Alan R

Hi All, As part of my bulk-upload of build updates, here is the current state of the 246. As with the Ferrari 348, I have given the engine a wash with the same thinned brown/black mix to enhance the details on the engine. I have also added the exhaust manifolds. The fit was appalling! I need to do some remedial work there. That may happen today, I'm not sure... Anyway, here are the pictures: Don't look too closely at where the exhaust manifolds 'meet' the cylinder heads, because they don't! I think a very careful insertion of milliput is required here... Thanks for looking, Alan.

Hi All, Some progress. I have managed to do some work on the engine. I decided that a wash to bring out the details was required. I mixed up a bit of dark brown Humbrol enamel and a bit of matt black Humbrol enamel (about 5 parts dark brown and one part black), 'watered' it down with about 5 times as much enamel thinners, and liberally washed over the various parts of the engine. It seems to have worked, as it both 'popped' out the detail and gave the engine a slightly 'used' appearance. Anyway, here are the pictures: All I need to do now is get the floor-pan and suspension worked on, so I can fit the engine. Then I think, progress will be a bit faster. Thanks for looking, Alan.

Hi All. It's been a bit of a while since I last updated this thread, so I'm doing a 'bulk' update on this and another couple of builds I have been working on. Life has got a bit busy lately and I haven't been able to get to my work-bench or the computer due to other commitments. So, here we are with the Porsche. I decided that I was never going to get the paint finish I wanted, so I dropped the body into a bath of caustic-soda, as I mentioned in previous post, and this is the outcome: Apart from some minor staining all of the old paint has been removed. Next stage, re-priming followed by the colour coats. Thanks for looking, Alan.

On the M25 yesterday around Reigate way. A Volvo 240 estate. In beige/cream. No pictures as I was driving. Cheers, Alan.

I love that. A friend of mine had a similar vintage Sunbeam Rapier. He inherited it from his dad... Cheers, Alan.

This kit is on my radar. I'd like to detail it up a bit as well... I love bonkers bikes! 200+ BHP and track only. I thought only Ferrari did that! Cheers, Alan.

Hi Mumbly, The caustic-soda did the trick. Apart from a small amount of surface staining, it all came off completely. A quick gentle sand with fine grade wet 'n' dry, and the shell is white again. Cheers, Alan.

Hi Ron, Thanks for the advice. My plan is to prime the shell with ZP grey primer first. That should protect the shell and show any more flaws in the finish. Then I will spray a pink layer over the top, followed by the red top-coat. Cheers, Alan

Hi All, I have decided to re-start this. I have plunged the body into my usual caustic-soda bath to remove the many layers of 'incompatible' paints, and to hopefully re-prime the shell and start all over again. I'm not sure what will happen, I have had mixed results with Tamiya acrylics and caustic-soda. Only time will tell. Cheers, Alan.

Hi Maximum Warp, I have taken a look at the Porsche paintwork and agree. No amount of red was going to hide the grey bands. So, I decided to remove the grey and... I removed all the areas with grey underneath, as best as I could. I then painted on some more of the red: This is the result. To be honest, I'm not happy that any further coats of the red will hide the blotches! I think that the best approach, despite the time and cost, is to strip the whole body back to the plastic and start again. 1. Prime with a pink primer 2. Re-coat with the red over the uniform pink coat. It's a bit of a pain, but I think that I wouldn't be happy with the result. Thanks for looking, Alan.

A Series 1 E-Type drop-top would be nice, Mr. Tamiya...

Hi Ian, Sad news indeed. There are always cars that we regretted getting rid of. I regretted selling my Alfasud and wished I had kept it much longer. I had a real soft spot for my Fiesta XR2 Mk2, and recently I was sad to sell my '03 plate SAAB 9-3. Mechanically still sweet after 202,000 miles, but the electronics ... Cheers, Alan.

Hi Ian, That is really good! It's really nice to have a replica of your own car! I'm not sure that there is a 1:24th scale 2012 Focus Diesel estate model... Cheers, Alan.

Finally, photobucket let me up-load and display! This is what the postie delivered the other day: After I built a FIAT 500 for my daughter, I thought 'Why not get one for myself?'. Here it is. And I am waiting for the opportunity to try this out... I have a few vehicles with 'chrome' parts. Let's see what it's like. Cheers, Alan.

More XF-7 arrived from Hiroboy! 'Red'-y for painting...

Not so much a spot of the day, but a round-up of the week! A funny little open top, I think it was a post GTE scimitar, long after Reliant went belly up... Any number of Aston DB7's & DB9's (almost as common as Porsches these days...) A funny little kit car with a deux-chevaux engine and single rear wheel, in the office car park. It was so small, the driver looked as if he was sitting on it, not in it... And finally, just outside Castle-Coombe race track, a Jaguar C-type replica! Drop-dead gorgeous 'twas... Cheers, Alan.

Hi Ian, That is truly superb! I hope some of mine go as well as that! Cheers, Alan.

Hi Roger, A lot more red paint is needed, just to cover the grey. Since I took the pictures, I have sprayed more red on it, but probably need as much again! I fear a trip to Hobbycraft... Cheers, Alan.

Hi Shaun, That is a stunning car. The colour is a real match to the car. Those wheels look really good with the chrome stripped off and repainted. I see one of these in my future stash... Cheers, Alan.

Thanks Shaun. The rig is something I put together using various lengths of sprue. I thought that I could do with a better rig than I had before, which was a long piece of 30 Amp earth core bent roughly into shape. The biggest thing was finding suitably long enough bits of sprue, then removing all the junction points so that the rod was smooth. After all, being the 'perfectionist' (Read anally retentive...) that I am, I want it to look right as well as function well. It went through several iterations to get where it is in these pictures. I have a feeling I could do with another couple of these. A pair of smaller trestles could be quite useful. I think. Cheers, Alan.

Hello All, Another update. Having decided that the body shell needed a bit of re-painting, see last post. I needed a lot of red. I wasn't confident that I could paint the shell with Humbrol Hu19 acrylic as the thinners that I have previously used didn't give me a good finish, and it clogs up the air-brush! So, I thought I would use Tamiya X7 red. However, I realised quickly that I didn't have any. What I did have though was three pots of XF-7 and some X22 clear gloss. So, my reasoning was, paint it matt and gloss over it when fully cured. This is not dissimilar to using Zero Paints base coat and ZP clear lacquer. So, that's what I have done. I thinned the XF7 with Mr Levelling thinner and sprayed it on the body shell. The two reds are very similar in shade and I don't think that the difference between the body and the floor pan will be noticeable.. Only time will tell. So here are the pictures: As you can see, the grey primer hasn't quite disappeared, and I believe that I will have to put many more coats on before it disappears completely. I think that I will need more red... Thanks for looking, Alan.

Hello All, I have decided to do this in smaller bites. This stage which will be more than one post, even though the updates are coming thick and fast (ish!). I'm calling this stage - 'Rescue and Paint'. But of a mouthful, but I hope you will see what I mean as I go along... Remember that I had said that the paint finish was near flawless. Well that wasn't quite what I said, but the paint finish was very good. When I took a closer look at the body shell, I notice a serious omission on my part. I hadn't sanded out the seam-lines. Now, in my defence, I had started this some years ago, and was less critical of such things. Sometimes I did scrape/sand out mould lines, sometimes I didn't. This one was originally just going to be a quick build, so I wasn't so bothered, I think. Anyway, they were a glaring 'eye-sore' to me when I started again the other day! These pictures show what I mean, I hope... I have out-lined the areas on the body shell where the seam-lines are rather obvious. It's perhaps not so obvious on these 600 x 400 images, but they are very definitely there and they bother me now, where previously they wouldn't have. You can just see them here, I think. Some people might dismiss them, but I can't now I know they are there. I think that I would have been even more disappointed had I left them until I had finished it. Again, it's there, but these pictures don't do the lines justice! Anyway, out came my various grades of wet-n-dry, 240, 600, 1200 grit, and this is the result... Having sanded the seam lines out, I needed to check that they were truly gone. Previously, I have carefully painted grey primer with a hairy stick, and of course, you end up with brush marks. I thought that I would try my latest purchase. Mr Levelling thinner. It only works with some acrylics, namely Mr Color and Tamiya acrylics. These use a lacquer carrier for the acrylic pigment, rather than a more aqueous carrier. At least that's what I have been led to believe. Anyway, if you try using it with Citadel paints, you get a sludge, which is no use to anyone! It seems a bit better with Humbrol acrylics, but you get a grainy result. With Tamiya, you get a great result, and when sprayed, it really does level. So, I mixed some Tamiya grey with the levelling thinner, and carefully hand painted over the affected areas, thus: So, it may not be obvious here, but the brush-marks were just not there. Once I had left the paint to cure for about 3 to 4 hours, all I needed to do was lightly sand with 1200 grit w&d to remove the edges. Next stage, starting to re-paint the red... Thanks for looking, Alan.

I wouldn't be surprised. 911s were always 'interesting' with less than 200 BHP. A friend of mine had a 1972 911. 2.4 litres, I think. And he said that it could be a handful in the wet. This was reputed to produce 480 BHP. I image that was a handful in the dry! Cheers, Alan. P.S. More updates on the way, as I am running between here and the work-shop working on it, and other models.

Hello All, Another one rescued from the dungeon of despondency! I bought this little beastie a long while back, probably over 25 years ago, and it languished it its box for a long time. Again, it was one that I got out more recently, did some more work, then put away again, probably due to the issues with my eyesight. Anyway, too much waffle. This week after I had completed the 288 GTO, I happened upon this box in my garage (The previously mentioned Dungeon of Despondency), and thought "Why not this one?", So, here we are again: The box: Typical Koenig 'over the top' conversion, I think... The body, previously painted with Humbrol Red (Hu 19). I was really pleased with the finish. Applied from a spray can, I think. No great amount of orange-peel to be seen. The nose. Slightly fuzzy. I think the camera moved while I took the picture ... The rear. Again, a really nice finish... The underside. I think that the steering looks a bit strange, but it's the way the model was made. I suspect that it's a normal Fujimi 911 floor pan moulding that has had extras added, so the wheel offsets are a bit 'wide' to fit the wider body-shell, if that makes sense... It sits on all four wheels 'four-square', which is always a bonus. I had to make replacement tail pipes, as one of the 'chromed' ones pinged off into the wild, never to be seen again. A bit of 1/8th inch 'evergreen' styrene tubing, with the end routed out to simulate the tail-pipe and hey-presto, new tail-pipes. So that's where we have got to. A promising start... Thanks for looking, Alan.

Hi Pascal, Yes it was worth the effort to complete. Cheers, Alan.