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1959 FC Holden in Armidale, 1/25 scale


thommo

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Building this for a mate who kindly makes all my diorama bases (he has access to a real workshop with routers, band saws etc).

 

He also has a real FC Holden which he restored.  He suggested a dio of it near this bridge in town (though there was discussion about posing it in front of a pub....or a brothel 🤔).

 

The bridge is an old pedestrian bridge that used to lead to the entrance to the Armidale Swimming Pool.  The entrance is now on the opposite side of the block and the old entrance building now houses the local pottery club.

 

I had plans to build the entire bridge, until I figured out that in 1/25 scale it would be 1.4m long 🤦‍♂️  And I only wanted a dio about 25cm x 20cm.  When the resin FC car kit arrived from Adelaide y'day, I realised how much bigger 1/25 is than my usual 1/35, and after working out the bridge dimensions in 1/25, realised I'll have to use some artistic licence and could only build the first section of the bridge if it is not to become bigger than Ben-Hur.  And even then the dio will have to expand to 40cm x 25cm.

 

This will be my first ever full resin model.

 

The kit

 

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Washed parts

 

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An FC

 

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The bridge

 

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Progressing quite fast thanks to lockdown.  And we just received another week.  I can see it going all August.  Sadly, this means our daughter who is in Brisbane quarantine on her way back from the Olympics can't come home for a few days when she gets out 😪.  We may not see our daughters for a while yet.

 

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What a good-looking project. Looks like a very nice kit. How refreshing to model a car with proper bumpers. I'm following the build with interest.

 

Yes. All this lockdown business is a boon for us modellers. In fact, I reckon modelling is a healthy way to negotiate lockdown, as is participating in Britmodeller.com.

 

And look what popped up in the slurpamarket for Fathers Day; a tin of shortbreads with classic Aussie cars themed on the lid. I figure you can never have too many tins for modelling paraphernalia, especially with nice lids like this.

 

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Couldn't help myself, going to bung in some electrics. Car headlights, maybe a streetlight, was even pondering a moving duck.

 

Bridge is coming along, it's bloody big even though I'm only building about the first 1/4 of it.

 

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My grass flocking machine which I made out of an $2 electric fly-zapper & a little tea strainer has come out of hibernation 😆.  Had to do the grass under the bridge before sticking it on.

 

Found a really good dio making Youtube channel from an Aussie guy which showed me how to make soil & put dead leaves in a food processor to make good ground cover material (not yet applied, only sifted soil with a bit of sand mixed on this so far).

 

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Tree built using the tips from an Aussie diorama website.  For leaves, I pinched my wife's dried herbs, sieved them twice then airbrushed them a brighter green (i.e. did it the hard, slow way).  For the 2nd tree I've ordered some pre-made turf/leaves.  The 1st tree actually looks very much like a cypress pine - which it is not meant to be, but it will do.  The 2nd tree will be more 'oaky'.

 

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Also build a pole with LED streetlight (not yet painted).  Our streetlights are actually now mostly LEDs due to a project I ran at work obtaining government funds to replace all the old technology with more energy efficient street lighting about 6yrs ago.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Putting lights in it, so had to drill out the headlights & Build a mold to re-mold in clear plastic. And replace the resin tail lights using the resin light as a mold make clear ones.

 

My mate tells me the headlights are about as bright as candles, so I'll have to paint the extremely bright LEDs yellow to dull them down.  The tail lights are white LEDs painted red.  Will also need some red on the clear light cover.

 

My vac forming (without a vacuum) was seriously dodgy but it worked ok.  Built a wooden piece with a big hole in it, taped some clear packaging plastic over it, hit it with a cigarette lighter then very quickly jammed the male mold into the soft plastic.  Took about 4 attempts at each, but got there.  Then added some trim from plastic, coke can & wire around each to add some detail.

 

Also got some paint on the interior.  Need to add BMF chrome trim when it arrives.  Love that it is Cronulla Sharks colours on the inside!

 

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First time trying BMF.  Easy on large sections.  Tricky on the small circular bits (tends to lift when you cut off the excess as not enough surface area for it to stick to).

 

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Made some reeds for the creek from old paintbrush bristles, leaves are small triangles of Tamiya tape, heads are wood glue then sprinkle over fine turf.

 

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Today, I made a fish for the creek.  A Murray Cod, not that there are any in the creek I'm modeling, but it's an iconic Aussie fish.  Not painted yet.

 

Body is styrene cylinder shaped then bulked out with household epoxy.  Fins are made from Pepsi can with stretched sprue stuck on.

 

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What a real Murray Cod looks like.  I fly-fish for them, they have spectacular camoflage.

 

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3 hours ago, roginoz said:

That's just a baby !!

 

Hope you put it back !  :o}

 

Really enjoying your build @thommo . All sorts of modelling bits 'n' pieces going into it. Your mate's gonna be rapt !

 

 

 

Yes, I put all my fish back....except the odd carp caught on fly.  Cod, trout, bass, bream, yellow belly, flatties, luderick.

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Some wildlife for the creek to keep the shopping trolley company.

 

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And then there are the kit windows.  What a nightmare!  The templates provided are way too big. Would have been a massive amount of window on the inside of the car past the edges of the opening.

 

I tried cutting something better on my Cricut, but in the end the only way to do it was to make my own paper template with repeated fit & trim, then use that to cut a clear acetate template & again much fitting & trimming until I got a reasonable fit.  The glued areas will be hidden with a thin vinyl strip ultimately to represent the window rubber seals.

 

Here the hardest (rear window) in place.  The windscreen is also done now, just the side windows to go.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

BMF nightmares.

 

Hoping the body trim and window trim will be far more straight forward.

 

BMF adhesion problems abound, even just from slightly oily fingers.  Cleaning with iso-propyl alcohol before application is a must, and even then it's no lay-down-misere.

 

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Base colours on.

 

The blue was a flat, the white a gloss.  Then glossed with SMS gloss which did not really work, so smoothed then glossed with Future, then polished with Tamiya plastic polish.

 

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Yes, quite a lot of hard work to get a high-sheen finish without a trace of orange peel.

 

This fella gets a mirror finish from techniques starting at 14:35: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxDp3EyrBtc

 

Where on earth did you manage to get hold of some Future polish in Oz?

 

Great looking young Murray Cod. We have some spectacular native fresh-water fish in the south-east, e.g. close relative Trout Cod. I used to go swimming with some species in places like Piccaninnie Ponds and Ewans Ponds.

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On 10/12/2021 at 9:41 AM, Maginot said:

Yes, quite a lot of hard work to get a high-sheen finish without a trace of orange peel.

 

This fella gets a mirror finish from techniques starting at 14:35: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxDp3EyrBtc

 

Where on earth did you manage to get hold of some Future polish in Oz?

 

Great looking young Murray Cod. We have some spectacular native fresh-water fish in the south-east, e.g. close relative Trout Cod. I used to go swimming with some species in places like Piccaninnie Ponds and Ewans Ponds.

 

I found Pledge One-Go in Woolies about 15yrs ago, still have at least half a bottle left.

 

I do a lot of fly-fishing for Murray Cod so have a soft sport for them.

 

I'm fighting & wrestling this beast to the finish line.  The fit of some of the parts in this resin kit is pretty bad, esp. the tub which goes inside which has the floor & seats.  Too narrow for the car body, impossible to get dead level once you put the (also poorly fitting) underbody on.  But this is as good as I could do.

 

I think the BMF perhaps should be the very last thing you put on after main assembly, as with all the handling, it has a tendency to shift.

 

I used by Cricut to cut 0.5 and 0.25mm strips of vinyl for the window rubber (and hence to hide the glue lines).  It cuts easy shapes like that absolutely perfectly.  I've also used it to cut 0.15mm BMF logos to go on the hubcaps.

 

Also had to order another 200ml of Vallejo Still Water for the creek as I did not have enough to fill it to 1.3cm depth.  Have to do it in layers of about 1-3mm and each layer takes at least 24hrs to become sort of solid.

 

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Edited by thommo
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In keeping with the Aussie theme of this diorama (to the UK members - we don't really drink Fosters, it's pretty awful stuff).

 

He wants me to put a magpie in there too - as I'm always getting swooped by them on my bike in Spring - lethal bloody critter in Spring.

 

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In the home stretch.

 

Removing the masking tape 'dam wall' that holds the Vallejo Still Water in place will be scary.  I'm already up to about 5-6 x 1-2mm deep layers and still have another 2mm to go.

 

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