ShawnS

I feel that Tamiya really dropped the ball when they stopped making the 60's cars, not just F1 cars but their 1:24 road cars as well. They did a great job with the VW Beetle, Alfa, and little Honda kit sports car kits. It gave me hope that perhaps they were going to expand on the 60's theme and that we would get some really amazing unkitted non- American 1960's subjects but nope Tamiya seemed to get bored with the idea and went back to releasing more kits of the same tanks and aircraft that every kit manufacturer has.

Hopefully one of the aftermarket guys will come up with a badge-less grille so we can get stuck into those Trans-Am versions.

I have 6 Tamiya Sierras on the bench at the moment. Two are restorations of old builds, two are half finished projects from years past and two are new builds. Each of them will be built differently with different roll cages, exhausts, RHD conversions and dash layouts so there is enough to keep me busy for a while. I painted the bodies, interior and chassis pieces last year and have recently been focused on painting all of the small bits and sorting out all of the details that are specific for the version that I am doing at the time. Sometimes it seems that I have bitten off more than i can chew but I'll get them done.

That's a beautiful model Tulio. Seeing those models make me love those old Fords even more. Great work.

Very nice. A mean looking race car that looks just as mean in scale. Top job

A lovely well finished model Raoul. Such a great colour too. Good work.

Amazing work Pat. Just needs some spider webs . Well done.

HI guys thanks again for the nice comments. Trevor, the radiator mesh is indeed PE and it's made by KA Models. It comes in a small sheet that can be cut to size for your own requirements. It's available from several sources on the net. Cheers ShawnS

Holy cow that's brilliant, Great stuff Frank, well done.

Cool little VW. Well done.

That's a mad looking little beast Luke. Great clean looking build with some killer photos too. Well done.

Lovely build of a cool cop cruiser. I love watching 70's cop shows and movies and seeing the body language of those big ol things as the stunt drivers throw them around. Good fun.

Thanks guys. I'm very happy with the way the engine bay turned out, would you believe that it's only the third engine that I've detailed? I never used to like having to do them and I avoided them like the plague but I'm warming to them so expect more in the future. I've had a massive build season so far as I decided to finish some previously started builds so there are more models to come. Cheers ShawnS

Hi all. This is a bit of a grail build for me after not having any real opportunity to buy at least one of these kits since they were originally released, I jumped at the chance to grab 3 of them upon their re-issue a couple of months ago. I always wanted to build the three TWR Jags that were entered in the 1985 Bathurst 1000 here in Australia. The race was won by the #10 car driven by Aussie legend John Goss and German touring car ace Armin Hahne with the #8 car driven by Tom Walkinshaw and Win Percy coming home in 3rd after splitting an oil cooler late in the race with the subsequent lengthy pitstop costing them the win. The #9 car driven by Aussie Ron Dickson and Brit Jeff Allam DNF'ed early in the race with mechanical issues. I decided to only build one engine and totally go all out on the detail and leave the other two as curbside. I added plug wires, throttle cables and linkages, added fins and a bracket to the alternator, fitted dual electric fans, rebuilt the two induction scoops and made the ducts from wire and teflon tape, added heat sheilding, scratchbuilt the twin oil coolers up front and added a lot of braided hose and fittings from several sources. I also remade the tow hooks and front brake ducts on all three cars. The rest is built as stock. The decals are a combination of kit, studio27, Pattos and my own. The build took a couple of months but they were fun to build with only the seat belts and the rear brake ducts causing any frustrations along the way and I would recommend the kit to anyone. Cheers ShawnS

Hi Smokey. I spent many hours searching the web for the best pictures that I could find. There are a few forums that have dedicated Falcon owners who post pictures of their cars and even do their own 1:1 WIP threads too so I was lucky that there are these guys who take pics of their cars when they strip them down. I also searched e-bay for pictures of parts that I was trying to replicate. E-bay provides a wide range of pictures from clean new and re-conditioned parts to whole assemblies that are covered with years of grime. I used an aftermarket workshop manual but it was of limited use as the pictures are very low -res and in black and white. I did also have a PDF of Fords own spare parts manual that came in very handy but I lost that in a computer hard drive crash as well as lots of pics of the build that I didn't save to USB (back up your files kids). At no stage did I have access to a 1:1 nor did I even attempt to seek one out so its all done from pictures but I was lucky enough to get some measurements from an owner of an XE Falcon that was a great help (thanks Glenn R.I.P.) I was very fortunate that I found pictures of everything that mattered even though it was frustrating at times. Hope that answered your questions. Cheers ShawnS

Wow thanks Alan it's been my pleasure to bring this project to everyone. Although I had scratchbuilt parts for other builds I had never even come close to doing things as complex as a lot of the parts for this build so I didn't know if I had it in me to even finish one model. One thing that I did want to get across was that I didn't come into this project as any sort of expert in scratch building and that I was learning along the way so you guys needed to know not just the highs but the mistakes and the feeling of frustration and even burnout that I went through over the years just the same as everyone else does. I think that you guys even taught me a thing or two as well so we all learned together. I didn't originally intend to give so much detailed info about how I went about doing things the way I was doing them but it became apparent that it was important to a lot of you guys that you needed to know and I was more than happy to continue doing it. I think that taking a lot of photos helped me as a builder too as sometimes I could see things in a photo that I couldn't with the naked eye so I had to keep things clean and that snowballs into a cleaner build all round. Thanks to everyone for your support over the years. Cheers ShawnS

HI guys I've got a couple of works in progress with completed engine bays. First is Tamiya's BMW 635csi GpA. I added a few parts from an incomplete Fujimi 635 kit to get a little extra detail that Tamiya couldn't be bothered with. And finally Hasegawa's Jaguar XJS TWR HE. Plumbed and wired with some added extras to fill out the engine bay a little more. Without the air intake ducts With the ducts added. It's got scratch built twin oil coolers mounted at the front and it took a long time to sort all of that plumbing out. You cant see the twin electric fans and some of the other things that I added but they are there. Cheers ShawnS

Hi Gavin. My response from this earlier post still stands. Thanks for your interest, I'll add you to the ever increasing list of interested parties. Cheers ShawnS

Hi Gabor, Studio27 have a decal sheet that contains the white stripe so if your budget allows and you haven't stripped the body already you should check it out. I have three of these Jags on the bench at the moment and it seems top be a fairly good kit. The seat belts are very fiddly and take a bit of patience but the rest goes together easily.

Yeah there has been quite a bit of interest from all around the world. A final decision about if I will sell copies or not won't be made until well after I have finished the last of any intended builds. It kills me to have to tell everyone that because I would love to see what others could do to one, I'm also too busy to do any extensive casting at the moment. Thanks again everyone Cheers ShawnS

Thank you everybody for all of your support not just now but over the years. It sounds strange I know but I didn't have any idea if I would actually ever get one of these darn things finished at all. Sometimes I felt the whole thing was way above my head and that my plans didn't match my skills and I always seemed to make excuses so I could stop working on them. I think that now that I have finished one, the other two don't intimidate me so much and although I have no immediate plans to resume work on the other two I now know what it takes to get on with it. I've had a great build season so far with four completed builds and another three about 85% finished so I'm hoping that it will continue long enough for me to get those other Falcons re-started. Thanks again, ShawnS

The first finished model is in the showroom now. Cheers ShawnS

I didn't get around to taking a picture of the interior but for the record it's a base model 6 seater with a bench seat front and 3 on the tree. Questions, comments and feedback always welcome. Cheers, ShawnS

Hi everyone. THE CAR: This is a 1:24 scale build of a 1982 Ford XE Falcon. The XE Falcon was built from early 1982 through to early 1984 and was available in sedan, wagon, ute and van. The XE was Australia's highest selling car at the time and was used as family cars, rentals, company cars, police cars, taxis, and work vehicles as well as race versions. I think that most people in who were in Australia in the 1980's have at least one memory of a XD/XE/XF Falcon. My family had two XE Falcon sedans (my parents owned one and my grand parents had one as well.) and there were others that came and went too. They were available in many trim levels and powered mostly by 3.3 and 4.1 litre 6 cyl engines but some had 302 and 351 V8s. THE BUILD: For those who haven't seen the WIP thread this one has been on the bench since 2011. It's scratchbuilt from Evergreen sheet and strips then resin cast. The only things that aren't scratch built are the tyres ( from a Tamiya kit) and the wipers are PE (from Aber). This is the first of 3 builds of this car. This is the low detail version. The next build will be of my grand parents car and will have extra detail and the final build will be of the car my parents owned and will be super detailed. This is a base model vehicle with no bells and whistles. To be continued.......

Yeah I found out about those SK Decals parts two days after I had finished modifying the kit parts. I have another Group A M3 planned so I may go that route in stead of doing it myself.