larchiefeng

Perfect for gazing and enjoyment on a daily basis. It's too bad that you can't resize down the background that you made for the pictures! A great accomplishment and now in a place of honor; happy viewing my friend!

I think that that's a good idea if you want to be sure to get what you want in a timely manner. When I ordered my stuff I had no idea that the communication would be almost nonexistent but, I can only say that, when I did receive the metal engine it was far and away much better quality than the Scale Details engine. I posted some side by comparison pictures on my Pocher F-40 thread so you can see the difference. For the price of the SD engine the quality was pretty poor. On the other hand, not knowing if you are going to get your order due to the lack of communication is worse. It's really too bad because he does make some good stuff.

I have recently dealt with Paul on some 1/8 Pocher F-40 parts and it did take a while to get the parts. I was pretty frustrated with the lack of communication though. He's not the best at returning emails and it took about a month to actually get my stuff but, I did eventually receive the parts. What did you order from him? I know that he was waiting on supplies before he could cast more of what I needed.

This sounds a lot like the Autograph transkit and instructions we're dealing with except probably not quite as many parts. I know from Rich that the Lamborghini is so closed up a lot of the engine detail isn't going show unless you follow Roy's instructions for making the rear section removable; I know more work! lol ! I'm looking forward to seeing how your Lambo comes along. Good start!

Those brass shock pieces look very nice and they will be much stronger than the white metal parts. Looking back on the body preparation now that I've had some time with all the paint work, I think that stripping it down to bare metal might have been a mistake. When I color sand, I have been burning through the paint and primer layers quickly especially on the sharp edges like around the air intakes on the rear bonnet and doors. I probably should have just roughed up the paint from the factory paint and used it as the primer layer and painted over it. Now, I'm having to paint a lot of coats and build up the layers just so I have something left after sanding. On a model of this size that's a lot of paint!

OK, I'm ready to start building the main engine. I will also be doing a second engine as a display piece and, it just seems easier to build them at the same time. They won't be identical due to the available parts from the Autograph transkit but, there's quite a few nice details in the Scale Details engine. What, I decided to do here, is a side by side comparison between the Pocher kit parts, the Scale Details engine and the not quite complete engine that I obtained from Paul at Thunder Valley. The casting quality between the SD engine and TV engine is night and day. The SD engine's casting is really rough and the TV engine almost completely clean with little or no clean up required. The main difference between the engine kits is the casting and the amount of extra details included. The SD engine has all the goodies and hours upon hours of clean up required. The TV engine is very clean and straight but, it has no hardware like nuts, bolts, PE gaskets etc. The first two pictures are a layout of each engine and what is included: The Scale Details engine with lots of parts bags The Thunder Valley engine with more extra parts that weren't included in the SD engine but, no hardware. Notice the headers, intake manifolds and turbo piping; those weren't part of the SD engine. Now here's a lot of side by side parts comparison by component to illustrate the difference in casting quality. From top to bottom are the kit, TV and SD Left to right are the kit, SD and TV. On the SD piece I had already spent about an hour or more just to try and clean up the part and the TV part hasn't even been touched. From top to bottom are the kit, SD and TV. Here you can see that I really couldn't get the casting as clean as the TV came without being touched. Even the back of the parts you can see the difference in the quality This is about the only part where the difference is negligible but, still kinda bad on the bottom of the part on the left. Also the SD parts are made for the bolts to be drilled out so, the bolt heads don't matter. Kit part, SD, and TV parts TV part, SD part and kit parts I'm not sure why there are so many holes in the back of the SD part on the right. I'm goin to have to look at the real thing and see if I can figure that out. The bell housings are sort of close but, the TV one on the right is better quality The last time you guys saw the engine it was assembled but, the intake and upper cylinder heads are an almost perfect piece so, it's worth it to start over. The only problem with the engine parts from TV is that, he sold it to me at a nice discount because the engine wasn't complete. It's missing one side of the engine block and one of the outside cylinder pieces, oil pan and front timing cover. Those parts are all in pretty good shape from the SD engine so, I think just changing these pieces will result in a much better engine. You can see the engine half and head parts in these pictures. When I got to the cam timing covers I thought that the TV cover on one side was wrong until I compared them to the kit parts. SD parts on top and TV parts on the bottom. Notice the difference between the ones on the right side of the picture Here you can see the kit part in the middle is like the TV part on the right and the SD part looks completely different! I just wanted you guys to see what kind of difference there is between these after market metal engines before I start building one. As I look at the parts, my thinking is that, I'm going to use the TV cast parts all the hardware from SD and any upgrade parts in the Autograph transkit that aren't included with the SD engine. There should be enough goodies left over to add upgrades to the kit engine as the second engine. After looking these parts over, I've decided that there is just too much work to use the SD cast parts now for anything. Given the cost of that engine it's really a shame that the quality was so bad! I got an upgrade kit from SD for my Testarossa engine and it was great but, this one was awful by comparison. Oh well, live and learn. Next post should have some actual work done on the engine. I'm color sanding the body tomorrow and will probably be shooting another color coat or two but, until it's almost done I won't bore anyone with more paint pictures. Speaking of paint, Kerry, what color are you planning on painting yours?

When I started this thread it was always intended to be about building two Pocher F-40's with the Autograph transkits and how each of us progressed through the build while helping each other but, still building them slightly different from one another. When Kerry came along I figured why not make it three builds with the transkit? The transkit has literally thousands of parts and the instructions are not very clear in some areas and leave a lot open for interpretation. So the addition of another builder who is crazy enough to take this on is welcome. I think that this will help all of us to elevate our builds and get through them. As you can see by his pictures he is a skilled builder and he will provide some variety to keep it interesting and show areas of the build that are different from where I'm at and vice versa. So, I'd like to take a moment and welcome Kerry to the thread! Kerry, After looking at the pictures I see you have made quite a lot of progress on the interior and when I get there this will be a lot of help. I remember a while back that, you mentioned breaking the top of one of the shocks; did you ever get a response from Uli or did you repair it? I see that you have the rear shocks assembled and they look great. I ran into some problems with the paint chipping off the white metal when I was assembling the front shocks. I see that your rear shocks look very good and I'm wondering what you used to paint them? I guess that, now I need to get busy, no more excuses!

Kerry, I'd like to see some pictures of your progress and if you want any advice or help on something that I've already done, PM me or post here on the thread. I had a tough time getting the front control arms to line up correctly and I had to remove a lot more of the old frame than I anticipated; just to get the new PE and upper and lower arms to line up and keep the spindles straight. I also broke one of the top pieces of the shock absorber and I did get a replacement from Uli at Autograph but, it did take a while for him to respond and send the parts. You might have to contact him again and say that you are following up on your previous email. I also found that when assembling the front end with the shocks and everything it's a little tricky trying to keep everything together especially because the shocks and springs are loosely assembled and only are held together when the upper and lower arms are attached to the spindle. I expected that the shocks and springs would have been more of solid assembly and therefore a much easier assembly. There's a whole lot going on there in the front end and it all needs to be straight or it won't look right when the wheels and tires are on with the front bonnet. I did a lot of test fitting to make sure the the tires were tracking straight and positioned correctly in the wheel opening of the bonnet. I think that I managed to get some decent passes on the body color coats yesterday but, like I said before, I'm not going to bore you guys with more pictures of the paint work. I have been concentrating on getting the body paint finished before the weather turns cold because I've been doing a lot of it in my garage. I can do it in my spray booth but, it's easier in the garage where I can walk around the parts and see more of what I'm doing. Black is hard to tell if you are getting enough or too much paint on at any point during the spraying. You can probably see that, from some of the pictures I posted right after spraying where you can hardly find the parts in the pictures. It's like Codger told me last night; "I couldn't have done any worse if I had taken it outside at midnight and shoved it up a cow's behind and shot it without a flash". Hopefully, today I can get to some actual engine work. Anyway, circling back, Kerry if you have any pictures that you would like to share here on the thread, I'm sure everyone would like to see what you're doing. If you have any problems with posting pictures to the thread or don't want to, please PM me with some pictures and we can talk about any issues either of us are having.

I just stumbled across this build. As usual, this is some very ingenious and inventive work from you using all sorts of materials to scratch build components. Excellent work Pascal!

First up, this is for SJ and here is a picture of my "stock" F-40 that, I use for the occasional reference. Now, continuing on with some resin pieces and comparing the difference in rear wing with the stock version and the LM version side by side and very loosely mocked up on the rear bonnet. Stock wing: Difference in size: LM wing: Front splitter: Front radiator shroud air intake: With the main body on to get a better idea of what it's going to look like Here's some closeups of the resin parts to show how much needs to be filled with Bondo. First layer of Bondo: Today's body sanding and the resin first coat sanding with a primer coat to see what is still needed on the wing Still some work to do: The wing looks pretty good so, I'm going to shoot it in black and try some black carbon fiber decals to see how it looks on Monday. I will be painting all the black panels again on Monday and see how they come out. After painting the body, I'll be going back to the engine. I'll spread out each metal engine to show what comes with each and the do some side by side by side comparisons. This will be each metal engine part along with the kit engine. And, now that I have all the engine parts, I'll be concentrating back on the engine more for a while. I'll continue painting and color sanding the body until I get it perfect but, the pictures will be mostly centered on the engine and other areas unless the body gets finished and gets to the point that, I'm satisfied with the result or there's something worthwhile showing.

Thanks SJ, actually as it happens, I do have a "stock" version that is built up and is on a table close by in case I need to look at it for reference. I'll add a picture of it on the next post later today. I really want to get back on it this morning but, I have to do a brake job on the Expedition first. Must keep the wife happy before play time!

I have a number of different areas that, I'm working on so, I'll post by specific things here. The first is continuation of the body and paint. I have a number parts that are close to the final phase of paint and others that are getting started and of course the in between due to color sanding. The first pictures are the rear bonnet getting it's first color coat Next I had a bit of modification to the rear lower panel and it has it's first coat of paint with the PE on it. Since there was really nothing to add or modify on the main body it is the farthest along in paint at the moment. I decided to put the two sections together even though both are a ways from being finished they don't look too bad here. Now the doors and rocker panels are going through the initial color sanding here. Ready for paint Second color coats Mostly pretty smooth but, there's a few small specs of dust. I expect this and with each color sand everything will get smoother and eventually I will get enough paint built up that any sanding will be with higher grit sandpaper or a polish. Next up will be some LM parts mocked up. I am filling the air holes in the resin tonight with Bondo and I will sand them down tomorrow and probably do another pass with more filler. Some of the holes are fairly large so, they'll take more than one pass with the putty to fill the holes. Also, all three of the engines side by side for comparison in a separate post.

Thanks for the advice but, I think that the main problem with the resolution is the way that the pictures were taken in the first place. You can only do so much with a low resolution picture. Most of the pictures are at least 10-12 years old if not more. They are the same ones from when the transkit first came out and that, was before the high resolution digital cameras. I'll be okay and I'll figure out an easier way to view the pictures along with my own rewritten directions. On the upside, I have been painting and working on the various body panels. Each piece is in one stage or another of paint and moving along. Also, I received the first of the resin LM parts today and I will post some pictures of them right after I do some clean up and Bondo the air holes in the splitter and wing. I also received another metal engine that appears to be a much better casting than the SD engine and it has more components but, no bolts. Between the two I should have a pretty decent engine. Well, time to go sand and do some more paint now; pictures later tonight or tomorrow.

I have tried to manipulate the images on the instructions in order to enlarge them but, I haven't had much success. You can't pull an individual image out of the instructions and enlarge it. Each page has three pictures and if I try and enlarge or print it I still get three pictures. I can enlarge a section of an individual picture on the computer monitor and try and see a little better but, the picture quality starts to get fuzzy if I blow it up too much. I probably need to try and import the instructions into another program to change it from a pdf. to something else. But, I don't think that I can. The one thing that, I have done is rewrite all the instructions step by step for myself so, that it makes more sense. Even with them rewritten I still only have the small pictures in my hand.

Paul, I wish you all the best and a speedy recovery!