Bandsaw Steve

July 8

What an absolute ripper!

June 24

See if you can find a local print shop that does lithographic printing. Thin Aluminium sheet is a waste product. They might sell it to you for very little.
it’s extremely useful in model building

June 19

What fantastic-looking aircraft these were.
👍

June 10

That’s looking fantastic!

June 10

4 hours ago, Marklo said:

Everything I do I’ve learned from reading @Bandsaw Steve s many build threads.

Cripes!
Imagine what we could achieve if I knew something!

June 1

I seem to recall a story I once read about some bubble-too P-47s posing as ‘Yaks’ in a film about the Berlin airlift.
Perhaps this might prompt some more details from someone more familiar with the matter.

May 28

This is an absolute winner! Might just be my favourite BM model for 2025! ❤️

May 22

Sensational work.
Cars like this one are extremely challenging subjects and you have really excelled with this one.

May 20

Great job.
An attractive aircraft type in a lovely colour-scheme.

May 19

Is there going to be a poll on this one?
I want to vote for ‘Alliance Airlines’ 😀

May 16

Hello my fellow ANZAC enthusiasts,

Unfortunately my earlier stated intention of scratch-building a RAN S2 Tracker as part of this GB is no longer possible. Between work and travel commitments I don’t have sufficient time to tackle this project in this group build. I will however be building one at some point, so if you are interested, keep your eyes peeled on the aviation WIP pages.
Although I can’t be an active participant in this group build I remain very interested in it and will be checking in very frequently.

Best Regards,

Bandsaw Steve

May 11

Great looking model!
Fantastic colour-scheme

May 6

Back when this group m-build was first mooted I chipped in with support saying I had the ‘perfect’ subject for ‘Give Peace a Chance’.
As it happens that ‘perfect’ subject was not the one I built as I was not referring to the Ferrari 500 but something much more peaceful than a screaming racing car from the 1950s.
All of which is to say; if there is a repeat of this group build then I have a subject ready to go! 👍

May 3

Lessons Learned

Building models is a hobby that invites continuous learning. You can spend a lifetime building models and still learn something each time.

When I wrap up a project I generally put a few bullet points regarding what I have learned in the RFI post. In this case I can't, because the RFI is in the gallery, so I will put them here instead.

Here are the main things that I have learned from building this Ferrari:

It takes far more hours of work to build a model than I thought. To finish this project (excluding the display base) took about 2.5x more hours than my initial estimate.
I have no actual method to estimate how many hours a project might take. 'Just guessing' and 'using gut feel' completely failed in this case. This might be something I should work on because I seem to take on more projects than I should.
The 'spine and ribs' construction method that I used here was highly successful and proved very practical. Sooner or later I should use this method on an aircraft fuselage.
MDF (medium density fibreboard) is an exceptionally useful model-building material and I will use it more extensively in future.
It is possible to cut very even, clean, convincing panel lines in MDF. These are much better than I have managed in any type of natural wood.
Aluminum sheet (in this case 2.2mm thick) is an extremely useful scratchbuilding material that can be shaped very precisely without any specialist tools to create robust model components. I will be using this material much more in the future.
Britmodellers are very forgiving folks when it comes to issues of 'accuracy'. I have taken a few short-cuts in this project; I did not spoke the wheels, I put 'racy but incorrect' diagonal grid in the air-scoop and gave this car a tank's hatch for a fuel cap and no-one here seems to have batted an eyelid! This shows a very sensible attitude to thorny issue of 'accuracy'. Accuracy matters greatly to some people and less to others, It's good to accept that variety.

Finally, thanks very much to @bianfuxia for coming up with the concept of this group-build and for hosting it with such competence and enthusiasm.

Best Regards,

Bandsaw Steve.

May 2

Occasionally while delving around in the ‘very long time ago’ section of BM I find something extraordinary.

When that happens I sometimes give the thread a ‘bump’ to the top of the pile.

I consider it a community service. 🤣

May 1

2 hours ago, bianfuxia said:

Superlative work. Just oustanding. Thank you for participating so enthusiastically! And good luck at WASEx!

Good luck with W.A. SEx! 😜

I should be so lucky! 🤣

May 1

Thanks Jeff, I’m looking forward to catching up!
👍

April 30

Ferrari 500 - 1/12 Scale - Scratchbuilt

After 159 hours and 15 minutes work (not counting approximately 20 hours working in the base) I present my 1/12 scale scratchbuilt Ferrari 500.

This is made mostly from MDF but with significant amounts of plastic, aluminium and brass. The wheels are scavenged off a second-hand toy.

Cars are a new subject for me so I chose a relatively straightforward example. This proved wise because the project still absorbed nearly three times more hours than I initially estimated.

I think it looks good in its Italian red finish and hope you enjoy viewing it. It was a fun project and I thank everyone who showed an interest along the way.

Bandsaw Steve

April 30

Finished! 🏁

OK folks - this is the final substantive post in this thread.

This finishes with the 'big reveal'.

Here's where we finished up at the end of the previous post. Here the road is grey and the pavement is grey and, well, it's all a bit grey.

Let's add some colour. I want the road to look like pale limestone paving stones. Let's start by airbrushing some irregular pale acrylic paint over the stones.

The polyfilla I used at the end of the previous post essentially obliterated the shape of each individual paving stone, so using a nice sharp pencil I have re-instated the visible edges of each block. I've also changed the colour of the square paving stones along the edge of the road.

Now paint in a few paving stones to re-instate some contrast and some edge definition to the blocks.

Add some nicely manicured grass...

but add some longer grass along the less well maintained grass edge.

Use a white coloured-pencil to colour the mortar between each of the large blocks on the edge of the road.

The frame I purchased was a pale pinkish shade and it looks wrong in this context. I sprayed the frame appliance-white from a rattle-can.

The frame now looks much better in my view. I've painted the manhole cover and the drain cover as well, they stand-out a little bit less now.

My mate who's keen on car modelling has provided me with some Ferrari decals...

which went on beautifully.

Meanwhile I drafted up a rough concept of the plaque and provided it to a trophy shop who made a great interpretation of this and had it to me in less than two days.

Here is the final moment in this project. Sticking the plaque on the frame is the very last step, and so... drum roll....

FINISHED! 🏁

I think this looks good. I hope you do too!

The decals add a great deal to the final product.

Here's a view of the cockpit...

and a satellite image!

If you think that the red, white and green colour-scheme is reminiscent of an Italian flag you may have spotted the intentional colour-design that I had in mind.

OK - that's it. I finished something! 🙂

Furthermore I really like this one. I think it looks good and I'm looking forward to putting this on the shelves at WASMEx (West Australian Scale Modelling Exposition) 2025.

Thanks very much to everyone who has followed along, I hope you have all enjoyed this. I'll have this one in the group build gallery soon.

Best Regards,

Bandsaw Steve

April 26

6 minutes ago, bianfuxia said:

It's like your brain is going to explode with creativity unless you keep adding to this build! If I'd made that car I'd mount it on a gold plinth and retire happy in the knowledge that I'd never achieve anything remotely like it again...but you have a quick "I'm quite happy with this" followed by "but I can do more!" 😂

Such an amazing and inspiring project - can't wait to see what's next!

Gosh!

Blushing now! 🤗

April 26

The Base (Part 1)

These days I always build a base for my models. The only exception is when a model is depicted in flight in which case it gets a stand, which - in a sense - is a base.

There are four reasons I like bases:

I think models generally look better if they are presented either in their 'natural setting' or on some sort of formal plinth.
A base of any description allows a plaque to be added that identifies the subject.
A base creates a sort of 'edge to the universe' in which the model resides. It therefore makes it much easier to present models at different scales together. In my view a collection of disparately scaled models looks much less jarring if each is on its own base.
Building them is fun because the builder is generally a bit more 'free' to be artistic than when trying to build a subject accurately off a blueprint.

So let’s make a base. I'm not an expert diorama builder but, here goes...

Generally I start by going to a local opportunity-shop and purchasing a suitable frame. This one cost $5.00 Australian.

I was torn between making a somewhat 'rough and ready' environment, something with oil stains and torn advertising posters OR a somewhat idealized Mediterranean / European looking street scene.

In the end I was influenced by my wife who often asks things like 'why do you never build something that Audrey Hepburn would own?' Well, Audrey probably never owned a Ferrari 500 but she did hang out in some nice European spots. So this base will be 'tidy' and will try to evoke a little bit of the glamourous 1950's.

With that decision made I dreamt up a very simple design. Our friends who build dioramas always say you should 'use the diagonals' so everything on this base will be orientated at about 30 degrees from the long axis of the picture frame. Here's the base-line diagonal. This will become a row of limestone blocks that will divide the road from a manicured lawn. The base is MDF and the limestone blocks are wooden cubes from the craft section in a $2 shop. I'm roughly slathering polyfilla in between each one to simulate mortar. The hole in the foreground is for a drain.

Old European cobblestone roads are often made up of a mish-mash of materials and block shapes and sizes depending on the history of the road. The edge of this one will be made up of square cobblestones running parallel to the curb. This is made from a strip of paulonia wood with slots cut into it with a triangular file. The main road will have diagonally laid blocks in a herringbone pattern. I think having two sets of cobblestones like this will add visual 'texture' without distracting from the car.

If you ever have a go at making cobblestone roads I strongly recommend you think about it much more carefully than I did because, although this work came out OK in the end, I definitely did it the hard way. If you work out all the geometry and accurately mark-up everything first it will go much smoother.

Typically roads have access covers in them and - especially in some older European streets - they can be quite ornate. This one is made from a steel washer with a circular lithoplate disk stuck on it and some beading domes.

Roads must have drains, otherwise they go soggy...

This little mitre-cutting tool is very useful for repetitive cutting of plastic strips.

Just stick the plastic together with tamiya cement and fit the cover into the previously cut drain hole.

Arrange the cobblestones around the access-cover, which I have now primed oxide-red.

The cobblestones take time. Keep going and keep experimenting...

until you finally work out how it shoud be done with only about 10% remaining! :angry:

I then decided that to fill in most of the gaps between the cobblestones with polyfilla. The idea was that the pollyfilla woud be soft and would not quite fill up to flush edge of the stones and would look like sand between each cobblestone.

That was a bad idea!

It turns out that polyfilla actually FILLS gaps! 😨

This meant that in about 5 minutes I obliterated almost all of the herringbone texture. This surface was now as smooth as smooth, and the moment any paint goes on it will look like poured concrete.

I could leave it at this but am hoping for a limestone and arenite colour-scheme, not basalt. A red Ferrari will not look at its best against a bland grey background.

I will leave you hanging in trepidation to see what happens next...

All going well, there should be just one more post until this thing is in the gallery. Wish me luck.

See you all soon,

Bandsaw Steve.

April 25

I will be interested to see what comes of this! 👍

April 24

3 hours ago, Stick said:

Leather straps and rivets, what more could you ask for.

Proper spoked wheels would have been nice! 🤔

But as I said at the start. I was determined to get this thing finished in the allocated time so I willfully took that shortcut. Next time I’ll do them.
Promise.

April 24

Great subject!
Yet more memories from my mis-spent youth!

April 23

1 minute ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Will we be seeing her at WASMEx?

Regards, Jeff.

Absolutely yes.
The ‘Showcase Challenge’ theme at WASMEx is ‘Racing Cars’ and this will be in the race! 🏁

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