Pascal

Last week our American CO moved to another base. For his farewell ceremony, I was asked to build an aircraft that was stationed at our base in WW2. I chose to build the aircraft of Lt Col John C Meyer, SN 44-15041 Petie 3rd. The kit is from Tamiya, first step was to spray the non standard black stripes : For the silver I used a € 2 spraycan : After the removal of the tape : The seatbelts were made from copper wire and tape : These photos show the variety in silver color, I used Rub n Buff gilding wax, silver plate and pewter : Finished model, decals are from Kagero : The Trumpeter display case has an ugly black baseplate with sinkmarks, so I chose to put a US flag under a piece of clear styrene to cover most of the base plate. Without the clear cover : With the cover : Luckily our CO was very happy with his gift. Sincerely Pascal

What version of the car are you building ? Looks like the Italeri kit might be based on this one :

I sanded the rims to remove the chrome and used metal powder from Uschi van der Rosten to give them a metal look : The tires were sanded to remove the seam and shine : The interior received the homemade gear lever and rectangular plates with rivets. The seat belts are from Uli Nowak : On the right side of the pedals I installed a homemade footrest, the interior received some strips with rivets, made from the metal cap from a wine bottle : These photos show the white Joest sun shade, it's way to big and that is sadly the case with all Solido 956 Porsches : Comparison with the decal made by Tim (thanks again my friend, you are a lifesaver) : The new sun shade, wheel covers, headlights and antenna : I'm very happy with the way the new wheel covers look on the model, big improvement : Still some minor things left to do and then this model will be finished. Sincerely Pascal

Because I have the Minichamps 956 on my workbench, I thaught it was a good idea to add this one because a lot of parts are the same. I wanted to buy the Minichamps version of this car, but they are way too expensive. Got this one from CK-modelcars for around € 40, pictures from their website : First thing I'm gonna do is change the covers for the front wheels. Solido did a poor job with these : The real ones look like this : The spokes need to be a lot thinner and the hole in the middle needs a smaller diameter. Started by making 2 circles with the lathe : To fix the plasticard in the lathe chuck, I drilled a hole and used one of these to fix the plasticard in the lathe chuck : Used a pipe cutter and a punch & die set to make the alu tube and plastic cover : Removed the Solido cover from the wheel : And drilled out the wheel nut : The new cover fits nicely : What's on the to-do-list for this project ? : Remove the oversized windshield decal and replace it. Use 3D printed vanes for the wheel covers. Add new wheel nuts. Replace (if I can find a good replacement part) the windshield wiper. Add details to the interior, because the doors are functional on this model. Modify the headlights, Solido always forgets the clear round lenses. Drill out the exhaust tubes. Various modifications that will (hopefully) improve the look of the model. The spokes of the pink "stars" were to wide, Dominiek made new ones with 0,3 mm spokes. They are very fragile, out of 20 made just 3 survived transport. Luckily they're strong when they are glued to the discs, each spoke was given a tiny drop of CA to fix it firmly to the discs : After painting the assembled cover white and attaching the decals made by Tim (Thanks again Tim, excellent job !) it was given a HG non gloss clear coat : Looks so much better then the Solido version : The hole in the middle will receive a disc (not yet painted white in the photo). I've drilled 6 tiny holes in the disc and glued pieces of stretched sprue to simulate the nuts : Solido has made the rod running from the gear lever to the back of the cockpit in 1 solid piece. I removed the rod, but this also removed the rivets : Made a new strip from the metal from a wine bottle and made the rivets with an riveter : The gear lever and rod will be replaced with a scratchbuid parts : Used alu tape for the interior, on the left and right side I removed some plastic to fit the modified radiators : The radiators are ugly, I removed them on the one on the right : Use alu tape to box in one of the holes : PE radiator mesh was cut to size and glued to the back. I also made an extension behind the hole on the top right, because Solido had made this without the tunnel : The inside of the radiator assembly received a piece of plasticard (will be painted black) to box in the sides : Sincerely Pascal

Great project and top notch work. If only Pocher (Hornby) would make 1/8 scale classic roadsters ...

Excellent eye for detail and simply stunning how you make all those tiny and fragile parts. Looking forward to the next update. Sincerely Pascal

Nice to have you along Keith. Update : I've started making the pieces for the fuel pump construction. Reference photo : Made 4 cylinders with the lathe and added a hex nut : They will be polished and the shine toned down later : Dryfit with the tubes that are attached to the bottom of the cylinders : Added some details and weathered the interior. The light on my workbench make it look way more shinier then it is in daytime : I used PE buckles from Uli Nowak, first time for me, but I'll use them again in the future because they look very good : Used the lathe to make 2 fire extinguishers : The left side will be sanded to a more rounded shape : Sincerely Pascal

I bought this model some 15 years ago. It was damaged, some decals had yellowed and the Rothmans decals were missing. As usual, I forgot to take photos of my model before I started the disassembly, but this is how it looks when new : Photo from Carmodel.com, for reference purpose only The interior : Photo from Carmodel.com, for reference purpose only As with most 956 scale models, this one has a seat for the passenger : I started by enlarging the space for the driver's legs : And cut the passenger seat from the frame : I'm covering the interior with aluminium tape. But the result is to shiny. I used Commandant 4 polishing compound to make it more dull. This compound is used to polish, but if you use it with a cottonbud, you can make the alu tape less shiny : The beam in the middle of the floor was enlarged and covered with the alu tape : I still have to add 2 triangles to the beam, you can see the right one in this photo : This photo shows the new panel I made, the hole will receive the scratchbuild fuelpumps : The panel has not been treated with Commandant 4 and shows how shiny the alu tape is before treatment : Will be quite a job to make the fuelpumps, 1/1 scale reference photo : I did a lot of sanding to the bottom plate, removed some plastic and added some strips : Sincerely Pascal

Very interesting project. Rob : I've removed decals from clear plastic with Dot 4 brake fluid. Maybe you can cover the clear parts with decals ? Then later on you can remove the decals with brake fluid. PS : This page has some great photos of the Lancia LC2-85 chassis : https://www.asmonzaracing.com/photos-cars-walkaround-lancia-lc285-0007-1985.html Sincerely Pascal

After a long and hard fight (started this project february 6th 2021) with Moby, this model is finally finished. As usual, I added a ton of details, most of which aren't visible with the body on the chassis. Ah well, there will always be the photo's of the interior. Three photo's of the interior and then onto the finished model. I used lead foil from a wine bottle to make the tray that held the radio. Didn't install the radio because I don't like it : The last of the seatbelts was glued to the seat : The finished model, I made a "photo booth" with some wood and cardboard : Sincerely Pascal

Thx guys Moby keeps fighting me ... Added the scratchbuild items to the interior. (Found out that these will require another modification to the dashboard, oh well...) : Glued the seat in place, wasn't easy because I had to install the rollcage first : Seatbelts attache to the rollcage like in the real car : The wheels received the parts that I made / modified (wheelnut, alu tube, air valve and rond alu plate) : Sincerely Pascal

May I suggest an alternative ? You can buy a diecast Maisto 991 in 1/24 scale from for a very nice price : https://ck-modelcars.de/en/maisto-1-24-porsche-911-991-ii-gt2-rs-year-2018-yellow-black-31523/p-56814/ That's not a kit, but it's in 1/24 scale and Maisto models are very easy to disassemble. This one is also 1/24 scale from Bburago, price is € 13,45 : Sincerely Pascal

Thx Ron, Finally the work on the interior is coming to an end. The fire extinguishers are scratch build and have 16 parts, they look real nice with the decals designed and printed by Tim : I added some more details and wires : Dryfit with the dashboard : This is how the interior looked before the work began : I still need to find a way to glue the dashboard firmly in place. Then it will be a delicate job to put the seat in after the rollcage is fitted. Not enough space to do it the other way round. Finally the radio, some tiny home-made parts, and the seatbelts need to be installed. After that, the interior is done. Hope to reach the finish line in 3 - 4 weeks. Sincerely Pascal

Stunning work Dan, every little detail that you add is a masterpiece on it's own. Très impressionant, chaque pièce que tu fais, est un chef-d'oeuvre. Vivement la suite. Cordialement Pascal

The details inside the rollbar look great Ron, some very nice scratchwork. But the outside bar has some strange bends in the curve on top. Did you use a tube ? Personally, I prefer to use a metal rod, so that it doesn't "cave in" when I bend it. But I'm nit picking here. Sincerely Pascal

Update : I finally managed to glue (using CA and J&B weld) the gear lever and it's housing to the tubes in the cockpit. The macro photos shows the dust that is left after sanding the J&B weld : This photo shows the medium grey J&B weld that I put between the tube and the housing to get a strong bond : This is the tube that connects the gear lever to the gearbox, 8 parts in total. The right part is the only part that came with the Solido model, the rest was scratched. The little tube on the left that sits over the larger tube is a modified part from a lighter : Dryfit. The bottom part of the gear lever will be glued inside the little vertical tube that I put on the large tube : Not to much to show, but it's a BIG step forward. Sincerely Pascal

It's been quite a struggle to find a way to fix all the scratchbuild parts together. These are the parts that will be fitted to the lever (brake balance lever ?) that's just to the left behind the gear lever. The tubes are made from injection needles : Dryfit in the cockpit : With the tubes, not connected to the eyebolts because - at this stage - they aren't long enough : They're not parallel, this will be fixed later : Made another piece of tubing to get the correct length : Now the tubes are long enough, so they fit over the eyebolts. Macro photo shows there's some cleaning to do : New dryfit : One hurdle completed, on to the next one.

Deleted - read the pinned post ref wanted/for sale/trade

Update : Using copper wire I made the V-shaped bracket that's welded to the diagonal tube. Painted and glued in place (the white stuff is flour + CA) : But I didn't look good and didn't look like the real car. It was then that I realized that I made a big mistake. The tube diagonal tubes that run through the top of the firewall sit to low : The big black bump on the firewall needs to be some 5-6 mm higher : To modify the bump, I have to take the entire construction of the interior apart. I highly doubt that the parts will survive that kind of treatment. So, I decided to leave the bump and make a new tube. The old one and the V-shaped bracket were removed. Very gently because that part of the construction is fragile : Installed a new tube and a new V-shaped bracket : Much better : The V-shaped bracket will hold this lever. It's made up of 7 parts, the tubes on the left side will be the same length when everything is installed : The eyebolt were carefully filed to a much smaller size : Tiny piece, the square is 10 x 10 mm : I'm glad that I found a solution to the problem, even though it's not perfect, it will hardly be noticable when all the parts are installed. But it will be quite a challenge to assemble all the parts in that limited space. We'll see... Pascal MNTADO (*) (*) Motivation Never Takes A Day Off

Update : It took a lot of time to find a way to make the tiny parts for the gear lever, shaft and all the details that surround it. On the right side of the photo, you can see the coupling of the gearbox shaft : Op deze foto is rechts de koppeling te zien van de buis die van de versnellingspook naar de versnellingsbak loopt : Solido made the coupling like this : I kept the rear part of the coupling and modified it : The front part of the coupling is made from piece of alu rod : These are some of the parts that I will use for the gear lever and shaft. From top to bottom : Steel rod (from a large paperclip). The little piece on the right that sits on top is a modified piece from a lighter. Steel tube from a cable ferrule. Scratchbuild front part of the coupling. Still have to make the tiny square block for the shaft : Dryfit, the cockpit has received some cables and braided wire, fixed in place with painted lead foil from a winebottle : To make the gear lever, I soldere a piece of copper wire to an eyebolt. The photo shows a dryfit with a M1 hex bolt and nut : The little ball has a diameter of 2,5 mm, it's from a kit to make necklaces : The front of the gear lever housing will get these tiny parts : Hex nut, turned piece of alu rod, smaller nod and the lid I made with the lathe : This dryfit shows that it's to high, the piece of alu rod will be shortened : It will be quite an adventure to fit and glue all these tiny parts together. Sincerely Pascal

I wanted to buy the Minichamps version of this car, but they are way too expensive. Got this one from CK-modelcars for around € 40, pictures from their website : First thing I'm gonna do is change the covers for the front wheels. Solido did a poor job with these : The real ones look like this : The spokes need to be a lot thinner and the hole in the middle needs a smaller diameter. Started by making 2 circles with the lathe : To fix the plasticard in the lathe chuck, I drilled a hole and used one of these to fix the plasticard in the lathe chuck : Used a pipe cutter and a punch & die set to make the alu tube and plastic cover : Removed the Solido cover from the wheel : And drilled out the wheel nut : The new cover fits nicely : Dominiek (Exserco) has printed these for me : Dryfit with the cover : The 3D printed part fits perfectly : These are the parts that I will use to fix the new wheelnut in place, the big metal part was made with the lathe : I bought some acrylic rods and used the lathe to make these headlight lenses. They need a bit more polishing and will get a coat of Parket Plus. The matt one shows how they look before polishing : What's on the to-do-list for this project ? : Remove the oversized windshield decal and replace it. Use 3D printed vanes for the wheel covers. Add new wheel nuts. Replace (if I can find a good replacement part) the windshield wiper. Add details to the interior, because the doors are functional on this model. Modify the headlights, Solido always forgets the clear round lenses. Drill out the exhaust tubes. Various modifications that will (hopefully) improve the look of the model. Sincerely Pascal

Stunning work Alan !

I got tired of dealing with the zamac, so I made this little cutie. Laser-cut wooden kit from Robotime, 145 parts. Photo from the Robotime website : Took me 2 days to build, I added some color variation using woodstain and permanent markers. Was a fun little project : The little part in the last photo has been corrected. Sincerely Pascal

I really need to find some more time for modelling. Update. Resin parts : Cylinder covers : Manifold : Drilled holes in the underside to attach the tubes : Tubes : Some plastic needs to be removed to make room for the tubes and covers : This lousy pic shows the back of the gearbox. I scratchbuild the master for this part, the Ferrari logo is visible with the naked eye : These triangular parts attach the gearbox to the frame : Inside the gearbox I fitted a terminal block, fixed in place with resin. The screw in the block allows me to hold the driveshaft in place, it also allows the gearbox to be moved about 5mm vertically, to change the ride height (I took some photos while I fixed the terminal block in place, but can't find them) : Sincerely Pascal