1962 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II by Minicraft Models: WIP

[Anglia105E]

The fold up picnic tables on the back of the front seats are burr walnut, and you have produced even better ones than I have done !  Like you, I tried various different methods of reproducing the authentic burr walnut finish, but having said that, these picnic tables are not easily visible on the completed model car. Only when you take close up photos through the windows would you see them more clearly.

I reckon you have done the best job possible on the various body issues, including the petrol filler flap (fuel door), the edges of the boot / trunk lid and the front wing / fender area near to the windscreen / windshield . . . I really do admire your work on this Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, which as you are aware, is my absolute favourite motor car in the World . . . ever !

David W.

[David G.]

 

19 hours ago, Anglia105E said:

The fold up picnic tables on the back of the front seats are burr walnut, and you have produced even better ones than I have done !  Like you, I tried various different methods of reproducing the authentic burr walnut finish, but having said that, these picnic tables are not easily visible on the completed model car. Only when you take close up photos through the windows would you see them more clearly.

I reckon you have done the best job possible on the various body issues, including the petrol filler flap (fuel door), the edges of the boot / trunk lid and the front wing / fender area near to the windscreen / windshield . . . I really do admire your work on this Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, which as you are aware, is my absolute favourite motor car in the World . . . ever !

David W.

 

Thank you very much David.

In case you haven't guessed, I've adopted you as my expert on this particular build and I value your feedback and opinions on this topic tremendously.

It truly is a beautiful machine and I'm beginning to feel I can do it justice through this build.

Thanks again,

David G.

Edited October 14, 2023 by David G.
typo

[Anglia105E]

26 minutes ago, David G. said:

 

 

Thank you very much David.

In case you haven't guessed, I've adopted you as my expert on this particular build and I value your feedback and opinions on this topic tremendously.

It truly is a beautiful machine and I'm beginning to feel I can do it justice through this build.

Thanks again,

David G.

You are welcome David . . . Having built and painted eight Silver Clouds, also exhibited them at the annual Rolls-Royce show, and sold one of them, I feel that I have accumulated a vast amount of knowledge regarding this model car. My computer holds a huge amount of research material, in the form of photographs and documents, and I have a box file of many printed documents. Over the years, since 2017, my collection of Silver Clouds in styrene, resin and diecast has grown steadily . . . The very first kit was ordered from the USA, directly from Minicraft I seem to remember as I didn't realise that I could source the Revell version of the kit made in Germany and available in Europe. I still have the two part silicone mould that I produced, so in theory I could produce further resin cast body shells and chassis for this Silver Cloud, but I do worry about the chemicals involved in the moulding and casting process.

When you read about the care and expertise that went into producing the real Silver Cloud, all hand made, and when you consider they used something like 14 coats of high quality paint and carefully selected pieces of burr walnut wood for the interior fittings . . . it becomes mind boggling.

Once you progress from examining the body and chassis of this motor car, and turn your attention to the engine . . . that is truly incredible.

By all means, ask me anything you need to know on this subject and while I do not consider myself to be an expert exactly, I will try to provide the answers.

David W.

[Joe Handley]

You did a great job of fixing the transition from the fenders to the front doors on this car, the one I bought had that and when I contacted them about it, hey replacement was just like it!  Also forgot about the trunk fitment too!

[David G.]

22 hours ago, Anglia105E said:

You are welcome David . . . Having built and painted eight Silver Clouds, also exhibited them at the annual Rolls-Royce show, and sold one of them, I feel that I have accumulated a vast amount of knowledge regarding this model car. My computer holds a huge amount of research material, in the form of photographs and documents, and I have a box file of many printed documents. Over the years, since 2017, my collection of Silver Clouds in styrene, resin and diecast has grown steadily . . . The very first kit was ordered from the USA, directly from Minicraft I seem to remember as I didn't realise that I could source the Revell version of the kit made in Germany and available in Europe. I still have the two part silicone mould that I produced, so in theory I could produce further resin cast body shells and chassis for this Silver Cloud, but I do worry about the chemicals involved in the moulding and casting process.

When you read about the care and expertise that went into producing the real Silver Cloud, all hand made, and when you consider they used something like 14 coats of high quality paint and carefully selected pieces of burr walnut wood for the interior fittings . . . it becomes mind boggling.

Once you progress from examining the body and chassis of this motor car, and turn your attention to the engine . . . that is truly incredible.

By all means, ask me anything you need to know on this subject and while I do not consider myself to be an expert exactly, I will try to provide the answers.

David W.

Thank you David , I certainly appreciate the advice and information you've provided thus far. And I thank you for your offer to provide more.

 

21 hours ago, Joe Handley said:

You did a great job of fixing the transition from the fenders to the front doors on this car, the one I bought had that and when I contacted them about it, hey replacement was just like it!  Also forgot about the trunk fitment too!

Thank you Joe. For such a simple kit, it sure has presented me with some challenges.

Thanks again,

David G.

[David G.]

Hello Everybody!

Here is another update on the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II.

I'm calling this side done. I've sprayed this different primer because I want something darker under the gold to give it some depth.

 

 

This side however is still giving me problems. There is a void under the styrene sheet I used to build up the area and the glazing putty just has not been doing the job of filling it. I'd use some putty to fill the gap, only for the gap to reappear during the next round of sanding. I suspected that this might happen but I had to try anyway.

 

 

I decided that it was time to break out the CA and fill that gap for good. I would drip a drop on the gap, give capillary action a few seconds to work its magic, swipe off any excess with a cotton swab, then repeat the process until the gap had wicked in all the CA it could hold. I then dripped a final small drop on the gap and used some accelerant to cure it all. The bit of fuzz is from one of the passes with the cotton swab. It should sand off quite easily.

 

 

A quick spritz of primer shows where the sanding and back-filling need to be done. It looks like I took care of that gap though.

 

As always, thanks for stopping by to look and please feel free to post a comment or two.

David G.

[Pierre Rivard]

Coming along beautifully. Not to add to your misery but since the subject is spectacular and you can now see you can make this horrible kit body beautiful... you should consider sanding off door handles and wipers and add aftermarket parts?

[NOBLNG]

The body is looking good now David. Nice work!👍

[Anglia105E]

Looks like you got a really good result on the driver's side / offside / right hand side ( if you building this car as a RHD ), but if this is going to be a LHD car then we are talking passenger side / nearside / left hand side . . .

I am really surprised to see super glue used in that way, but you clearly know what you are doing because that process has worked brilliantly !

I could not help but smile at Pierre's comment regarding the removal of the door handles and windshield wipers . . . He has a good point of course, but are  you brave enough to go down that route? Those door handles do need improvement I must agree, and I did grind off the wipers on my most recent Silver Cloud build . . . I then fitted two wiper arms and blades from the Tamiya Jaguar MK 2 kit, which look great on the Rolls-Royce, but now if I want to build the Jaguar there are no wiper arms and blades in the kit box !

David W.

[David G.]

23 hours ago, Pierre Rivard said:

Coming along beautifully. Not to add to your misery but since the subject is spectacular and you can now see you can make this horrible kit body beautiful... you should consider sanding off door handles and wipers and add aftermarket parts?

Thank you for your kind comment Pierre.

There are a couple more repairs that I'm considering but the other features you mentioned will remain as they are. As much as I enjoy building, I also enjoy completing. Completing maybe even a little more.

21 hours ago, NOBLNG said:

The body is looking good now David. Nice work!👍

Thank you Greg, I appreciate that.

21 hours ago, Anglia105E said:

Looks like you got a really good result on the driver's side / offside / right hand side ( if you building this car as a RHD ), but if this is going to be a LHD car then we are talking passenger side / nearside / left hand side . . .

I am really surprised to see super glue used in that way, but you clearly know what you are doing because that process has worked brilliantly !

I could not help but smile at Pierre's comment regarding the removal of the door handles and windshield wipers . . . He has a good point of course, but are  you brave enough to go down that route? Those door handles do need improvement I must agree, and I did grind off the wipers on my most recent Silver Cloud build . . . I then fitted two wiper arms and blades from the Tamiya Jaguar MK 2 kit, which look great on the Rolls-Royce, but now if I want to build the Jaguar there are no wiper arms and blades in the kit box !

David W.

 

Excellent call on the wipers David! They look as if they were meant to be there. I am considering adding an aerial and rearview mirror... and a set of wing-mounted mirrors... and effecting a couple of other casting repairs. Maybe.

But the wipers and door handles will remain as they are. They are... sufficient.

This particular kit was issued in a left-hand drive configuration. I would have preferred a proper RHD model. I also would have preferred not to spend twenty or thirty hours correcting casting errors on a thirteen-piece kit.

But, as we say "It is what it is."

Again, thank you very much David for all your help and direction with this kit.

David G.

[slusher]

Nice body work David fixing the flaws you found.   I also saw your detail painting of the chassis. You must have a steady hand. Ni work on the fuel door. Now I am caught up on your build.

[David G.]

5 hours ago, slusher said:

Nice body work David fixing the flaws you found.   I also saw your detail painting of the chassis. You must have a steady hand. Ni work on the fuel door. Now I am caught up on your build.

Thank you Carl, It's great to hear from you.

I hope you're well.

David G.

[David G.]

Hello Everybody!

A little more doin's have been done on the Rolls.

One of the reasons I dechromed the chrome was be able to correct issues like these sink marks on the top of the radiator.

 

 

I managed to get the dents on the top of the radiator tank smoothed out and some "chromie" paint applied.

 

 

Unfortunately, the amount of paint I had to apply to get the finish I wanted filled in the badge detail completely obliterating it. In the ol' purple pond it goes.

 

 

Meanwhile, the bumpers are coming along quite nicely. Well, satisfactorily anyway. There was, as one might imagine a lot of work to get them to this stage. The overriders on one of the bumpers had some serious sink marks that needed to be filled. Both of them were not well cast and as a result of that, had some issues that needed to be addressed.

 

 

The good news is that I was able to get enough of the issues smoothed out to get a fairly good base for the chrome paint. Not perfect but certainly better than what I started with.

 

That's all for this round. It's starting to feel like I'm in the home stretch on this one; now that the serious body repairs are essentially done.

As always, thanks.

David G.

[Bugatti Fan]

Interesting thread.

Wonder if it is possible to cut and shut two of these kits to make a long wheelbase Phantom.3 limousine version of this car. If it could be done and twin headlamps fitted it might by possible to build John Lennon's Rolls with the psychedelic paint job.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Bugatti Fan

[David G.]

3 hours ago, Bugatti Fan said:

Interesting thread.

Wonder if it is possible to cut and shut two of these kits to make a long wheelbase Phantom.3 limousine version of this car. If it could be done and twin headlamps fitted it might by possible to build John Lennon's Rolls with the psychedelic paint job.

Thank you Noel.

I'm sure that something like that is possible but not likely to happen in my world. This one was quite enough work on its own, thanks. I certainly did give it a little bit of thought though.

Also, I don't think that there are many of these kits left in the world and they've been out of production for quite some time now. 

Thanks again,

David G.

[Bugatti Fan]

I wasn't suggesting that you actually do Lennon's Rolls David, just if it was feasible using two of these kits.

There may be more of these kits kicking around than perhaps you might think. My guess is that the kit is so crude there may be many just gathering dust in the stashes of disillusioned buyers.

You are certainly making a silk purse from a sow's ear with your model. It is a shame that no one has ever made a decent kit of the Phantom with that bodywork.

More elegant than the Silver Shadow that followed it on, and no kit of that car ever being done at all. Probably the RR licencing might have been too prohibitive.

 

Ref the chrome issues......Have a look at Revell's new chrome spray.

[David G.]

20 hours ago, Bugatti Fan said:

I wasn't suggesting that you actually do Lennon's Rolls David, just if it was feasible using two of these kits.

There may be more of these kits kicking around than perhaps you might think. My guess is that the kit is so crude there may be many just gathering dust in the stashes of disillusioned buyers.

You are certainly making a silk purse from a sow's ear with your model. It is a shame that no one has ever made a decent kit of the Phantom with that bodywork.

More elegant than the Silver Shadow that followed it on, and no kit of that car ever being done at all. Probably the RR licencing might have been too prohibitive.

 

Ref the chrome issues......Have a look at Revell's new chrome spray.

No worries Noel. I actually did consider building the Beatles limo. Briefly. I am getting to the point where I'm ready to have finished with it though. I'm already starting the "transition" into the next build.

Honestly, I was a bit surprised that given its long production run under different companies, I'd never encountered this kit before now. At least not that I recall.

Thank you, I'm glad to know that my efforts with this build are paying off.

I'll check out Revell's chrome paint, thanks for the tip.

David G.

[David G.]

Hello Everybody!

Here's the latest update for the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II. 

 

The dashboard on these cars is a burled walnut. I used a technique to simulate it that I developed when I made the service trays for the for the rear passenger area.  There's a nasty casting error over the right glove box door, I did the best I could with it. I don't think it will be very visible after assembly.

 

 

I think the gold body color looks good next to the wood finish.

 

 

Here is the finished interior. For the sides of the tub, I made some wood trim pieces using some angled styrene strips painted using the same technique I applied to the dashboard and tray panels.

 

 

I have to say, I'm quite pleased with the way the interior came out. The error on the right side of the dash is barely noticeable, even though I know it's there.

 

 

That's all for this update.

As always, thanks for taking the time to look and please feel free to respond with comments, suggestions, tips or photos.

David G.

[David G.]

Hello Everybody!

Here's a small update on the Rolls.

On the actual car there are little chrome trim rings around the directionals.  Using some strip styrene, I decided to try to replicate these on the model. Just to add a little bump to the detail level.

 

 

 

I think they came out pretty well, the painting will tell.

 

That's all for now.

As always, thanks for taking the time to look and please feel free to comment.

David G.

[David G.]

Hello Everybody!

As time and energy allow, I've been slowly plugging away at the Rolls and a couple of others.

Here are the results.

First color coat and I really like the color and how well the paint laid down.

 

 

The only thing left to finish body-wise is the boot lid. And I'm really close to having that wrapped up.

 

That's it for this update, I'll see you in the next round.

As always, thanks for taking the time to look and please feel free to respond with a comment.

David G.

[Pierre Rivard]

Beauty David. All the burled walnut trim is very convincing.

[slusher]

Beautiful interior and paint David!  I really like the Walnut trim..

[David G.]

22 hours ago, Pierre Rivard said:

Beauty David. All the burled walnut trim is very convincing.

Thank you Pierre, I'm glad that worked out as well as it did.

17 hours ago, slusher said:

Beautiful interior and paint David!  I really like the Walnut trim..

Thank you very much Carl.

David G.

[David G.]

Hello Everybody!

I got a little bench time in over the weekend and here are some of the results.

 

While color sanding the hood in preparation for the next coat I discovered some sink marks and other contour issues that I just couldn't live with. Though minor, they would have stood out in contrast to the other body errors that I so painstakingly corrected.

Just a little more sanding and the ejector pin marks start to reveal themselves.

 

 

After a few days in the Purple Pond, the offending features further reveal themselves. A little light sanding and we'll be ready for the primary primer coat which will show where the putty goes.

 

 

The hood panels have been smoothed and a base coat of primer has been sprayed. I'll often use two colors of primer. One light, one dark. Problems such as sink marks and high spots will usually reveal themselves as the upper layer wears through during the sanding process.

 

 

No problems were found here and it's on to the color coat. The paint went on a little thin and it will need a second coat but it's smooth. I'll give it a few days to cure then do a quick color sanding before the next coat.

 

The march toward completion continues!

As always, thanks for stopping by for a look and please feel free to post a comment.

David G.

[paul alflen]

David  G. , remember this started out as a Promo by Hubley then released as a kit by Hubley in 1962? It was also released by Minicraft in the late 80's early 90"s and by many others.  The tool is getting worn out in its many travels. You did a good job on this despite the body tool being worn out!