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Sources for detailing parts


rossm

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I've just bought my first car kitbut  being an aircraft modeller I don't know where to look for detail or conversion parts. For this one - Hasegawa Porsche 968 - I'd like to convert it to RHD. Can anyone point me to a trader who offers parts for this sort of thing please?

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Hiroboy that you've contacted about the paint carries a lot of detailing bits (the best source in the UK that I know of), but I don't know of anyone doing a RHD dash for the 968 (or 944 for that matter) unfortunately. Bits such as that are few and far between. I know it's no specific help for this build, but if you ever want to do a RHD earlyish 911, some of Fujimi's kits have both left and drive dashes. I think it's a shame more manufacturers don't do this.

 

As for other suppliers of detail parts, Spotmodel in Spain are also good - & I've never had anything but excellent service from them although shipping costs are fairly high, which is always a temptation for me to spend more than I intended to make it worthwhile! I've also bought a fair bit fom Mediamix Hobby in Singapore in the past but don't use them so much now as customs started to catch all the parcels from them!

 

I hope someone does know of a dash for the 968, as I've got a Club Sport kit in need of one too!

 

Keith

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9 hours ago, keefr22 said:

Hiroboy that you've contacted about the paint carries a lot of detailing bits (the best source in the UK that I know of), but I don't know of anyone doing a RHD dash for the 968 (or 944 for that matter) unfortunately. Bits such as that are few and far between. I know it's no specific help for this build, but if you ever want to do a RHD earlyish 911, some of Fujimi's kits have both left and drive dashes. I think it's a shame more manufacturers don't do this.

 

As for other suppliers of detail parts, Spotmodel in Spain are also good - & I've never had anything but excellent service from them although shipping costs are fairly high, which is always a temptation for me to spend more than I intended to make it worthwhile! I've also bought a fair bit fom Mediamix Hobby in Singapore in the past but don't use them so much now as customs started to catch all the parcels from them!

 

I hope someone does know of a dash for the 968, as I've got a Club Sport kit in need of one too!

 

Keith

If only I was adept with 3D scanning and printing - a left/right flip is probably just a mouse click.

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1 hour ago, rossm said:

If only I was adept with 3D scanning and printing

 

That was exactly my thought when I replied last night! Maybe that's something that might well come along soon as there seem to be a lot more modellers getting involved in it.

 

1 hour ago, richellis said:

there aren’t any suppliers doing conversions for cars.

 

There are a very few available. Reji do a RHD dash for Mk2 Escorts and SK decals do a couple of transkits to convert the old Tamiya Sierra RS500 to RHD BTCC cars. Road cars are as you say apparently non existent though.

 

What annoys me about Tamiya is they do some cars as RHD (to be expected as the Japanese market drives on the correct side!), offers both dashes in some kits (eg 350Z), then in some that blidingly obviously should be RHD - Aston Martin DBS - they only gave a LHD dash!! Makes no sense to me!

 

Keith

 

 

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I was going to say much the same thing about Tamiya. 

 

Some kits (I guess where a car is available in Japan and the USA or mainland Europe) have both options provided.  The LHD-only Sierra Cosworth touring cars are particularly bizarre as the Ford Sierra XR4i came with LHD and RHD parts.

 

European cars only seem to get LHD parts, even if the real thing was available in RHD markets.  Maybe it's because there's a bit of prestige in Japan that goes with having a LHD car?  Apparently even British prestige cars are sometimes ordered in LHD, just so people are in no doubt that it's an import.

 

Tamiya even managed to spin two kits out of nearly identical tooling with the Toyota Celsior in RHD as one kit and the Lexus LS400 in LHD as another.  As much as I'd like a RHD Lexus and know it wouldn't be difficult to cross-kit the parts, I'm not sure want to end up with parts to build a LHD Toyota Celsior (If such a think even exists).

 

Maybe it comes down to space in the moulds?  In the Toyota/Lexus example it doesn't look like there's room on the sprue to have two dashboards, so it would mean an additional sprue tree (and therefore a new tool at considerable cost) to cater for both options in the same kit.  Looking at the sprue for the Toyota Celsior there's a bit of a step in the plastic, so I'd bet that the dashboard die is a removable insert within the main die, which is a bit cheaper to do.

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