Bugatti Fan

Last time I posted I was using a tablet and although I described my method I could not put up a picture of my Napier Railton. So here it is now.

It is a tough time to be trying to get a magazine up and running again with a number of hurdles to overcome, so I can only wish Larry Greenberg the best in taking on this venture. There has been no mention of a publishing company being approached or taken on board in all this. Normally, such an outfit has the resources, especially with the print and distribution side to push a magazine to both subscribers and over the counter sellers. Editing and layout are enough, without all the commercial print, distribution and financing being a big ask for such a small band of people to take on. Also, let us not forget the financial risk they are taking on as individuals unless a limited liability company has been set up for this purpose. Kalmbach, a long established magazine publisher has recently dropped the Scale Auto Magazine for what I guess must be a commercial decision within their organisation. Naturally, this leaves a slot in the market that MCM can quickly take advantage of provided it can be got to market quite soon. My own feeling is that it is time for an established publishing company to be got on board in order to achieve this.

Why use white wall decals all? Try acrylic white paint instead. There is usually a circular ridge to work to around the tyre wall to line the paint to and then fill in the rest down to the edge of the aperture in the middle.

Thanks for the info about the qualities of the Hasegawa TP3 saw set Pete. I will have to look out a set to add to what I have already. Looks like they would be handy for tight precision cutting situations.

Pontoon fenders can be built up bread and butter fashion from plastic card.

I have an old British Made fine Exacto to that has lasted me for more years than I care to remember. Also one of the coarse toothed Tamiya saws with interchangeable blades. I have actually cut die casts with this saw. Not tried the saws with photo etched blades. They look too flimsy to me for all but the most delicate work, and I guess that without the rigidity would bend easily.

Forgot to suggest in my last post not to pull in pictures from Photobucket, unless of course you like about a quarter of each picture greyed out with the Photobucket logo.

Hi Pete, aircraft undercarriage legs are the bain of most of us where any weight is involved. Most plastic aircraft kits must suffer more breakage in this area than anywhere else. Where metal is concerned, like your model it is usually sagging after a period of time. In the past I have suffered this problem with larger scale white metal car models. I am currently in the process of building the Paul Fisher resin kit of the Bugatti 100 Racing Aeroplane. When I looked at all the parts in the box I decided that the landing gear would be a weak area on the model. There is no internal metal strengthening rod in either undercarriage leg. The model is quite weighty and I felt that an accidental sideways knock could result in one of both legs breaking. My solution to this was to remake each undercarriage leg from turned aluminium bar for the legs and fabricate the small wheel spats from aluminium sheet metal to take the kit wheels. The blind holes inside the undercarriage bays I thought also would not be stable enough to locate the legs precisely. To overcome this I turned two stepped bushes from aluminium. The lower flat wider part to sit snugly inside the bay, and the smaller diameter part to fit snugly around the turned undercarriage leg. The bushes were epoxied into place ensuring alignment with the blind hole under each. The through hole in each bush allows the leg to go right through the Bush and right into the blind location hole in the resin. This made for a much stronger and positive location.

I would choose the Pocher Bugatti. It is probably the best of the bunch. Generally their old classics were not the best kits in the world despite all the hype! They certainly can be built to a very high standard, but they are not for the inexperienced or the faint hearted modeller! One only has to look at the number of abandoned projects that come up for sale to see why. Just one or two of these kits with the sheer amount of corrections and extra detailing would keep most expert modellers going for the rest of their lives. The revived Pocher name now marketed by Hornby/Airfix in the UK will probably be much better than the old Italian kits from the 70's and 80's although still for the experienced modeller. The new MFH Bugatti Type 35B looks very tempting as a very highly detailed kit to build...................for me anyway!

Tom, that would explain what probably has happened to many moulds of USA origin. Do not know what liabilities old moulds would generate in other countries though.

Anyone remember the Merit brand set of 1/24th scale racing cars from the 1950's that were produced in the UK? I learnt back in the 1970's that the moulds were sold on to a toy company in Italy, never to see the light of day again. That is apart from just two, the Alfetta and Talbot Lago kits that went on to be made by SMER. I heard recently that Atlantis may now have the moulds if someone could confirm this? Anyone know what happened to the Renwall Revivals moulds? As far as I can recollect they were only issued once during the 1960's. They were 1/25th scale kits of the Virgil Exner concepts of old classics in 1960's styling. Apart from moulds that have been lost or incomplete, many that have survived are so clapped out that the quality would be unacceptable in the face of modern kits.

Thanks for looking these out Pete. The detail is fantastic! You must have had a lot of pleasure building this model. Looking back at your previous post with the PB pictures, I really like the way you chose to display the model on a polished wood base with the turned brass support finial to bring the fuselage up to horizontal.

Regrettably, the largest scale model show in the world at Telford has been cancelled this year. Dates have been set by IPMS UK for 2021 2022 2023. Hopefully things will be back to some sort of normality by then.

Cannot see much point in resizing photos to make them smaller as viewing detail gets much more difficult.

It would be nice if C1 models sold that little PE fret with the MG badges as a separate item as well as included in their transkit. South Eastern (exWills) Finecast in the UK have made fully detailed white metal kits of the MGB. Am a bit surprised that no one else apart from Aoshima tooled up this car as a kit in plastic. The moulds have been peddled around a bit between various manufacturers.

Nicely executed model. The removable roof makes it more viewable to see all the little scratch built details.

Pete, I look forward to seeing them when you get the chance to reload the pictures. I am a latecomers to seeing your model, so could you refer me also to your build thread? Was it on this forum of another? Thanks! Peteski, personally I have no problem with old threads being resurrected. We tend to forget that when people come on to the forum, they tend to look for what interests them and not the date when the thread was created and react to it, hence the resurrections. Alternatively someone relatively new may not trawl all the threads before creating a new thread asking about or featuring something that has gone before. Sometimes it is good to put life back into an old thread, particularly if someone happens to be working on a model that is featured and wants some more advice.

Beautiful build Pete. Any chance of simply re loading the pictures directly from your PC and not through photo bucket? Photobucket do no one any favours by greying out a third of every picture, especially when of a super detailed model such as your Zero. Incidentally, Atesania Latina have just announced a ME109G in 1/16th scale similar sort of skeletal model.

The ads are irritating, but not as irritating as photo bucket's large grey band across every picture. Guys, you can load pictures directly into posts from your PC to avoid photobucket. What is the point in placing a picture on a site where at least a third is greyed out when you go to look at it?

Heller kits. All the ones I have built in the past have had their own shall we say, 'challenges'. Maybe their latest are better? Mike, that old Jag E Type that you are building appears to be fraught with problems that you are diligently overcoming. I don't know what your religion is, but I admire your faith in persevering to make a good job of it! By the time you have finished you can take some satisfaction in making a silk purse from a sow's ear.

The aircraft guys have panel lines to work to generally so BMF is probably a good option for them. But a car body with seamless compound curves over swathes of bodywork could prove very difficult to achieve with foil.

I am still using an old version of this named Kleer. And yes it still works well!

Don't bother with BMF. After priming spray the entire body with a craft chrome aerosol spray and leave it to dry thoroughly. This will be a hell of a lot easier than trying to get BMF to go around any compound curves. When dry buff it up gently with C1 Polishing Powder until the desired finish is obtained. Have a look in 'Can I see some scratch built things' in the WIP Model cars column and have a look at the pictures of my Napier Railton that was finished by this method, If this is the sort of finish you are looking for it worked OK for me. Hope this helps.

Intrigued by that little red and white bubble car in Eric's post. And what movie / TV show is it from?

What with the newish Belkits Mark 1 Escort Rally Cars as well as the old Esci Mark 2 kit as featured the Ford 60's and 70's Rally Cars are quite well represented. Motobitz in the UK can supply a number of alternative decals and resin parts for the Mk 1 kits. Many years ago there was a company named MRM in the UK that did the same for the Esci Mk 2 kits, now sadly defunct. The Cossack mens grooming sponsorship decals were one of their items. Would have been nice if someone had done a conversion kit to make it into an RS2000 road car.