Jump to content

Part 2 Fiat Mefistofeles 1/12 Italeri


Recommended Posts

Happy New Year 2018 to everyone on this good old Britmodeller forum: wishing you health and success to you all and to enjoy our hobby as much as possible.

 

Due to the crash of my Photobucket account, Part1 is now rendered useless and so i have started this new thread.

 

As for the lost pictures on Part 1, after i finish my build, i will create a summary for Part 1; build & photos, and create a link here.

 

Meanwhile, back at my bench, here is my interpretation of the right side of the famous 6 cylinder Fiat Engine, attempt at detailing as those who built this car can see, mostly metal additions, lots of plastic cut and removed, some brass welding, lots of eye drops consumed and lots of time and frustration believe me ! ...a nut case's nut job really :mellow:

 

i have tried to take it further than what i have seen, and there are already amazing and very beautiful reproductions already (i.e "Maysula's" Black Mefistofeles, and specially amazing Peter Buckingham's black Mefistofeles IPMS prized, taking some inspiration from the Fiat Botofogo engine and of course Hannes's very neat and beautiful red Protar Mefistofeles.

So in this continuation, i hope the next modellers will take the detailing of this engine further. It is not difficult, just very time consuming.

 

Technical : This is a FIAT aeroplane engine, 6-cylinder, 21.7 litre (21706 cc) Fiat A.12 producing 320 PS (235 kW; 316 bhp) built between 1916 and 1919.

 

This photo is raw and of course, neither photoshopped nor touched in anyway (in my nut-case mind it would not be scale modelling to photoshop it, apologies for those who do)

 

Sharknose Britmodeller Fiat Mefisto Engine 1

flash on this one :

Sharknose Britmodeller Fiat Mefisto Engine 2

 

this one above with flash

 

 

when i have finished the other side ( soon, only some paint jobs and final assembly required ) i will publish more detailed photos of the engine.

 

Alternating my work between the engine and the body, for those who remember in Part 1, i am trying to reproduce the car with many red color filters, irregular and faded varnish and heavy battering and scratches on the body, as is the real car currently exposed in Turino.

 

So more to follow and thank you for watching, happy new year 2018

 

Sam

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Like 10
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Thank you Kp @kpnuts and Nick  @NickD, still a long way to go, but at least "am back in the rythm" and it feels good !

 

The real car is full of scratches and weathering, so in fact i have no choice but to mess it a bit if i want to bring some realism as was my goal from day 1.

 

Both of you know this car very well, and worked very hard on it as well and with great results.  What do you think if i skip the 'FIAT' writing on the car and leave it red and weathered ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@sharknose156 - really pleased to see the progress. Mine is still progressing slowly. Certainly you could say I know the car quite well but not enough to be called an expert. On the lettering, do we know when it was added? Summarising what I understand our options to be:

 

1) No letters - no one will be able to criticise because it's plausible. It might not be very interesting though

2) Big faded letters - washed out, frayed and dirty might be nicely in period with the used look of the rest of the car

3) Brighter letters - cracked and yellowed like a worn version of the current letters might look OK.

 

If no one has any photos - how can you be wrong. My personal favourite would be (2)

 

Keep up the good work.


Nick

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dear Nick,

 

Yes i am also leaning towards 2 and doing some test on the lettering and crackling.

 

Right now i am working on reproducing the exhaust manifold.

If one looks closely it is not as grey as it seems ! Am having fun but it is a lot of work.

will probably publish on the week end.

 

Cheers and i hope you go back to your Mef and progress...what a fascinating car.

Sam

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Dear Sam , I just realised that you opened a new thread , sorry I didn´t notice earlier  . Great progress !  Now your thread is on my favorite list , you can count on me of course ! One important issue : The rear dampers are situated vice versa in reality  , this means the two blades are on top , not the three blades .

Please don´t hesitate to ask everything you want , now I am aboard !  Many greetings !  Hannes

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dear Hannes,   Thank you very much !  

 

Your help is very important and much appreciated.

 

Yes thank you for your eagle eye. Indeed i need to redo the rear dampers and the handles are broken as well. Even the suspensions positions are not correct and need fine tune adjustments. I did not touch the chassis for a year now.

 

Right now i am working on the rear body work, applying the last layer of varnish over the oil filters, install the wood flooring and aluminium dashboard. This will allow me to permanently fix in place the wooden firewall and be able to complete the engine tubing and steel rods linking the engine, pedals, steering etc. 

 

I have ordered some pieces from Knupfer. Like hollow rivets for body work lower front side. 

 

Roy sent me some amazing tooling to try and reproduce the aluminium dash board, eroded and with remains of 'square' bouchonnage. I will post this week.

 

fiat-mefistofele-3

 

 

 

Thank you for you feedback on the drive chains. I will try with a low temp soldier iron as you recommend.

 

Keep well and look forward to see your progress on the 806 !

 

Sam

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Knupfer is the right adress if you want to improve your Mef . One example : The tubes of the exhaust system of my model are made out of 7 mm diameter brass tubes . This size cannot get bought in a construction market . I spent some hundreds of Euros for bolts , nuts ( 1,4 and 0,8 mm ) thread rods , small tubes and sheets ( alu , brass ) rivets ,   tools and so on at the Knupfer shop and was very happy with the result . I also sent some pics of my Mef to the Knupfer factory and Dieter Knupfer called me and expressed his gratitude . A very kind man !  Regarding the drive chains : Somewhere I saw chains for train and locomotive modellers but I can´t remember where . Maybe this could be an alternative !     Many greetings !  Hannes

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dear Hannes

 

The hundreds of metal nuts and bolts and rivets used to date on this engine and bodywork above are mainly from prime-miniatures.

They make a fantastic set of metallic nuts and bolts and i recommend them highly.

i just placed a small test order at Knupfer and i am sure they deliver great quality. 

 

The engine you see above took a good 12 months to modify and bring as close as my limited level allows to the real version.

Two plastic kit engines from Italeri were used to introduce 10 major modifications on the basic engine. 30 % is scratched from metal.

I will list this by name in the final wip recap. 

 

It is not difficult but time consuming. I hope the next Mef. modeller will go further. 

 

best,

Sam

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dear Sam , a recommendation for the wrapping of the leaf springs : You surely know the brownish duct tape for parcels . If you cut about 2 mm wide strips from that tape and wrap it around the leaf springs first before wrapping it with thin polyester strings  you will avoid the black color shining through and get a better result .It´s better than painting the leaf springs with a brown color at the required places because this construction allows you to remove tape and strings if the result is not good .

If you use very tiny  drops of super-glue you can fixate these strings at the downside of the leaf springs . . After the wrapping looks convincing , you should soak the string construction with liquid clear color . This way the strings will glue together and you will get a  firm connection .

Many greetings !  Hannes

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dear Hannes

 

Thank you, am very happy with my leaf springs the way they are, i don t know if you saw, but i wrapped them and done with thank you. i don t think polyester would have been better. i used real material ! thank you

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sam, a treat to see you resurrect this build for us with good photos. Superb work and I especially like your philosophy as to age and condition. It is much as I would build one.

 

You are also blessed with the many fine examples you named as those builders did superb work too and each with a slightly different view on this historic monster. Their advice and inspiration are most valuable to you and any contemplating a build of this. It's wonderful that the model lends itself so well to interpretation in several different but also accurate ways.

 

Carry on and it's a delight to follow along !  :worthy:

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

there's quite a bit of chain drive information here:  www.7-8ths.info/index.php?topic=16686893.msg103712#msg103712

 

but you may have to join to access.

 

* link doesn't seem clickable so maybe break it apart???

Edited by s.e.charles
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dear Codger @Codger   You honour me and thank you for your comments, too kind. :worthy:

 

indeed this car can have many different and equally beautiful interpretations and 'endless' options for scale modelling :o 

just received 'holed' rivets 0.6mm in copper and can'y wait to finish the chassis with this beautiful detail  - reference from Hannes and Propeller for Knupfer of Germany.

also, they trust you across borders and send you the bill by post - good to know there are still trusty people around !

 

by the way, am sure you are scratching for a project and since your are nostalgic about Phil Hill ( We both had a mutual friend, very close to both, and i miss both.... ~They must be doing doughnuts in the clouds and at the same time treating their delicate cars so smoothly... )

so i dare propose : why not consider building the MHF sharknose ? :ignore:

 

 

Dear Southpier @southpier

 

Thank you for the ref.  i just signed up and got approved. Will start investigating this week end. Many thanks 

 

 

Dear Hannes @Hannes and Propeller @PROPELLER

Knupfer great indeed ! thank you for the reference ! can't wait to have free time this week end and mount the remaining rivets on the body.

 

will post pics soon this week end

 

Thank you to Roy @Roy vd M. for sending me the soft tip tooling for the dashboard 'Perlage' jewelry watchmaking quality !

after some attempts i will post some results this week end.

 

cheers to all

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

ok so a little progress on the dashboard...

 

as mentioned before i would like to reproduce the faded 'perlage' (or some seem to call it bouchonnage) you see above on the picture of the real dashboard.

 

i tried several techniques, and all failed except one.

For sure my solution is not ideal: i am using a rubber tip for a proxxon drill, used for polishing, but i leave you to judge what i deem to be sufficient, since i will anyway scrub it hard with some mesh paper to fade it !...

 

 

L1030986

 

using the proxxon blue tip polisher a the  lowest speed of the drill and lightest pressure for one second only no more.

the key is consistency in repetition !

 

L1030990

 

making sure i pearl enough cm2 to replace the kit's dashboard.

 

 

L1040002

 

this will be rubbed with a mesh to fade it and even erase it totally in some places... ! after all this trouble... 

 

 

 

 

L1040010

here the pearlage is done by hand.

I used one of Roy's tooling - the softest and smallest tip - and resolved in the end to place it in a vise because it did not handle well in the drill. So i used the vise and twirled it by hand on the alu sheet.  

 

The result is what you see above...i found it was not consistent because i could not see where i was exactly placing the tool tip before turning. So i reverted to the blue rubber tip of Proxxon and used the absolute minimum speed and pressure on my fixed drill.

 

what i learned is the following:

 

the X and Y axes spacings on the proxxon bench can be adjusted for each row and column and will reproduce the size of the 'pearls' one chooses.  This is one parameter only and two others are the degree of pressure from the rubber tip and the size of the tip obviously as as well.

 

i chose to move the drill / polish tip 1.00 mm for X and 1.00 mm for Y. 

i did not move the drill to be slighhtly off for every new row as compared to the raw below.

this seems to be the secret in obtaining the little squares on the faded dashboard of the real car. 

 

usually Perlage seems to be a little off for each row as compared to the row below or above,

dictated only by the sophistication of the aesthetics one is looking for i suppose. 

 

the little squares on the Mefisto picture are obtained by having parallel rows and not off rows each time i moved 1 row.

 

i will post more when i finish the dashboard. But until then here are some facts i gathered and which gave me the conclusions above:

so for every and any one wanting to try 'perlage', it is not difficult. 

Here i use a manual proxxon double axes moving table, x and y table, with manual wheels for determininng the row spacing and the pearls spacing.

the fixed drill above is equipped with a soft rubber tip used for polishing.

 

Roy @Roy vd M. sent me some amazing tooling tips. After several experiences, i concluded i was not able to control the pressure or the tip movement accurately and producing systematic rows with the tools i have. So i only got erratic results. 

This is certainly due to my ignorance on how to use these tips of different hardness and diameters. So i fell back on my technique. 

 

in any case Thank you dear Roy ! i will write you a private message tomorrow on this.

 

 

more to follow cheers !

 

Sam

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You're breaking new ground here Sam, thanks for sharing. Difficult but rewarding work.

 

I'm afraid MFH kits are beyond my current skill envelope but there are many excellent builds going on with them just now.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dear Codger, 

i think building an MFH would be a 'walk in the park' for your master builder skills and creativity...

You deserve a break with such an 'easier' build specially after completing your legendary Pocher Opus. 

 

 

8 hours ago, Codger said:

You're breaking new ground

Actually, it is the gentlemen on this forum who have shown me the way and i luckily stumbled upon this soft tip by trial and error.

then for fixing the spaces, this is what helped me : Good people on youtube who take the time to post: 

 

 

It is not difficult really, just time consuming once the fundamental parameters are set:

just like adjusting the gear ratios on your cobra gearbox according to the circuit :)

 

come on C ... are you not itching for a new build ?...  (what happens when you look at your Ford GT 40  1/12 ? :footy:)

 

 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dear Sam , these detailling works are very impressive and will be useful for us in the future . 

Regarding the Mef  I recommend to solve the major problems first . Like the 806 this kit needs a general plan if you want to improve it in a better way compared with a lot of other modellers . This means : Fundamental works first , detailling works and painting later imho .

And there are a lot of fundamental problems !

The standard Italeri   model sits too high at it´s front and must get lowered .

The 4 frontal dampers are too low at their tops  and need new fixation points .

The gaps between the bodywork and the bonnets must get closed before painting .

The frontal and the rear cross-beam must get replaced by a thread rod - small tube construction .

The 2 bodywork parts  below the chassis rails should become an unity to avoid an ugly gap .

The exhaust system of the kit is completely wrong and needs to get constructed  partial from scratch and adapted  to bonnets and bodywork .

I highly recommend to assemble the important parts of the car first , secured by screws ,  If everything fits , you can start to paint and assemble the whole construction after disassembling.

The points above are only a few of many others . Rivets , steering sytem , grille and radiator case , seat , small scratchbuilds and so on demand a strategic proceeding .

Of course not everything is correct regarding my own model and I would do some things different today .

But I guess my planning was OK and that ´s why I offer my support , my dear modeller friend Sam .   Hannes

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, sharknose156 said:

ok so a little progress on the dashboard...

 

as mentioned before i would like to reproduce the faded 'perlage' (or some seem to call it bouchonnage) you see above on the picture of the real dashboard.

 

i tried several techniques, and all failed except one.

For sure my solution is not ideal: i am using a rubber tip for a proxxon drill, used for polishing, but i leave you to judge what i deem to be sufficient, since i will anyway scrub it hard with some mesh paper to fade it !...

 

 

L1030986

 

using the proxxon blue tip polisher a the  lowest speed of the drill and lightest pressure for one second only no more.

the key is consistency in repetition !

 

L1030990

 

making sure i pearl enough cm2 to replace the kit's dashboard.

 

 

L1040002

 

this will be rubbed with a mesh to fade it and even erase it totally in some places... ! after all this trouble... 

 

 

 

 

L1040010

here the pearlage is done by hand.

I used one of Roy's tooling - the softest and smallest tip - and resolved in the end to place it in a vise because it did not handle well in the drill. So i used the vise and twirled it by hand on the alu sheet.  

 

The result is what you see above...i found it was not consistent because i could not see where i was exactly placing the tool tip before turning. So i reverted to the blue rubber tip of Proxxon and used the absolute minimum speed and pressure on my fixed drill.

 

what i learned is the following:

 

the X and Y axes spacings on the proxxon bench can be adjusted for each row and column and will reproduce the size of the 'pearls' one chooses.  This is one parameter only and two others are the degree of pressure from the rubber tip and the size of the tip obviously as as well.

 

i chose to move the drill / polish tip 1.00 mm for X and 1.00 mm for Y. 

i did not move the drill to be slighhtly off for every new row as compared to the raw below.

this seems to be the secret in obtaining the little squares on the faded dashboard of the real car. 

 

usually Perlage seems to be a little off for each row as compared to the row below or above,

dictated only by the sophistication of the aesthetics one is looking for i suppose. 

 

the little squares on the Mefisto picture are obtained by having parallel rows and not off rows each time i moved 1 row.

 

i will post more when i finish the dashboard. But until then here are some facts i gathered and which gave me the conclusions above:

so for every and any one wanting to try 'perlage', it is not difficult. 

Here i use a manual proxxon double axes moving table, x and y table, with manual wheels for determininng the row spacing and the pearls spacing.

the fixed drill above is equipped with a soft rubber tip used for polishing.

 

Roy @Roy vd M. sent me some amazing tooling tips. After several experiences, i concluded i was not able to control the pressure or the tip movement accurately and producing systematic rows with the tools i have. So i only got erratic results. 

This is certainly due to my ignorance on how to use these tips of different hardness and diameters. So i fell back on my technique. 

 

in any case Thank you dear Roy ! i will write you a private message tomorrow on this.

 

 

more to follow cheers !

 

Sam

Excellent, informative, and helpful post.  Thank you!

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...