Hugh Jampton

Mal Thanks for the comment. I know, I really must change photo's to my flickr account. John

Malc Love the thread, you've made a great start. Like you the Camel livery has always been a favorite of mine. I started a Lotus 102 (butchered from a 102b kit) a few years back that I really must finish and you might push me over the line. Regards John

Hopefully we get to see the reintroduction of Darth Maul after his brief glimpse in Solo.

Simply stunning, have one in the proverbial stash and just hope mine will turn out as good as yours. Look forward to seeing the M23 thread.

Fantastic build of a beautiful car. As mentioned by others your finish is top notch.

Stunning build, as mentioned by someone earlier it's the best tread on the site. Keep up the fantastic work. Regards John

Been out of the loop for a while and saddened to hear of Paul's passing, my heart goes out to he's beloved wife and family. I only had the pleasure discussing each others work on a few builds but he's knowledge and skill was exceptional, he is a sad loss to our community. Total respect to you guys in finishing the Eagle, it will be a great epitaph to Paul and his immense talent. Kind Regards John

Stunning work so far, that's a great looking engine.

Such a shame but we all do it and it always lands on the side that does the most damage. It was and can still be a great build so don'tlet it defeat you. On another note these 1/43 models are crazy, Christ knows how you do it, 1/20's bad enough. My hat comes off to you but your bloody mad. Regards John

Stunning! I love watching a true craftsman at work.

Cheers Pete, Unfortunately I know exactly what you mean, this may well be the first and last 1/12 MFH, they are expensive but when you look at the hundreds (thousands for me) of hours of enjoyment making the bloody thing it doesn't seem as costly. It doesn't help with their latest releases though. I'm envious already Tweeky, I love the MP4/8 with its smooth lines and great livery. I'll be looking forward to your WIP shortly then! Back to the Build, the bank holiday came and passed with spraying the inside faces of the panels first using Zero JPS black which is a bit thick and slow but goes on well and gives a great finish. I left it a couple of days before the painful task of masking up and once that was done prepared for apply the top coat. The last few photos were taken after a couple of coats, it's now been given a good last coat and being left for a week before top coating, the consistency of the red was a lot thinner than the JPS black and went on a lot quicker, no issues though and still got a good finish. I've purchased Zero's Diamond Finish - 2 Pack GLOSS Clearcoat System, I've never used this before so will try on a test piece first obviously but a little worried about being too glossy for the era. On a disappointing note, on first real inspection of the vacuum formed windscreen I found a nasty crack down it, so I will be emailing Japan again very shortly. Thanks for looking. John

That's a really nice looking bike Lee and the paintworkis stunning. Been looking at your SIP, so impressive. How did you get the gradient on the two tone paintwork, I'm not used to this type of scale but I presume you would have had to raise any masking off the surface to get the gradual colour change and even so using a rattle can would need a lot of control. My hat comes off to you! John

Thanks for the nice words gents! Jo, your 1/43 looks awesome, when you think of the actual size the level of detail is superb. I've always said 1/43 is to small for me (getting old and the eyesight is on it's way) but I really wish the produced F1 models in 1/32, always was a scalextric nut and love that scale. I one of my earlier posts I mentioned the broken section of side pod that was broken, I mentioned previously I was certain (as I can be) that I didn't do it but thought I'd repair it none the less. I chased out a section from the underside of the part to allow a thin section of poly card to be glued then applied a thin section of the fine Milliput and worked on it from there. So far, so good, needs a little more work to it. To be honest the photo shows so much more detail, I will increase the depth of the recess prior to applying the top coat. Which brings me up to date, all the body work is all primed awaiting the Zero 'Rosso Formula 1 1970's -1980's' top coat, hopefully during the Bank Holiday Weekend! Fingers Crossed John

Sorry PC, had a bit of an impasse, work and family partly preventing me to get my teeth into progressing any further. I'm still dithering about the CF decals but with a bit of luck I'll make some headway onto the CF shortly. I have made some progress with the seat, the model comes with a self adhesive sheet but I wasn't keen on using this as I thought shaping into all areas would be an problem, there's also a similar tread on F1M where the modeler stretched and shaped a fine layer of leather over the seat which looks really good, it looked good but too much hassle for something I wasnt experienced in and wasn't sure I'd get the 'scale' of the finish right so I decided to experiment with a method I have used on 1/20 scale models previously and use a stipple paint finish. I primed using Halfords grey plastic primer then started using a number of shades of Tamiya browns, leaving until tacky the using an old Citadel flat brush stipple the paint, repeating each time with a slightly darker shade until using a dark grey/black the when dry a light grey/white dry brush to external edges. I think it came out pretty well, although thinking about it, using this method I should have tried to reduce the strap slot widths on the seat but I can live with it. Just a couple of snaps with the seat in place, I need to adjust the straps slightly, few more wires and weather some of the metalwork and it'll be done. Bear with me, I seem to be having an issue with attaching my Flickr images using the quick copy and paste method so am going back to the old method. Cross fingers and hope for the best. Thanks for looking! Regards John

Great looking build. Your right, were always learning with each build, long may it continue! Regards John

Great Model and a history lesson at the same time! Win win! Regards John

Looks good to me, subtle but just the job. Would never have thought of using tea, it seems so obvious really, old school. Regards John

Thanks PC, I was thinking the same, never tried it before and will Youtube it shortly for tips. I'm dubious about the CF decals though and will try with a couple of parts for the Version B rear wing. It's been a worry but will bore you with it later. General progression has been hit by work and the latest cold snap so will fill you in as best I can. I made some further work on the tub, not much but it's still taking shape as the pedals, gear stick and extinguishers were added along wit a couple of extra 0.4mm wires to the left hand side that I noticed on one of the very few reference photos I have looking into the tub. I just need to colour wash the little nooks of the metal parts to give it a bit more depth. Orange peeling is quite heavy to the base, whether this was due to the cold weather or not, I wouldn't know. However this will not been seen when the chassis fits over the tub so not that bothered. I went back on the engine, fitting the ignition wiring, I was at first wary of using the 0.6mm wire provided and was going to use 0.4mm that I use for my 1/20's but shouldn't have doubted MFH. All looks well until I noticed I was missing a PE part taking what I presume is some throttle springs, it was there on stage 1 of the instructions, the only problem was I had only adhered the rivets that should have been fitted after the PE plate. Obviously a few choice Anglo Saxon words were uttered then began the arduous task of cutting the rivets and drilling out the holes filled in half an hour before. You can see the offending part now fitted on the bottom of the Cam cover and with the first of the sections of exhaust fitted. Thanks for looking, I really need to get back onto this. Regards John

Thanks Codger, your quite right there's some really good MFH builds going on at the moment. Cheers, it getting there! Slowly! The build stumbled a bit since the last post, the weather was a pain as most of my spraying takes place in the garage or 'Summer' House so not a look of progress in the last fortnight. With the exception of the weather there were 3 other main issues with the build, the first was the replacement rear suspension part promptly came from Japan nicely packed between cardboard however the arms were twisted when squashed between the cardboard, I bent them back, started lightly cleaning and snapped the arm off again! I wasn't heavy handed at all, it's such a delicate part, I'm going to have a look at repairing the arm with coring out the arm and using wire, I need to get cracking on it this week. Second problem was found when I started preparing the side pods and notice a rear section missing, it looks like it was snapped off when taken off the sprue, I'm sure I wouldn't have done this, there were parts already separated when first opened but to be honest I cant remember if these were or not. Although 95% certain it wasn't me I'm going to give filling it with fine Milliput a go before getting back in touch with MFH. Thirdly, I still have an issue with the CF decailing, I admit working with large areas of decals is not my specialty but these decals are not adhering to the glossed varnished surfaces the way I expect it to. I made a start to the rear wing end plates , using Microsol, the first plate wet ok but the second ended up like the photo below, I ended up adhering the decals by lightly brushing clear varnish under the decals and after giving 2 layers of varnish it was left with light creasing only, It's on the inside so hope it won't be seen. Even the the decal began coming away when I bluetak'd it to varnished the other side and it was only the layers of varnish that stopped it coming off. I need to you tube some examples I think. I have made some more progress on the engine and cockpit and will be posting these shortly. Regards John

As Codger says, great news for you, us and especially your family! Kind regards John

That's one detailed engine, really enjoying this thread. Regards John

Parry, I totally agree totally with Sabrejet, although due to my special gift of almost always dropping most of my metal parts, I used Halfords etching primer, apparently it's bonds to metal better than ordinary primer. Just make sure you clean all white metal parts prior to priming, a lot of people suggest magnetic cleaners but there expensive and I seem to get buy with a suade brush or drimel (but be careful with speeds) and I've only just advised to get some mini wire brushes from Amazon. Saying all of that I still have large white metal figures that I painted 20 years ago with little preparation and have no issues, although I do treat them with utmost delicacy. There's a lot of guys on this forum with much more knowledge than me who will give better advise anyway. John

David What a great start to a great looking kit! Codger is right, your going to have an iconic and beautiful looking car when you've finished. The wheels look fun, if that was me I'd put a swear box next to the workbench, that way you'd should have paid for your next kit after completing the fourth wheel! Your comments on the polishing and clear coating of parts is a good point, I do this to a lot of the smaller parts and you get a great finish, on my last one I've been polishing a look of parts the instructions are saying to paint silver as well. I'm going to enjoy this thread. Regards John

Many thanks Paul, there ordered and awaiting delivery. Wife's early morning shifts are a bit of a god send at the moment, she crashed at half seven last night so got the C4 out for a bit of a session. The rear hubs have been striped and repainted over the last couple of days and fixed back together last night this time with the break ducts installed. I didn't even think of using the CF decals as mentioned previously and lightly drybrushed instead. The only thing required now is fixing the break line and 90 degree coupler and ill do that just before final assembly. I've stalled a bit on the engine recently, mainly for the simple reason of sorting out the 20 or so different type of rivets that came with the kit, anyway I purchase a cheap craft 'organizer box and spent Thursday night sorting them out into individual sets and while doing this finally worked out the toggle switches and other pieces for the dashboard so due to this and the recently found dial glass pieces, thought I'd make a start on this last night. I had prepared the dash previously so gave it a coat of Halfords semi gloss black. The holes for the toggle switches and rivets had to be drilled out, decals applied then given a light drybrushing using a mid grey, this is a technique I enjoy doing as I feel it's an easy way to emphasize the raised parts of a surface, I can overdo it from time to time but this time I think I got it about right, to be honest the size of the picture doesn't help as it picks up detail hard to detect with the human eye. The dial glass for the 2 smaller dials needed a bit of a sand to fit but after that went in like a peach and using Micro Crystal Clear to adhere. I'm now making a start on the cockpit section, the instructions say to paint the main tub a dark green which to me sounds very un-ferrari but the only reference photo I have seems to back it up so will be making a start on this during the weekend with a bit of luck. Thanks for looking! Regards John

Stunning! I'm sure you will but can you describe your finishing and polishing techniques in detail further on, I love the way your bodywork look with all you other builds. Regards John