cmatthewbacon

Personally, I've never been that bothered: American cars are so much bigger in real life that the 4% difference in scale is really neither here nor there to me. I like the Monogram 1/24 US cars, but that's more about the choice of subjects and the quality of execution than the scale. Let's face it, there are a whole lot of "nominally" 1/24 or 1/25 cars which aren't actually correct to the last decimal place... Frankly, when I think about the number of classic European cars that haven't been done well in 1/24 and the number of classic American cars that haven't been done well in 1/25, I find it very hard to get worked up about not having a much Detroit Iron available in the "home" scale of European modelers who are mostly lusting after something different... And to put my mouth where my money would be, I'd take all of these as new tool high quality in 1/24 kits first: 1) Aston Martin DB4 to 6 2) Series 2 E Type Coupe accurately and Series 3 V12 E type 3) Alvis TD21-adjacent 4) Ford Lotus Cortina Mk 2 5) Facel Vega 6) ISO Grifo 7) Alfa Romeo Montreal 😎 FIAT XI/9 9) Rover 3500 ("civilian') 10) Jensen Interceptor And a Heller Citroen CX, new tool R5 and Twingo plus a "new" Alpine A110... best, M.

A couple of cycles of prime, fill, sand, prime and here we are: A little bit of cleanup and detailing required, but the main body is ready to paint, I reckon... Started on painting the detail, mostly to see if i was happy with the main body colour. Which I am. It's old-school Humbrol enamel, mostly gloss H3 "Brunswick Green" with 10% (ish) matt Lemon Yellow (M99) to brighten it up a bit. Takes a long time to dry, so I'm looking into some chemical "drier" to speed it up a bit.... best, M.

I'm going defiantly old-school with my latest white metal car kit, and using Humbrol enamel for the body. Brunswick Green brightened up slightly with some lemon yellow is exactly the shade this particular racing MG needs. I'm thinning the enamel with distilled turpentine, which has been my go-to for enamels for at least 20 years (and in fact it's probably still the same bottle...). Not surprisingly, it is taking a long time to dry, and I'd like to use some Rustins terebene drier to help things along a bit. Now I know it's a capful for 500ml paint, so literally a few drops in the amount I've got mixed up (about 2/3 of a standard airbrush jar). What I would like advice on is whether I can add the drier to the jar of paint and then use it over 24 hours or so, or do I need to add the drier just to the paint I'm actually spraying? I could easily believe that if it's a chemical reaction speeding up the curing of the enamel, then I don't want to add it to the jar in case the whole lot goes off before I use it... I also know there's more to the chemistry of the drier than just using a rapidly evaporating thinner like naptha... Anyone know the answer for sure? Obviously, the safer route is to put a couple of drops in each airbrush-cup's worth of paint as I use it... best, M.

That looks lovely. Very classic. Excellent detail painting as well. best, M.

Well, since you’re the one who has to find them, which of those folders would you open first looking for info about brakes? 😜 My instinct would be to put them with suspension for reference, but when I’m sorting white metal kits (ie they don’t have parts trees) I just tend to put all the front axle and suspension bits together and all the rears on the basis that they are usually assembled as units at the same time… best, M.

The designer of Gran Turismo is a huge petrolhead, and a racing driver in his spare time, and has a really close relationship with NIssan and the GT-R design and engineering guys. There was an article about him in the Japan special issue of The Road Rat a few issues back... best, M.

Did you go up to Yeadon to see it take off? I think they were doing a sort of "farewell tour" - I was standing with my aviation enthusiast brother-in-law on the top of the wall of that little cemetery at the eastern end of the main runway, and hearing it run up and then appear over the "hump" in the runway before blasting off into the Western distance trailing jet exhaust was unforgettable. best, M.

That looks absolutely stunning. It could pass for a much larger Pocher kit, except yours is better and more finely detailed. I love the cockpit detail, and of course the wheels. Is it actually Tamiya Maroon, or does it just look a lot like it? All your points are quite correct, of course, but I do think those Heller kits have a lot going for them -- they had ambition, and the basic shapes and overall "look" of them are generally very good. And who else is ever going to give us some of the left-field and mainstream classics they tooled up for our pleasure and to fill the shelves of stashes across Europe? 😜 Outstanding work... bravo! best, M.

Getting there with gluing together all the bits that are going to be basically green: This one fits together really well, as well as being nicely detailed. I haven't had to "flex" any of the parts significantly to get them to fit into their locations. Test fit of the seats and woollen covers, which looks reasonable. The seats are a grey-green leather, and will be painted separately. The transmission and shift mechanism is nicely detailed as well... Note the separate lever below the main gear stick, and the bolt heads where it attaches to the gearbox. This is also bodywork green, at least in the one in the Bonhams photos, hence putting it in place now. The dash is a step up from the flat panel with raised discs for instruments in the earlier Auto Kits, featuring bezels and relief detail, and gauges printed on the instruction sheet. I might tart these up a bit based on the reference, but they aren't bad at all. best, M.

Little dot of activator where the PE is going, little dot of superglue on the PE part and bring the two together. But remember it isn’t moving afterwards, so get it right! Personally I find the potential downsides of using accelerator outweigh the benefits, so I don’t any more… best, M.

Does it come with the bullet hole decals? It it does, extra cool points for having decals of decals… best, M.

I've just bought a replacement for my AWOL double-syringe Araldite Instant dispenser. Instead of two syringes side by side with separate nozzles and a shaped cap that only fits one way to close both nozzles, this new version has a single half-n-half nozzle with a twist-on/twist-off cap and a couple of long mixer tubes. Has anyone mastered one of these? I'm used to dispensing a couple of parallel lines of the two parts which can be as much or as little as I like, putting the cap back on, and mixing the resin with a cocktail stick before applying. With this new way, as far as I can see, an amount that fills the mixer tube has to be pushed out before any comes out of the mixing nozzle at the end, and doesn't it cure in the nozzle, blocking the tip? There are plenty more than two doses of the amounts I use at any given time in the syringes, but only two mixer tubes. And the cap doesn't seem to be oriented to make sure the resin side and hardener side can't come into contact with the other half of the mix still in the dispenser syringes. All in all, I can't see what problem this new style packaging/dispensing mechanism is solving, and I can see several new problems that I didn't have before... the main one being the potential to waste a lot of good glue! best, M.

Blimey, James… well done on battling through this far! I now understand why Airfix did a Scout with a couple of skids rather than a Wasp… best, M.

No, you're absolutely right.... I didn't notice the black hose in the Bonhams pictures, just the twirl of silver tube. Good spot! best, M.

You made me go have a look at my recently acquired one. You're right, it's tiny! Mine is the Mazdaspeed (39) version, so although it only has two sets of wheels, it does have the teeny-tiny F40-alike spoiler! And it's very, very cute... best, M.