Bugatti Fan

Quite a number of the spray on finished chromes go dull if further coats are applied. A good chrome finish is a bit of a holy grail for car modellers generally. The nail polish chrome sounds interesting as it has to go off very hard, hence the UV to set it off. A black gel was mentioned as a base for this stuff but sounds as though it has to be brush painted on. If the black underpaint could be air brushed and UV set as well as the clear top coat after the chrome is buffed and the clear top coat air brushed and also set with UV it might well be the answer. However, many nail finishing products contain some quite fierce chemicals that may or may not attack plastic. I would imagine a trawl of the web will be able to show such products in use and their application. I will be sticking to my C1 Polishing Powder for now.

I have been using C1 Polishing Powder. Spray a gloss black in the usual way as the underpinning colour. Does not matter if Acrylic, Lacquer or Enamel. It is simply buffed onto the black with a cotton wool swab like a Q Tip or very small make-up applicator. Just buff it until the desired polished up effect is required. The good thing is that it is quite durable and resistant to handling too. You get quite a good sized tub of it that will last for ages. If you want to see how it looks, go onto the thread 'Let's see some scratch built thing's where you will find a picture of my Napier Railton where I used it on the body. C1 is a UK based company and besides the polishing powder they make a very nice range of resin trans kits.

Glad to hear that you are getting your money refunded Mike. The problem is with most scams, they are deliberately set up to look legitimate, after all they are com artists and that is what they are good at! Guys, generally it is best to use a credit card rather than a debit card for many transactions as I believe that the company is technically loaning the money to you and therefore taking the risk I believe. A debit card transaction is just the same as it you have paid cash so there is generally no redress if a problem occurs.

Mike, hopefully the model kits your wife ordered are not expensive ones and you can put it down to experience. However, check your bank or credit card accounts to see if any other monies have been taken just in case. Also look to see if they have an address and a land line phone number.

Certainly took on a lot of hard work with this 'Back To The Present' conversion. I wish you well and will be following this thread. It is a pity that Aoshima did not design the kit so a standard car could also be made from it.

Err on the side of caution when spraying. Even small amounts of vaporized solvents can be extremely dangerous when exposed to any form of naked flame, electric fire bar, oil fired heater, burning cigarette etc. Even other things can be explosive in the air. Watch the Equaliser 2 with Denzel Washington what he does with a bag of flour fanned into the air to blow a baddie away. My safe form of heating in my workshop is an electric oil filled radiator.

I have seen some absolutely beautiful models made from MFH kits both at shows and on various online forums like this one by highly skilled modellers. It would be interesting to know how many MFH kits actually get built as a percentage against the number of kits sold? As a parallel example there are many of the old Pocher classics kicking around either not built or part built and abandoned as their owners have either been put off by their complexity and found them to be beyond their model making capabilities. I would guess also that a number of the old Pochers were bought by real car enthusiasts without good modelling experience or equipment, looked at, and tucked away in lofts and spare rooms.

I can remember getting one of the Auto World Catalogues way back in the 70's. Apart from the glossy covers the rest was printed on newsprint paper, but they were like an encyclopaedia of model kits, accessories and even included a number of building tips back in the day. The copy I had ran a page that started 'Who's Rich Morgan? Who cares? You might!' Just one of those little captions that stayed in my mind all these years. Never did find out who Rich Morgan was though! I would imagine that Auto World has long gone along with Sinclairs Auto Miniatures who used to put out a nicely printed quarterly magazine.

Agree with Nobling. The fine white Milliput would be my go to from the range. I think it was developed initially for the repair of fine ceramics. They probably have a website describing their best product uses.

Prep is let's face it boring! Right from keying the surface, washing/degreasing, priming before that all important top coating and/or polishing is done. But, you just cannot get away from doing it if you want a successful paint job. There is plenty of advice on this forum about preparation for anyone starting out and individual modellers develop their own preferences in line with their own experiences over time further down the line.

Very nice model. Striking colour scheme!

When unlike products are used with one another the results can be a bit unpredictable. Often it is a case of experimenting to see what works ok. A general rule of thumb is that when acrylics are used and dry out it is ok to use solvent based enamel and lacquers over them. Enamel and lacquer paints take a long time like days or weeks to actually dry out thoroughly. Although they might feel dry to the touch the carriers leach out over a period of time during the drying process. Acrylic is a plastic polymer paint that forms an air tight seal when dry, so using over solvent based paints can lead to a disaster like flaking and bubbling as the solvent carriers try to escape from underneath. Future/Klear I have found to level out nicely when applied with a flat brush and have never needed to use an air brush to apply it.

The company Thomas is referring to is unobtainium. It is run by Nick Edwards in North Wales here in the UK. Look on the Britmodeller website as he has posted all of what he is doing on the Italeri 35B on there. The Bugatti parts are not up on his unobtainium site just yet, but probably will be sometime soon. His own website has other things available now and coming soon. He is also working on update parts for the big Airfix Bentley. He can be contacted on his own website where he has a contact form to use.

Rich, your perseverance has paid off! Very nice model.

Punching louvres is a tedious job that needs concentration even with a guide fitted. I have messed up a number of times by mis location when stepping the plugged through the tooling.

The Dolls House industry has a lot of useable items in their catalogues. I obtained some piano hinges a while ago that were ideal for larger scale models. They come in different sizes and just need cutting to length. As for louvres making a punch and die set is one of the best ways to go. You will however need a press and a means to keep the louvres aligned perfectly on a jig whilst punching them. No easy way to make them unfortunately.

Aaron has made a good point about motor speed on the Unimat 1 being too fast for some applications. The mains power goes through a transformer to reduce the voltage that is supplied to the motor of the modular machine. There is a way around this by substituting the Unimat transformer with a variable speed transformer such as one that Proxxon make. A variable speed transformer of course can be used with other tools too. I have a Unimat 4 lathe but that only has two speeds. If I were looking to replace it I would be looking for a miniature lathe with a variable speed control already built in.

Very nice work!

Barrett Jackson The World's Greatest Collector Car Auctions? Hmmm? Bonhams, Christies and Sothebys come more to mind to me as big league auctioneers of classic autos Over here in the UK we have a TV programme named Bangers and Cash that features an auctioneer of vehicles and automobilia named Matthewsons based on rural Yorkshire. The sheer variety of vehicles and allied memorabilia is amazing and varied from the very odd occasional exotica right down to mainly more mainstream affordable collectors cars that were everyone's run about in the past. The bidders in the main are down to earth everyday folk, not bling adorned celebs and the mega wealthy.

I have seen some spectacular models at shows built from MFH kits and will follow this thread with interest. The Lusso is a lovely looking car. Expense wise they are a bit out of my league unfortunately as I would have really liked their Type 35B Bugatti kit. Someone must be smiling down on me with the advent of the Italeri kit being released this year.

This model is coming on really well and will be very impressive when complete.

Funny how some films were considered so controversial back in the day! Kubrick's Clockwork Orange comes to mind as one, but seems tame now compared with the graphically violent films that are all too common these days. Also CGI is a brilliant thing for Sci Fi and Super Hero films, but so many these days rely on it to carry the film too much rather than decent plot and character development in them. Watched Hunt for Red October yet again recently. Not over heavy on CGI but very good on tension and the submarine commanders were cast really well.

I think maybe this thread should come to an end now that good suggestions have been made about cleaning battery contacts and type of battery to use, before it drifts into a discussion about something more contentious.

I have read about a technique using children's modelling clay (Plasticene) placed inside a Lego brick outer. The clay was covered with graphite powder to act as a release agent and the item to be copied pressed into it to make the impression needed. After removal another light graphite powder dusting of the impression and some craft resin was mixed and poured into the mould and left to set. This technique looks ok for very low relief items.

Matching factory colours. There are a number of specialist auto paint suppliers who can make up aerosols to suit. They tend to acrylic formula paints so should be ok on plastic models. I have used some to good effect and they worked very well on my models.