skunk
87thScale addict
5th B-day
Posts: 2,762
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Post by skunk on Jul 30, 2006 23:46:46 GMT 1
Yummy projects as usual. That Leyland looks very promising, sign me up for one or two if possible!
Congrats on perfecting the Leyland badge in such an elegant manner.
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Post by Eric on Jul 31, 2006 21:51:40 GMT 1
That Esagamma is looking really good , is there a chance some of these cabs might be available to the 'general public' in the future ? As for the Leyland, that model is very close to 1/87 indeed, and has only been available for a short while only because DAF bought Leyland at the time. If you find another original Lledo, hang on to it, it is pretty rare. Eric
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Post by only87 on Aug 1, 2006 21:12:48 GMT 1
Eric, I planned to make more than one casting of the cab, and of course I wouldn't want to keep them all for myself. In fact, the cab wouldn't be as good as it is if I hadn't had some people in mind that could be interested, so I wanted to do it right in the first place. It took already a little longer than first intended, but I hope it shows why. I'll keep you all informed about the progress and, of course, when it's finished.
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Post by Eric on Aug 1, 2006 22:01:43 GMT 1
That's great news, thanks ! Looking forward to seeing the next episode in the Esagamma series
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stanhas87
87thScale addict
1978 Dodge Monaco CHP
Posts: 4,906
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Post by stanhas87 on Aug 2, 2006 0:15:03 GMT 1
As for the Leyland, that model is very close to 1/87 indeed, and has only been available for a short while only because DAF bought Leyland at the time. If you find another original Lledo, hang on to it, it is pretty rare. Eric Dear All: That Leyland made as a Matchbox as well.Is a military short semi-trailer.Come to think of it,I do not see this model often as well. Dear Peter: Nice projects going there!! Nick K
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Post by only87 on Sept 16, 2007 5:39:54 GMT 1
So here's a bit about my latest fumblings, some proper Alfasud wheels. But first things first. I always wanted the Alfasud in 1/87, I wished for it in many threads on many forums. So the announcement from Herpa really got me excited. But I wanted a four door model in white, so I transformed one of the Magic models and made castings of the body in colored resin. This explains the base model in the following pics. Be aware that I took those pictures right out of the camera so I wouldn't tamper with resolution, so pics may take some time to load. Here are two of my castings, on in green (a series 2 Alfasud), and one in white (series 1). The series 1 models had hubcaps and the series two had a more sporty look without. The wheels on the white one are taken right off a Brekina Guilia and they fit the model perfectly, I only added a little silver paint on the outer rim to get the chrome of the hubcap more into focus. When I got some models from HÃ¥kan some months ago he also sent me a late 1970's Toyota Starlet in 1/64. The model stood around for maybe a month when I suddenly noticed that the Toyota wheels looked exatly like the Alfa Romeo wheels, so I gathered my shrinking stuff (this was before Herpa announced the Alfasud, so I had the shrunken rims lying around already when the Alfas hit the shops). I sanded off the outer part of one of those Brekina rims and also sanded one of my castings from the inside until I had a small flat disk. After combining both I had my first prototypical rim for the Alfasud "MkII". I made a mold for casting it and packed it away when I moved to Berlin. A few days ago I went to a model shop and the had those cheap diecast Volvo Amazon models and bought a bunch of them to cannibalize them for their rubber tires. When I came home I dug out the mold for the Alfa wheels, made a first casting and slipped one of those rubber tires on it, they match perfectly. In the first two pics you see those wheels in painted form, I cast them in white resin so it would have been hard to take a picture as you can see on the third pic. The white rims are actually something different, they're alloys in the design which was mainly used on the Alfetta GTV (hint?) but where also used on the Alfasud. I plan to put those on my two door Suds. Another good thing is that those wheels were also used on the Giulia, so I can use their wheels for some Alfasuds and put my own on the Giulia like I plan on this one:
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Post by only87 on Sept 16, 2007 5:46:20 GMT 1
By the way, when I made those castings of the 4-door bodies I tried to get ones without any discolorations or even the smallest air bubbles, so it took me a few turns. This is why I have a bunch of this bodies lying around with only very small flaws. Those bodies can be swapped onto the Magic bottomplates with a little fitting here and there, the glazing however needs a little modification on the rear side window since it was designed for the 2-door model. If you're interested in one of these castings pass me a note.
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Post by only87 on Sept 16, 2007 6:15:28 GMT 1
And here's another of my recent projects, a Triumph Vitesse: It's basically a JMK model with one modification... the body. Not that I disliked the model but I am not too fond of painting my models and I had this EFE model of a Triumph Vitesse convertible sitting around so I went for the silicone and the naphtha once more. When I got the first casting of the resized model I added the bumpers and the roof section of the JMK model and reworked the wrongly-shaped rear wheel arches. I polished the whole thing for some hours and made another casting in white resin. The rest was painting detail. The model is near completion now but I lost the glazing of the JMK model somewhere, so glass and some small detail work is still missing. I just noticed the pic does the model no justice but it's the only one I have.
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Post by Christian on Sept 16, 2007 23:55:53 GMT 1
Thanks, great to see some of your models again. How did you make the additional door engravings on the Alfasud? With just a hobby knife? I am still searching for a panel scriber or something like that, but haven't found anything that could be used in our scale.
And the colored resin ... no need to paint the models anymore? Is it that good?
Great job on the Vitesse by the way and an astonishing commitment to scale fidelity. That goes for the wheels, too.
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skunk
87thScale addict
5th B-day
Posts: 2,762
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Post by skunk on Sept 17, 2007 2:17:48 GMT 1
Wow. Loving every bit of it. I too made some shrunken casts of those Starlet wheels, but they decided to float up into the silicone and they disappeared inside of it... Naturally I am interested in a (flawed) Alfasud four door. Cheers Peter. I will try to make one of the rubber bumper five-door ones out of it. As for door engravings, I use a scalpel. I always remove the "reversed" engravings on Eko models by sanding, and then make my own engravings. It takes a lot of time (less pressure, multiple goings-over). The only hard bit is fixing your slip-ups... On Ekos, this also means that incorrectly placed/shaped doors can be moved
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Post by only87 on Sept 17, 2007 5:59:12 GMT 1
I'm using a scalpel, too. I was actually quite surprised how good the additional doorlines turned out on the model, I don't want to pad on my own back, but I think they turned out quite convincing. I moved the doorline by closing some engravings with super glue and thankfully there was only one little slip-up. Then Sanding and polishing. Polishing is the key to getting a good final result with colored castings, if you do that long enough, the casting will look nearly as good as a (plastic) production model. I really love what you can do with casting. But on the white one it took me about ten tries to get a nearly flawless casting, on the white you see every little bit of dust that got into the resin, the green one only needed one try, the problem there was more to get a convincing shade of lime green as used by Alfa in the 70's. The effect is really convincing and, yes, no paint needed any more, little flaws can maybe covered by adding some rallye stripes or weathering (on the Alfasud that means rust...) or building an official version (Red Cross, etc..)
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skunk
87thScale addict
5th B-day
Posts: 2,762
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Post by skunk on Sept 17, 2007 17:10:28 GMT 1
Rust!?!?! On an Alfasud? I think that even a plastic model will rust for real if it is even remotely Alfasud-shaped. ;D
The lime green is just about perfect. I noticed your playing around with colored resin before, looks like you're getting excellent effects.
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Post by only87 on Jan 7, 2008 5:13:01 GMT 1
So here's the Leyland again: It may not look that different but it has been reworked on quite a few edges. But the main progress is the roof section. I had a hard time finding the right structure for the roof and I ended up casting the bed of the Reel Rides pickup twice. I cast the pieces in red so I had a better sight. After cutting everyting to fit and gluing the pieces on I'm already very happy with the basic look of the cab. Now it's the rear of the cab which needs the right structure.... I'll be back in a few months. Another one I started recently, yesterday to be frank. I've done this before a few years ago but wasn't happy with the results, now it's time to do it right. The other model on the second picture will be an earlier type with the flat roof. I included the pic to show the main step of the conversion. I took a Herpa Iveco / Fiat cab and cut out part of the front. A piece of a Lima cab is cut to fit. I also cut out the rear windows of the Herpa cab, the older Fiats had glass all around. The front window was narrowed on the upper end. It now only need some puttying and a new front bumper plus wipers, that should be fairly easy to do, so this may be one of my projects that will not roll on for years...
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Post by only87 on Aug 6, 2008 20:33:40 GMT 1
I was browsing through a parts box the other day and came across the cab of an AHM / IHC Mack Pumper. Three hours later it looked like this: This is my third take on modelling a Mack F-Model, but this time I had measurements and pics from about each and every angle of such a truck, I see now that that makes a real difference and wouldn't start another project without sufficent data. The next day I added a rear wall and a little this and that. This is about how the cab looks now:
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Post by cfesmire on Aug 7, 2008 2:18:43 GMT 1
Very promising!
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