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I enjoy nice things, and after staring for months at the gorgeous 1.5 litre flat 12 Ferrari driven by the legend John Surtees on the Model Factory Hiro website, I decided to part ways with a large sum of my money and have one sent over here. After spending 30 minutes signing up to various photo sharing services and uploading the pictures about a thousand times, I finally figured out how to get them on the website, which I'd wager is harder than anything I'll do building this model 🤣🤣🤣 The box is rather pretty, and weighs about 5 pounds, its really no joke. I really enjoy looking at it, as you just know something beautiful and special is waiting inside. I'm aiming to make my car the number 8 from the Italian GP driven by John Surtees, I don't really have any particular reason for this other than the fact that I like the number 8. I'm not very good at remembering to take pictures BEFORE I do things, so there will be some weird gaps here and there, but I started by polishing all the metal for the internal structure, which is a huge pain of a job, but gives a rather satisfying result that you wouldnt get with paint. I did this with a bunch of sandpaper , 180 - 400 - 600 - 1000 - 2000 - 4000 - 6000 - 12000 then followed up with polishing compound coarse, fine, and finish, then hit with a coat of Tamiya gloss clear. The metal pieces came with a lot of scarring and marks that I couldn't fully remove, so the final product still looks a bit roughed up. Assembling the metal tub requires the gauges be built and attached at the same time, so thats where my building took me next. Hiro does a really great job at making a realistic dash and I'm very pleased with how the final product turned out. The metal framework itself is just one solid piece with a thin photoetch part glued on top of it, pretty simple - painted in Tamiya Nato Black as I find it gives a better flat black appearance than say Matte Black or Semi Gloss black. I cleaned up some of the flaws in the paint and then created the gauges, its hard to see them fully but they come as these really clean turned aluminum parts which you attach these backs to, but unfortunately the gauges are black on the real car, so that great metallic finish gets covered up. The next part was to create the details for the gauges, which is difficult but extremely cool in my opinion, maybe I'm just easily impressed though 🤣 You are provided with a tiny little photoetch gauge arm, a tiny little rivet for said arm, and then of course the decals and little glass covers for the gauges themselves. Remember that part where I said I tend to jump ahead without taking photos..? I'm really quite pleased with the finished dash, 12,000 RPM from a 1.5L flat 12 must've been a blast. Next piece of the puzzle was the seat. I again forgot to take a picture of what it looked like BEFORE, but it started out as a white chunk of resin. I primed it and sprayed it in black, which ended up being quite the task as the odd shape of the seat means overspray loves to pool up at the bottom, which I had to clean and fix and respray --- what a joy. The next part was the red trim, which was a huge headache to do, I've seen someone build one of these where they started by painting the whole seat red, and then masking the trip with tape and painting black, but I hate masking so I decided to do the more difficult option and paint it by hand. I think it turned out alright, there are some spots where you can tell its not perfect/wasnt sprayed, but overall, I think it looks good. There it is put together - dash - tub - seat. That's pretty much where I'm at so far, I've got lots more to do, so I'll post more on this project when I've actually done it!!! - I'm completely new to posting projects so if I've screwed something up with this post just let me know.

Time to stop my avoidant behaviours and start on this little girl. Purchased from Marketplace for a very good price, so no excuses not to get on with it. Several friends are cracking on with their MFH builds, so figured I best get on with one, so chose this from my small stash... I have purchased required items including colour matched paint (from Zero Paints) Etch metal primers, several drill bits (as I am heavy handed and can get through these easily) These items used, will be detailed as and when I use them... These kits come in beautiful boxes, and the contents can seem overwhelming if you don't know what lies ahead of you... I started by checking all the parts are present, and this can be a tedious process but just be methodical and it all gets ticked off on the instruction sheet. Once I was satisfied everything was there, I seperate each section to contain the parts required for that stage of the build. Next step is the start the clean up process. These kits are true multimedia and cionsuist oif resin, white metal, photo etch and various wires, tubes and ancillariy items. It also has several beautifully produced turned items including the wheel rims and carb trumpets. I use a magnetic tumbler to clean up the dirt from the white metal parts. These can be very dirty... And that is where I am at present. Cleaning process can take several hours, changing water and burnishing fluid between each stage. Building will start on next update.

The Aston martin DBR9 debuted in sports car racing in 2005 and achieved success at Sebring with a win in the LMGT1 category and a third place in that category at Le Mans that year. The model here is the Le Mans entry as depicted in the 1/24 scale Model Factory Hiro multimedia (resin,metal and photoetch) kit. As with all Model Factory Hiro kits the design and detail are well executed but trial fitting is imperative and a little fettling is required. The kit builds up into a great replica, particularly highlighted by the Aston Martin green metallic paintwork and extensive carbon fibre decalling finish. Hope you enjoy. Steve Hansford Melbourne,

This is MFH's 1/43 Porsche 908/3, the Targa Florio winner from 1970. It's a typical MFH kit, with lots of mixed media and exquisite detail. This is the colour scheme of the 'Ver A' kit I'm doing: It's a no-brainer, being the car co-driven by Brian Redman (a personal hero) and Jo Siffert (motorsport trivia: Jo Siffert is the "JS" in all Ligier racing car designations). So here are the main body parts, in white metal: And then LOADS of other smaller white metal bits: These larger parts include engine crankcase and transmission, doors, side fairings, wheels and the spare slimline wheel/tyre etc: The front and rear subframes are 3D-printed and very delicate/intricate, with lots of build support. This is the rear subframe with build support: And this is it cleaned up, with the pile of removed build support shown: And the front subframe, cleaned up: Then some lovely opaque yellowish resin parts to show the translucent fibreglass that Porsche used at this time. Next a thick and a thin sheet of PE: And finally (in fact not quite - there are also some nickel wire lengths included but I didn't take a photo of those, or the decal sheet), a few odds & ends including tyres with really finely-moulded tread, turned aluminium wheels, springs for the shock absorbers, screws and a small vac-form windshield. I've already made a start on this and hope to post some photos later today.

http://www.modelfactoryhiro.com/new/en/archives/24269 Three versions, to be released in April. Just a single teaser photo so far: Based on that pic, suggestions elsewhere are that it's a Ferrari 312PB:

New 1/12 for March. Four versions to be released. Let the guessing begin: http://www.modelfactoryhiro.com/new/en/archives/23906

http://www.modelfactoryhiro.com/new/en/archives/24251 Due in April, in three versions: McLaren Orange (Canadian/US Grands Prix); Sunoco (Canadian/US Grands Prix); Yardley SA/Belgian Grands Prix) The Donohue kit is going to be tough to skip.

Hi All, I found some links and just wanted to share. This is about Model Factory Hiro visited by HLJ's Scott Hards. Quite interesting and mouth watering but still expensive. Enjoy! Part 1 Part 2 If you go through their videos on their youtube channel, you can find more in interviews like the one on Fine Molds and Wingnut wings. If I owned my own model Factory, I too would probably produce only the stuff I want. P.S. - if you have seen these before, please ignor this post.