P A D
Western Thunderer
With continued restrictions in place due to Covid 19, I still don't have access to my workbench and tackle at my brother's house, so I'm still slumming with limited space and resources in my garage. After my last thread regarding the Piko Baureihe 64 in G guage, I've gone even further off the rails and I'm building a 1:12 scale Ford GT40 plastic kit by a company called Magnifier. It was originally released by Trumpeter in 2008 and I believe withdrawn in 2015. It's been recently reissued under the Magnifier label, but for some reason it is referred to as "US Sports Car - 24 hour endurance racing car. There's no mention of Ford GT40 anywhere on the box or in the instructions, so maybe they are not licenced to use the name.
The box art is exactly the same as Trumpeter's and I understand Magnifier are using the same moulds. The Trumpeter issue only provided transfers for the 1966 winning car as shown on the box, driven by Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon, whereas Magnifier also provide transfers for the second place car driven by Ken Miles and Denny Hulme. There's some interesting history behind the 1966 race, with the GT40 having been specially developed and funded by Ford to break the stranglehold that Ferrari had on the race in the early 1960s. I won't repeat it here as a simple Google search will pull up the story.
The kit consists of over 300 parts in Styrene, photo etch, vinyl, woven fabric and lots of crosshead self tapping screws, turned metal air valves for the wheel rims plus other assorted metal parts. The bulk of the styrene sprues are packed in poly bags, with the larger body and floor pan mouldings in a separate box inside the main box.
Here are the bags laid out for inspection. Most of the parts are in white, with quite a few in chrome, plus one black sprue and some clear sprues for the windows and lights. The wheels come ready painted in gold and 2 or 3 of the white parts have areas ready painted silver. Many of the chrome plated parts should not be chromed and this will be stripped with bleach before using.
Three lots of transfers are provided, one for car number 1, one for number 2 and a smaller one with the Goodyear markings for the tyres. The dials for the instrument panel are on the sheet for car number 2.
Here are the main body parts laid out along with the lenses for the lights.
The model will be about 13 inches long when complete and both the doors, bonnet and engine covers can be opened. The front wheels are "steerable" and the suspension is sprung and operable.
Here are the instruction pages showing the parts for identification purposes.
And the livery diagrams. I'll be building it as car number 1 which finished second in the 1966 race.
The kit is very well detailed and from reading a number of reviews, the fit of the parts is in the main very good, but there are a few errors and omissions that I will be rectifying, most notably on the engine, which is the starting point in the instructions.
As mentioned earlier, quite a lot of parts that are chrome plated should not be, so to improve paint adhesion it's better to remove it. I discovered on one of the plastic model building forums that soaking the parts in bleach removed the chrome, so the first thing I did was give it a try on several of the engine parts. All the below parts were plated but following 5-10 minutes in Morrison's thick bleach diluted 50:50 with water, they now look like this. After removing from the bleach, I gave the parts a good rinse in water with some vinegar added to neutralise pH and kill the chlorine smell, followed by further rinsing in water only.
For touching up the parts that should be chromed after removing from the sprue, I bought this Molotow Liquid Chrome marker pen, which although not cheap, does what it says on the tin. They come in thicknesses of 1, 2, 4 and 5mm. Here's a link to the supplier.
Molotow Liquid Chrome Marker
As far as I can tell, the basic engine and gearbox are accurate, but do not include the starter motor, distributor, coil, spark plugs and leads or the clutch operating mechanism. Although some of these will be barely visible when the model is complete, it does not seem acceptable to me to not include them on a 1:12 scale model, so I'll be scratch building them. Here are some views of the engine parts after assembly.
The aluminium cylinder head and the sump were gold coloured and come ready painted in the kit, as does the gearbox. However, I'm the replacing pretty much all of the moulded nuts, which are little more than nodules, with ones made from plasticard using the RP Toolz nutter tool, so the whole engine will be primed later and repainted.
Spark plugs are being represented by 0.5mm brass rod with wire insulation representing the porcelain. The plug leads will be made from 0.5mm ID silicone tube which I have on order.
Here you can see the nodules on the sump before replacement and note also the core plugs in the engine block which should have a recess.
This is the alternator, pulley wheels and drive belt moulding after dechroming. The belt is way too thick and the nuts on the large pulley are wrong, so it needs rectifying. Here a start has been made on thinning the belt. Note how glossy the cream coloured plastic is when the chrome is removed. I wonder what mechanism is involved in the sodium hypochlorite bleach removing the chrome? Any chemists on here know the answer?
That's my 16 file limit for this post so it's time for beer.
Cheers,
Peter
The box art is exactly the same as Trumpeter's and I understand Magnifier are using the same moulds. The Trumpeter issue only provided transfers for the 1966 winning car as shown on the box, driven by Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon, whereas Magnifier also provide transfers for the second place car driven by Ken Miles and Denny Hulme. There's some interesting history behind the 1966 race, with the GT40 having been specially developed and funded by Ford to break the stranglehold that Ferrari had on the race in the early 1960s. I won't repeat it here as a simple Google search will pull up the story.
The kit consists of over 300 parts in Styrene, photo etch, vinyl, woven fabric and lots of crosshead self tapping screws, turned metal air valves for the wheel rims plus other assorted metal parts. The bulk of the styrene sprues are packed in poly bags, with the larger body and floor pan mouldings in a separate box inside the main box.
Here are the bags laid out for inspection. Most of the parts are in white, with quite a few in chrome, plus one black sprue and some clear sprues for the windows and lights. The wheels come ready painted in gold and 2 or 3 of the white parts have areas ready painted silver. Many of the chrome plated parts should not be chromed and this will be stripped with bleach before using.
Three lots of transfers are provided, one for car number 1, one for number 2 and a smaller one with the Goodyear markings for the tyres. The dials for the instrument panel are on the sheet for car number 2.
Here are the main body parts laid out along with the lenses for the lights.
The model will be about 13 inches long when complete and both the doors, bonnet and engine covers can be opened. The front wheels are "steerable" and the suspension is sprung and operable.
Here are the instruction pages showing the parts for identification purposes.
And the livery diagrams. I'll be building it as car number 1 which finished second in the 1966 race.
The kit is very well detailed and from reading a number of reviews, the fit of the parts is in the main very good, but there are a few errors and omissions that I will be rectifying, most notably on the engine, which is the starting point in the instructions.
As mentioned earlier, quite a lot of parts that are chrome plated should not be, so to improve paint adhesion it's better to remove it. I discovered on one of the plastic model building forums that soaking the parts in bleach removed the chrome, so the first thing I did was give it a try on several of the engine parts. All the below parts were plated but following 5-10 minutes in Morrison's thick bleach diluted 50:50 with water, they now look like this. After removing from the bleach, I gave the parts a good rinse in water with some vinegar added to neutralise pH and kill the chlorine smell, followed by further rinsing in water only.
For touching up the parts that should be chromed after removing from the sprue, I bought this Molotow Liquid Chrome marker pen, which although not cheap, does what it says on the tin. They come in thicknesses of 1, 2, 4 and 5mm. Here's a link to the supplier.
Molotow Liquid Chrome Marker
As far as I can tell, the basic engine and gearbox are accurate, but do not include the starter motor, distributor, coil, spark plugs and leads or the clutch operating mechanism. Although some of these will be barely visible when the model is complete, it does not seem acceptable to me to not include them on a 1:12 scale model, so I'll be scratch building them. Here are some views of the engine parts after assembly.
The aluminium cylinder head and the sump were gold coloured and come ready painted in the kit, as does the gearbox. However, I'm the replacing pretty much all of the moulded nuts, which are little more than nodules, with ones made from plasticard using the RP Toolz nutter tool, so the whole engine will be primed later and repainted.
Spark plugs are being represented by 0.5mm brass rod with wire insulation representing the porcelain. The plug leads will be made from 0.5mm ID silicone tube which I have on order.
Here you can see the nodules on the sump before replacement and note also the core plugs in the engine block which should have a recess.
This is the alternator, pulley wheels and drive belt moulding after dechroming. The belt is way too thick and the nuts on the large pulley are wrong, so it needs rectifying. Here a start has been made on thinning the belt. Note how glossy the cream coloured plastic is when the chrome is removed. I wonder what mechanism is involved in the sodium hypochlorite bleach removing the chrome? Any chemists on here know the answer?
That's my 16 file limit for this post so it's time for beer.
Cheers,
Peter