Pascal

Trucks are not my thing, but you've got some very fine modelling going on here. Nice work. Sincerely Pascal

Don't know if I will be able to turn it into a diamond, but I'll give it my very best. Did some work on the side windows, took me days to get the windows to kind of fit. Still a lot of work left to get the fit right : The other side was just as bad, but slowly we're getting some results : The louvres behind the side windows will have to be rebuild, I might try scribing them a bit deeper using a comb as a guide. We'll see. Sincerely Pascal

The interior will be completely changed, this is how it looked when the model arrived : I started with this part, it's warped and the left side is much longer then the right side : Set by step : The red paint and self-adhesive felt was removed, the area behind the seat was rebuild. Here's a dryfit : 1/1 scale reference : Sincerely Pascal

I got tired fixing the problems with the windows, so i turned my attention to the backside of the body (sounds a bit raunchy). A prominent feature of the backside are the lights. A close inspection revealed that the holes for the lights aren't round and they're not on the same height : I started with drilling the holes : Then glued a piece of tubing inside the hole. This will be sanded flush, so that the holes are perfectly round : A piece of alu tubing will form the rim for the lights. The alu tubing will be polished or painted with chrome paint : After a couple of hours of sanding (to get the top of the rear of the body straight) this is the result (the bumper is a dryfit) : Sincerely Pascal

Here we go. If this was a zamac or styrene body, I would use my Dremel. But all the parts are resin, so out came the knives and files. Started carving a groove to hold the windscreen and added a few styrene strips : More strips and more CA + flour : Windscreen dryfit, still a lot of gaps everywhere : The photos above are the result of a couple of weeks (or was it months ?) of work. Basically, I carved, filed, sanded, puttied, carved, filed and sanded a few hours a day, only to get nowhere. I finally put the kit away for a week or two, then started on the backside of the body, but that will be for the next update. All reactions, tips, help and criticism are welcome. Sincereley Pascal

Last year I got an email from a collector. He told me that he had a partially build resin kit of the Ferrari 250 Bertone GT. The Ferrari 250 Bertone GT is a "one-off" car that was recently restored : The collector bought this kit second hand. He had no idea who the maker was, but he send me some photos of the partially build kit : He said : "All it needs is to be painted and completed". I accepted what looked like an easy project, but when I put the kit on my workbench it became clear that this would be quite a challenge. I removed the primer and then the resin horror show began : Lots of detail that is missing and panellines that look like trenches : The kit has no brake discs and the wheels were superglued to the resin. Removing the wheels wasn't easy - I actually broke the PE on one of them - they will be replaced by AM wheels : I removed the seats only to discover that the chassis was bend : A dryfit of the windshield showed that this would be a major project : But enough on the negative side of this kit. Allow me to share this work-in-progress as I battle this kit into submission. Will post the updates later this day. Sincerely Pascal

Keep up the good work Wayne. If you need info on the F-40, just ask. Sincerely Pascal

Thank you for your answer Codger. I was under the impression that your answer was gonna be about general shapes and lines of the TR kit. I totally agree that an OOB finished Pocher TR looks like a big Bburago (or even not as good as a Bburago). In my opinion a Pocher TR is good (if you can find a cheap one, let's say 80-100 euros) to get experience with building a big scale model. You can build it without glue nor paint, you can take it apart and put it back together (well most of it anyway). That makes it a candidate for a starter 1/8 model kit, as long as one doesn't expect a good finished model. But I should have read the topic starter's first post a bit better : On 2/11/2019 at 8:59 AM, TGA said: Since a lot of people have been saying 1:8 is the way to go and I love the idea of being able to super detail things I was wondering what you guys would consider a good 1:8 model to start with (that isn't overly expensive). What are your thoughts? Yes a Pocher Ferrari is a poor base kit. And if you consider the costs to super detail one of those kits, the answer is a definite : NO, it's not a good 1:8 model to start with. Just the hundreds of tiny hexagonal bolts and nuts that are needed to add some detail, are expensive. Sorry for the confusion that I caused with my previous answer. Sincerely Pascal

Yes, the single A-pillar mounted mirror was only installed on early Testarossa's. I've build 2 Pocher TR's and 5 F-40's. Curious to find out what you find wrong about the TR kit.

I've got some more updates to show, this is how I made the H-shaped support that holds the fan in place. A couple of reference photos that I took when the car was in France : I made the H-support out of brass sheet : It has 6 brass and 2 plastic parts : The white triangle will hold the motor of the fan : Dryfit : I used copper wire to make the "border" that's on the outside of the H-shaped support : Not my best work, but the 1/1 support on the real car is a bit rough as well. I might redo the border, cause I used CA to glue the wire in place. Soldering will give it a lot more strength and will allow me to sand the rough edges. Speaking of soldering : I made this with solder and a couple of brass tubes. Reference pic : My 1/8 scale version : Dryfit, I'm quite pleased with the result : Sincerely Pascal

Thank you gentlemen, much appreciated. Yes Wayne, you are correct. Aluminium (or aluminum) will not stick to solder. It's a cheap and handy way of holding parts in place that you want to solder. Sincerely Pascal

Very nice work Wayne. I'm a bit late, but here's a photo of a hose clamp as used on Ferrari cars : Sincerely Pascal

I hope to have more free time in 2019, really would like to finish this build this year. One of the things that make this car unique are the vertical "fins" that are located just behind the front wheels : The fins come with this little PE-set from Legende Miniatures : There's no way I can glue these little pieces of flat PE to the body. So I soldered a couple of metal strips to the top and bottom : To hold the metal pieces in place, I clamped them on a piece of aluminium plate that was bend in a 90° angle. This way it was just a matter of putting some flux and solder on the joint, use the "creme brulee" torch and voila : a solid bond : Dryfit on the body : At the rear the shocks are attached to a "kidney" shaped piece of black plastic. The rod ends and tubes that I made earlier were to big, I couldn't fit them on the rear suspension without hitting the driveshaft. This time I used a tube of smaller diameter (about half of the first version) and soldered a tiny brass ring to a piece of copper wire to make the rod ends. I'll have to make a couple more cause the copper wire is not in the middle of the brass ring : The kidney shaped part received another hole, this will hold a hexgonal bolt : Turned the lid (3mm diameter) from an aluminium rod with my lathe : A dryfit shows the hexagonal bolt in the lid. The head of the bolt is 1mm wide, but's it's to big. I will replace it with a 0,8mm bolt : In the end, it should look like this : Sincerely Pascal

Awesome work Harvey !

Thx Harvey ! Update : The 333SP has a diagonal bar that sits in front of the big airscoop : Hotwheels made this bar run thru the airscoop in stead of in front of it. First task was to plug the hole : Then remove enough plastic to make room for the bar : I drilled a hole on the left side, made the strange contraption that holds the bar on the right side : Looks rough, needs some filler and sanding : Dryfit with the new bar : This (the clear part) is all that remains of the original Hotwheels side-window, I used my mill to make a ledge that will hold the new side-window : Sincerely Pascal

Same here, sorry to hear about the accident, but if there's someone that can fix the damage : it's you. Best of luck mate, hope to see more updates soon. Sincerely Pascal

Update. No matter how much detail you add to a model, the thing that will always draw everyone's attention is the body. Spend a lot of hour getting the fit between the engine lid and the body as tight as possible. The tiny gaps that are still there will be filled by the primer, paint and clear coats : I didn't like the way Hotwheels fixed the big plastic airscoop to the body. It was sealed to the body using heat, but it was fixed about 1,5 mm to far aft. I did quite a few modifications to the plastic airscoop (it's black plastic) and glued it in place. Then followed a couple of rounds of putty and sanding. It needs a bit more sanding to smooth out the gaps : Removal of more unwanted zamac. Before : And after : Small update, but the result of endless dryfitting and modifying. Sincerely Pascal

Wow. They way you made the rims and tires, and the way you shaped that wood are just incredible. Great craftmanship !

Beautiful ! What PE set did you use for the wire wheels ?

Dear Mr. H. , I've spent a couple of hours examining your WIP. Had to replace my keyboad twice, because my chin destroyed it when my mouth fell open. This project is truly a work of art. You make it look so simple, but it's definitely NOT. I see some amazing scratchbuilding, very cleverly executed steps and SUBLIME craftsmanship ! One would think that seeing your work, would make me crawl in a dark corner and give up modelling forever. But your project is a GREAT inspiration, that motivates me to go the extra mile on my own projects. My hat's off to you sir, I stand in awe. Thank you for sharing this magnificent project. Sincerely Pascal

Thx guys ! After fiddling with the tiny parts, I'm glad to work on something a lot bigger. Hotwheels made the side windows like this : Doesn't look to bad, but they've made the diagonal tube and the window as 1 piece. This wont allow me to paint the tube red, unless I do it the Hotwheels way and paint part of the window ?! On the real car the side windows look like this : (Pictures for reference only) Hard to see in the pictures, but the bottom of the window is fitted to the inside of the body, and the top of the window is fitted to a strip that's attached to the underside of the tube. This gave me quite a few headaches, but I found a way ... Start with the Hotwheels part : Introduce it to my Dremel : Use the milling machine to mill a channel in a plastic tube : Glue a plastic strip inside the channel (the holes for the rivets will be drilled later) : And do a dryfit : Still plenty of work to get the shape and details of the tube and frame right, but I'm very happy that it turned out OK. Arrivederci ragazzi. Pascal

Work continues on the second handle. Here's a dryfit with the tube that runs to the back of the cockpit : I made the little ball (1,2 mm diameter) from a piece of alu sewing needle, total length of the handle is 7mm. Dryfit with the triangular base : The macro pictures show that the copper tubes (0,6 mm diameter) are not aligned, this has been changed after the picture was taken : The handle is adjustable : Sincerely Pascal

I think it's quite the contrary. Back in the eighties a Pocher F40 was available for around 250 euros (216 pound sterling). The kit wasn't meant for modellers. It can be assembled without glue nor paint. You have to compare it to the 1/18 Bburago F40, which was at that time the only alternative. The BBurago was available for around 75 euros, but it looks like a poor detailed Matchbox next to it's big Pocher brother. As far as modellers are concerned, the kit was (and stilll is) a great base for adding details, aftermarket or scratchbuild. AND it is still a very nice kit for someone that has never build (assembled) a big scale model. Basically it was a GREAT kit. The only thing that went wrong is that Pocher went bankrupt and the prices have gone up to very silly levels. The Hornby / Pocher Lambo's are now available for 3 times the price of the original F40, but they look no where near 3 times as good as the venerable F40 kit. Just my 2 cents

Thx H, so nice to see a reaction in my WIP Update : I had covered the dashboard with these decals : But the real car has a different type of carbon, so I scraped them off and replaced them with these : Spent a couple of hours fiddling with some tiny parts, like these : Those are very tiny open rivets, outer diameter : 0,8mm, inner : 0,6mm, length : 2,2mm. Three are visible in this photo, together with some other small parts : These will become the 2 handles that are attached to the center console : Dryfit of the first handle, it contains 5 tiny parts : Sincerely Pascal

Nice work Wayne. Autograph has forgotten some bolts on both sides of the gearbox, but I think they will hardly be visible when the engine/gearbox is installed. Grounded graphite from a pencil works great to change the sheen of the metallic painted parts. Sincerely Pascal