1/24 Tamiya Mini Rescue

[onethritysecond]

On 13/02/2021 at 13:01, GeeBee said:

I did a conversion many years ago, turning the Cooper S into a basic Mini, the wheels and tyres were cast in resin, along with the front grille, I'm sure I've still got a few sets left, where, I'm not sure, I'll go digging in the hobby room later

 

I have been doing a few conversions of mini coopers to standard minis (my latest mk 3 is on britmodeller here)

 

 

and one of the conversions I want to do is to make the revell cooper into the Mk1 Austin mini super used in Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased). I have managed to get some mini super type wheels from Motobitz but have been struggling to find the  standard Austin wavy grill, which I looks like yours has - is there any chance I would be able to buy one off of you? Would save me a lot of work!

cheers

Chris

[onethritysecond]

Hi Anteater

I found that if you use the method I did where you use a think coat of satin black to stick the letters on some of the black will come up the bottom of the letters and reduce there apparent thickness a little, but yes, they are a little too thick for scale!

cheers

Chris

[Anteater]

@onethritysecond I'll probably have a go at a black digits white/yellow set next, and reckon when the digits are painted black they'll look a little less "in yer face".

[GeeBee]

8 hours ago, onethritysecond said:

I have been doing a few conversions of mini coopers to standard minis (my latest mk 3 is on britmodeller here)

 

 

and one of the conversions I want to do is to make the revell cooper into the Mk1 Austin mini super used in Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased). I have managed to get some mini super type wheels from Motobitz but have been struggling to find the  standard Austin wavy grill, which I looks like yours has - is there any chance I would be able to buy one off of you? Would save me a lot of work!

cheers

Chris

Pm me your address, I haven't put my hands on them, but I'm 99% sure I've still got some left, I'll pop you a couple in the post.

[onethritysecond]

16 hours ago, Anteater said:

@onethritysecond I'll probably have a go at a black digits white/yellow set next, and reckon when the digits are painted black they'll look a little less "in yer face".

I have found that they actually look more obviously too thick on reflective plates! Slightly thinner plates may have helped though

 

Must dust my models better before photographing!

Separate letter reflective plates were really only used up until the late 70s/early 80s. For later cars I got off ebay some self adhesive vinyl 'make your own' ones which are quite effective for Perspex type plates but you didn't get that many out of a pack. I used them on my 25th Anniversary mini in my mk3 mini conversion thread. They also do ones for white on black and silver on black but, although the first thing most people do when they buy a real classic car is to put some pressed aluminium silver on black plates on it, they aren't to my mind that correct as, certainly in the 60s/70s most cars had separate letter types with only really commercial vehicles and very cheap cars using the pressed type.

Chris

[Anteater]

Nice Sherpa Drophead. 🙂

 

Don't get me started on number plates. At scale, I am a fan of the BECC sticky letters and either reflective or black plates.

 

At full size, my 1974 car wears pressed reflective plates as black and silver would be an anachronsim, though they are retrospectively popular with some people. Very few people would have ordered b/w plates after around 1968; they were old fashioned and the reflective "safety plates" were the trendy thing to have. Some quite expensive cars came with pressed plates in period though, not just commercials, look at some old press shots of 3-Litre Capris for example. I agree that raised digit riveted plates look more expensive though, because they are!

 

For my 1998 car I made sure to source the correct pre-2001 wide Charles Wright font perspex plates as the later narrow type irritated me immensely. 

[GeeBee]

Managed to find the front grilles and wheels, I've got plenty of the front grilles but only one set of the wheels  one day I'm going to get back to making another mould, as the original ones worn out.

[onethritysecond]

18 hours ago, Anteater said:

Nice Sherpa Drophead. 🙂

 

Don't get me started on number plates. At scale, I am a fan of the BECC sticky letters and either reflective or black plates.

 

At full size, my 1974 car wears pressed reflective plates as black and silver would be an anachronsim, though they are retrospectively popular with some people. Very few people would have ordered b/w plates after around 1968; they were old fashioned and the reflective "safety plates" were the trendy thing to have. Some quite expensive cars came with pressed plates in period though, not just commercials, look at some old press shots of 3-Litre Capris for example. I agree that raised digit riveted plates look more expensive though, because they are!

 

For my 1998 car I made sure to source the correct pre-2001 wide Charles Wright font perspex plates as the later narrow type irritated me immensely. 

We used to call them Marina convertables!

My 1972 Triumph 2000 came to me with pressed black aluminium plates and one of the first things I did was change them. I was originally going to go with raised letter reflectives but I was swayed by the sales brochures from the time which showed white on black raised letters and I really liked the look of them. Technically OK as a 72 car but it was an expensive car when new and the double barrelled named fella that bought it new arranged to get it for the 1st August 72 to get the new L registration so I doubt he would have scrimped on the number plates! When I was younger I took off the reflective pressed plates on our 71 Herald as, at that time, I wasn't aware that they were most likely the originals! I fitted black/silver pressed ones as they were the only old style plates available at that time, at least that I could find, otherwise I would have gone with white raised letters.

Chris