Italeri/Testors Ferrari 250 GTO Spyder

[MrObsessive]

Kurt, it might be your cowl/firewall height. I had that problem when I was building ROG's Jaguar XKSS turning into a D-Type. I had to shave some of the cowl down a bit to get the upper body and hood to sit better on the lower half. Keep in mind you'll have to watch the engine height due to those carbs.

Perhaps the engine needs to sit a tad lower in the frame?

[afx]

1 hour ago, 89AKurt said:

That's what I suspected.  The rear vents are different on that car.

Its a 1:18 scale model of chassis 3705GT but it was a good example for the point I was trying to make.

https://waltgracevintage.com/products/amalgam-collection-3705gt-1962-le-mans-class-winner

Edited March 1, 2021 by afx

[89AKurt]

8 hours ago, MrObsessive said:

Kurt, it might be your cowl/firewall height. I had that problem when I was building ROG's Jaguar XKSS turning into a D-Type. I had to shave some of the cowl down a bit to get the upper body and hood to sit better on the lower half. Keep in mind you'll have to watch the engine height due to those carbs.

Perhaps the engine needs to sit a tad lower in the frame?

The cockpit air intake trumpets seem to be exactly the correct height, so if I dropped the body down those would need modification.  I'm not about to tear apart the engine now.  For anyone else who wants to build this, take notice.  I sort of want to just finish it, otherwise it will end up with the other WIP.

8 hours ago, afx said:

Its a 1:18 scale model of chassis 3705GT but it was a good example for the point I was trying to make.

https://waltgracevintage.com/products/amalgam-collection-3705gt-1962-le-mans-class-winner

Shoot, I might as well buy those models, that one is fabulous.  Cool picture, but it is on the outside of the curve with body roll.  ?

[89AKurt]

After some heavy sanding the transition areas, sprayed #2 primer this morning.  Set inside the pickup cab to cure.

Still needed to work on the transition areas, sprayed #3 primer tonight.

Assembled the Hobby Design fire extinguisher.  It's a model by itself.

Think this location is better than the floor.

Looks pretty good in white, but I'm bored with white because my real car is pearl white.  ?

[89AKurt]

First coat of yellow!  I'm planning on a light sanding, then a light coat.  Avoiding exotic paint.

Another beautiful day for the solar drying booth. ?

[Beamerman]

Looks awesome! Great Job..

[peteski]

LOL, Testors li'l square bottle PLA enamel paint?!  That's as anti-exotic as you can get!.  The truck "dehydrator" should get the paint nice and hard in few days. Just make sure not to clear it with something exotic.   Looks good in yellow.

[89AKurt]

10 hours ago, Beamerman said:

Looks awesome! Great Job..

Thank you.  ?

34 minutes ago, peteski said:

LOL, Testors li'l square bottle PLA enamel paint?!  That's as anti-exotic as you can get!.  The truck "dehydrator" should get the paint nice and hard in few days. Just make sure not to clear it with something exotic.   Looks good in yellow.

You know it!  Also because our humidity is so low, I was able to do the second coat tonight.

I carefully wet sanded with 1500, then sprayed a more thinned coat.  It's not perfect, but this is about the best I've done.

Been wanting to use the Model Master clear pearl that has a purple tint, fairly thin with quick sweeps, again pretty happy.  Look forward to seeing under sunlight.

Made the exhaust tips, first time doing these.  Always wondered what the deal is with the tear shaped hole in the sides, and after looking at this SNAP - THE HISTORY, DESIGN, AND TUNING OF THE SNAP EXHAUST TIP I still don't understand it. ?  All I know, this is hardly accurate, but even tips available for 1/12 scale are not.  Two sizes of thin wall stainless steel tubing look 1000% better than the kit parts.   Cut the part with hot-wire, drilled the center tube hole, sanded down the outside to fit the outer tube.  Better go to the trouble of spraying the plastic end with Alclad stainless steel.

For anyone who wants to 3D print these.......

[Funkychiken]

Excellent progress Kurt!

[89AKurt]

12 hours ago, Funkychiken said:

Excellent progress Kurt!

Yea yea..... one step at a time. ?

Did a test with Splash 1K clear, and saw that it ate the paint.  So I used Deft clear varnish, a modeler years ago suggested it, and it worked before.  Had some minor crazing, has to be because of the thinner.  Looks like $#1t, some light sanding, another coat, polishing, should be good.

Exhaust tips needed some more superglue to blend the steel to plastic, turned on the cordless drill to sand, sprayed gloss black then Alclad stainless steel.  Seems silly to airbrush such little parts.  ?  The reason one has a peg, the wire got glued in accidentally. ☹️

[89AKurt]

Second coat of Deft, after wet-sanding with emory cloth.  It's closer to a decent finish.

[89AKurt]

Didn't take pictures of #3 Deft clear coat, wet-sanded before again.  So far so good, fingers crossed.  Since there wasn't a kit box, had to scour the interweb for pictures, found some but they were taken at an angle, so the gal at the copy shop needed to Photoshop more than usual to make a box.  The license was glued to aluminum plate.  Didn't notice when I took the picture, but later I just happened to see something shiny on my sweats, picked it up and saw it was the pull ring from the fire extinguisher!

The kit mirror bites, found a better one in the parts box.  So I made a wire support, Bare Metal Foil, electronic mirror film, much better.  Also compare the steering wheel and gear shift.  Discovered the parking brake handle was stuck behind the dash board!  I was ticked off, but knew the dash needed adjustment to clear the windshield anyway.

More two steps back ? , broke the wire hinge. ?  That's K&S, will use guitar string from now on.

I really wanted to see how it looks.  There are some differences, like the shape of the spoiler, door vent windows, front arch flare, the black cover thing isn't going to happen but will use photo-etch screws for snaps instead.  Kit doesn't have a door mirror, think I can make one.  I have the trunk hinges from the NART somewhere, but can't find them.

Have this weekend, hope to be a hermit.

[89AKurt]

So much for successfully being a hermit today.  Picked up this free Detail Master racing harness photo-etch from a club member, he wanted me to make one set for him, so I said his will be the guinea pig.  Good thing, the instructions aren't that good, and I couldn't find a tutorial on this forum or You Tube.   He got it years ago, when there was thin paper supplied for the belts that supposed to be painted.  I see it comes with ribbon now, which I think would be near impossible to use.  I used black craft paper for his set, will use red for mine.

First step, polish.  Found that rubbing my finger over it worked best.

Got to use the bending tool, worked like a charm.  The instructions were screwed up for the upper shoulder belts (IMHO), they showed the adjuster on the two belts, so I used on the upper half.

All the other tools used.

There was no way to thread two belts through the adjuster parts, cheated by gluing the underneath one flat.

Screenshot from a You Tube video, close enough.

[Spottedlaurel]

Well done for your patience on that task! The finished result will look good in there. I can see why the other person sought your help, it's not something I'd have wanted to do........

Car as a whole is coming on very nicely.

[Funkychiken]

Love the mock up Kurt, it's looking great! 

[89AKurt]

23 hours ago, Spottedlaurel said:

Well done for your patience on that task! The finished result will look good in there. I can see why the other person sought your help, it's not something I'd have wanted to do........

Car as a whole is coming on very nicely.

Thank you very much!  Funny thing is the timing was perfect!

12 hours ago, Funkychiken said:

Love the mock up Kurt, it's looking great! 

? Thanks!

Started off easy today, fixed the hood hinge.  Used guitar string, will always use this from now on!  Glued on tabs for holding in the windshield (arrows), cut from steel coffee can lid.  Pre-bent a sight angel, will push down when the "glass" is in.

Glued in black paper under the dash (arrow), to reduce seeing through that area.   I had also discovered the fuel filter was too high interfering with the body, relocated lower, and now you can see the clear bowl!

Fabricated a roll bar from K&S aluminum rod, polished first.  Made a test fitting template from cardboard.  Ended up a little short, so added transistor radio antenna tubing which was a perfect friction fit for adjustability.  Headrests made from 0.1" Evergreen styrene.  I wanted to use use Ferrari shields, but not in the traditional spot on the fenders, and I also wanted the safety of headrests, those seats look so low, and uncomfortable!

I'm skipping ahead, had airbrushed the headrests, which were curing in my drying booth (pickup).  Bare Metal Foil on the back, polished that first too.

So now this is my car, not an authentic replica of the real car.

Stressed my eyeballs ? (can hardly focus while writing this) on the seatbelts.  The red paper is slightly thicker than the black paper, so had to adapt construction.  It helped to keep track of which side is up, kept the linen texture down, so less mistakes were done.  I took a bunch of pictures, so I could do a tutorial on how to make this Detail Master set.  Here is one step, no way two layers of paper would go through the slot!

First set is done!

My beater rust bucket 1968 Chevy pickup (drying booth ?) has racing seat belts, that were given to me years ago.  The original seat belts were shot, retractors didn't work, and needed to keep a screwdriver on the dash so I could unlatch the buckle, which didn't have the plastic cover.  I have the upholstery and padding to redo my seat, never have done that before, need to transfer my obsessive time consumption to that someday.  Similar design, I added the leather pad (black paper).

The adjuster buckle is exactly the same.  The mount to the cab is ...... look at my signature line. ?

Got the second set done tonight!  ?  Despite making the set yesterday, still needed to write notes on the instructions today.  Instructions say 3 hours per set, it's about right.  When using the mechanic manual for working on my truck, when it says half an hour, it would take two hours.

When guys start doing more than building Box Stock, I would bet the most popular thing is spark plug wires.  Even with all the other things I've done, I'm still resistant to do the wires, the NART was a royal pain to do.

[James2]

Lovely detail...

[adamelvis]

Great Work !!

TCB,

Adam

[Italianhorses]

Excellent progress!

[89AKurt]

15 hours ago, James2 said:

Lovely detail...

Appreciate it!

3 hours ago, adamelvis said:

Great Work !!

TCB,

Adam

?

43 minutes ago, Italianhorses said:

Excellent progress!

Thank you!

Eyes are still recovering. ?  Installed the belts.  Brushed on water to soften up the paper.  Getting the mounts glued in was a trick.  Used Tacky glue on some belts to get the gravity exists look.

Finally realized the valve covers have the wire loom molded on.  I'm thinking of doing the wires from distributor to that loom, and not worry about the other ends.

[peteski]

Looks great Kurt, but you also gave me a chuckle. 
After first choosing to go old-school by using Testor's square glass bottle PLA enamel for the body, why didn't you continue the no-drama method for the clear coat? Why did you have to get fancy?   Aren't there any Testors clears available?  Even the slightly amber Testors clear would not affect that yellow color much, and it would have been compatible with the yellow PLA enamel.  No drama!  Heck, why didn't you just leave the yellow paint as-is?  No clear coat.  Wasn't it shiny enough for you?  I bet the 1:1 cars didn't use clear coat either.  Sometimes things you do make me go "hmmmm".

[afx]

Interesting that Fiat and Lancia used a Magneti Marelli distributor as did Ferrari.  

[89AKurt]

11 hours ago, peteski said:

Looks great Kurt, but you also gave me a chuckle. 
After first choosing to go old-school by using Testor's square glass bottle PLA enamel for the body, why didn't you continue the no-drama method for the clear coat? Why did you have to get fancy?   Aren't there any Testors clears available?  Even the slightly amber Testors clear would not affect that yellow color much, and it would have been compatible with the yellow PLA enamel.  No drama!  Heck, why didn't you just leave the yellow paint as-is?  No clear coat.  Wasn't it shiny enough for you?  I bet the 1:1 cars didn't use clear coat either.  Sometimes things you do make me go "hmmmm".

Last century I built a Daytona Spyder, painted Testors yellow, no clear coat, but polished.  Always looked like it needed to be waxed.  Hobby Lobby is the only thing close to a hobby shop, I've never seen the 'wet look' clear.  I think my paint work is subpar, too much orange peel.  The original GTOs was hacked together, I know that, the recent sales are of museum works of art.  I'm up for the challenge, but I did have a nightmare last night of polishing and immediately getting down the the plastic.  ?

6 hours ago, afx said:

Interesting that Fiat and Lancia used a Magneti Marelli distributor as did Ferrari.  

Don't know why the instructions say brown, all pictures are black.

[peteski]

3 hours ago, 89AKurt said:

Don't know why the instructions say brown, all pictures are black.

You can probably see those covers in  more than one color.  Black or brown seem to be the most common.  Plus brown adds some visual interest to the engine compartments.

[afx]

Here is one in dark brown.