MikeA

Very neat work. You could forget how small this is to work on.

That is one amazing amount of effort, and the look even on just the black coat tells the tale. This is shaping up to even more of a stunner! Cheers Mike

Just a couple of photos of the scratched items added to the transmission tunnel - a cupholder (I think), a knee pad and the saddle for holding a log book etc. The second photo shows the cockpit assembly loosely sitting on the frame. I'm trying to figure out how to upholster the bucket seats. All of the builds I have found on line have opted for variations of the original blue canvas that was used. This particular car has had black leather, but the seats don't have nice easy flattish panels. All sharp curves. I do have some very fine "leatherette" but its not stretchy enough. The fine leather I have does stretch nicely around and over the curves, but it means cutting it when fixed on the seat, which I'm not brimming with confidence over. Cheers, Mike

A rare case in which words are worth a thousand pictures - although the black lawn dart does look very sexy. Thank you for the step by step to getting the finish! Cheers, Mike

I've moved onto the brakes and wheel set-ups. The front suspension is on hold at the moment. The fine screw driver arrived, but I have decided that the 1 x 3mm screws holding the front stub axle assemblies are just too fine for the job and I now have some 1.2 x 5mm ones winging their way from Germany. The brake assemblies are finished though, and ready to go on once the screws arrive. The discs are lightly scored by rotating in a drill against sandpaper and then oil washes and some Vallejo rust was used to finish them. There was an unwelcome trick with the threaded ends to the axles, which the spinners screw on to. Turns out these were sized for the originally supplied cast wheels, whereas later editions of this kit have the machined aluminium rims with individual spokes. The trick is that the later wheel hubs are slightly deeper and the threaded insert should not be placed all the way in as this leaves insufficient thread showing. Fortunately I discovered this before the superglue holding the first one I did in place had cured so was able to pull it out a millimetre or so. You can see the gap in the first photo. Also completed are the two blue top bendix fuel pumps which I scratch built to mount on the rear subframe to replace the mechanical pump supplied with the kit. I have no idea what fuel filter was used so have just left the kit supplied one in place. There are two foil bands around the rear axle tube in preparation for the diff oil cooler which was slung below this (not supplied with the kit as this was a later modification). I'm waiting on some suitably sized connectors for the hose that runs between the diff and cooler before I can finish this area off. Having gone as far as I can on the running gear in the meantime, I then turned my attention to the interior. The floor has received some scribed panels and a riveted panel covering a hole where the battery was originally mounted - although I doubt that will even be visible under the passenger seat. The interior is almost all black, but I have weathered it with oil washes and pastels. The aim is to have something that looks like it has had 40 years of continual use but has been kept relatively tidy, just never restored. Sorry about the photos - it is hard to get the black without washing it out as I don't have a permanent modelling set-up here. Photos of the real car show carpet fitted on the rear bench behind the seats for at least some of the time, so I included this from fine felt to add some further texture. There is still some leather work to go on the central transmission tunnel. Along the way on this one I got tired of breaking out the airbrush to spray matt or semi-gloss black, which are pretty much the only colours besides the red body colour on this beast. I picked up some Tamiya rattle cans and became an instant convert, at least for the base coats. It's only taken me several decades ......... It is my first large scale car, so I'll use that as an excuse. Cheers, Mike

Stunning! - I especially like the way you achieved that camouflage finish.

Really like that treatment of the underneath. I'm guessing it didn't have enough time to weather that much, but you've still got an interesting variation to the black.

Stunning bird!

We moved to the Bay of Plenty - east coast of the North Island. Certainly enjoyed our years in South west Victoria, but the call of grandchildren was too strong. Thank you all for the comments! Thats a very pristine looking example - must be amazing to see and hear that sort of car on the streets. Cheers, Mike

Well it's been a long time....... Essentially all of my modelling gear was in storage moving from Australia back to NZ in December 2019, then whilst we were in temporary accommodation looking for work and a place to live in NZ. Then of course Covid interfered, which dragged out the process of house hunting for another three months. And after finally getting settled in August 2020, I managed to fracture a heel bone. This meant unpacking stuff and organising the new digs became a tedious affair to say the least. Finally, around Christmas I was able to gingerly place the offended heel on the floor for more than a few seconds and managed to retrieve all of my modelling stuff. All first world problems really, but did cause a serious lapse in this project. So, a small update. First up, I mounted the rear leaf springs onto the chassis. The front has to wait until I have a 0000 Phillips head screw driver arrive - I have down to 000 size but the tiny screws demand something even finer. Next up was a start on the Borrani wire wheels. The spare wheel is a relatively simple affair built from all white metal parts. The spokes are grouped in layers which are glued to the hub parts and sections of the rim. It took around 1 1/2 hours to build. It looks OK from a distance, but is rather coarse in its detail, although will eventually live in the car boot away from direct view most of the time. Each of the other wheels is made from a beautifully turned and pre-drilled aluminium rim and a four piece hub. These are assembled after screwing the hub and rim into a supplied jig and then linking the rim and hub with 72 stainless steel spokes. Each spoke must be bent to fit into the holes in the hub and a separate ferrule is added to each spoke. The spokes are then trimmed to fit. The first wheel took around six hours to finish, and I won't be doing any of the others in one sitting. My eyes could barely focus on completion. I'm sure the holes started dancing around....... I did discover that the key step is preparing the hub as the holes become increasingly difficult to determine as the build progresses, and they all need to be perfectly clean to accept the individual spokes. I did try soldering the parts together, but found gluing to provide an easier to deal with result. First the hub parts - I used a slab of aluminium to build the wheels on. I drilled appropriate holes in the slab to insert the spokes into and then bent the ends to the right angle, as determined on the supplied etched templates. Very easy in the end. A wheel partly through being built, with the ends of the spokes for the layer being built yet to be trimmed. The spokes were fixed into place with gel superglue, although once they are all finished, I will use a layer of epoxy on the outside of the rims where the spokes protrude through to reduce the chance of any coming loose. The complete wheel, although the valve and any balance weights have yet to be fitted. There really is no comparison with the spare, and certainly worth the effort. The front wheels are done. Now onto the rear ones. They will test the eyes a bit more as the rims are about a third wider, which means the hub is buried deeper and just a little more difficult to see when inserting the spokes. Hopefully progress will be a tad more timely from here on in. Cheers, Mike

Wished I'd used that trick when joining the fuselage halves - would have saved me some grief. Impeccable work and a joy to follow!

Beautiful work! Really shows off the detail.

Absolutely stunning finish on this - and I love the NZ markings especially with the final bit of Te Reo added. Kia kaha indeed!

Quite the build and reference this one is. Loving the very clean and precise work.

Very neat work! Most impressed with the riveting. I'm guessing it will be only just apparent under the final paint. Cheers

Great progress on that canopy and the deleted rails! Very brave move but should look just right when done. Cheers,

I checked the photos of 104704 in Patrick Martin's "Canadian Starfighters" book. It certainly had its cannon installed by 1980. Cheers,

The finish on the glare shield and canvas in front of it looks great! Never thought of doing anything like that - something to be kept in mind. Cheers,

Very cool! Would white glue/PVA do the trick? Just need to support it in place until the glue dries. Cheers,

Beautiful work on that seat - the seat belt and cushion textures look particularly good. And the cockpit panels look full of promise with the gloss coat on. The few photos i found of the operational seat all had the striped arms, albeit very messily painted on it would seem. Cheers,

Going back to the fuel cells, for what it is worth. When I did mine I did roughly detail the bay vacated by the deletion of the gun magazines. Cut out the magazines, put in some thick foil to form the bladder top, plastic card to form the valve assemblies and some solder for the pipe work. You can make out the shapes with the electronics bay open, but only just - unless you shine a bright light into the area. Worth doing, but not worth spending too much time on, and especially not worth interrupting a cockpit for. Cheers,

Nice work on getting that resin to fit so well. I can't imagine how many iterations that took! There's not a lot of room to play with. One observation - the glare shield on the Canadian darts is very different to the one included in the kit. There may have been a couple on airframes that returned to Canada after serving with European forces from memory, but otherwise they were a non-extendable simplified version. Cheers,

Looking very swish in those wheel wells. The work on the radar mounting is certainly also something to keep in mind. Not sure if its just the angle of the photos, but I wonder if the edges of the panels extending over the wells need thinning a bit. Cheers,

Very clever bit of work with the raised areas.

Very impressive attention to detail! Also love the numbered corrections - reminds me of what I didn't do....