A little help:


Jim

The Revell #2 car is the donor, with Indycal markings. Initial sanding complete and cleaned. Ready for primer.

Jim,
Just gotta love those GT40s. Whose brand of paints will you be using for the Gold color coat?

Joel

Hi Damian

Great work bullying that so-and-so into shape!

All the best

Rowan

Grabber Blue, Grabber Green and Grabber Orange were 70s Mustang and Maverick colors. Ford returned them to the lineup for a while in the 90s and early 2000s if I remember correctly.

For a frame of reference, Grabber Orange would also be very close (if not the actual color) to the Bud Moore 69-70 Trans Am Mustangs.

Hi again

Seeing pics of the GT40 is a reminder of just what a stunningly beautiful car it is! I think I'm going to have to get a kit of it in some form or other - or else it'll just bug me incessantly!

All the best

Rowan

Damian, I think you were right when it comes to your comment that I wouldn't rush the Raptor and would do it some justice.

For a Snap kit, this thing is more detailed than most glue kits. For example, the dash is highly accurate as compared to my F-150 that is sitting in the driveway, right down to having the trailer brake controller represented. Same with the inside of the tailgate, it has the handle for the optional built in tailgate step. The driver's and passenger's seats have the power seat controls molded in. The ICC marker lights are present on the body and in the grill as on the 1:1 scale, they are not called out on the instructions though. Heck, even the fold seams for the mirrors to fold them in against the body are there, as well as the LED turn signal markers on the bottom edge of the mirror. The rotors have not only calipers molded in, but also have the pad detail as well.

Mold lines were minimal on the body shell. The biggest issue is that most all the detail, with the exception of the rotors and exhaust tips, is molded in.

I'm going to have some fun with this one before I start the Bronco.

First off I remove the toy like platting:-





in the last photo you will see that I have started building the motor,

David,
Thanks for the info. It's really weird that I didn't remember those colors as I had a 1970 302 Mustang, but it was Red with a custom flat Black engine hood. I've only owned Red, White, Blue, and one Bronze colored car. Although, I wanted my Hyundai Elantra Sports Coupe in BRG, but it wasn't available as it was a special order, so I got White again. New car/SUV coming up for my wife, and she wants it in White. Go figure

Joel

Rowan,
My feelings about the GT40 line are exactly like yours. So much so that I keep on buying the Fujimi line of kits when ever I see one online, as they're incredibly hard to find in stock anywhere.

Joel

Richard,
Like you, I end up stripping 90%+ of the chrome plating off kit parts as my #1 job. Rarely does this fake plating look close to chrome. Although, I've been pleasantly surprised at the Beemax plating which has been exceptional on their kit wheels.

Joel

I think it is rather the "modular" molding that messes up the counting. The sprues are very small, and that in propose: Moebius have already launched a few variations of their F-100, of which I own another one: 1972 Custom Sport.

Nice solution on the body misfitting issue - it seems half way solved already, not that the panels are lining up properly. Some filler and careful sanding will do the trick further.




I have actually watched a YT clip about the restauration of an F-100 and I can tell you that Moebius went to great lengths to reproduce the original.




Well, I think we're even then! In my experience, the body preparation and painting it is the lengthiest process, the other parts are "in betweeners". In my case, I cannot start with the body, as I would normally do, since it needs some assembly before painting - but I'll try to ignore the steps in the instructions and focus on that one first (after the chassis frame).

Patrick, that is a stunning color scheme - very daring I shall say with that orange inserts in the front of it! I'm holding my breath!

David, I just completed a Revell "snap kit" and I agree: some details are stunning. Unfortunately, the balance is broken by the fixing pins and snap clamps. They are easy and fun to assemble, but definitely not my "choice".

Richard, you're chromed sprues are looking now ready for the new life; pay attention to the remaining lacquer on the surface - some cements for plastic like Testors have trouble penetrating it. Even Tamiya's Extra Thin needs plentiful application to work thru it. Of course, you can scratch it off from the contact points at any time with your modelling knive's blade.


UPDATE - AMS (Advanced Modeller's Syndrome) symptoms

Well, I was all ready for the paint booth, but!

I have noticed the exhaust pipe it is actually an exhaust stick and I couldn't live with that! First I was going to drill it out, but I also noticed an ejector's mark on the side of the pipe, quite nasty to deal with:


Without thinking to much, I chopped off the offending proboscis and I have discovered that - by chance - the diameter of the q-tips tubes I have are exactly the same with the diameter of the exhaust stick. Using a toothpick to support the q-tip's tube against crushing from inside, I cut a length to replace the art I had it removed:


Using some superglue as glue and filler in the same time, I joined the two parts and now it looks better:


But I still didn't made it to the painting booth! I have stumbled again in some self invented issue: the brake lines. In the same above mentioned YT clip, I've seen clearly how the brake lines are weaving thru the frame, and I didn't find any excuse not to make'em this time. Here are the holes in the cross-member:


Only after that I've made it into the painting booth. I have sprayed the chassis and the rear differential with Mr. Surfacer 1500 Gray diluted 50% with MLT thru my H&S Infinity 0.15mm setup @ 20psi:


Then I have used Vallejo Air RLM66 Schwartzgrau for the same sub-assemblies. Normally I would have used Tamiya XF-69 NATO Black, but I've ran into my aging stock of aircraft paints that need to be spent before they expire (unlike enamels, the acrylics have short shelf life).


Cheers!
Gabriel

Coming along very nicely there Gabriel. I'll be building the Raptor as a glue kit, so the pins/tabs won't be an issue.

Seats are together and the chrome got stripped from all but the mirror faces and the headlight buckets last night. Hope to prime the body shell and begin painting the interior tonight, but Barrett-Jackson is on this week, so who knows.

Plus, the NHL season has started.

Excellent progress Gabriel, you are working fast on this one!

Richard, what are you going to use for the chrome parts?

Well Henry is not too happy with my tailoring skills (sprue-goo), and definitely angry that the other two turned up back at work legless after a long lunch, but he is happy with the progress on the panel work. The two halves of the main body are together now, and as Gabriel said, a bit more sanding and filling will pull it into shape nicely.


Cheers, D

Gabriel,
Your solution for the exhaust is perfect. Way better then drilling it out. The Qtips that I buy are a rolled paper product, so they're solid. I"m thinking that you're using the more expensive ones from the cosmetics dept. or even the Tamiya ones.

Nicely done on the priming and painting of the chassis. We both use Mr. Hobby's #1500 filler/primer. But where we differ is in the thinning for AB'ing. I've found that my usual 1:1 ends up way to thin, requiring a lot of super lite coats, especially if I'm also trying to cover any putty work. I've found that for me 3 parts primer to 2 parts thinner works perfectly. I did step down from my 5mm needle to a 3.5mm needle to help control the flow.

Joel

D,
The Old Man just has to love that body work. It's looking fantastic.

Joel

Moving along with the service truck,i encountered a warp in the frame but after some blow dryer action i was able to straighten things out.
Now its on to the engine assembly

I will be building a 1917 Model T couplet rag top,with the idea in mind to convert it to a hard top.
I am a bit lucky, I stumble upon this interesting thread, and this fellow Ake Osterdahl has shared drawings I can work with. I think I can scratch mod this.
the kit is a 50 year old Pyro product, so I am not going to be using any micrometers or getting too excited about accuracy.

Jon, what scale is that? It looks familiar from a misspent childhood building 1/32 or so antique cars that came with some sort of mountable display box.

I'm sure it is the very kit you remember, in 1/32 scale. This boxing doesnt have a display stand, but I imagine unbuilt kits with the stand are still out there in vintage model kit land.

Hi again

Well, I got underway a couple of evenings ago, putting together the basic engine block and chassis. Some of the faces on the engine that should be flat are very slightly angled to allow the parts to be extracted from the mould, so I squared them up. What I hadn't taken into account was that the locating tabs for the front of the engine and the intake manifold allow a fair amount of play - and I made the error of not checking everything was sitting true before applying cement and leaving everything to cure for a couple of days.

With a day off work today, I got back to work and one of the first things I did was to sit the engine in the chassis - only to find it was distinctly lob-sided!



I'm not sure how clearly that's come out in the photo but, believe me, it looked really bad to a Mk. 1 Eyeball! In fact, it was so noticeable that, for a few moments, I wondered if the real engine was mounted canted to one side - which, of course, one look at photos online proved it wasn't!

It was clearly going to cause major fit problems further down the line but, luckily, I hadn't already attached items like the cylinder heads, so I used a thin photo-etched razor saw to slice the engine front and intake manifold off again without losing too much material - which removed their locating tabs at the same time (probably a blessing in disguise!) - and squared everything up again. This time, when I cemented them back on, I dry-fitted the engine in the chassis straight away to make sure it sits upright now! With that hurdle crossed, I've started adding other parts.



Looking ahead - Revell provide what I'd describe as a "middle-sized" air filter - i.e. not one of the obviously large modern items you see in some restored or souped-up cars, but equally not as small as is visible in some shots. I don't know if anyone can point me to a shot of what was originally factory-fitted? - it won't be "the end of the world" either way, but any help would be appreciated.

All the best

Rowan

Jonathan.
Interesting conversion. Looks very doable. I'm assuming that the interior is exactly the same.

Is the entire kit Bass, or is there plastic parts as well? I'd be lost trying to work just with Brass.

Joel

Rowan,
Nice save on the Engine. And you're right, in the pictures I couldn't see the miss alignment.

I'm by no means an expert on Ford Flathead V8s, but I do run across them quite often on a few car sites. From what I've seen, the correct stock air cleaner is a midsize one.



Joel

Hello model builders - the Ford GB party is well underway - lots of interesting builds!

I'm building this:



A turbo, 4 cylinder Mustang! I found it on ebay, all parts in the box, even the original deal sheet. I'm up and running on it too. I started with some body mods, cutting in louvers and cutting off a portion of the rear deck:





Cutting the louvers in is obvious enough, I cut the rear deck off because in the real car, you can see in to a fuel tank, so now you can see in and I'll build a fuel tank. The marked areas shown below are in the engine bay, where the shaded areas prevents a view of the lower control and steering linkages so I cut it out too:



As shown below, this way, you can see the lower control arms and actual edge of the tube chassis:



Next - the kit includes these parts, or should I say blobs of plastic:



which are "obviously" intended to represent these:



the strut and reservoir...not acceptable to me, so:



ahhh, I like this more! Scratch building to the rescue!

I'm reworking the suspension all around, building a fuel tank, and tackling a variety of other fun projects.

Ok - thanks for talking a look, and go FORD GB Team!!

Cheers,
Nick

Thanks for the pic Joel, that tickles a 60 year old memory about my dad's '51 Ford. I remember the air filter housing being about the same size and shape. Should it have had a small film of oil in it? Or was Ole Mable in much worse shape than I knew?