Uncle Pete

Beautiful. And a scratched interior in 144? You're mad!

That's quite the hanger. Lovely stuff all around. That A10 looks like after it's done with you it'll go after your family!

Very nice and very unusual. Final assembly must have been a nightmare as you run out of places to grasp it without knocking something off.

Cracking work there, mate. And I love all the oddball stuff... Makes a nice change from Spitfires and Tomcats. I bet you inspire a lot of experiments.

Thanks for that but I'm shying away from the bigger scales, partly from shelf space and partly because the greater detail available stretches my build abilities a bit too far! I'm good with 1/12 for bikes, though.

Never had a Harley but always liked the look and the seating position. Closest I got was the VLX that looks like a Sporty with a radiator.

On a chopper, you can go there but you can't come back!

All things considered (and now that you guys have offered these tips) I reckon if I tackled any F1s I don’t suppose comparative scale with street cars would matter. Different shelf, different scale... I can live with that. Cheers.

Yet another scale? Not sure the wife’s sense of humour would stretch that far!

Thanks, guys. 24/25 seems to be the way to go then. (Not sure where I got 32/35.... Must be getting old). Only a couple of percent difference won’t show up on the shelves. Having lived half my life in the US and the other half here I’d be inclined to be putting a Caddy next to a Moggy next to an F1 next to a NASCAR stock.

Question for the car wallahs. I’ve been building planes and like 72 for the scale.... Good size for the shelves. I’d like to have a crack at some cars but would like to stay constant scale and noticed the “right size” choices are 35 and 32. Question is, which scale would offer more choice of subject?

I'm with you... Gives it that extra bit of zazz.

Crackerjack! Everything bar the squadron commander's dog!

Don't sweat the slight inaccuracy of the props... You'd need a 5X loupe to notice it. Nice job.

Feel free to PM me. If you ask nicely I'll send you recordings of my band. (Actually, if you don't ask me nicely I'll be likely to do it anyway.... You don't have a job description for forty years that boils down to "Dig Me" without being a bit of a show off!) As a muso, you're probably the only one who knows just what I mean by "busking". (Note for the muggles.... Our use of the word "busking" doesn't refer to playing on the street)

I've had a few bikes and always fancied a chopper except for the turn radius... They don't have one! I had a Honda Shadow that has about the same rake as a stock Sporty and it would barely make it through a standard test slalom so I can't imagine getting a chopper round anything tighter than an off ramp. I like the look of proper ape-hangers too but the kit didn't have them. I had a pair of those on a Honda 100 (don't ask!) and they were dreadfully uncomfortable. If there's ever a next chopper kit on my bench I think there will be massive upswept megaphone smokestacks, a sissy bar, highway pegs and stratospheric apes.... If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing!

I must be older than you.... Emma's predecessor, Mrs Gale, with all the judo moves was my squeeze. (Smashing job on the car, by the way).

Beauty. As I was scrolling down I was hoping you'd made the fairing removable thinking there was probably a hundred hours of sweat under there that deserves to be seen. May I ask what kind of jig it's sitting on? Looks very businesslike and industrial strength.

Cheers, Ian. Like you, I'm a muso and like you I'm old-school. Love the three Louis.... Armstrong, Jordan and Prima.

Good Day, Men (and, possibly, Ladies) of the non-flying model community. Here's a little offering from Orange County Choppers Shepherds Bush Division, run by Paul's lesser known older brother, Fred Teutul, pictured here... You may have heard the ads on the radio... Our theme music is "Born To Be Mild" by Steppenmouse. Never having attempted a bike before I figured I'd get an El Cheapo special just to see how they go together. With no wings and propellors, it's a different kettle of plastic, so I went for the Revell Kustom Chopper. Considering it's the bottom of the line, I was pleasantly surprised. The fit is very good, some parts almost snap-fitting into place. At least it was till I started monkeying with it. Didn't like the front end.... No zazz, not enough rake, so I thought to myself, self, what can we do about this? A quick scrabble through the drawers turned up some stainless steel kebab skewers exactly the right diameter to become 1/12 scale springer forks and we were off to the races. Busking all the way, I went through several blind alleys before figuring out the steering head problem (not big enough for double forks) but it finally dawned on me to put the two available steering heads (the kit comes with many alternative parts) belly-to-belly and remove what I didn't need. Unfortunately, I'd already experimented so many different ways the steering head ended up a bit on the lumpy side. Anyway, here she is... Didn't have any brake and clutch lines so I blagged an old phone charger for the wire. By the time I'd got around to that, I'd already Mickey Moused the front end so much Mickey was sleeping with my wife so the routing of the brake line is a bit, shall we say, "adjacent"? And speaking of the wife, I gave her a tip of the hat.... ... on a slightly under-scale plate (Didn't want the plate to be too obtrusive and, since it doesn't have to pass the MoT, I'm not fussed). A wee bit of solder provided the springs and a pair of 1/72 Sidewinders were just the right diameter to make those little struts in the front of the steering head. Some yellow paint then a random lightning flash and some too-small-to-be-legible writing from the leftover decal supply tarted up the battery. All in all I'm not displeased with the result. I've learned a couple of things that I can apply if I try another bike. I'm not sure I want to, though.... So many sticky-outy-bits that are constantly threatening to become snappy-offy-bits. The front end is a bit skew-whiff but that's down to prototypitis. Future springer forks will have to be carbon fibre tubes from the RC shop, for example. The steel skewers give the model a satisfying bit of heft but the slop in the front end (caused when I oh-so-carefully fixed it from being too tight and went all the way to too loose) gives it a certain insecure quality. The "feet" on the forks were the base of the other petrol tank cut down the middle and backed with balsa and Milliput. They're a bit overdone (not to mention untidy) but for the sake of "seeing if I can pull it off" they did the job. Having added a couple of centimetres to the forks I was anticipating (and without much optimism) surgery on the neck of the frame to tilt the steering head back in order to keep the floor of the frame level but the slop mentioned above took care of it. (After a couple of days of head-scratching on how to remove and reattach the neck accurately I realised I could much more easily tilt the shaft of the steering head instead, so that's filed away for future use). Having only built warplanes in the past, I've never used gloss paint and I was a bit nervous but it goes on beautifully and takes decals without any trouble at all. And the stroke of luck with the kebab skewers being the same colour as the chrome came in handy as I didn't have to wait for postie to bring chrome paint. Big shout out to Lee Chambers, by the way, for all the tips he gave me (none of which I applied on this kit but all of which will be applied in the future)... Thanks, Lee, I owe you a pint. Anyway, it is what it is, I hope you like it and I hope you got more laughs out of the prose than out of the model!

Nuffink wrong wiv that one, mate. Except it's not big enough to get on! If the one I'm working on goes a quarter as well as that I'll award myself a couple of very expensive cigars.

Very nice. I fancy one of those meself.

Nothing wrong with that, mate. I’m happy if my models come out looking more or less like the picture on the box!

If your out there stuff is anything like your in there stuff, I reckon you'll be delivering a pretty sharp chopper! Didn't mean to hijack your thread.... Sorry about that.

I think I may have the answer. The sprues themselves are the same diameter as the forks. Plus, there's two front ends so I'm going to have a crack at dismantling one set of forks and replacing the top ends with sprue. Saves me messing about with re-chroming but thanks for the tip... I'lll have a look for that Molotov gear for future reference. Not sure if I should be going full Orange County with delusions of Paul Tuetel with my first bike, though!