1/12 MFH Ferrari GTO 250 - Finished

[Jeff T]

Very nice work Mike!

 

Starting to look the goods now.

 

Jeff.

[geedubelyer]

You're doing a fine job on this beauty Mike. What a tremendous model. 

[MikeA]

Thanks for the comments guys! Much appreciated.

 

I've pretty well got this to the stage of hanging the doors, which I'm procrastinating about. Not a nice looking job. Most of the trim pieces on the body work have been attached with white glue, as most of them required careful aligning and I also get nervous about superglue on a finished surface. It was bad enough drilling out the holes for the attachment pins.

 

First up is the nose. There are some differences between the kit and Nick Mason's car as it is in later years: the race number is slightly smaller on the real one and, more noticeably, the bottom edge of the grill is flattened off. Neither of these were practicable fixes for me, however, so the differences remain. The headlights eventually get a perspex cover over them with a chrome trim surround.

 

 

 

The rear lights were opaque pieces which were painted with clear red and orange inside and clear coated on the outside. The reflectors come as a chrome piece with a polished stainless insert, which I painted clear red with gloss clear to finish.

 

 

The kit doors are designed so that the perspex windows can slide, but I fixed them in place. The finger pulls were scratch built. The chrome gave me a lot of trouble due to some artefact in the white metal repeatedly coming through primer and Alclad. It was causing the chrome paint to develop bubbles in a couple of spots, despite these not showing in the primer. I almost foiled them instead, but after a lot of stuffing around they came up OK. You can just make some out on the top right corner in the second photo.

 

The interior door panels are leather upholstered - I used a self adhesive leather from MFH for that. I still need to make a grab handle for each door which are not in the kit as these were not fitted to the door interiors originally.

 

 

 

The next photo shows the door sills (whisky bottle foil) and the jack point covers, which the kit does not provide.

 

 

The boot lid now has its functioning latch and I have started on the bonnet fittings. It still needs the clear covers over the intakes, the leather straps and bonnet latches.

 

 

Lastly is the scratchbuilt fire extinguisher which will sit in the boot. It's just over 20mm in length. 

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

 

 

 

 

 

[MikeA]

It's been a frustrating couple of weeks, but progress has been made. I have to say that I am not a fan of MFH decals. Although they look the goods when on, the process of getting there is far from easy if the decal is required to form over detail. They are all but resistant to Microsol, requiring repeated applications over a prolonged period, and the adhesive on them seems very weak. None of that matters on a flat or gently curved surface, but the one around the boot lid was a nightmare. Even worse was the, what should have been childishly easy, part circle under the doors. The decal was designed to fold over onto the sill under the door, but that was never going to be done, let alone survive the very close panel line. That left a cut edge at the top of the outer door sill panel, which caused a headache to deal with. Then, when giving a final gloss coat over the door sill panels, user error meant that I had some minor runs to deal with which further stretched out the process. Grrrr..... not perfect, but it will do. Strangely enough, the Canadian decals I used on the last model I built (Cf 104) were the best I have ever used.

 

The photos show the results of the decal adventures in close-up gruesomeness, although to the naked eye they are fine. I also photographed the parts needed for the bonnet clips and how they are mounted, as well as the rest of the bonnet lid fittings. Mounting the clips involved threading 0.5mm nickel wire through a 0.6mm diameter spring loop buried in the middle of a very small white metal "wheel" which sits over the loop. All mounted inside the body work where it was extremely difficult to see exactly what I was doing. Bit like threading the eye of a needle whilst blindfolded. But the clips are now functional and spring mounted. The long ends will be clipped off once the glue has well and truly set on the nickel wire. The clear parts are vacuformed and secured with tiny pins. The leather for the straps is included in the kit and, thoughtfully, there is enough spare, along with buckles, to make the strap for the spare wheel and a tool roll I've yet to make.

 

These photos are taken with my iPhone which gives perfect colours with no faffing around, unlike my Canon camera. Go figure ......I am now waiting for some 0.5mm aluminium sheet to turn up in the post so that I can get the windscreen and light covers done. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do love that red! Thanks for looking.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by MikeA
Typo correction

[Jeff T]

Looking good Mike!

 

That red in this post certainly looks a lot deeper and richer than the last post, very nice.

 

Cheer's,

Jeff.

[MikeA]

1 hour ago, Jeff T said:

Looking good Mike!

 

That red in this post certainly looks a lot deeper and richer than the last post, very nice.

 

Cheer's,

Jeff.

 

Thanks for that Jeff. It's crazy how the phone camera picks it up correctly on auto, whereas the Canon requires very careful adjustment to even get close. 

 

Cheers,

Mike

[Jeff T]

3 minutes ago, MikeA said:

 

Thanks for that Jeff. It's crazy how the phone camera picks it up correctly on auto, whereas the Canon requires very careful adjustment to even get close. 

 

Cheers,

Mike

I know Mike, I'm doing the same as you these days too, taking in progress shots with the Iphone because it seems to look right with no fuss, but finished pics done with the Canon, but I have to get out the grey card and set up white balance and some half decent lighting etc, ....its certainly puzzling alright!

 

Jeff.

[MikeA]

Summer is on the way here, which means time at the modelling table is getting limited. This update includes the completion of the sub-frame and its attachments and the finishing of the bonnet. The first couple of photos show the overall chassis, including the fire extinguisher fitted and plumbed in place.

 

Mason's car was adorned with a replacement plastic rear view mirror to replace the less sturdy and less functional, but much prettier, factory example. I decided to stay with the factory one, just for the looks. I couldn't get a decent photo of the reflective surface, but it is very effective. Apparently the sun visors were lifted from a wrecked Austin Metro, so these were scratch built after googling what they look like.

 

 

 

 

PistonHeads UK has one of the few WIPs of this MFH kit. The following photos show the bonnet stay shamelessly copied from that site. The stay was formed from 0.45mm brass rod with a couple of washers drilled and punched out of some whisky bottle foil. The mounting stay and clip were cut from fine brass sheet. The boot lid has a similar one. I have also filched a way of doing the chrome trims around the headlight fairings and front/rear windows, which I will show once I've got them done.

 

 

 

The next two photos show the finished inner wheel arches. The weathering is the same general level as the rest of the chassis. Unfortunately the rear shock struts bent slightly when the rear frame was finished, but at this stage there is not a lot I can do about it. It won't be noticeable on the finished model, unless I take the wheels off. I also see that the top hose has popped off the front oil cooler, so it will need re-attaching.

 

 

 

This car was used as security for a bank loan to finance the Pink Floyd Pulse tour in the 1980s. Nick Mason was obviously very sure of the ability of the band to produce the goods and he retained ownership of the car - and no doubt made a healthy profit as well. Anyway, I always like to add something a bit personal to my models, and in this case the Pulse CD has been tossed onto the shelf behind the seats. It's always been a favourite, although annoyingly I missed the actual concert back in the day.

 

 

Lastly a moody couple of photos taken through the door openings, with the car keys sitting behind the gear lever. And a photo of the model as it is now, although I haven't yet screwed the body into place.

 

 

 

 

All photos courtesy of my iPhone now  - thanks Jeff!

 

Any comments welcome.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 31, 2021 by MikeA
Typo correction

[Alex]

Looks fantastic.  Weathering on those brake rotors is super realistic.

[BiggTim]

Man, that is really amazing!!

[mark williams]

Thats really cool....love all those Webbers,i can almost hear and smell the car. I hope MFH will do a 250 swb . 

[MikeA]

On 11/1/2021 at 9:10 AM, Alex said:

Looks fantastic.  Weathering on those brake rotors is super realistic.

Thanks Alex - actually my first time weathering parts like that on a car model, so pleased they look right. I used ground pastels and some Vallejo wash.

 

On 11/2/2021 at 4:17 AM, BiggTim said:

Man, that is really amazing!!

Almost all of it is provided in the kit, apart from the few extra bits peculiar to this particular car. Desperately stopping my self from getting another MFH kit!

 

On 11/8/2021 at 11:54 AM, mark williams said:

Thats really cool....love all those Webbers,i can almost hear and smell the car. I hope MFH will do a 250 swb . 

I heard somewhere that MFH didn't renew their Ferrari licence, so I suspect the chance of anything else Ferrari coming from them is pretty slim. 

 

Just a small update for this one. I finished off the headlight covers. The covers themselves are vacform, but it was the chrome trim bits that were the problem. These are provided as white metal rings that are over 1.5mm thick, which have to be thinned, filed and bent into shape. The problem is that it is difficult to get a consistent profile around the entire frame and there is a high chance of breaking the piece in the process with no chance of a replacement.

 

As I said previously I have stolen the idea of using these as templates to cut the trim pieces from 0.4mm aluminium sheet. The white metal was glued to the sheet using high strength PVA glue and then the sheet was chain drilled, filed and then sanded to match the kit piece, but with a finished thickness of 0.1mm at the edges and 0.4mm in the middle. A short soak in hot water then released the pieces for polishing. The instructions call for pins to go through both the trim and the clear covers, but I only set them into the trim pieces as I wasn't enthusiastic about drilling through the clear parts and then losing any wriggle room at all for fitting the trim pieces. The most difficult part was getting the trim parts bent to exactly the right shape to fit over the curved covers. Final fixing was using high strength PVA glue, but the type that sets in 1 - 2 minutes, so that I could "clamp" the pieces in place with my fingers until the glue held.  Any excess then washes off with water on a Q tip. All of these jobs on the finished body shell are tedious to say the least, but certainly set the car off. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for the "likes" and comments. Next up will be the rear screen and windscreen - a lot of chain drilling to come........

 

Cheers,

Mike

 

 

 

 

 

[O.W]

What a beauty!!!!

[Jeff T]

Beautiful work Mike!

 

Jeff.

[Gerhard]

Work of art!!!  That looks brilliant.