PK-452 Rolls Royce Phantom Mk.1

[Natter]

Hi All, my second entry in this GB will be PK-452, the Rolls Royce Phanton Mk.1.

 

 

Generally the Matchbox kits fit together quite nicely. The fuel tank at the rear of this car is an exception. Oh dear. I have a cunning plan, but like Baldrick's great ideas it may not work - more later.

 

 

Now then, taking me a stage further in my chrome stripping education. I cut the chrome sprue up and put a couple of parts in to Mr Muscle oven cleaner, and popped another piece of sprue in to the bleach I had used for the R100RS chrome parts. The photo isn't out of focus, the bleach is cloudy.

 

 

I got on with modelling and came back an hour and a half later.  The Mr Muscle had done a great job of stripping, but the old bleach had failed, leaving much of the chrome in place.

 

 

I binned the old bleach and put the chrome back in to some fresh bleach. After only ten minutes the chrome was gone. Lesson learned; use fresh bleach to strip chrome and not old, used, cloudy bleach.

 

 

As I have mentioned before, the bleach takes off the chrome but leaves the varnish underneath. The Mr Muscle strips off both the chrome and the varnish. You can see the comparison in this photo; the radiator cover and the headlight bowls are cleaned to plastic by the Mr Muscle and the varnish is very shiny on the other parts that have only been soaked in the bleach.

 

 

In this shot you can clearly see the ripple on the varnish remaining on the bleach stripped windscreen frame, which will hide some of the detail in the plastic moulding if it is left in place. This sprue section will now go in to Mr Muscle, which is now my tool of choice for chrome removal, to have the varnish stripped.

 

[CliffB]

Up until this GB, this was the only Matchbox car kit that I'd built.  You've already noted the fit issue at the rear.  I also struggled a bit with the curving joints between the back of the bodywork and the sides.  All came good in the end though with some careful sanding 

 

Enjoy!

[Rabbit Leader]

Well done Mike, you have now contributed both rare Red Range Car kits, so that deserves a medal all of its own. We look forward to seeing you add this excellent kit to your lovely Packard build. 

Cheers and best of luck.. Dave 

[Andy G]

looking forward to this as the subject is similar but not the same as our wedding car.  I’d love to find one at a reasonable price.

 

Cheers

[JOCKNEY]

Delighted to see Automotive Royalty joining the GB.

I look forward to following this one while dothing ones cap obviously 

Best of luck.

Cheers Pat

[Natter]

1 hour ago, Andy G said:

 I’d love to find one at a reasonable price.

The actual car, YV5819, was sold at Bonhams in 2011 for just under £125K - a bargain if you have £125K burning a hole in you pocket. The Bonhams Bonham's on-line catalogue entry is a great reference for anyone building this kit, OOB like me or going down the detailing route.

[TimJ]

Great to see the Rolls Royce make an appearance in the GB. Mr Muscle oven cleaner is my chrome stripper of choice and also works on old enamel paint.  

[johnlambert]

On 09/02/2022 at 00:11, Natter said:

The actual car, YV5819, was sold at Bonhams in 2011 for just under £125K - a bargain if you have £125K burning a hole in you pocket. The Bonhams Bonham's on-line catalogue entry is a great reference for anyone building this kit, OOB like me or going down the detailing route.

I've bookmarked that page against the day that I tackle this kit.  Although I quite fancy the idea of altering the coachwork to make an open touring car.

[bigbadbadge]

I know I live in the sticks and we have only recently converted to electric lighting from gas lights  but I am amazed that MR Muscle strips the chrome and varnish like that, I wonder who discovered this???

Chris

[CliffB]

13 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

I know I live in the sticks and we have only recently converted to electric lighting from gas lights  but I am amazed that MR Muscle strips the chrome and varnish like that, I wonder who discovered this???

Chris

 

I'm surprised Mr Muscle don't include this in their TV ads 

[Natter]

Okey dokey, herewith the next update. I have been pottering with this model, but just haven't been posting. Just about everything has had its mould lines removed, something that I never even thought about way back when at the time I was first making Matchbox models; or any other manufacturers' models for that matter.

 

CliffB noted that I had found the poor fit at the rear of the model where the upper and lower sections of the fuel tank should meet; they really don't line up at all. Rather than just sand back and hope, which may have actually worn right through the lower fuel tank section, I elected to add a piece of plasticard to line up the upper and lower sections

 

 

The gaps were then filled and with that job done I primed the area with Mr Surfacer 1500. A few years ago, as I was getting back into modelling, I mentioned trying Mr Surfacer to a modeller I respected very much, and they poo-poohed the idea saying they felt that the Mr Surfacers were just the current fad. Well a number of years later, the guidance of more progressive modellers, and the superb results from other modellers posting here and on Instagram, I have made my own decision. This is my first time using Mr Surfacer 1500 black, and I love it already:

 

 

The fit between the roof section and the body section isn't particularly good, so I am tacking it in sections to make sure they all line up. With it taped up I did a quick dry fit to see how the main sections all lined up. Really well, thank goodness.

 

 

More soon...

[johnlambert]

Nice to see an update, it looks like you're making great progress.

[Mike Dean]

On 08/02/2022 at 09:36, Rabbit Leader said:

Well done Mike, you have now contributed both rare Red Range Car kits, so that deserves a medal all of its own. We look forward to seeing you add this excellent kit to your lovely Packard build. 

Cheers and best of luck.. Dave 

Bit of a snafu there Dave - I'm not building this, it's Natter! You also got my name attached to this build on the "who's building what" page.

 

I blame the early mornings at the rowing lake.

 

Mike.

Edited February 11, 2022 by Mike Dean

[bigbadbadge]

Great job blending the fuel tank sections, looks lovely dry fitted, going to look suitably impressive when done.

Chris

[Rabbit Leader]

12 minutes ago, Mike Dean said:

Bit of snafu there Dave - I'm not building this, it's Natter! You also got my my name attached to this build on the "who's building what page".

 

I blame the early mornings at the rowing lake.

 

Mike.

Thanks Mike and sincere apologies to @Natter. I’m out at the moment (guess where?) so will correct things later on. Yes, these early mornings are killing me at the moment! 
Cheers and great work Natter.. Dave 

[Natter]

19 minutes ago, Rabbit Leader said:

sincere apologies to @Natter

No apologies required; and thank you to all who are watching for their kind comments.

[Selwyn]

On 2/11/2022 at 7:06 AM, CliffB said:

 

I'm surprised Mr Muscle don't include this in their TV ads 

I was really surprised when I discovered that people were using "Future" on their kitchen floors!

 

Selwyn

(OK I'll get my coat!)

[Natter]

Okey-dokey. Modelling has taken a back seat and the Rolls has been pushed aside for the duration. Now I have come back to it for a little play around. The roof to body join is now complete, having been glued in short sections to get around the slight mis-alignment of the parts. The roof section and the front of the body had quite prominent mould seams, the one on the roof looking for all the world as though it was actually part of the original it was so perfect. The reference photos showed otherwise however. The rear joint between the roof section, which incorporated the sweeping boot section as well, and the body also looks as though there should be a seam line there it is so nice: once again the reference photos showed otherwise.

 

Some careful filling and sanding took place, followed by some more filling. The joint line is currently painted over with Mr Surfacer 500, which will get a couple of days to dry before I try sanding it down again. As work on the BMW R100RS gets close to completion then I will direct more effort towards this rather nice kit.

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Natter
Link updated

[johnlambert]

Nice work so far.  If it's finished to the same standard as your BMW motorcycle this will be an incredible model.

[JOCKNEY]

On 11/02/2022 at 07:06, CliffB said:

 

I'm surprised Mr Muscle don't include this in their TV ads 

 

They plan to but as @Enzo Matrixagent I haven't agreed his appearance fee yet, plus his reasonable demands of bigger changing room, only blue M&M's fresh cut flowers etc  

 

Cheers Pat 

[Natter]

Now then, where was I? Ah yes, I was buiding the Rolls before getting distracted by other models; wasn't I. Did I really last post something on this build back in February? Sheesh.

 

[JOCKNEY]

On 08/05/2022 at 21:40, Natter said:

Now then, where was I? Ah yes, I was building the Rolls before getting distracted by other models; wasn't I. Did I really last post something on this build back in February? Sheesh.

 

 

That's taken a long time for the paint to dry hasn't it ! 

 

Look forward to seeing the next installment. 

 

Cheers Pat 

[Natter]

Since the last update it has just been detail painting and assembly, not very exciting for posts. I looked over @CliffB's superb build of this kit found here and used the photos of the original from Bonham's site, which can be found here if you're interested, to guide the overall build.

 

Gloss black is courtesy of Humbrol enamel Gloss 21 and the red is Mr Color C100 Wine Red. The kit 'chrome' was stripped and resprayed with Alclad Chrome and the 'chrome' trim is Bare Metal Foil Ultra bright Chrome. The tinted visors were sprayed with Tamiya clear blue to impart the errr... blue tint. Detail painting is mostly done with Vallejo, and the interior details are only just visible with a bright torch so most of the effort put in to the painting on those parts is all but invisible. The price tag on the kit box was 2:99 and I paid the princely sum of 4:45 plus postage from that well know auction site way back in 2010, when you could still get bargain priced kits there.

 

I 'misplaced' the registration plate decals, if indeed there were ever any with the kit when I got it, so the letters and numbers are from the 1/35 Motobitz number plate decal sheet. The two chrome vents in front of the windscreen are shown facing the windscreen in both the Matchbox instructions and box illustrations, but on the Bonham's site the vents face forward; so I modelled them as per the Bonham's photos. The bullet sidelights on the wings are moulded solid, but I filed off the front end and attached Little-Lenses pieces to represents the lights.

 

A massive 'thank you' to Pat and Dave for looking after this excellent GB, and congratulations to all who took part and turned their boxed Matchbox classics in to great models.

 

 

 

 

 

More photos in the Gallery.

[CliffB]

Beautiful work Dave and I'm particularly impressed by your detailed painting of the badges etc.   I need to re-visit mine!

 

Cheers

[John]

That's a beauty. 

 

J