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Scale I Build

Found 16 results

  1. Only because I said I would, I am going to post the completed model of the Heller Renault R8 Gordini. I truly am a bit embarrassed to post it. It just isn't a good looking model. I have added a link to the WIP thread. If you want to know what a pain in the rear this kit is, please read the WIP thread. There are detail pictures there. You will also see why I built it, (it was for a friend). Here she is. Go easy on me!
  2. As Monty Python would say, "And now for something completely different". Over the last several years of attending model contests in my neck of the woods, I struck up a friendship with a very accomplished figure builder. During our conversations it came up that he and a college buddy used to cruise around in a Renault Gordini. I'd never heard of such a thing...lol. After several conversations about it he asked me if I would build a model of it. At first I was just going to paint, decal and polish out the body. It evolved into me building the entire model for him. He brought me an original Heller kit from 1968, (maybe 1969?). Now, this is a car and a model that I would never give a second look at. I still don't like it...lol. It is a Heller kit of a French car. Nope. But, he is a friend and I couldn't say no. I thought I would share my WIP with everyone, not because it is going to be anything special, but because it is a unique car and model. Today's post is mostly an introductory post. Here is what I started with. The instructions are one big sheet and are in French. They included the written instructions in English on another large sheet. You have to jump back and forth between the two sheets to build the car. The decals were waaaaay beyond saving. I was going to paint the two white stripes that run down the length of the car. More on that later. I started work on the body. The vents are molded open but there was a lot of flash. I used a PE saw blade from Scale Motorsports to clean out the flash between the ribs. I wanted a squared off appearance between the ribs and the PE blade was just about perfect for this. You can see the difference between the cleaned up area vs. the untouched area. Job complete. Keep in mind that this photo is magnified a good bit. To the naked eye these ribs look pretty darn good. 1968 molding technology. Although these will not be very visible I just could not leave them there. Not perfect, but an improvement. OK, check out this photo. This is the rear of the car. This is where the engine sits. It has a working hinge and my buddy wanted it to work. Notice the large bow on the dutchman's panel?, (at least I am pretty sure that is the proper name for it. I would be more than happy to have someone correct me if I'm wrong). Anyhow, disaster, and I do mean disaster, struck because of this darn thing. That will be covered in the next update.
  3. From the instruction sheet: The TE-20, nicknamed Little Grey Fergie, was launched in 1946 and built in Coventry by the Standard Motor Co. More than 500,000 units were built until 1956. They were imported to France and successful enough to justify a joint-venture between Standard and Hotchkiss in 1953 with mostly imported British parts. The share of French-built parts increased until reaching 100% in 1957 when the TE-20 became the FF-30, produced until 1958. Minor differences from the TE-20 included seat shape, battery location, and red-painted engine and chassis. Neat little kit. The toughest part was the equipment hitch on the back. They included decals for the lights which kinda look OK. Comments welcome and thanks for looking.
  4. Let's start a new project. First I tried to find some photos for example colors of this car. While searching on the internet I discovered the original car which was the example of the Heller-kit. It is part of a vehicle collection at a museum near Lyon in France. Yesterday I wrote to the museum in order to get more information and any photos of the car and its details (engine, interior etc). I'm curious if I'll get an answer. Meanwhile I try to mix the correct color for bodywork. A dark saphir-blue airbrush ink as basic making some brighter with white and silver. A follwing test will show it...
  5. - new car trailer - Renault Racing Team - new tractor - new accessories - many more
  6. I got this kit a few years ago. The box have been opened, some parts have already been mounted and painted, but in bad conditions. Some parts were broken. What can i do with it? Now I considered to use this kit as my first attempt to create an aged and used model. Not rusty, not dirty, but with a touch of patina. Here is my result. I believe, in a few components it was successful (engine, exhaust, drivetrain). The bodywork could be better. Well, it will find its place in the show case. I built the same model a few years ago. Here a pic of it to compare. Comments and criticism are welcome.
  7. I finally finished this one, fought me every step of the way. Came in a Testors box but obviously a reboxed Heller kit with all that implies. The hardest part was the rear engine/suspension and the headers-20 pieces alone. Very detailed and true to scale, thus very delicate! Picked up the livery from Indycals as I wanted to do a Ferrari in other than red. Anyways, thanks for looking, comments always welcome.
  8. I'm back...... My dad restored a real one about 50 years ago, when I was a brat. I sort of recall a drive from Flagstaff to our home at Grand Canyon (he was a park Ranger), riding in the rumble seat. I'm giving this to my mom for Christmas, but I'm sure she will let me enter it in contests. It started as a Heller 170V Berline 1:24 scale kit, that I got by mail prior to 1995, when I sketched what I needed to do. I chopped off the roof and used Corian (kitchen countertop) to fabricate the rear part, including the rumble seat. The windshield is also scratch-built, and folds down. The back seat was modified into the front seat. The steering wheel was incorrect 3 spokes. I turned the spare tire cover out of Corian, using a drill press and wood chisel. I cut up about 80% of the interior door panels for various body parts. The engine and chassis are almost box stock, *had to* use real coil springs on the rear suspension. I used Alclad "chrome" paint, and aluminum tape; Testors custom mix of metallic blue, and 'aluminum' (looks much better than so-called 'German Silver' which looked like steel). I made body mounts and grill mount, to screw together. I even carved his hat that I have, that's older than me. The diorama is another story.
  9. bbowser

    Renault 4CV

    Finished this up last night, not the best but I'm glad its done! Typical Heller kit, quirky assembly, vague instructions but the only game in town for this vehicle. I should have taken some interior shots before closing it up, can't see much through the windows. Neat little 4-cylinder engine/transaxle with decent details. Comments welcome, thanks for looking.
  10. Just finished this up, it's basically a snap kit with few parts but looks good on the shelf. I've been working from home but paradoxically have less time at the bench. Anyway, thanks for looking and comments welcome.
  11. Heller 1/24 scale Renault 5 Turbo Group 4 rally represents the 1982 car of Jean Ragnotti and Jean-Marc Andre. Instructions say they won with treaded rain tires, but the kit comes with slicks, which is a pet peeve of mine. I'm spending my Christmas holiday building at a remote location (undocumented wife's house on the other side of town), picked this kit because it has few parts, and should be a good warm-up for doing the Audi Quattro. It's typical Heller quality, parts are well molded with little flash and mold lines to clean up, fit so far is very good, but detail is minimalistic. If one wanted to detail this, many missing details are begging, but I'm doing Box Stock. North windows are excellent daylight, view is nice. ? Swept tools off the bench into a cigar box, no paint, no Dremel, no specialized tools brought along, using only superglue. Engine is basic, don't think the turbo is accurate, moving on. Sink depressions and ejection pin marks got filled with superglue and baking soda (from wife's pantry ?). Exhaust tip is drilled with knife. I *had to* fill the void under the intake plenum, would really have to look for it after it's assembled. Cool feature of this kit, the round pins go in square holes, almost as good as snap-tight kits (better than AMT Batmissle), so I could mock up the complete assembly, then dismantle for painting. Found some sink marks on the doors, filled with superglue/baking soda. The mirrors needed the same treatment. Ready for paint: I went home, and painted all I could. Masked and sprayed the light grey, last color for the day. I skipped painting primer, started with gloss white on the body. Good thing I'm not at home to risk touching the body and screwing it up. ? The kit has almost no dash detail, just circles with no detail or decals! I added the aftermarket gauge decals, added a clock on the block that should be the rally chronometer that really needs something! The funny thing about this kit, the doors open, so you can see the seats are molded with the floor and have giant gaps that are toy-like, no dash detail, no pedals, no seatbelts, etc. ? The interior is assembled! Tried out Alclad 'white aluminum' for the engine, intake and wheels, the heat shield is chrome aluminum, exhaust is Testors flat aluminum and steel. Plan tomorrow is to mask and paint the yellow on the body. Don't think I should push it for painting black too. Have an idea for making tread on the tires, planned to rough up anyway, and am going to weather for end of race look. Race to New Years, 5 days. ?️
  12. My first completion of the new year, been working on it for quite a while. These Heller kits are finicky with vague to non-existent part locations and weird one-piece window/interior panels, but some of the best in-scale plastic wire wheels. I stripped the chrome and painted them the same gray as the body, then did the rims with a Molotow pen. It has steerable wheels with close to scale tie rods and linkages, thus very delicate, ask me how I know! I enjoy the challenge and they have subjects not found elsewhere. Hope you like it, comments welcome.
  13. Another one in the works folks i got more to come from not being on here for few years
  14. Apologies for those of you who know this already, but it's interesting to us "Classic British Kit" collectors. The very first Airfix kit was a Ferguson tractor. Initially released in 1949 as a built promo for the Ferguson company, it was also released as a kit from 1955-59: It's about 1:20 scale. And now, here come our friends from Heller, almost 70 years later! bestest, M.
  15. I don't believe I've posted anything about this build on this forum. I know I did on the Spotlight board. As I'm into light commercial, I really like this old Citroen line of trucks offered by Heller. There are several in the series. There is a Citroen Normandee woody pickup (the other kit I won that week) as well as a Waterman (French fountain pen company) van and a hotel shuttle bus. I did manage to find a bunch of research photos on the Internet, including a few varieties of the bus. I didn't find any of a real Bordens van. I used to see them cheap at shows and managed to collect them all, but that dried up years ago. When I see them going cheap on eBay, I'll bid but usually lose. Imagine my surprise when I won two for around $20 each in the same week. I did want to have one for parts for when I build the others, as well as wanting a set of those wheels and tires for another build. The above Bordens truck was the first to come in the mail, and since it got a USPS hole in the box (yea, straight through one of those tough Priority Mail boxes too), I decided to just build it. These trucks don't have a ton of parts but are nicely detailed. They have a very vague construction, and there are a lot of tiny fragile parts. Think about the assembly of early Revell kits. Heller also has the chassis building up inside the finished fender unit, instead of separate, which was a challenge. See above photo. I know how to build that better the next time. Also they expect you to build up the body from separate panels once they are finished and painted. Not easy at all. I'm struggling with this step right now. Another idea that looks good in theory but doesn't work in real life. These parts are held together by a flexible but very thin bit of plastic. Even while attacking the large ejector pins on the inside of these panels, they will split apart. I wound up gluing them together, using a bit of metal rod on the matching seam on the inside. Like I said above, there were a ton of photos of vehicles on the Internet. These are like the Model T of French cars and seem to be widely popular. The same vehicles were light commercial trucks and both open and closed sedans. I did notice that there is an open touring car as part of the Heller series. Guess I'll be needing to get that one! This engine shot is worth a thousand words. There are a few differences between this and the engine supplied in the kit. The kit engine has the top hose closer to the front of the engine, and the kit engine only has two blades on the fan. I never saw that before. I used it since it's cool. The next post will be my actual build to date. Hope you enjoyed the background on the kit.
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