Schwarz-Brot

Bought this: and tihs: Out of the Marketplace from Fazer. Really looking forward to building both of them. To me both rank very high among the most beautiful cars ever built. Both are pretty basic kits as far as I can tell yet, but seem to be a very good base to build something beautiful.

There's some deep satisfaction to be found in that work. I understand exactly what you mean. So mesmerizing to see the spinning part adapting to the form given to it by the tool. And the satisfaction of productive work just gets on top of that. I loved to work with lathes as well. And there's so much you can get out of them. There's a good reason a lathe is pretty high up on my list of tools to acquire. For your subtle tuning - take a look into stancing. This might really add to the car!

Many miniature painters paint leaned back, often in chairs with armrests. They rest the miniature and the wrist of the brush holding hand on their breast. Gives lots of control. Also, for delicate work, make sure your hands touch somewhere. Even if it's only the pinkies that touch - you again gain lots of control and minimize shaking. @Beardie: I'd be willing to investigate the construction of such a specialized "third hand" tool. Might base it on those cheap ones you can get everywhere. But adding soft grip adjustable strength clamps. I have some ideas for that. But that has to wait until around end of May. I am working on my master thesis at the moment and have neither time nor mind to tackle other things.

Nice looking miniatures, Simon. Glad to see some more miniatures of my preferred genres here. I think you could have pushed the contrast on those orange-yellow horn things a bit more by going more into the shadows at their bases. As it is it looks a bit out of place as it's too much contrast against those earthy tones the rest of the miniatures show and too sharp separated. By pushing the shadows more into some brown I think you'd get a better transition that looks just right. Besides that - very well done miniatures. For sure a nice sight on the table.

Stop watching others and actually do it yourself. No really, there is only so much you can learn by watching. The real learning process begins when you get your hands dirty. All the time spend in front of that monitor is time you cannot invest in your models is time you miss actually becoming better... If you find it more interesting to watch others build their stuff, that's of course fine.

Borez, do you know more on those resistors? What do they do? I know, what a resistor is - I just cannot imagine why they would roll their own. I really love seeing this all coming together step by step. Very impressing work.

Watching with interest. Keep it coming.

Sorry Jürgen, did not realize you built this one back in the days! Danke trotzdem für die Info. Grüße in den Norden, Jan

Do you drill freehanded? Maybe you could get yourself a small drill press. This usually leads to nice and clean holes and less broken drills.

Challenge accepted! I just bought the curbside version. Though it's a very basic kit with view parts I will surely try my very best on this beautiful car. I love you colour choice. Looks so elegant. May I ask what colour this is? I am thinking of doing the same. Your version is bookmarked for inspiration. Thank you for showing!

Roy, is the positioning done via a ballscrew spindle? There shouldn't be that much backlash then, I think. But look into your machines specifications. Should be listed there how much (little) is guaranteed. I don't know the machine, so I cannot tell. But there might be ways to adjust that. Apart from that it is for sure a good idea to only cut in one direction. Backlash can never be completely avoided, just minimized. I would suggest cutting the hex surface immediately after the lathe work without taking the piece out of the chuck. Set an endstop if you can on the milling axis to always get back to the same depth. This way you get the same hex on every piece (immediately after being worked on the lathe before taking it out of the chuck is the only moment in time when it is all perfectly aligned!). If you take out your working piece and replace it in the chuck it will never be aligned well, introducing angle errors that can be quite hefty. This is the reason for never starting with a piece of the final diameter - you have to turn over the whole piece one time to get all surfaces perfectly parallel to the rotation axis. As I said - this only stays aligned as long as the part is not taken out of the chuck. When milling the hex it might be a good idea to utilize the tailstock to support the work piece. Since you need a guide hole to do so I would suggest the following workflow: 1. turn over the whole piece to get the surfaces even and parallel 2. drill a guide hole 3. turn your part as before, but leave enough excess for the guide hole to be cut away later 4. support the part via tailstock and mill the hex surface 5. cut away the excess piece with the guide hole 6. cut off the final piece Another thing: If you don't already know how - you should get used to standard ways of indicating measurements in drawings. There's a reason engineers do so. I am sure you can work your system out, but for anyone else it is pretty hard. I then would work from those drawings instead of the written step plans (or combine the two). - Engineering drawings usually make it pretty obvious what needs to be done to achieve the result your after. Since you already have the drawings it is not a big deal - just print the area of interest and write down the measurements by hand. Having a drawing makes it much more easy to imagine the next steps while working on the parts. An alternative to getting several identical parts would obviously be casting. If you don't intend to use the bare metal this may be a simple solution. On the other hand it should be possible to get pretty accurate parts with a consistent work flow. Nice write-up as always. Thank you for sharing. Edit: I second @Pouln: His tip for taking out the backlash was so normal for me, I didn't even think of it! Good advice.

So beautiful. Works of art, even without the cars around them. Perfect photography as well. Both thumbs up! The Transkit quality is quite impressive compared to the MFH one where top notch quality is a must.

I'll be watching! This is going to be an epic adventure.

So you don't need just the printing but also the 3d-modelling done? That's lots of work, mate. You need to find someone first to produce a digital model before it can be printed. Hope that helps at least a bit.

I don't think you need oil or cooling liquid with your lathe and milling machine. This can enhance the surface quality but isn't exactly necessary with the light work you do with these machines. It only makes a mess of the workplace. Also, there's nothing like the right or wrong tool with milling machines and lathes. A tool can do the job or it cannot. If it works it is right. Sure, there are always tools that work better than others, because they are designed exactly for that special task. But it is not always necessary to get that special tool. In my training we did most of the work on lathes with the exchangeable bits you showed above. They can do mostly everything but parting and undercuts. If the surface quality is poor feed slower. Sanding can be done on the lathe! Just rotate at low speeds and bring the sanding paper to the desired surface. This is very handy, but be careful. It is no good idea to get your hands too close to the chuck! Do you have to align your tools every time? No quick exchange tool holder available for this machine? If you can get one, I would highly recommend to get it. Spares a lot of time and iirc you can set the tool to defined angles using those holders. Good job and nice to see detailed pictures of all the steps involved. I am sure this helps many beginners quite a lot.

An Audi TT with the front wheels standing about half a meter up on a wall. Mowed the trees behind that wall and was probably stopped by them. Seems like the driver went away without injuries. However he managed to get there in city traffic - my respect for being so dumb.

DAMN, on the last transport the tip of the gun broke of and vanished to be never seen again. I HATE it when that kind of happens.

I always feel like looking at a cartoon when I see this stance scene stuff. The Japanese tuning scene has some real oddities to offer. While the paintjob isn't perfect in places you captured the look and feel of those cars quite well. And I am sure blue and gold looks better than pink.

Interesting. Can you maybe elaborate a bit on why they are so horrible? I am pretty happy with them - not so with LED-tubes and bulbs which simply don't emit the right spectrum to see colours right. Only thing I could imagine is cheapo fluorescent single tube lamps. You need at least two wired back to back to avoid flicker. But that should be standard with any descent lamp.

I did small smd-soldering from time to time under a quite high quality lamp with built in lens. I am not a fan of working under a single lens - I lose every sense for distances. I prefer working with jewellers glasses if there is no other choice. Two lenses for two eyes and perfect 3d-view. So I'd opt for a reasonable lamp on a swing arm and add the lenses where they belong - to the eyes. On another note - I prefer fluorescent lamps in the daylight spectrum. Shows every colour as it should look and keeps you awake.

It needs a teddy bear! And the driver with this base Looking really good and tidy.

Sounds like a pretty good deal for what you got. It's obvious this couldn't be exactly cheap. Didn't know you "don't do" talking about money things in the Netherlands. Feels kind of strange, considering you're a direct neighbour to Germany. But good to know. Bragging, envy... We're all grown ups. In the end it is the way you talk that determines how it's interpreted. No worries, mate.

Wow, you really went kind of all-in. Pretty complete allround package for a beginner. Don't even want to ask what you paid.

Yeah. I thought you were looking for advice, since you posted on the Technique forum. Then saw the pictures and wondered what the question might be. Since you posted only a few pictures, maybe you can elaborate a bit on what you used and how?

So what's the question?