Citroen DS19: Award winner

I am very pleased that the DS19, one of the easiest builds I've encountered in recent memory, won First Place in the Out Of Box category at today's Ottawa Scale Auto Contest.





To be fair this category was not heavily subscribed, unlike the Race Car category where some killer builds blew my decent 917K right out of the water. Here are just a couple, starting with a fully built-up Group 5 Zakspeed Capri. The original Tamiya kit was curbside, meaning no engine, so you can imagine the work that went into this build.





The DTM Audi A4R, by the same OCD builder, was equally good. I have this kit in my stash and the bar has clearly been set very high indeed. Maybe I'll just build up the V8 and shoehorn it into a VW Golf ...



I also snagged a Kenworth in the raffle, and another plaque for Rookie of the Year as it was my first competition, ever. All in all a great day. So back to the bench.

'53 Stude: Intro and engine

Inspired by my visit to the Studebaker museum in South Bend, Indiana, earlier this year, and looking for something *easy* as a break from the TZ1, I decided to tackle AMT's Starliner. This is a very pretty and understated car, given typical designs from the '50s, and while it appears to have been a poor-handling, under-powered rust-bucket, it is certainly iconic.





The kit comes with an outrageous double-blown hemi for building up a Bonneville Salt Flats laker, but it also comes with some very tasteful custom grilles and bumpers, so that is the path I am taking. It will be basically box stock with a few mild custom items; a day's work has gotten it to this stage.



The engine gets a pair of 4-bbl carbs from AMT's Ford Starliner. Interesting these two cars had the same name; I guess Studebaker was gone by '66 and wasn't in a position to complain... but I digress. Yes, the Ford is a 390 big block, and the Stude is a 232 small block, but this is the modeling world where it is as much about possibilities as realism. The stock 2-bbl and air cleaner will go to the parts bin.



A bit of digging online revealed that the Stude 232 engine was actually painted a light olive green, not semi gloss black as in the instructions. Tamiya's XF 26, Deep Green, is pretty close.



The heads have molded-in spark plugs, and finding big enough tube to make boots that fit over them was a chore. The boots are way too big but fit nicely over the plugs, so I'm OK with it. Plan B would have been to shear the plugs off and drill through the head.



I've shaved all the emblems off the body to go with the very classy front roll pan, but I'll leave the door handles on. A very clean shape, with minimalist fins.



Paint will be a '50s pastels, probably in a two-tone scheme. These two options make sense: Tamiya TS-41 Coral Blue (blue-green on the left) or TS-58 Pearl Light Blue (purple-blue on the right); the Coral Blue is a nice peppy '50s colour but the Pearl Light Blue is closer to Maui Blue, an original Studebaker colour. Decisions, decisions.



Either way the roof will be TS-26 Pure White which is whiter than the creamier TS-7 Racing White. Stay tuned!

Alfa Romeo TZ1: Ongoing chassis 2

As expected, the forward chassis structure fought me all the way. The coil turned out to be the final bit in the way, after I had cleared away the lower radiator hoses for oil and water. These will all go back on afterwards.

As with the Ferrari 250 LM, the 'ball joints' for the front suspension turned out to be fairly useless. I once again resorted to drilling and tapping for #00-90 screws to attach the hub to the A-arms. I have come across two different recommendations for tap drill size for screws this size, and I picked the smaller one on the basis that, first, I am threading into a soft material, and second, that it is a lot easier to drill a hole bigger than to make it smaller. So out came the #65 drill bit (0.035"); the other reference calls for a #62 drill, which is only 0.003" bigger, but better safe than sorry. A bit of a heart-stopper, since a screw-up (pun intended) would be potentially catastrophic, but it all worked out. Details follow.

Drilling through the A-arms. I tried to keep it all straight  by drilling through both arms at the same time, but these things are pretty flexible and I was only partly successful.



Drilling into the upright. I had to cut off the little pins, still present on the second upright, then mark the hole properly to keep it all centered. The upright isn't a lot bigger than the drill.



Two screws inserted through the A-arms into the upright. The only screws I have on hand are too long, and it wasn't possible to drill clean through the hub as with the Ferrari, so I threaded two screws in through the A-arm and into the hub as far as they would go, then snipped the excess off and sealed it all up with a drop of CA glue.



The finished product looks good unless you are magnifying it, as is the case here; some touch-up semi-gloss black paint will be needed. The springs are nice nickel-steel bits that look good.



With the front hubs one, I was able to get the chassis up on its wheels for the first time.



The chassis sits square on its four wheels, which is great, but the camber, toe-in and track of some of the wheels is still off. In particular the rear wheels don't fit under the rear fenders, so the body sits a bit high. This can be cured with the right amount of drilling into the hubs.




An important lesson here: a complete set of number drills, at the very least from #76 (0.020", 0.5 mm) to #61 (0.039", 1 mm) is critical. This kit also has 0.8 mm rod so you'll use your #67 bit (0.032") as well.



Next: lots of finicky little details to finalise the chassis before moving on to the interior, and the decision as to whether to attach the floor pan permanently and obscure all this nice work. Nonetheless progress is being made! So stay tuned.

Alfa Romeo TZ1: Ongoing chassis

Back to the bench after a week out of town on my other job. You know, the one that earns me money, not the one that costs me money ... anyway I've made some progress, but a minor self-inflicted injury involving an Xacto knife and my right middle finger has sidelined me for now. So time to detail the latest work instead.



The basic frame went together OK as discussed earlier. A trial fit of the engine and drivetrain looked good so it was on to the rear axle. The cast suspension units consist of upright, driveshaft and at least two locating arms, all in one casting. Getting it all to line up with the appropriate little sockets required a fair bit of gentle bending of struts before risking glue, but the left side went in fine and looks good. The disc brakes in particular look fine.



Here we see the right side installed. Still looking OK.



One of the locating links for the rear hubs is a long radius arm which reaches forward and is hinged under the door sill. I trialed the floor pan to make sure it all fits, which it does, but it is really unfortunate that the chassis will be essentially invisible once it's all done. The fact it is all meant to be semi-gloss black for historical accuracy just makes this worse. I am not recommending pink or anything that extreme, but I have been playing with matte and gloss black paints as highlights for some details, in order to try and get them to stand out. I've also gone for steel or aluminum on bits that may well have been unpainted originally.



Next the engine went in, which also required a bit of bending and twisting of the main chassis bits.



My only concern here is that the engine may not be tipped over as far as it should be, given the oil pan and the gearshift not being perfectly horizontal or vertical, respectively. We shall see.



The base chassis went together relatively easily but the front and rear upper frame sections are going to be a challenge. The rear section, which carries the fuel tank, was not be too difficult. There are 8 pins to line up, but 4 of these involved the gas tank or a beefy subframe, both of which are pretty solid and therefore represent fixed points for the various tubes to socket into.

 

Here is the rear frame installed. Access to the rear discs, pads and handbrake is now just like on my old Rover 2000 TC, which is to say essentially impossible. I am assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that the pads didn't need to be changed during the 24 heures...



The front upper frame component, on the other hand, doesn't appear, at first glance, to line up very well at all. A bunch of trialing will be needed before the glue goes on.



This upper item involves locating mounting points for springs, shock absorbers and kingpins, at the same time as lining it up with the large tube along the top of the firewall and 8 other little sockets. This will definitely be challenging and all the various tubes attached to the motor will make it worse. First, though, I need the use of my right middle finger back.



Separately I managed to get paint on it before heading out of town, so it has all been hardening for over a week now. The orange peel is minimal so it will really only need polishing with the finer grits and pastes. Stay tuned!

Alfa Romeo TZ1: First steps

I've actually made a fair bit of progress. The chassis, made of 6 easily-bent spun cast bits, went together well and looks great. (At least two more large chassis components remain, one supporting the gas tank and the other the radiators and hood hinge). It is too bad this lovely tubular frame, much like Tamiya's 300SL, will largely be hidden once the floor pan goes in.



The rear axle, with inboard discs, is very detailed. Discs consist of a couple of photo-etched discs, and the little levers for the handbrake are also made of PE sheet.



Painted, it all looks very nice. I am hoping I won't damage the paint too badly as I force fit all the other bits that will attach to it...



Many other bits are also quite complex. The radiator consists of a hollow white metal shell, two PE grilles, and two little brackets made by folding small PE pieces.



The engine went together well. I decided not to put in the head gasket (!), although the flywheel and starter ring are installed and permanently hidden.



The head includes 10 little rivets with domed heads, mimicking the acorn nuts used to tie the head to the crankcase, sandwiching the wet liners. All went in and none got lost -- I am making progress! Of course clearance holes of 0.020" had to be drilled to accept the rivets. 

Most references state that the TZs all came with the twin-plug head. However, there are pictures on the Interweb of TZs with the single plug head; while these all appear to be modern post-restoration pictures which may have used this engine as a substitute for unavailable twin-plug engines, it is possible, reading between the lines on the Zagato site, that at least one TZ was delivered with a single plug head. The Zagato site, which one would expect to be fairly authoritative, states that car number 750 011, which won the GT 1600 class in 1964 as car 57, was delivered with the twin-plug head. Nonetheless the kit comes with a single plug head and 4-plug distributor, so this is how I have built it.



The PE Alfa Romeo script on the valve cover is held on with some Tamiya clear paint, X-22. This is far cleaner than trying to get it in place with CA glue. I am quite pleased with the result, even though I need to sort out some of the plug wires which detached from the distributor as I was handling the engine. The wire loom guides came from the parts bin (Model Car Garage or equivalent).



Separately I put on multiple coats of Tamiya TS-8, Italian Red, starting with light mists and moving to wet coats. An entire can of TS-8 and then some was used. This went on over several coats of Tamiya's fine white primer. There are no runs and minimal orange peel; it should polish up well. As I will be unable to fiddle with it for at least a week, this is a good thing.



Overall a very detailed kit, and a welcome step up from the 250 GT Lusso I just finished. Clearly the MFH folks have at least two levels of detail, and this is important to understand given the horrendous prices these things trade for on eBay. The PE sheets are a case in point; two of the three are backed by a sticky clear red sheet, so the parts have no little 'sprue' connections to the sheet. Peel the piece out with a blade, and voilà! Very nice.



There are twelve other contestants in the contest run by the online Model Factory Hiro Builders Facebook group, building mostly F1 kits in scales ranging from 1/43 up to 1/12. My chances of winning anything are poor given the cosmic level at which some of these guys are working, but as there is nothing like a challenge to get one going, I intend it to be the best I can possibly make it. And there are three prizes (actual MFH kits), so 3/13 = 23%. So stay tuned!

Ferrari 250 GT Lusso: Complete (#12 for 2018)

Another one hits the display cabinet. And it was a frustrating mix of crude and detailed, some of which I have already discussed.

For instance the dash was very detailed, with lovely decals, photo etched rings around the gauges, and a string of minute toggle switches. But the door panels are pretty non-descript compared to, for instance, Fujimi's 356 that I recently completed.



The next picture shows the Model Car Garage front discs that I substituted for the originals, which were pretty poor in terms of detail -- they consist of a slab that attaches to the disc on one side but that does not reach around the disc to the other side. I kept the rear calipers, because they include a parking lever, and because they are only visible through the gorgeous wire wheels.



The body itself is not my best work. More polishing would have been a good idea, but I was getting through the paint in places and would have had to start over. Inertia took over.



As well the glue around the glass is not the best. My excuse is the kit is not up to expectations, and as a result I was hurrying to finish it; a poor excuse, perhaps, but it will have to do.



What a gorgeous shape! Road & Track, rightfully, called it the most beautiful car in the world when it was introduced in the early '60s. The kit will definitely look good on the shelf with the other Italian coupes.



The shot below is the one that magazine photographers love so much, showing the simple grille, subtle fender line and thin roof pillars. It actually looks better without the 'bumper', but the goal was an accurate replica of a factory car.



I replaced the side marker lights and wipers with bits from the parts bin, because they were just too difficult. So overall a flawed kit of one of the cars on my list to buy at 1:1 if I ever won a million dollars. OK, many millions of dollars ...



Next up: the Alfa Romeo TZ1, also by MFH. Stay tuned!

Ferrari 250 GT Lusso: Engine compartment

The engine is installed, missing just the air filter. There is a lot of underhood detail, but a lot of vague guesswork as well.



The twin air horns are a nice touch.



The steering column and box went in where they should go, in spite of a lack of any locating pins. The brake booster doesn't fit where it should go, but sits a little high; hopefully this will not interfere with the body installation.



The engine went in OK, but the fuel pump, which I had attached to a fuel line and fed in with the engine, also interferes with the steering box.



View from the front shows the dual coils on the firewall and the wiring and plumbing.



The battery and heater air supply tube are nicely done and fit well.



I know, it sounds like a lot of griping. But these are expensive kits, and the good ones are really very nice. It's almost as if there are two levels of detail within the MFH catalog. The 250 GT Lusso, as well as the 250 GT SWB I have on the shelf, are good kits but require a lot of work to do well, because you are fixing sloppy instructions and poor fit. In retrospect the Abarth 1300 I built some time ago (below) is in the same boat.



On the other end of the scale, there are the Porsches (908/03 and 917), the TZ1 described recently, and the 250 LM I have in the stash. These also require a lot of work to do well, but this is due to the extraordinary level of detail and fit, and the effort is therefore far more rewarding.

So there you have it: two tiers in the MFH range, and it helps to understand this when deciding what to shell out for.

908/03 chassis

TZ1 chassis