maltadefender

I love this old kit. I built two in a row and had to stop myself from trawling for more of them. Yours looks a belter.

I'd be thrilled to get that sort of result from the same kit. Well done!

Lovely and crisp result!

I've got to take a four week break from the build thanks to work, but will be watching on with interest and getting very eager to finish off ASAP! Have fun, see you at the end of next month...

Here's where we stand at present, with the GB entry alongside a suitable running mate that I've been working on in the meantime. The Rothmans car is the winning 956 high tail from the 1983 Silverstone 1000km. I've got to take a break from everything for four weeks, as I've been called on for a little bit of work overseas. Once I'm back there will be a few weeks to tidy her up, get the revised running gear in and get to the finish line. In the meantime I shall happily carry on watching the rest of the builds! Have fun...

Sorry, guys, but I'm going to have to pull out from this one. I've got a month overseas for work starting on Monday so I shall get a big box of popcorn and look forward to watching the rest of the GB unfold, then come back to my Spit later in the year. Have fun!

Photos of the Gladiators are few and far between but they are out there. The colour scheme on 'Faith' today is somewhat misleading in that the demarcation between the upper and lower colours was never a crisp, straight line. The aircraft never carried their 'names' on them - and debate still rages as to when, where or even if anyone ever referred to them as 'Faith, Hope and Charity' in the first place! This one is from the summer of 1940, as you can see serials were few and far between...

Fantastic, thank you!

Thanks Graham, So am I right in thinking that Sky Grey with black/white on the underside works for the June-July period of Faith, Hope & Charity legend, and then the later low demarcation scheme has Sky 'S'?

Quick question: how accurate do we think the lower surface colour is? I thought FAA scheme was Sky Type 'S' on the lower surfaces, even back in mid-1940. But dear old Faith here has a marked blue tint to her, as do most representations... so would that be the Sky Blue as used on many Malta Spits?

Lovely patina!

Hi Flemming, I find that a darker shade can give a bit of depth without the need for preshading. If it's done at all on slot cars, quite often it's 'post-shading' or putting thick black lines along the seams... I'm not a fan of that. I think the result is OK. Warren... white paint is never fun in my experience!

I've been holding off painting very much over the winter, as rattlecans are easily put off their game by a fluctuating thermometer. Perhaps using Halfords paint on my Mosquito GB entry spoilt me a bit too, as a big can of auto paint doesn't take many prisoners compared to a little hobby aerosol. In short: paint has been a trial. I used Tamiya gloss white first, but this was hopeless. No adhesion at all even on my lovely even primer. It sort of slid down and pooled wherever it could... Then it snowed... While the flurries blew around my ears I sanded off the worst of the mush and prepared for a quick blow-over with Humbrol gloss white. I had a window of about five minutes with no precipitation or ice and gave it a shot... much better. In fact passable. Still some flaws but these would largely be covered by the decals. So I let it cure overnight and spent Sunday masking and painting the red-orange sections. And then out came the decal sheet. Patto's decals are made with flexi-ink which is quite thick and you need to trim the film very closely. But they seemed to be OK for size. I just cut one block off the middle and rear sections of the top deck stripes to get them to fit... After a lot of stretching of the decals and fussing about to get them straight I left them overnight, then ladled on the Decal Soft. The blocks that I had previously removed were recycled on the vents in the engine cover to make sure that the design looked continuous... That's a splash of softener on the rear wheelarch, not a paint run... I promise! Of course after that I realised that my labours on getting the individual blocks of blue seated on the louvres was a waste of time. That's what comes of referring to a diecast model! The 1:1 car had Shell logos on there rather than continuing the body stripes, so a little bit more stripping needs to be done now before I can go on.

Here's Neil's page in 'the Bible'! http://www.racingsportscars.com/driver/photo/Neil-Crang-AUS.html

While the primer cured on the body I had a little fiddle with the chassis. Dunlop tyres off and Michelins on. Swapped out the BBS wheels from the original kit with a set of 6-spoke carbon jobbies from the Sauber. Time for more paint...

It's promising rain soon so I'm going to try and get all my paint on ra-ra-rapido! Here's the primer... Humbrol, for the use of. Goes on a treat. And a vote in favour of the dirty finish! Thanks Joergen!

Oooohh... 90 minutes to go! I'm a bit torn, chaps and chappesses. I fancy doing this one 'weathered' but it's such a nice, clean livery it almost feels sacrilegious. Can I hear any votes for minty fresh or doity, please???

My mistake - I meant 15mm! Half a mil can make quite a difference to the performance - but I'm blowed if I can see it!

I've got some sneaky practice in before tonight's kick-off! Here's a little update on that Sauber after painting and decalling. When I've finished the GB build I hope they will run nicely together. As you can probably see, the 16mm rims fitted as standard don't quite fill the rear arches correctly on later GpC cars like this one. I'll be using the 16.5mm rims on the Porsche.

There are some lovely Alpines out there Peter - was it the SCX one you had or something a little 'hotter'? I loved the Group C era, so have been a sucker for Slot.It from the outset. I've probably owned everything that they've released at one time or another but never all at once! The thing is that there are so many liveries to choose from you never run short of pretty things to be playing with! I'll post a few pics of the current fleet if anyone's interested. I was about 10 when Group C really got going and at university when it was killed off, and most seasons would bring two chances to see them in action at Silverstone and Brands Hatch rather than one Grand Prix. My parents and a load of friends hired a bus and did Le Mans together too, so I always associate it with good stuff going on, and there's something about the endeavour involved in endurance racing which, like rallying, appeals much more than a 90-minute Grand Prix. In the past 18 months the complete kits like this have been culled from the Slot.It range and are becoming increasingly rare. What used to cost around £35 in a single, convenient box now costs almost £100 if you have to buy all the parts individually. Scratchbuilding, kitbashing and repainting are very much mainstays of the slotting scene though. There are some great 'open' meets across the country for pretty well every discipline of the hobby from BRiSCA stock cars on a scale half-mile oval to full-on rallies and 24 hour team races. Also a whole cottage industry of resin shell builders out there... Scratchbuilder on this forum being responsible for most of them!

Beautiful job.

That's another sale for Italeri! Safe to say mine won't look quite as smart, that's a peach.

After getting the go-ahead (thanks guys!) I'll be knocking together the Slot.It 1/32 kit of the Porsche 962c as a fully-functional slot car. Slot.It has been bringing out its cracking range of Group C cars for the thick end of a decade now. Having started out selling high-end upgrade parts, they started out as a manufacturer with the Porsche 956 in low-drag Le Mans spec and progressed through the Porsche 956/962 family to make gorgeous models of the most of the iconic cars of the era: Sauber-Mercedes C9, the Jaguar XJR-6 family, Toyota 88c, Mazda 787 and Lancia LC2. Although its focus is on delivering a satisfying slot car to committed club racers, Slot.It stands pretty much alone in being able to do so without compromising the quality of its modelling. Most Scalextric models stand comparison with the best diecasts in the market these days, but they are hopeless on the track. Conversely the specialist competition manufacturers build cars that tend to be 1/28 in width and 1/30 in length and about 1/36 in height, making some serious racing weaponry but nasty little things to look at. Slot.It manages to avoid any overt compromise in looks or performance, although by sticking to 15mm rear wheels as standard it does lose scale accuracy on most of the later cars. New 16.5mm rear wheels redress this significantly and these are what I shall be fitting on this particular build. I'm going to build it as the 1990 #7 car driven by Derek Bell, Hans Stuck and Frank Jelinski as it represents the end of a great era for Porsche and has two of my heroes, Bell and Stuck, in the same car. It's a lovely version of the Blaupunkt colours with additional Porsche branding, the decals for which I've got from Patto's Place in Australia. By 1990 a lot of privateer Porsche teams were experimenting with different aerodynamic packages and carbon fibre tubs to try and keep pace with the arrival of Jaguar, Sauber-Mercedes, Toyota and Nissan. The car I'm modelling, however, retained the same basic look that had done Porsche so well at the Sarthe since the team's first 1-2-3 finish in 1982. The 1990 edition at Le Mans was intended to be the 962's last hurrah, with Porsche giving works status to the Joest squad. Famously Joest had managed to win the event in 1984-85 with its celebrated 'NewMan' liveried 956 chassis number 117 - one of the few chassis to take two wins on the event, and in 1985 it did so against the best efforts of Porsche's own squad of 962s. A team of four cars was entered of which three were brand new cars and two were built to a new specification for lighter weight. One of these was shunted by Jonathan Palmer in practice and took no further part. The two 'traditional' 962s trundled round to finish 8th and 14th. Predictably with the calibre of old hands at the wheel, the #7 car was the strongest Joest finisher in fourth place, some nine laps behind the winning Jaguar of Price Cobb, John Nielsen and Martin Brundle... although the all-British 962 of David Leslie, David Sears and Anthony Reid pipped the 'works' entry to the podium and finished as the best of the Porsches. I'm looking forward to this one, makes a change from my usual GB entries!

As a yellow Mossie fan and a racing fan, I'll be glued!

Thanks Stu!It's not quite seamless up close but for a first go with that sort of set I'm pleased. The paint is Halfords Fiat Broom Yellow as recommended by Wooksta - I'm delighted with the final shade that it came out with and it's good and glossy ready for the decals. Just hope that the few little bits of bleed on the canopy come off OK...