Octavian

Chris, Many thanks. I do have a bottle of Klear; I will definitely give that a try with future small parts. All my best, Andrew

Many thanks, Codger. One thing that I'm a bit disappointed with here is the smudging on the tubes. They were smoothly airbrushed, but handling them and getting them into position resulted in some paint flaking off. I touched them up with a brush, but the finish on them is less than ideal. Any tips for working with small painted pieces so as to avoid marring the paint? Would latex gloves be in order when handling such pieces?

Exceptional!

Kenneth, Beautiful work so far; a great start to what is sure to be a beautiful model. Best, Andrew

Amazing work. I am building a 1:12 250 GTO right now as well, and this is inspirational. The detail you are getting in the smaller scale is very impressive.

Hello, all. It's time for an update on recent progress. I have been out of town most of the last two weeks, visiting a friend in Milwaukee, then my wife and I were in Yellowstone for a bit with her family. A herd of bison trotted right past our car; I could have reached out and touched them they were so close; they appeared to be on the run from a bear that we glimpsed a ways off. Fortunately, that fella was not within arm's reach. Good times. As for the 250 GTO, it's been more engine work. The head gaskets went on, then the cylinder heads (I didn't get a good shot of the PE head gasket before putting on the cylinder heads, unfortunately). Putting the rivets into the cylinder head covers was surprisingly difficult. The rivets are exceedingly small and didn't often want to fit into the holes I drilled. I finally realized (in time for the last two rivets) that it was much easier if I simply used a larger drill bit than the instructions called for; I had hesitated to do that at first for fear of breaking through the side of the covers, but fortunately that didn't happen. Unfortunately, however, I lost seven or eight rivets to the carpet of my office. They had a habit of pinging out of my tweezers, and they are, for all practical purposes, impossible to find now. I will need to order some replacement rivets, or create a homebrew solution. Any thoughts or advice would be welcome. Luckily I can add the remaining few rivets at any point, so I won't be held up by that. Below is one of the tubes containing the HT leads that sit atop the cylinder heads (if anyone knows the proper name for what I'm calling 'tubes,' I'd be glad to know it). Getting the tiny PE flange in there (tiny drilled holes) was a bit tricky. Here is the engine with one cylinder head cover on, and some additional bits on the front cover. And here are a couple pics of where I am at now. There is some additional paint detail and aging to do here, but I'm fairly pleased with how it's coming together thus far. Thank you for reading; as always, any feedback or advice is very welcome. I hope you are all well. Best, Andrew

Chris, Many thanks! I appreciate the kind words, and the advice here on the forums has been wonderful. Hopefully the whole thing turns out well. Best, Andrew

Ah, I see; thank you for the explanation, Codger. Thank you also, Dave, for the compliment; it is greatly appreciated. There is far more that I don't know about engines than I do know, so I am always eager to learn more.

Codger, Thanks for the piping info; I had meant to reply earlier about your upholstery work following our initial discussion but it got away from me (hectic week). To look at the work you did on this interior, no one would ever guess that it was your first time doing model upholstery. The seats are immaculate. Best, Andrew

Codger, Ah, cool, thanks for that. I appreciate the feedback as well; trying to capture as many of these little details in photos is simultaneously teaching me how to actually use the camera on my smartphone! Best, Andrew

Dave, Many thanks. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "lap" in this context; apologies if I'm missing something obvious. Best, Andrew

Manu, I'm just tuning into this build (I recently joined up here on Britmodeller), and I just wanted to pop in and express my admiration for your work. The car looks superb. Best, Andrew

Ron, Many thanks; I appreciate the vote of confidence and the kind words. It feels very important to me to try and do the best I can on all of these hidden and unseen details; I feel that to do anything less would show a lack of respect to this amazing kit MFH has created. Plus it is rewarding work in its own right, and is definitely teaching me a great deal about white metal. All my best, Andrew

Beautiful bike; looking forward to seeing how it progresses!

Amazing work; just exceptional. Do you know how he made the piping that goes around the base of the seat and down the sides, or did he perhaps use an existing product for that, some type of tubing or rolled leather or vinyl?

Ok, Work and family obligations this past week meant I didn't make as much progress on the GTO as planned, but I still got a bit done. Lots of very fiddly work getting holes drilled into various pieces of the cylinder head assembly. I'm not totally sure what to call these pieces, that hold the rocker arms in place that are connected to the valves, but they are very tiny (in 1/12 scale at least). More drilling; with a roughly .8 mm drill bit for the larger holes (for the valves) and smaller .5 mm holes to hold the above-mentioned rocker arm assembly pieces. Putting in the valves. And the valve springs opposite: Camshafts: Beginning the tedious (but enjoyable) process of cobbling together the rocker arm assemblies and inserting them into the cylinder head: And finally, one completed cylinder head: I applied a bit of Mr. Hobby Mr. Weathering Color (Multi Black) to get the engine looking a bit more "used" as it were, and am pleased with the results thus far. It gets into the cracks and seems to add depth and a sense of realistic grime to it. So, a good bit of work this week done here and there in the few moments I could find for it; my sense is that these cylinder heads are the most meticulous part of the model in terms of working with very small pieces. I almost had a conniption at one point while cleaning one of the valve springs with a brass wire brush; it flew from between the tips of my tweezers and after an hour of combing the floor looking for it, I was ready to mournfully give it up as lost, when I found it sitting embedded in the bristles of the wire brush! Phew! Anyway, it was a fun, albeit painstaking bit of work (and I still have one more cylinder head to finish). I look forward to any advice or feedback. All best, Andrew

Kitkent, Thanks for the message. I'd be interested to see any pics from the Tamiya mag build if you happen to come across it. Best, Andrew

Matt, Many thanks. Best, Andrew

Thanks Sabrejet; the primer was great stuff, and I have been using the Mr. Color Levelling Thinner to thin my Tamiya acrylics too; it seems a very versatile product.

I will go back and take a close look at those posts.

Very glad to be here. I am quite interested in learning more about the prospect of doing actual upholstered seats in a build. Making seats look realistic is tough, and I don't feel like I've ever really succeeded at that.

Amazing stuff. I apprenticed to a master upholsterer for a year and a half or so when I was 18; it was a very enjoyable job, though I was doing fairly basic stuff most of the time. He was kind enough to help me upholster my car in leather as a parting gift when I left the job; it was inordinately tough to do (he was well-established enough at that point in his career that he refused to do cars because they were so much more work than furniture). All this to say that doing leather upholstery on such a small scale, where the slightest error would spoil the appearance must be very delicate and at times frustrating work. But the results will clearly be worth the effort.

Ron, Many thanks. I appreciate the feedback and advice. I will definitely go with my instincts rather than trying to strictly duplicate the techniques or results of others. I certainly am glad to have so many great resources on hand from all of the talented modelers on these forums though. All best, Andrew

Ok, here is a brief update on the 250 GTO. I have been getting familiarized with Vallejo air paints, and I think they are wonderful. I took Sabrejet's advice and got some Mr. Hobby's Mr. Primer Surfacer 1000. I think they likely could have fit a few more "Mr's" into the name, but that aside, it is an excellent primer. I thinned it 1:1 with Mr. Color Levelling Thinner and got great results; much smoother than the etch primer I used initially. Although, I will say that the etch primer did just fine when I began spraying Vallejo, and I can't really tell an appreciable difference now that they are all painted, though maybe others can. (Apologies for the less-than-ideal photography). For instance: The cylinder heads and crankcase cover were primed with the etch primer, and this is how they look after a few coats of aluminum and steel Vallejo Air metal colors (I tried to employ some of Ron's techniques as outlined in his Renault RE20 Turbo Thread, using a couple of different metal paints on the initial paint job). For comparison, here are the gearbox and engine block, both of which I primed with Messieurs Hobby and Primer Surfacer: Aside from the parts in the first picture being slightly darker due to a bit more steel paint than the others received, I don't notice too much difference, though the cylinder heads may be just slightly more textured. I any event, I am cautiously pleased with the results thus far, although I would be grateful for any feedback on anything I might improve on here. Finally, here are the cylinder head covers, which were a lot of fun: They're still a bit wet here from a final touch-up spray and will need a bit of tidying, but I wanted to include them to show the textured surface that MFH got on these covers; it is just wonderful. I know that the horizontal lines and the "Ferrari" name are traditionally black on these covers, but at this size the word and lines were barely visible at all when they were black, so I opted to sand the paint off so that the detail could be seen and appreciated. The next step is sanding flash off of dozens of very tiny components that will go in the cylinder heads, painting them, and then putting those together. I am having such a great time with this kit; it is my first time working with white metal, and I already feel like it is going to be hard to go back to plastic after working with this. It poses different challenges than plastic or resin, but I feel like the white metal is ultimately more forgiving, than plastic in particular. I'd be glad to hear any suggestions or feedback; many thanks for reading. All best, Andrew

Hahaha. I wish I could say the same of my username, but fate denied my having Julius Caesar as an uncle: my one great sorrow.