when handled compared with the others, and if they will also supply it in bottles to airbrush at some time. Read somewhere that the Revell aerosol chrome will retail at £35 in the UK. Now that is really expensive considering the normal overspray going to waste when using an aerosol. From my experience the chromes are all on the soft side. Sealing can also be a bit of a minefield finding the right one that will not dull your chrome finish. There are of course many craft aerosols purporting to give a shiny chrome like finish when you see the 'chrome' strip stuck around the lid, but in actual use many of them finish looking more like the surface of sheet aluminium.

Posts not saving are my bugbear. On more than one occasion I have tried to save a post I have typed in for the 'save' to fail. Sometimes I can recover it by toggling to a previous page and back again and it will allow me to save it. But what really gets my back up is having done this sometimes it will still not save and then ask me for my email address as well as checking to see if I am a robot. (And this is happening whilst I am already logged in to the forum! Weird!)

To the viewer or the sender? Most just put up maybe a maximum of three of four pictures at a time so I cannot see direct posting being any problem. Having to go into a hosting site to be able to select pictures and then load them onto a forum just protracts the process as far as I see it, plus the fact your pictures are at the mercy of that hosting site when they change any policy.

That's a beauty Tomasz!

I found that having to use photo hosting websites in order to download pics onto other forums a real pain in the rear. At least I can upload pictures directly to this site. Also, I guess that most of us know about certain hosting sites that shall be nameless who have ruined many forums by either locking contributors pictures or spoiling them by placing a company watermark right across them.

I wasn't suggesting that you actually do Lennon's Rolls David, just if it was feasible using two of these kits. There may be more of these kits kicking around than perhaps you might think. My guess is that the kit is so crude there may be many just gathering dust in the stashes of disillusioned buyers. You are certainly making a silk purse from a sow's ear with your model. It is a shame that no one has ever made a decent kit of the Phantom with that bodywork. More elegant than the Silver Shadow that followed it on, and no kit of that car ever being done at all. Probably the RR licencing might have been too prohibitive. Ref the chrome issues......Have a look at Revell's new chrome spray.

Interesting thread. Wonder if it is possible to cut and shut two of these kits to make a long wheelbase Phantom.3 limousine version of this car. If it could be done and twin headlamps fitted it might by possible to build John Lennon's Rolls with the psychedelic paint job.

Dan, I know Beenham quite well where you stayed. I was born and brought up in Reading and when I got married I moved to Newbury. Beenhsm is sort of between the two a little North of the A4. All that area was my neck of the woods until my job moved me to the Bedford area back in the early 70's. West Berkshire is a nice area of the country to be staying and there are a number of nice villages around the Beenham area. Back in the day I used to play football in a local league team and have played at most of the villages in the area at some time. Looking at your list of places visited you certainly got around a bit during your two weeks. I too have visited most of them over the years. If your mum likes Port Isaac in the Doc Martin series the village is also featured in a film Fisherman''s Friends that was released a couple of years ago It s a heart warming story about how a group of fishermen in the village were discovered for their sea shanty singing. I think you and your mum might enjoy that film too. I enjoyed visiting Canada a couple of times in the past. Once on the East coast on a cruise up from Boston to Quebec, and the second time the West and did a coach tour out of Vancouver around the Rockies and did the inland passage, Vancouver Island and Victoria. Very memorable. Glad you enjoyed your stay in the UK.

Trust you had a great stay over here in the UK Dan, and a good flight back to the USA or Canada wherever you live. Did you get to visit any other places over here that you have not mentioned already?

Very nice model in the making. I will be following this one!

That looks a very nice restoration and mild customising job you have done there Joe. Those old VW Beetles have something about them so it is not surprising that they have such a dedicated following. They are a bit of a fun car to drive and the old beetles also have a large following over here in the UK. It was well worth the wait in your case to do it when you were ready to tackle it.

Brooklands was brilliant when I visited it about 2 years before covid hit. They were very accommodating to me as I had arranged with them before my visit to research the Napier Railton for my scratch built model. They let me have full access to the car to photograph every nook and cranny and take measurements. There are a couple of pics of my model in 'Let'x see some scratch built things' on this forum. Chertsey where you were staying allowed short trips into London, so I guess you might have done that a few times? The old AC car factory was at Thames Ditton, and very close to Chertsey. Lots to see and do in the capitall. Such a variety of museums, galleries theatres and well known sights besides the more commercial attractions

Different culture over here Dan. Because our weather is always quite changeable, it never puts people off taking their cars to or going to shows. Did you make it to any other motor museums over here? The Haynes Motor Museum in Somerset is to the West of where you were in the New Forest Area, and there is Brooklands Museum, near Weybridge in Surrey, just south of London too, East of where you were staying. Both very interesting. The Brooklands one has been featured in a TV series named 'Secrets of the Motor Museum' and we have another TV series named 'Bangers and Cash' that is about a Yorkshire Car and Automobilia auctioneer who gets just about anything and everything coming through the door that I reckon you would find really interesting. A far different auction experience to the auction houses dealing in cars for the mega rich. If you can get them on your TV they will be well worth a look. I have seen programmes like 'Chasing Classic Cars' overt here and 'Jay Leno's Garage' that are a different experience altogether.

Dan,did you get to the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu as that museum is located near to the New Forest? Lots of interesting exhibits to see there. Hope you enjoyed your visit to the UK. Our local vehicle shows will certainly be full of vehicles that you probably don't normally get to see, and you get to talk to the owners. One of your photos showed an Austin 3 Litre that reminded me of the one my late father in law owned and travelled in many times. When he bought it, I got to buy his Wolseley 6/110 from him. It had very comfortable all leather seats and burr walnut trim. They used to get called 'Poor mens Rolls Royces' over here. Of all the cars I owned it was the most comfortable after a long drive, and had that lovely smell of leather as soon as you opened the doors.

Had a Gunze TR some time ago and sold the kit on as I did not like the seats and tonneau cover made in vinyl. What was the point of using that material for parts. It's bad enough tyres being made in it. Had some loose in a box stored for some time to find the tyres had chemically fused themselves into some of the polystyrene parts ruining both.I Tyres get separated out in all kits I buy now, and the wheels when built get a barrier of foil fitted or painted to avoid direct vinyl to plastic contact.

Noticeable, the sheer volume of desired plastic kits on here being nostalgic Americana. I'm sure there must be many modellers looking for their pet European cars to be kitted too, but as MCM is not sold through retail outlets in the UK and Europe, there are many over on this side of the pond who do not even know about MCM, let alone this forum. Hence the overwhelming bias towards American cars on here.

The craft paint market is totally different to model makers. Depends on whether hand of spray painting BUT priming is essential when doing either. There are many cheap own brand store acrylics out there aimed at children, students and crafters. However, serious artists will use products from well established makers like Winsor&Newton, Rowney, Liquitex and Reeves to name the most well known. Recently I have been using Revell Aquacolour that I have found to be excellent acrylic paints for brush painting, with a large colour range and designed for modellers, although fine artists could use them for their work also. Diluted they can be used for air brushing too. There are many beginner books available from art suppliers about the various qualities and uses of acrylics that will be an invaluable reference to the newcomer using these paints, but being aimed at artists so most of them do not generally go into the use of acrylics through air brushes.

Bob, I saw your confused emoji. I was referring to a major software overhaul mentioned by Xingu in the post before mine when I used the phrase 'Maybe that's just what it needs' from the film Shooter as an analogy.

Nice conversion to that old British Ford Thames van. Brings back memories of the first car my dad owned when I was still at school. It was a Ford Anglia, and I have thought about remodelling the Revell Anglia funny car into my dad's old puddle jumper as we referred to those old Ford Anglias and Populars back in the day.

Like the government official said to Mark Wahlberg when he was exonerated in the movie Shooter. 'Maybe that is just what it needs'.

Kalmbach made a CD Rom available of all the Scale Auto Enthusiast magazines from issue 1. It would be very nice if the same was available of Model Cars Magazine. Any chance of this happening? Many of us started taking the magazine a number of years after it went into production.