Harry P. Posted January 18, 2015 Author Posted January 18, 2015 You are a (much) better man than I.... Here's how I did it... for each strip of trim, I scraped the paint off the fender or body, being careful to always keep the scraped area within the area of the trim strip (don't wan't any white plastic showing outside of the trim piece!)... then I glued one end of the strip in place with a tiny dab of liquid cement. Once that end set up, I pulled the strip tight against the body, held it in place with my fingers, and glued the other end. With liquid cement you only have to hold the pice in place for a few seconds, it sets up pretty fast. Once I had both ends of the trip piece glued in place, I ran a little liquid cement along the piece and just let the cement wick in by capillary action. I have found that if you use just a bit of the liquid cement and run the brush along the edge pretty quickly and don't "dab" the cement on, the cement will not harm the paint.
Harry P. Posted January 18, 2015 Author Posted January 18, 2015 In order to make sure the exhaust pipe supports were in the exact right place, I glued them in and used the hood panel to make sure they were placed exactly. It turns out that I had to cut off the lug on the lower end of the two exhaust supports in order for them to fit exactly into the hood panel cutouts.
Harry P. Posted January 18, 2015 Author Posted January 18, 2015 On the real car there is a trim piece on the interior that runs from side to side at the lower edge of the windshield. That piece isn't in the kit so I made one out of wood to match the wood trim on the door panels...
sjordan2 Posted January 18, 2015 Posted January 18, 2015 Are you going to use mesh in the side vents?
Ramfins59 Posted January 18, 2015 Posted January 18, 2015 Great looking door panels Harry. The wood is a perfect addition. Also a great job on attaching the chrome strips to the fenders. I'll bet you were nervous about messing up the paint. I also will have to look for that Spaz Stix paint...... where did you get it??
Cato Posted January 18, 2015 Posted January 18, 2015 Man this thing is a BMF nightmare! It's everywhere and maybe 1.5mm wide. Just beautiful, tedious work. Don't care what you say Harry, scraping paint, wicking glue and having to hold pieces in place while that's happening is a recipe for disaster for mere mortals. You make it look too easy...........
sjordan2 Posted January 18, 2015 Posted January 18, 2015 The main chroming issues on this kit would be the running board treads, which Harry has done beautifully, and lots of interior trim. All the body strips otherwise are chrome kit parts.
Harry P. Posted January 18, 2015 Author Posted January 18, 2015 I also will have to look for that Spaz Stix paint...... where did you get it?? ebay. Are you going to use mesh in the side vents? If I can find a fine enough mesh. Maybe someone makes a suitable PE mesh... I'll have to check.
Harry P. Posted January 18, 2015 Author Posted January 18, 2015 The main chroming issues on this kit would be the running board treads, which Harry has done beautifully, and lots of interior trim. All the body strips otherwise are chrome kit parts. Except the chrome trim on the tops of the doors and that thin strip across the body behind the seat.
Harry P. Posted January 19, 2015 Author Posted January 19, 2015 Since my last photo posts I've had nothing but trouble. First... the braces that run between the radiator and the firewall are too short, so I had to make new ones using brass wire. While trying to finesse the rods into place, the radiator tank (that the braces attach to) broke off. Luckily I was able to finagle it back in there between the radiator shell and the fan without major hassle and reglue it. Then a much worse problem. As I was trying to feed the steering column through the dash and firewall, the dash fell off! Remember... at this point the body was already glued to the fender unit, and there was no way I could possibly get my hand into the interior and reglue the dash to the underside of the cowl, especially because that wooden trim piece that runs side to side at the base of the windshield was still in place and the dash had to go behind it. Finally I had a brilliant idea... first I had to remove that wooden trim strip (it snapped off pretty easily with no damage to it or the body). Then I took one of the shish kabob skewers that I use as "handles" for painting small parts and CA'd the pointed end into the hole in the dash where the steering column goes. Then, with that shish kabob skewer serving as a handle, I was able to maneuver the dash back in place and run some liquid glue between the dash top and the underside of the cowl. After the liquid cements sets up, I hope to be able to spin that skewer and snap the CA bond and remove it from the dash. I hope that will work... then reglue the wooden trim piece, and I'll be good to go. Just to be safe I'm going to let that reglued dash set up overnight, because it has to withstand the stress and stay glued in place when I try to snap that skewer out of the steering column hole.
sjordan2 Posted January 19, 2015 Posted January 19, 2015 (edited) ebay. If I can find a fine enough mesh. Maybe someone makes a suitable PE mesh... I'll have to check. You can find mesh in every density necessary at most hobby and crafts stores. Often found in model train diorama sections for building hills and other structures, or used as support backing for sculptures and papier mache. Or you can use a replacement plastic/mesh filter for basket coffee makers at supermarkets. Edited January 19, 2015 by sjordan2
Harry P. Posted January 19, 2015 Author Posted January 19, 2015 Well, I managed to fix all of my mishaps from yesterday. Got the radiator tank reglued, made the new radiator support rods and installed them, got the dash reglued and the steering wheel/column installed...
sjordan2 Posted January 19, 2015 Posted January 19, 2015 Looking fabulous. Now I can see the chrome strip you made for the convertible hatch.
bobthehobbyguy Posted January 19, 2015 Posted January 19, 2015 Absolutely beautiful work. Great save on fixing the dash.
sjordan2 Posted January 19, 2015 Posted January 19, 2015 (edited) Regarding mesh: What I have that appears right for the Mercedes is Amaco Wireform Contour Mesh, aluminum, in a 1/16" pattern -- this one has a diagonal weave, but they may offer square weave. Item #212 Edited January 19, 2015 by sjordan2
Twokidsnosleep Posted January 19, 2015 Posted January 19, 2015 Supoib Harry, just supoib That is typing my best New York accent
Harry P. Posted January 19, 2015 Author Posted January 19, 2015 Got the rear bumper and taillights installed. The bumpers were attached to the sprues at their ends, so I had to sand the ends smooth and apply BMF to "rechrome" them. I googled "1936 license plate" and imported one I liked into PS, sized it, and printed it out (I wanted a US plate and not a Euro one). Also scratchbuilt what I think is the ashtray, at the top center of the dash. I'm not sure it's an ashtray, but since there are none in the door panels, and since I can't think of anything else it could possibly be, and since it looks in my reference photos to have a chrome plated lid, my guess is that's what it is.
Cato Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 I'm not sure it's accurate to 1:1 but how would you rate this Minicraft kit Harry? Tooling, engineering, material quality? I think what I mean is, are you making up for the kit's shortcomings with pro builder methods?
Harry P. Posted January 20, 2015 Author Posted January 20, 2015 I'd rate this kit fairly low. On a scale of 1-10, I'd say 4 or 5. Parts fit is basically good, but there's a "roughness" to the parts on the chrome trees... like the tooling wasn't mirror-smooth. There are scratches and irregularities on almost all the chrome parts (under the plating, the plating itself was not damaged). Luckily, not the grille shell and headlights, those are ok, but on almost all the other chrome parts there are imperfections of one kind or another. Oddly enough, the white plastic parts look fine as far as that goes. There's a fair mount of flash and mold misalignment on most parts... probably due to the age of the tooling. Every part took a lot of cleanup before I could use it, and I hate that part of model building. I really don't like having to spends endless hours making the kit parts look the way the manufacturer should have made them look in the first place. I would guess that the time I've spent cleaning up parts is greater than the time spent actually painting and building, I don't think I could honestly recommend this kit to anyone unless they were a die-hard MB fan and just absolutely had to have it. The Monogram and Johan kits of the classics are light years ahead of this kit as far as quality goes. But since the largest group of my "classics" is 1/16 scale, this one was a "must have" for me... so I'm trying to make the best of a sub-par kit. Despite the kit's shortcomings, I have to say I'm pretty pleased with the results so far. But anyone thinking of building this kit better be prepared to put the work into it needed to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
Cato Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 A great review and primer for enthusiasts. I thought that only a highly skilled builder could get these kind of results and I'm right. Built OOB, there are too many landmines; even for the Benz-afflicted like Jordan.
sjordan2 Posted January 20, 2015 Posted January 20, 2015 (edited) More on mesh: http://www.amaco.com/shop/product-368-wireform-metal-mesh.html The 540K mesh should be a strict square weave (straight horizontal and vertical lines), and it looks like the 16 Amaco Crafter's version would be right. Image appears overscale... http://www.dickblick...ems/33408-1170/ Edited January 20, 2015 by sjordan2
Harry P. Posted January 20, 2015 Author Posted January 20, 2015 Looking at the size of the mesh on the real car, I would need an incredibly fine mesh to be in scale. Almost doesn't seem worth the bother to try to use "real" mesh at this scale.
Harry P. Posted January 20, 2015 Author Posted January 20, 2015 At this scale it's really not worth the bother. The "mesh" would be practically invisible. I'll just use the molded kit pieces.
Harry P. Posted January 20, 2015 Author Posted January 20, 2015 More on mesh: http://www.amaco.com/shop/product-368-wireform-metal-mesh.html Did you see the prices on this stuff? No thanks...
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