Aston Martin DB15 ? Okay then... 3 DB5's. COMPLETED!

[Pete in Lincs]

54 minutes ago, hendie said:

blingy bits added to distract the casual observer

And you have plenty of choice of them on here. 

Nice going and details.

I used to regularly dismantle and repaint the kids diecasts years ago, and just used two part epoxy to reassemble them. 

[Stick]

2 hours ago, hendie said:

The bumpers, headlamps, and radiator grill were all painted silver. Should I consider painted additional parts like the door handles and that trim piece on the wing vent silver also? 

Yes!... Handles, gills , rear reg plate pelmet... all finished like the bumper, headlamp rims. 👍🏻

 

Excellent tube manipulation by the way.

Stick

[giemme]

Lobe the interiors, but the huge pipes did really cut it for me

 

Ciao 

[AdrianMF]

'Mazin'

 

Love it all. Your wire wheels certainly beat threading invisible mending thread around pins in a balsa block!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[hendie]

I was going to continue on with the Corgi this week but got sidetracked by the other two demanding monsters. This update is a bit of a hodge podge but slowly and (sort of) surely, we are creeping forward to the point where I can start making major steps forward, I.e. painting, and assembling.

 

I've been trying to concentrate on the bodywork as I have some accurately 007 paint on the way so it would be nice to get one of these at least painted up.  I'm kind of tempted to use the real Silver Birch paint on the Revell kit, and make up my own mix for the Airfix kit but could well change my mind. Maybe.

Bodywork. I need to concentrate!   Back to the Airfix kit and it was time to address the rear light clusters.  I had printed my own version, 3/4's of which sat inside the kit body with the last quarter mounted on the outside. In order to avoid any gaps, I slathered some Mr Dissolved Putty on the inner edges of the cluster before pushing it home with the aid of a cocktail stick beefed up with some masking tape.

 

 

Why did I print my own you ask?  Well, this is the kit offering.  I'm not sure that was state of the art even back in the mid sixties.

 

 

Once the putty had hardened and the glue had cured it was time for a quick rub down - and it still needed another couple of fill and sand episodes despite my stuffing putty down the insides.

 

 

Instead of having the entire light clusters opening up as Airfix had designed, I opted to go for a more realistic approach and copied the functionality of the 1:1.  The two lower lamps will be fixed, and the upper lamp will be opened with a small tube protruding out of the opening.  Sorry bout the lack of clarity in the photo - that resin really does not like being photographed.

 

 

Since I was having such a good time with the tail lamps I brought the headlamps into play as well.  The kit parts are just unusable so I had a go at scratch-building a pair of headlamps from some styrene tube, stainless steel wire, and clear runner shaped sort of headlampish. They look rather tiny, especially compared to the Revell kit, but I measured the Airfix headlamp and to my utter astonishment, my scratchbuilt items are the same diameter as the original kit parts.

 

 

A bunch of parts got chromed over a few short evening sessions.

 

 

Then I finally got around to sticking the gear stick in place. I had positioned the new gearstick slightly forward of where the kit parts was supposed to go and I had forgotten to fill that hole when painting the interior.  Glancing at my references I noticed that the DB5 had a chromed ashtray mounted on the tunnel, so I added a small rectangle of chromed runner pretending to be an ashtray. Mr Bond was a puffer after all.

 

 

One job I had not been looking forward to was polishing the glasswork. The front windscreen had a few specks of decades old silver paint splattered strategically over the glass, but with a bit of effort they polished out to an acceptable level.

The rear window was a different matter. On the right hand side, about halfway up/down the edge, there was some kind of abrasion going on - it may have been a splatter of glue from a few decades ago, who knows. One thing was for sure, I had to address the problem. YOu can just see the mark in this shot - taken after I had started sanding the window and only then remembered I hadn't taken a photo.

 

 

After some polishing action with the micromesh we're back to having a window you can see out of. I'll dip that in the pseudo klear at some future date to add some more clarity to the part.

 

 

Back to bodywork again. The front grill on both kits is a bit of a let down. The molded grill so characteristic of the Aston Martin is not open. The grill effect is suggested by a series of ridges - and I wasn't happy with that so once again the printer was brought into action to address that.  Likewise, on both kits, the front of the engine bay is blocked off by a molded skin, so I removed that on both kits to allow a bit of depth.

This is a shot of my first pass on the grill on the Revell kit. (ignore the dented grill - that was my fat fingers pushing a slightly oversized grill into place).  Also very noticeable in this shot is how wildly different the two front ends are. The difference in headlight diameters are huge. The two grills are quite different as well. Both are about the same dimension side to side, but there's about 1.5mm or so difference in height between the two

 

 

For a first attempt on the Revell grill it's actually pretty close. A few small adjustments need to be made and it should fit nicely. Making those adjustments is more difficult than it would first appear. The tweaks required are in the 0.01 to 0.03mm range and on an unconstrained spline. It's rather like pushing the side of a snake and asking it to stay in place once you let go.

 

 

After the adjustments were made and the second iteration printed, it hardly seems like anything changed. Another iteration is required.

 

 

Then the first iteration on the Airfix kit. Again, not too bad.  The main issue I'm dealing with here is that the kit grill opening is not symmetrical.  I know the printed parts is symmetrical 'cos I only drew one side them mirrored it.  <y first thoughts here are to leave the grill alone and try to address this by filling and shaping the grill opening on the kit... more bodywork stuff. Aaarghh.

 

 

This is the state of play as I finished up this evening. Airfix on left, Revell on right. The Airfix grill being narrower means I have less space available between each horizontal member of the grill. I counted 11 on the 1:1 and that's what I have here. Each of those strips is only 0.3mm high. I can't really go any thinner or I don't think they would print successfully. I wonder if I should only have 10 horizontals - that way I could increase the spacing slightly. I wonder if that would look any better... or would it just annoy me cos I know there's supposed to be eleven?

 

 

Tomorrow is some sort of celebratory holiday in these here parts, so not sure if I'll get any modeling done or not. At least I have the day off work so that's something to celebrate.  I also had kippers, real bacon, sausages, and black pudding delivered from a British store   so I may be having a bit of a pig out over the next few days.

 

 

 

 

[Pete in Lincs]

They're both looking a lot better now. You have to wonder how both companies got so many details wrong. Haste? Economy? Or just using photographs as references instead of measuring the real thing. Enjoy the Brit food. 

[hendie]

Pete, I don't think anyone has truly captured the lines of the DB5.  It looks simple in some ways but that profile can look drastically different from different angles, especially from the windows up.

 

I managed to sneak downstairs for a short time today and got some more destruction done.  First though, I had one of those "oh dear" moments.  As you recall, yesterday I removed the blanking plates from the front grills, then today found that... you guessed it - the front grill of the Revell kit had a locating slot in it for the chassis. The chassis now has no home to go to.  Not to worry, I'm sure I'll figure something out for that later.

 

 

Todays exciting job was to try and get the wheels sorted out on the Revell kit.  Since I am using my own wheels, with my own disc/calliper sets, they no longer fit the standard kit axle stubs.  You might just be able to see here, but the tire is catching on the inner arch of the wing forcing the tire off the wheel.

 

 

Once I figured out how much I needed to remove the rest was fairly straightforward. I needed to leave about 1.3mm of the kit hub, so I found a couple of washers which, when combined, gave me that dimension. That gave me a nice solid edge when sawing and also kept the razor saw straight.

 

 

Then something I had completely forgotten about - the Revell kit came with it's own discs and callipers molded in. That was fine except they weren't very good, and more to the point, they had the calliper in the wrong location.  I remembered this from back when I was doing the initial assembly work. I thought I might have had the axle stubs switched, but they can only fit one way. The upper and lower locating holes are different diameters to prevent that very error.

 

 

Well, since I had my own discs...

 

 

... and a few minutes later

 

 

Now with the upgraded brake kit. I did check to make sure I got the callipers in the right locations, and it took a lot longer to find good clear reference shots than I thought it would.

 

 

Now if you look very, very carefully, you can just make out the disc and callipers through the spokes of the wheel.

 

 

A quick test fit and everything seems to be fine.

 

 

The inner side of the knock-offs fit very nicely.

 

 

Drop the body on top (with a bit of a struggle) and things are finally starting to take shape, at least on the Revell kit.

 

 

But first, more bodywork shenanigans  - I opened up the vent on the front wings. This vent is already open on the Airfix kit. I had to model up a pair of the chrome trim thingies that span the vent for the Airfix kit and did that a few weeks ago - now I realize that I'm going to have to do the same for the Revell kit as the kit parts will no longer work - and they weren't that great to be honest.

 

 

Believe it or not, the Corgi got some TLC today as well.  I drilled out the old rivet and threaded (by brute force) another screw into the hole. That now gives me a nice secure way to attach the body and chassis when the time comes.

 

 

Then we got some satin clear, or semi-gloss clear as Mr Color would have it, over the bodyshell.

 

 

I think I'm going with silver and not chrome for the highlighting - keeping to the original scheme. I think chrome would look too bling and just wouldn't look right.  The bad news is that I think I'm going to have to hand paint everything. I've been experimenting trying to create masks for the headlamps so I can spray them and get a nice even sheen to the finish, but I've been unable to get anywhere near a decent mask. I'm also just sticking with the bumpers, headlamps, and radiator in silver. Other bits of trim such as door handles just aren't defined well enough to be able to paint them with any kind of degree of neatness.

 

 

From what I can find on t'interweb, the rear number plate was also silver while (only) the upper section of the tail light was painted red, the lower section being left in gold.

I'll just have to hope and pray that I can do a decent job with the hand painting as I'd hate to have to strip this back to the bones and start all over again.

 

 

 

toodle pip for now...

 

 

 

[Brandy]

Lovely progress on all of them Alan.

It's nice to know I'm not the only one who's been struggling with brakes, bodywork, and chassis issues!

I love those front grilles though, and the Revell one sits nicely!

 

Ian

[hendie]

Thank Ian, I think the Airfix grill will work out okay as well after some fettling, more of which, later. 

Today was a good day.  I had a days vacation from work, and the wife didn't  - so I had the opportunity to spend some quality time with bits of plastic, and in todays episode, some brass.

The Airfix exhaust system (which I think I have shown earlier) was a bit pants and I had no option but to try and do something better, so out came the brass stash.  I found some rod and tube of the right diameters, or as near as makes no difference for government work. 

I knew there was going to be some bending involved so opted to go for brass rod to avoid any kinking so prevalent when you're bending tubes. 

 

 

I used the Revell kit as a guide as their exhaust system looked pretty good overall. The mufflers/silencers were 3.5mm rod which was cut to length on the lathe, then drilled to accept the 2.0mm diameter rod. A little bit of bending later and the exhaust system is starting to take shape. I'll be using tube for the tail pipes when the time comes.

 

 

One thing I hadn't really accounted for was the ejector seat mechanism which protrudes on the underside - Hmmnnn, that is going to cause some issues.  Oh, I also found a gearbox and an engine in my stash of scrap parts so these were brought into play.  I know I could have printed an engine and gearbox, but that just seemed a bridge too far, and I didn't have any dimensions or decent references for the Aston.  For this build, that engine and gearbox will work. I think it was left over from a Batmobile build.

 

 

When comparing the two systems I noticed that the exhaust layouts are slightly different with the manifold downpipes being reversed on the Airfix kit compared to the Revell kit. I have no idea which is the correct version, and when it's the right way up no-one will ever know anyways.

 

 

Some more bending and fettling and things are starting to look good. I know this is all going far too well, so something is bound to happen.

 

 

... and it did!  The actuation lever for the ejector seat fouled on the exhaust pipe.

 

 

This proved to be quite troublesome and it took a good while to adjust the exhaust to bypass the lever and still get to where it was supposed to be going.  Eventually I had something that worked. It didn't look great, but it worked which was the main thing. Then I found that there wasn't enough room between the gearbox and the sidewall for two downpipes to fit, so I had to cut one short.  To be honest I'm not entirely happy with how the two pipes travel alongside the gearbox and the more I look at this photo, the more it annoys me.  I think I'm going to have to do something with the pipe that reaches further forward.

 

 

The good news is that with the spring, lever, and cover on the ejector mechanism, it all still works as intended and doesn't foul on the exhaust. If I can work up the mojo a bit, I might replace the kit lever with a brass or aluminum counterpart for longevity sake.

 

 

Tail pipes dry fitted for this shot. I won't be fitting them until I have the body in place so I can get them cut to the right length.

 

 

While all that was going on, I managed to prime and paint a selection of the grills I printed yesterday. The great thing about printing your own is that you can print extras and choose the best from the bunch. 

 

 

At some point today I also took the opportunity to address the asymmetry of the Airfix grill opening using Tamiya putty. One of the drawbacks of this putty is that it skins over very quickly, but in this case, that actually helped quite a bit.  I applied a small dollop of putty into the offending area, then about a minute or two later, once it has skinned over, I used a spare grill and lightly pushed the grill into place, pushing back the putty at the same time.  The putty followed the shape of the grill as it was being slowly edged into place.  I'll let that cure overnight and can sand it back when I get another chance to head to the basement.

 

 

After all that, it was back to the Corgi. The only thing preventing me from assembling it is the paint job.  I guess it could be assembled, then painted but for some reason I have it in my head that the assembly should be the final act on the Corgi. (Don't ask me why)

I've been dreading this stage as I really don't have any option but to hand paint the brightwork. The color I chose to go with was Testors metallic silver (enamel). I'd done a few tests over the last few days and the Testors silver seemed to provide the best contrast against the gold.

First I thought I'd choose the easy option and paint the tail lights. Red satin enamel was brought out and given a good stir, and my plan was to test paint on the old knackered bodyshell, but stupid old me picked up the good one by mistake and started coloring that one in instead.  Luckily I didn't make a complete hash of it, and after I had suitably scolded the idiot, I braced myself and went for the silver. Bumpers first as they seemed the easiest.  I'll attack the licence plate when the bumpers have fully cured.

 

 

So far so good.

 

 

Surprisingly I managed to get decent neat lines between the bumpers and bodyshell.  Time to stop while I am ahead methinks. 

It was actually quite difficult to see the demarcation while I was painting and my eyes were straining by the time I finished. I'm going to leave that at least overnight before I have a closer look and see if any touch ups are required.

 

 

I'm reasonably pleased with how the Corgi is turning out so far but the thought of painting those headlamps is terrifying me.

 

 

 

[Pete in Lincs]

On 04/07/2024 at 21:00, hendie said:

Not to worry, I'm sure I'll figure something out for that later.

Something we've all said, and then regretted when it comes to it

For hand painting the headlights. If you outline them with a sharp pencil it will give you something to aim for.

When the paint is dry a wet cotton bud will wash away the black line.

Great updates, BTW.

 

[The Spadgent]

It’s taken me a day to catch up but wow! How amazing. The work on the boot gap was brilliant . The dash ended up looking great. The grill, the wheels, exhaust the corgi paint. All fantastic. I’ll endeavour to keep up from now on. 😇 johnny

[hendie]

I think we're going to omit the "amazing" part for this episode, and substitute "a bit of a bummer" instead.

 

Spurred in by the last installment and some good progress on the Corgi, I wanted to continue and see if I could actually get anywhere near finished with that particular build.

Out came the silver enamel again and I aimed for the headlamps... and mucked it up.  I went outside the lines with my coloring in, but that should be a relatively simple touch up to hide the shaky hands error. WHat really messed me up is that the enamel wouldn't go down smoothly for whatever reason and I ended up with a less than stellar finish. Most annoying. On the bright side (there is one, right?) I should be able to sand out the lumpy bits and ridges, leaving the edges intact, and then I can have another try to see if I can do any better second time around.

 

 

The rear number plate also got colored in and that didn't go too badly.

 

 

Moving indoors, Mr. Bond took his seat, though looking rather Hitleresque it must be said. I might swap him out for his twin brother. The interior plastic scrubbed up not too badly with just some washing up liquid and a good scrub.

 

 

Perhaps I should take a step back here and explain in more detail how we got here.  Many years ago I acquired the first Corgi 261, but it had a cracked rear window. I started disassembling it and cleaning up the metal casting of the bodyshell about a decade ago, always intending to find another donor car with a good windscreen to swap over. I've been looking for year and it was only recently that one came up where the seller didn't want silly money. That's the one I bought. Sometime between dismantling the original 261 and buying the donor kit, I also managed to lose the ejector roof hatch, so the donor kit also had to have that intact.

The donor windscreen was in good condition as was the roof hatch so all good there. I then examined the donor kit on more detail wondering if this should be the primary target of the refurb, but it was quickly apparent that the donor kit casting was of much poorer quality than the first 261 in my possession. In essence at this point it's a pick and mix of the best bits to produce one decent model... or that was my plan... and here's where things started to go south... 

 

I think I have mentioned somewhere previous in this post that I noticed some subtle differences between the two bodyshells I have.  Both are Corgi 261's - of that I am certain.  The most obvious difference that caught my eye initially was the difference in the structure forward of the windscreen area. No big deal though, it really shouldn't affect anything as all the fancy gadgets that fit inside here are identical from both models.

I also spotted that the model on the left has a round pin mounted just forward of the windscreen, while there is no such pin on the model on the right. 

 

Now, I knew that interfered with the fit of the windscreen, mainly due to a small protruding part on the front edge of the windscreen (scroll down to next photo and you'll see what I mean).  This protruding bit is present on both screens but for whatever reason is on opposite sides of each of the two windscreens. No matter, I can just sand that back if I need to and it'll all fall together. Easy huh?  Well, no.

 

 

You can see that protruding bit on the lower edge of the windscreens here.   More importantly, for those super sleuths out there - look at the back edge of the rear window on both versions - notice anything different?

Yes. One of these is not like the other. 

 

 

Now I was aware that Corgi had used two molds as there's plenty of info on that out there.  You can tell which car was made in which mold due to certain tell tale features. For example, take a look at the front end of both 261's here.  The car on the left has indicators below the headlamps while the car on the right doesn't have any. The back end is also slightly different, as are the characteristics DB5 vents on the wings. The car I'm using as my primary build here has much better defined vents.

 

 

Anyhoos, I tried to fit the window and even after removing that small sticky-outy bit, it didn't want to sit nice at all. What the...?  I'll be honest, it took me a little time to figure it out.

I'll repost this shot from a paragraph of two earlier - take a look at not only the pin I mentioned earlier but look at the edge of where the windscreen is going to sit. On the left model we have a nice crispy edge, and on the model on the right we have a nicely filleted edge. The casting is also different where the top edge of the windscreen meets the body shell, and the shape of the two rear windows are completely different. The windows ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE!

 

 

Dammit!  In all the talk of the two molds used and reviews and so  forth there is not one single mention that I can find of the fact that the windows are not interchangeable between the two castings. This really throws a spanner in the works.

I've been on the bay again looking for another donor car - now I know which donor type I need, but everyone's back to asking for silly money again.

 

There's nothing for it but to change plans.  Looking at the cracked rear window, I considered trying to vacuform a new one, but gave up on that idea. I figured it was worth a try to repair the crack knowing that it will never be invisible, but just how effective a repair could I make?

Not too shoddy to be honest - here it is after about 15 minutes with the micro  mesh and some Meguiars plastic polish. It has since received a dip in the cleary-coat stuff to see if that helps disguise the crack any further. It will never be eliminated entirely as there's decades of first inside that crack that can't get cleaned out, but I'm satisfied with the results here.

 

 

I've now resigned myself to having a refurb that will keep the cracked window, but the more I think about it, the less it bothers me. I have the Corgi 261 re release in perfect condition, so having an original 261 with a bit of battle damage actually compliments the collection.

 

In between cursing and screaming this week I managed to paint (and fix the bends in) the exhaust for the Airfix kit.

 

 

I'm not sure if there will be another update this weekend. We have the grandchild for the weekend and also have to get ready to head to Canada on Monday for a couple of weeks.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Pete in Lincs]

17 minutes ago, hendie said:

get ready to head to Canada on Monday for a couple of weeks.  

Maple syrup won't fix that crack either. Have a good trip, Mate.

[Terry1954]

A great insight into what appears to be fundamentally subtly different moulds used on the Corgi offerings.

 

Enjoy the grandchild, and have a good trip north!

 

Terry

[hendie]

hi all. I'm back from me travels and thoroughly P'd off with work after only a few minutes. Hey ho.

It wasn't really a vacation as such as we had some business to take care of while we were there but we did get a chance to do some touristy things... such as take a little trip around Victoria and the islands in an Otter seaplane for an hour

 

 

I guess I now have to build a DHC-3 Otter, of which there are absolutely no kits available. I sense some more 3D design in my future.

 

I also delved into the world of Canadian high fashion

 

 

so that we could be daft enough to go on one of these rubber bags out in the big wide ocean to watch the Orcas, yes ... killer whales to you and me.

 

 

We hit it lucky and found a pod of Orcas numbering around six or seven, with calves and followed them out in the bay for over an hour.  Due to legislation, and the fact that the crews don't want to disturb the Orcas, especially when they have calves with them, we could only get to about 400m from the orcas, but it was still very cool to see.

Mrs H forgot to take her iphone so we only had the crappy camera on my phone to capture any images (it digitizes the zoom resulting in very pixelated shots).

 

 

On the way back from t'oggin we pulled by a few islands populated with dozens of seals and beautiful little seal pups, and also spotted a few eagles (probably spotting the little seal pups)

 

Back on land, I splurged and bought myself a new hat.

 

 

Other items of interest included going to a Pow Wow (yes, they are really called Pow Wows), and visiting Stanley Park and a few local landmarks.

 

 

This was on the ferry trip from Vancouver to Victoria - beautiful scenery everywhere in BC.

 

 

All in all, a very enjoyable trip. Exciting times right up to the end - on our last night before flying home, we went out for a family meal and my wife decided to leave her handbag containing our passports, green cards, birth certificates, and other legal documents in the restaurant, only remembering when we got back to the hotel around midnight, and the restaurant had closed for the night. 

After the initial 10 minute panic, I thought what the heck, I could do with another few weeks in BC and could care less about work. but what was even worse was that the restaurant found the bag and kept it safely for us to pick up the next day. Oh well.

 

Oh yes, DB5's that's what we're here for isn't it?

Look what I found while ratching around in my drawers!  Mr. Bond I presume?

 

 

I knew I had the arms but had completely forgotten that I also had the Bond figure.

I'm not 100% on whether I'm going to use him or not.  The Bond figure is decent and should look reasonable under paint, but the baddie is a really shocking piece of molding, and I can't really use one without the other now, could I?  Additionally, I have to remake the steering wheel as it bottoms out on his knees. Decisions decisions...

 

 

Actual construction took place this week when I made some sun visors. The Revell kit included them (molded in to the roof) while the Airfix kit did not, however, the Revell ones were rather poorly defined so I added my own.

 

 

At some point over the last few weeks, the Gravity Colors Silver Birch paint arrived, causing me some consternation.  Now, never having seen an actual 007 DB5 in the flesh, I can only go on written descriptions and from what I've read, the original car paint was not metallic. The Gravity Colors paint is metallic albeit with very fine flakes visible. It does have the green tinge to it though (if you concentrate really, really hard). I'm not really sure how I feel about it at this point.

Nothing to do but try it out to see what happens then, shall we?

 

Commence coloring in

 

 

Ah, you spotted it too then.  This paint is very susceptible to the finish of the underlying surface.  I had given the Revell kit a quick rub down prior to paint, but obviously I had not taken enough care to ensure that every single little square millimeter of surface received the same treatment.  That car will be going back to the spray shop after getting a good rub down with micromesh once again - with a lot more care this time.

 

 

I'm still not sure about the color though. It just looks, well... silver. A bit disappointing really. 

I'm very tempted to try and mix my own (non-metallic) version of silver birch for the Airfix kit.  Even if it ends up not that close to the original color, it won't be metallic, and at least it'll be my version. I did that on the old Aurora Spy Car and it didn't look too bad.

 

 

More decisions to decide upon then.

 

Meanwhile, back in the Hendungeon...  Corgis beckon.

Over the last couple of weeks I managed to blag another 261 from the bay - this time knowing the differences allowed me to buy the right version this time.

Unfortunately, when it arrived I discovered there was a tiny crack on the rear windscreen, just as on the one I'm rebuilding. Another DB5 restoration at some point in my future then.

 

 

I eventually got around to painting the headlamps, but my shaky hands got the better of me and I made a bit of a hash of it. Several times.

 

 

All things must come to pass though and it seemed the right time to assemble this little blighter.

After several false starts I managed to get everything to fit, and in the right order.

 

 

Hold your breath and count to ten, I'm going in.

 

 

Closed up, screw in place to hold everything together, and sigh of relief breathed.

 

 

Back on her wheels - and I touched the not-quite-dry-and-fully-cured headlamps once again, so another though up required later. I added a sliver of styrene sheet to the seat retaining mechanism to lower the height of the seat once closed so that the roof now sits much better. It always annoyed me that the hatch always seemed to sit way too proud of the roof, or way too low. This, I'm happy with.

 

 

All the gadgetry works as advertised. Now I just need to find a baddie figure. There's plenty on t'bay but I refuse to pay the $10, or even $25 shipping being asked for a $6.99 piece of painted plastic

 

 

guns a'blazin'

 

 

The wheels are looking much better than I anticipated

 

 

and I'm particularly pleased with the bullet shield. I know the purists would flay me alive as it should be the same color as the rest of the car, but I really like the effect as it adds another dimension to the car.

 

 

At last, I now have a Corgi 261 in the collection. I don't think I ever had one as a child - I do know I had several of the Husky versions, but I can't remember ever having a Corgi.

 

Now back to worrying plastic for the rest of these builds.

 

 

 

 

 

[ElectricLightAndy]

Looking great! Having seen/worked on a real one, I can say that the silver birch is metallic, but more of a light pearl grey if you know what I mean, it does shimmer but not as individual metalflake bits, so what you have painted looks pretty accurate to me. Also the sunvisors should be clear green tinted perspex, at least it was on the one I worked on and DB4s and 5s of the time that I have worked on.

 

Also, I'd love to see a DHC-3 WIP from you, some of the highlights of the forum are your scratchbuilding master classes.

 

Cheers,

 

Andy.

[giemme]

First, lovely scenery pics from your hols!

 

Second, excellent progress - and with paint too!

 

Ciao

[Pete in Lincs]

A very nice update, Good to see you weren't attacked by a Moose or an Orca on your Hols. Nice hat. We won't mention the survival suit. eh?

Except, Back in my school days we had to show we could swim in Pyjamas. Not easy! Probably in case we re enacted the Titanic  disaster.

How on earth were you supposed to swim in that collection of recycled plastic?

Would the Silver Birch paint look better under a coat of semi gloss clear? Just a thought. 

The Corgi looks great. I do have an original little blue Baddie figure from my JB DB5. Probably nigh on 60 years old now!

But it would probably cost a silly amount to send it too you nowadays

 

[Terry1954]

A great update on all fronts Alan, with Corgi 261 looking very smart.

 

Nice holiday shots especially this one...........

 

On 8/3/2024 at 9:42 PM, hendie said:

 

Would love to see you build one of those for sure!

 

Your almost there with one of these, just a nip and tuck here and there, with a pointy nose and some other cosmetic bits. Piece of cake for a man with your skills 

 

 

 

Terry.

[hendie]

3 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

Would love to see you build one of those for sure!

 

There's a couple on eBay but they are asking over $100 - I have found some plans online so I think next year, I may be delving into the realms of Fusion once I have more time on my hands

[othertales]

Gosh, what a series of builds to follow! My head spins every time with each update and all the unbelievably skilful plate spinning multitasking required… You have recruited the whole Q Division to work on those models with you, right? 🍸

[triumphfan]

Just had a catch up with the thread, a lot to take in! All good stuff though, really enjoying seeing these three come together. Great work 👍

 

Atb, Steve.

[The Spadgent]

Great Holiday snaps dear boy. Love the hat! 🤠

The corgi is looking fantastic and all the parts working too. Hats…er off. 😉

oooh an otter you say. I’m building a twin otter at some point as that was the sea plane we were flown about in on our honey moon.  I’ll have to did it out. 😀

 

 Johnny

[hendie]

It feels like I haven't been in here for months tho' in reality it's only been about 3 weeks or so. Strange how time feels but acts differently sometimes.

 

I should preface this with the fact that this is more of a "no, I'm not dead, I've just been busy" post than a serious update. We've had the wife's mother staying with us for a few weeks so I faced the wrath of SWMBO if I even looked like I was heading down to the basement. She headed back to the UK during the past week so things are back to what passes for normality at our house.

 

The Revell kit put up a bit of a fight over the last few weeks, in particular, with the paint job.  That "blooming" that I showed in the last post just didn't want to go away.  I micromeshed the body within an inch of it's life, but when I resprayed, there was still that blooming showing up all over the place. Only on the Revell kit though - not on the Airfix kit. 

 

 

 

I think it might be the paint itself - I.e. very hot as it appears to have actually crazed the plastic of the Revell kit. The Airfix plastic is 60+ years old, and probably fossilized by now so the paint didn't have any adverse effects on the Airfix parts. 

Nothing for it but to douse it with oven cleaner and start all over again

 

 

It sure doesn't look pretty but it did the job... eventually. It took another soaking after this shot to get the body clean of all paint though.

 

 

I spent an inordinate amount of time micromeshing that shell second time around. It's still not perfect and there's a few more of those defects showing up again - this time in different places. However they are only visible at certain angles

 

 

I'm hoping (and praying) that I can get away with it as I really do not want to fork out for another kit just for a body shell replacement. What gets me is that the Airfix kit does not seem to have the same problems although I've followed the same process on both kits.. same primer, same paint, same micromesh and so forth. Even the same dummkopf spraying the paint.

 

 

The silver finish has shown up a few sink marks but at this stage it's far too late to address them. In other words, I Can't be bothered to fix 'em.  There's a couple of sink marks on the Airfix boot lid which are the most obvious.

 

 

More painted bits.  The color is growing on me slightly I have to admit.  I'm still not a huge fan, but I don't dislike it as much as I did at first.

 

 

The remainder of available time has been spent working through all those piddly little annoying jobs like painting chrome bits

 

 

Then painting yet more chrome bits.  I also reprinted the steering wheel at a smaller diameter as the diameter of the Revell steering wheel (which was what I used as my reference) didn't fit the Airfix kit with Mr Bond in position.

 

 

I'm really crap at figure painting so I'm still not sure if Mr Bond will be inhabiting this DB5 at close of play or not.

As I cleaned up the workspace today and tried to arrange things in some semblance of order I discovered that I've lost, mislaid, or perhaps even eaten a couple of parts so I'll need to fire up the printer again to replace them. Easy enough job -  just a bit miffed at my own carelessness. 

 

With a bit of luck the next update might even include some progress, and sticking of bits together. The first job on the agenda is to let the silver birch fully cured then attack it with some clear gloss and some polish. (and hope it all goes to plan!)

 

 

 

[The Spadgent]

Oh I don’t know. I thought it was a lovely update. The silver looks really good and the chrome parts look great. 🩶🤍 looking forward to the gluing of parts. 😍

 

 Johnny. 

 

I’m sure you’ll do a good job of bond. But it’ll look good without too. 🙌

 

 Johnny