Pascal

Nice project and nice work. Some inspiration : For reference purpose only Sincerely Pascal

WOW, that looks absolutely stunning. When I looked at the photos, I was thinking : "Nice reference photos. When is he gonna show photos of the scale model ?". Then I realized that ALL the photos are of your finished model. Incredible work, my hat's off to you sir. Sincerely Pascal

Gorgeous ! Love the blue / beige combo. Good job. Sincerely Pascal

This kit fought you all the way John, but you turned it into a real beautie. Congratz ! Sincerely Pascal

There are a few more alternatives like Micro Plating Powder : Or the Polishing Powders by Ushi Van Der Rosten : https://www.uschivdr.com/products-in-detail/polishing-powders-metallic-pigments/

Thx mates ! Something was way off, but I couldn't put my finger on it. With the help of some reference photos, I finally found the problem and it's a big one. The sides of the interior are way to wide : I used the Solido parts as a guide, but those are about double as wide as on the real car : If I paint these sides black, it will give the model a wrong look. The outer part of the sides need to be white like the body : This will require some major surgery by cutting the sides in half : The outer part will be glued to the inside of the body. I hope I can get the right shade of white : It still won't be perfect, but it will look at look better - fingers crossed - when done. Sincerely Pascal

Small update ,but a major leap towards saving this model from last friday's tragedy. In order to fit the new interior, I had to remove almost 5 mm of plastic from the inside of the wheel wells : The tubes (aluminium wire from the flower shop) have had their yellow coating removed. Dryfit in the new interior : Dryfit with some of the scratchbuild / modified parts : I used self adhesive felt to cover the inside of the seat : Colored the selfadhesive bandage black, looks a bit rough on this macro photo, with the naked eye it looks just fine :

That's a very nice Ferrari, great work. Nice save with the windows.

Nice work John. Can you bend the roof in the correct shape ? Or does that require more surgery ?

@ Codger : The tubes are not brass, they are aluminium wires bought in a flower shop. The way that I've build the tube/wire frame, doesn't allow soldering because each tube/wire needs to be inserted from the sides or the back of the plastic floorboard. On second thought, I'm gonna use CA glue in stead of JB weld, because virtually none of the joints will be visible. So, friday was a total disaster... But I've worked a lot of hours during the past 3 days, this is the result sofar : Strange how this photo makes it all look bent and crooked : Started making the fire extinguishers : Used some self-adhesive bandage to wrap around the seat : When the bandage will be painted black it will look just like the rough surface on the seat of the real car : Sincerely Pascal

When Murphy strikes, he strikes hard ! If you put a primed piece of plastic (in this case the interior in an oven, you get a nice hard painted finish. BUT, if your oven turns out to be a grill (heating tubes bottom and top side), you get a completely deformed piece of plastic : I asked Solido if I could buy a replacement part, guess what the answer was... It's a shame that so many diecast companies refuse to help their customers. I can buy nearly every single sprue from Tamiya, even if they have to ship it from Japan. Ah well, If there's 1 thing that I have, it's patience. So I will painstakingly rebuild the interior from scratch and use a couple of deformed parts that can be salvaged. Before it gets better, it needs to get worse. After some breaking and cutting apart, this is what I have to start with : Stay tuned, things will get better soon... Sincerely Pascal

There you go : http://build-threads.com/build-threads/ferrari-f40-lm-restoration/ PS : Would be nice to get an answer to the PM's I send you... Sincerely Pascal

Thx guys ! Spend a couple of hours fiddling with 2mm alu tubes. Just need to add all the smaller ones. Dryfit : Where the 2 tubes cross, I filed halfway thru each tube, when they will be glued together the join should be good : Added the 2 diagonal tubes, these will hold the gearshifter : I will sand the yellow coating from the tubes and make some adjustments so that they fit better. Will use JB Cold Weld to glue them, that will - hopefully - allow me to form some weldspots between the tubes while the glue is drying. Sincerely Pascal

Done a lot of work on this project the last couple of days. Endless measuring, sanding, dryfitting, sanding, etc. The modified firewall is finally glued in place : Quite complicated angles to make, the shiny spots are leftover from the Tamiya ultra thin glue : Looks very dirty with all the dust from the sanding. After a wash tonight, primer will go on tomorrow : Dryfit of the aluminium tubes going from the radiator to the engine. The right side will get 2 of these as well : The floorboard was sanded. Reference photo's show none of the details that Solido made on the floorboard. I will add aluiminium tubes to the floorboard to form the chassis : Before : After : Lowered the front of the model by sanding 2 mm from the plastic tubes that are part of the front suspension : Before : After : There's still a couple of mm's of space between the tire and the mudguard in case the front needs to be lowered a bit more. Sincerely Pascal

Another "blitz-project". I was very happy when I saw that Solido made this car, for €45 I think it's great value for money. Foto's from CK-modelcars were I bought the model : The last 2 photos show the wheelcovers that look more like clogwheels from a clock. I used a bolt and nut to hold the wheelcovers and removed the teeth with my lathe, I also made the cover a lot thinner. After a coat of primer and Tamiya X7, the covers were attached to the painted wheels (done with a Tamiya paint marker) : The cockpit will get most of the work. I removed a big piece of plastic to make room for the drivers feet : But I ran into these big blocks. They are part of the front suspension and have to be removed to make room for the extended floorboard. Out came the Dremel : Had to go all the way thru the bottom to clear enough space : First Idea was to improve this part : Drilled some holes to remove the part between the tubes : But then I decided to make everything from scratch, that will allow me to add the missing tubes. The roll cage needs some mods too. The upper tubes in this picture dont look like this on the real car : This plastic tube is also part of the roll cage on the real car. It will be sanded down and replaced with alu tubing : The front tubes of the roll cage are supposed to be the same size (like the one on the right). I have no idea why Solido made them like this. Will be fixed with alu tubing : These tubes on the floorboard will be removed : This was my first attempt to modify the area behind the seats. Reference photos of this area are hard to find : Then I found the WIP by Scratchbuilt. He made this car in 1/8 scale from scratch, his build log has some very nice pics : The big hump is being reshaped : And slowly the firewall is taking shape : There's a lot more work then I thought, but I 'm still very happy with this model. Sincerely Pascal

Nice to see someone build this here on BM. I took a long look at this kit, but decided it's not for me. It's a very detailed kit, but a lot of the parts are simplified (because it's a snap / screw kit) or just plain wrong. I'm sure it can be modified into a very impressive model, but that will require a lot of work (for me at least). I think I'm gonna order a couple of parts from Centauria to build my Pocher F-40's, like the seats, rear window, etc. Don(t know how far you want to go with this build, but removing some seams here and there, glueing/puttying/sanding and painting will improve the kit a lot. Best of luck with this project. Sincerely Pascal

I'm looking at 3 alternatives to detail the engine compartment of my 956's : 1. Haynes Porsche 956 & 962 Owners' Workshop Manual. 2. Speed Details #4 "956 Engines" 3. Scale Motorsport Porsche 956 Up Close & Mechanical. I'm thinking the third one might be the best option. Does anyone have these references and which one do you prefer ? Sincerely Pascal

That hood looks great Andy. Please be careful using alu cans, the material is very sharp and can cause some really nasty cuts. I use scrap alu from all kinds of "household appliances" : old VCR's, DVD players, etc. The alu is a bit thicker, but also less sharp. Sincerely Pascal

Here's some photos of my Super 7 : I used spraycans for primer, green and clearcoat. The clearcoat gave me a very big run at the rear of the body. The run was sanded and a thin layer of clearcoat was sprayed over it, it's no longer visible : Sincerely Pascal

Nice project. Build this kit some 15 years ago. Added some details to the engine compartment, wooden dashboard, bezels made from wire, etc. And, I had a big paint run on the rear of the body. If you're interested, I think I still have the photos. PS : great idea to finish it with an aluminium body. I would give kitchen foil a try. It comes in many shades and is a lot cheaper then BMF. Check out some of the WIP's of the airplane modellers for inspiration and how to's. Sincerely Pascal

Nice work. What zeropaints color did you use for the blue ? The 2-bottle (white and blue) set or one of the other Rothmans blue colors from zeropaints (ZP-1039, ZP-1077). I need a Rothmans blue to touch up my 1/18 Minichamps 956L, do you know if there's an alternative for Rothmans blue ? Tamiya, Humbrol, etc. Sincerely Pascal

I have some experience with sanding out drops of clearcoat. I let the clearcoat get really hard (if I use spraycan for the clearcoat, I wait about 4 weeks). Then I use the sanding pads that come with the Novus polishing kit and gradually wet (using plenty of water) sand the run away. The clearcoat will really dull, but it will become shiny again when you use the finest grid of sandpaper (if not use a buffing/polishing compound). Be careful not to damage the lip that surrounds the wheel arch.

I followed this "live" a couple of years ago. It's still a masterpiece ! Sincerely Pascal

Very nice work with those tiny details. The french tricolore looks great ! Sincerely Pascal

That's not a restauration, it's a major upgrade. Stunning work. Sincerely Pascal