onethritysecond

Thanks Six97s - that's really helpful! The fact that Astro1 was a Chevy explains why I originally thought it was a Corvette of some sort. cheers Chris

Hi all, Before the first lockdown I was fortunate enough to buy somebody's entire collection of built kits from a car boot sale (including a Heller 1/20th Renault 16 that I never thought I would get but that's another story) and have just got around to sorting out the ones I don't want prior to putting them on the 'bay but need some help with information on some of them. Judging by the other cars in the collection (Airfix MG1100, 1/24th James Bond Aston Martin and the aforementioned Renault 16) I think it is safe to assume they are all from the late sixties or early seventies but happy to be corrected! First one I assume is a Predicta by Starbird according to the transfers but no idea who made it! Has a strange steering system operated by a lever where the handbrake would be, canopy hinges from the back. This orange one is a complete mystery, apart from it says Monogram underneath. Cab roof hinges from the back. Last one! Shown next to an Airfix/MPC Mako Shark for an idea of scale. This one is just a bodyshell/floor (most the others were more or less complete) and has some styling similarities to the Corvette. Says Eldon underneath and what looks like possibly 'Astro1' badges on the car. I have a vague recollection from my slot car days that Eldon used to make slot cars and this does look like it might be 1/32nd scale or a bit larger but it is a static kit rather than a slot car body. Any info gratefully appreciated! cheers Chris

Work and domestic commitments have meant that it has taken me weeks to do what could probably have been done in an evening or two! Much disassembling and fettling of the interior and the skirts means that I have finally got the chassis to fit well enough! Humbrol gloss red (19?) was a close enough match to Tartan red to touch in a bit. ‘Austin Mini’ transfer came form my Motobitz mini countryman kit, which has transfers for both Austin and Morris versions but only a Morris grill so meant they could be spared for this project. Of course I didn’t read the instructions about cutting close to the image until it was too late so there is rather too much carrier film visible! The real car usually sported a GB sticker on the boot lid (although a bit smaller than this one) so I used the one form the original kit. Next came the moustache bits for the grill – picture shows cooper grill (could be Revell or Fujimi, can't remember) to provide the moustaches, one of the resin Austin grills kindly supplied by geebee and the other resin grill with moustaches grafted on. I am making a point of showing it place without the bumper as they all but disappear behind the over riders once fitted! Sliding door windows needed a seal adding – I couldn’t tell what colour this is meant to be (I would assume black?) but all I could find to use was some silver pinstriping tape meant for radio-controlled aircraft (or possibly kites?) picked up years ago from a long defunct model shop. Last thing was the exhaust, which I now think should have been a single box system rather than the two box one from the kit. It doesn’t meet properly at the front (presumably) because of the alterations I made to the manifold but nobody looks underneath! Remote gear change has been shortened but I couldn't find any clear pictures of what it was meant to look like so I took a best guess! From here on in it was just a matter of assembling in the windows and bumpers etc and I am calling it finished. I have started to work on some figures of the three main characters from the series and I will wait to see how they turn out before posting in ready for inspection. Chris

A few small jobs this week plus a couple of minor set backs! Firstly, pictures of the car in the 60s seem to show a black number plate light whereas pictures of the car now, post restoration, show a chrome plated one. The kit’s one is chrome but I decided to, wherever possible, stick to how it appeared in TV shows so I striped the chrome with a little bleach and painted it satin black with a little matt white for the lens. Self-explanatory really and not worth a picture! Next I moved on to the number plates – the car had black plates with separate white plastic letters, typical of the 60s before the slow introduction of reflective plates towards the end of the decade -and I used a technique I have used quite a few times now. Measuring a few 60s number plates on my garage wall shows that the letters are 80mm tall, which scales down to 3.33mm so I use 3mm Slaters plastic letters as being near enough. Recently they started coming in a plastic bag but they used to come vacuum packed to a piece of card and these are much easier to use as they don’t ping off never to be seen again when cutting them out! This also helps as, looking at period pictures of the car, the ‘4’ is an open ‘continental’ 4, i.e the upright doesn’t reach all the way to the top of the diagonal, and this is easier to achieve with the vacuum-packed letters. I had never seen this on a number plate before but once I had noticed it I spotted it on several cars of this age in TV series of the time, so it may have been a quirk of the number plate makers nearest to the film studios? The restored version of the car has a normal closed 4. Cut out all of the letters for both plates before you start as you have to work quickly. Use a bit of masking tape to practice the spacing with one of the sets of letters. Paint one plate with a thickish coat of satin black (or gloss if you prefer but satin looks more correct to me) – use enamel (Humbrol 85) as this is slower drying than acrylic and gives you a bit more time – this will stick the letters on. Transfer the other set of letters with the point of a scalpel to match your pattern. Repeat for the other plate using the completed plate as your pattern. The letters are a little thick for true scale (although this is more obvious when doing reflective plates) and once dry you may want to sand them down a bit but I have never bothered and you are probably only going to knock them off anyway! Another thing the original car has that the restored version doesn’t is white rubber covers on the over riders (bumpers to protect the bumpers from bumps I suppose) – these were aftermarket accessories I believe. It was here that I had the first minor mishap – when masking the over riders I somehow managed to break the front bumper, must be a weak point. It’s an easy fix but annoying. Ironically, in a lot of period pictures, the rear bumper is very beat up, almost flattened in the middle but the front is OK! This is one aspect of the original car that I won’t be trying to re-create as I can’t see how to do it convincingly. Second minor set-back is that, with the interior installed, the chassis doesn’t quite go all the way in, which stops the rear skirt from fitting properly. Next pic shows the chassis fit without the interior installed – it sits maybe a mm further in and the skirt fits perfectly. It seems to be something to do with the door cards as, on the removing one of them, it fitted better on that side. Interior seemed to be assembled correctly so hopefully just a question of tweaking somehow, otherwise removing a bit from the rear of the chassis to clear the skirt will probably do it.

You know I don't know - it was only very early cars that had that but not sure when it was phased out. Also, being a Super Deluxe it may have been up-spec'd to a key start. I'll have to watch the series again and see if I can spot it!

I have been painting the interior this week and have been having a bit of trouble getting proper coverage with the Humbrol matt scarlet that I used for the interior parts, as can be seen in the following pictures. I was using a hairy stick and had to put so many coats on to get coverage that it ended up cracking in places. Being the interior though it won’t really show! Coopers had an interior handle to open the door but regular minis had a pull cord, that I have added here from guitar string and the sleeving off fine electrical wire. The kit also came with transfers for the seat belts, which I have used but am not too convinced by. Chromework still needs a bit of tidying. Pudding stirrer gear lever has been added by repositioning the mounting position and butchering the kit’s gear stick. I still need to alter/remove the remote change linkage for under the car. The finished interior – seats have been given a bit of a dirty look as the car was a studio hack and then given a satin coat to look more like vinyl. The instructions tell you to paint the window surrounds moulded into the front and rear screens chrome silver but British cars of this era tended to just have a slim chrome trim inset into the windscreen rubber and this is how I have tried to re-create this: Screens carefully masked and then painted Tamiya rubber black (on reflection it may have been better to use an enamel based black as the Molotow chrome pens are also alcohol based so can tend to dissolve the black). Edge of a fairly fat Molotow chrome pen run around the edge, trying to leave some of the black visible on the screen side. The kit also tells you to paint the frames of the side windows chrome, which is correct for the back side windows but on non coopers the door frames should be body colour, as can be seen by the frame at the back, done with a red paint pen – again alcohol based so tended to mix with the black. Lastly run around the very outer edge with a black sharpie, trying to leave a thin line of chrome – takes a bit of practice! Rear screen temporarily in place to attempt to show the effect. Engine in place in the chassis and very crowded it is in there too! It was very hard to fit with the firewalls all in place and is mainly held in place by sheer force of personality! If I did this again I would follow the kit instructions! Pipe work has been added to the clutch and brake master cylinders but it just peters out once out of site. Finally engine shown in place with the body on – air filter only just fits.. I thought I had done all of the downgrade conversion work but still have to make a new gear change mechanism, finish the grille and make some number plates, plus there is no doubt other bits I have over looked but getting into the final stretch. Chris

This week I spent some time making a side entry (or I suppose that should be side exit?) distributor and wiring up the plug leads. High resolution photos are not good for the ego – what looks fine to the naked eye suddenly has all sorts of glue residue and parts that need touching up! Plug caps look too big too. Engine has had a matt coat applied and pipe stubs have been added to the rocker cover and air filter box for the engine breather hose. I may have to cut the downpipe off to be able to fit the engine in the bay. Rear seat has been downgraded by carving out sections where the new ribbing has to go and I tried an experiment – on the left I scored the rib pattern into 0.25mm plasticard and on the right used separate strips, didn’t make a lot of difference for the extra work and a lot slower. Seat awaiting final finishing before painting. Bodyshell has had a final polish and the floor pan has had a coat of matt varnish to dull it down before weathering. Most of the necessary conversion/scratch work to make a standard mini has been completed now so nearly at the assembly stage, just a few bits of painting to finish off. Chris

It would have been used on all models across the range when it was a current colour, so quite likely also used on the Mk3 Cortina as well as the Mk1 & 2 Escort. Not so sure about on the Mk1 Cortina though, the usual mid blue in the early/mid 60s was Aqua blue, which is a far bit darker or there was a much lighter blue (not sure of the name) - I had a 63 Anglia in Aqua blue (and it is still one of my favourite car colours) and my grandad had a 67 Anglia in the light blue - mighthave been fjord blue? Chris

Don't know about later cars but on the early 850 engines the air filter is behind the dashpot, like here (from aronline.com)

Thanks! The Scirroco is a fairly basic 70s AMT kit re-released a year or so ago and is indeed 1/25th scale. Apart from making a RHD dash and putting hinges on the bonnet it is built out of the box, painted VW silver of some sort that I was originally going to use on the Golf but went with Mars Red instead. Most people seem to consider 1/25th close enough to 1/24th to not matter but I really notice it, epecially when I was considering swapping parts between it and the 1/24th Revell Golf GTi (can't remember what or why now) and side by side the difference is pretty obvious. AMT also did the Mk1 Golf GTi in 1/25th which crops up fairly often. Chris

The paint is actually proper 70s Ford Olympic Blue (although I kept calling it Bermuda blue in the work in progress thread) that I bought from Halfords - there are many 70s colours still available as they are strong colours suitable for general hobby projects, not just cars! Halfords aerosols leave quite a good finish out of the can too, just needing minimal polishing. Chris

Thanks for all the kind words guys! Chris

Just to say that I have managed to get some mirrors and have now put this model in the ready for inspection, thanks for watching! Chris

Few bits of small progress on the mini this week. Finally, after much fiddling and re-positioning, got the single carb and air filter to fit into the engine bay – but only just! The engine was painted Humbrol 80 in the end and weathered a bit as the real car was a film studio hack so wouldn’t have been the best looked after of vehicles. The engine will just fit in with the engine bay already assembled but that is before the radiator has gone in so it’s going to be tight. I also managed to accidentally drill right through the air filter so have lost the wind nut, which was the original point of adapting the kit’s air filter rather than starting from scratch. Those of us who are familiar with 60s BMC cars will have noticed that the brake and clutch master cylinders have their filler caps merged in with the upright cylinder and also that the kit instructions tell you to paint all of the sticking up bits white when only the filler cap should be. I cut the cap part off and drilled a hole for some thin rod but actually it was a little too large so doesn’t look that much different to how it started. I have drilled the ends of the master cylinders to take some hydraulic pipes later in the build. As it was a sunny weekend managed to get some primer and Tartan red on the body parts. Cars of this era wouldn’t have been undersealed at the factory so, unless it was taken up as a dealer option, most cars would have been body colour underneath so I have gone with a Tartan red floor pan. This week I need to convert the back seat to cheaper specification and also decide whether I am going to make and wire a distributor, as the kit does come with a sort of oversized wired distributor.

@TimLucas kindly supplied me some mirrors after I accidentally threw mine away in a tidy up (yes, I know) so can now publish the finished conversion of the Revell Mk 2 rally Escort into a 1.1 base model. This took a lot of work and involved scratch building most of the engine - you can see what was involved in the build thread I have noticed after taking the pictures that the bonnet isn't on quite tidy in some of them but I had already packed it away and couldn't face getting it out again - it does sit properly normally! Last few pictures show it sitting with some VW contemporaries that I built during the first lock down, showing how dated the Ford was getting by that point. Hope you like it - similar treatment to a Mk1 Escort may follow at some point! Chris \