By Mario Covalski
This is the 1/8 Ford Falcon 1963 from the Salvat Publisher. The model is provided in 100 weekly fascicles, each one includes history and parts to build the model. The model is mostly made of diecast and plastic parts, is heavy as 9 or 10Kg, but lacks of details, mostly in the engine bay area, and some parts are odd represented. So I added lot of them, fuel lines wiring...etc.
By Edwing E. Merlo Paredes
In this tutorial I’ve made a road vehicle version with own elements of a rally car, and decorated with the Gulf emblems and colors. The kit used to build this model is the Tamiya 1/24 that ran in Monte Carlo rally 1967 (#24048). It’s cheap and is being manufacturing from time to time and can be easily purchased in many online shops
By Edwing E. Merlo Paredes
The Fiat Abarth 695 ‘esseesse’, classic, is one of the most popular European sport cars in automotive history. Its tiny size and body are among its main identity and attractive features. As was to be expected, Tamiya was one of the brands that offered the icon with Italian accent, creating a simple and funny kit with good details and lot of possibilities for modifications with improvements sets and/or scratch. The version presented in this tutorial is a road car with sport details and customized. It’s a type of vehicle that can be found today in concentrations or classic cars rallies.
By William Chan
Minardi was one of the F1 privateer teams that had never won any grand prix and they were often missed because most of the attention are put on big name teams. Although the team often run with limited budget, Minardi team's strong determination made them on the F1 grid for almost 15 years. None of the major model manufacturers makes Minardi F1. So far I only see Modelers' M198, Club M's M197, Wolf's PS-01 and AMC M193. I found that M193 shape is pretty close to Lotus 107B and McLaren MP4/8. So I bought an AMC M193 decal and tried out the conversion. After more than 15 months of on and off building, the car is finally completed. The result is not perfect, but I am still satisfied with the result. I like to thank my friend Todd for providing me the AMC M193 instruction sheet, so that I have better idea where to place the decal logo, and Johnson Tang for providing me tips of using Gunze lacquer clear coat.
By Fabrice Marechal
This project is the result of a request a Dutch collector made me. They sent me the Tamiya kit, an Aber PE dashboard , new wheels, several accessories not necessarily useful and a booklet that shows the differences between a DBS and a DBS Ultimate Edition one.
By Claudio Kalicinski
The kit was manufactured by the Ukrainian company, Roden and without doubt is the best Fokker Dr.1 kit in 1/32. Regrettably, it perpetuates some mistakes common to previous models of the Fokker Dr.1 because all of them have been based on Ian Stair's scale drawings published in the Fokker Dr.1 Special by Albatros Publications. These scale drawings, although are correct in dimensions, have some mistakes like the absence of the opening for the oil filling on the starboard side of the front decking and the lower panel where is located an access hatch to the engine and the incorporation of a detachable axle wing, correct for some versions of the Fokker D.VII, but not for the Dr.1 which its axle wing was fixed.....
By David Guardia
The idea of assembling and painting this model was swirling around in my head since some time ago. It’s one of the vehicles of the saga I like best and besides, Bandai, the brand that introduced it on the market, is a very recognized one for manufacturing excellent models with “snap” perfect fit without the need of glue and highly detailed.
By Mark Laird
For years I wanted to build the 1/12 Bandai STP Turbine car. It is very unique piece of Indianapolis history, but the price that they were bringing was just more than I was willing to spend. I was lucky enough to find a complete kit on eBay for 200 US dollars. It was a “Buy it Now”, so I purchased it, and waited for it to arrive.
By Mario Covalski
The aim of this tutorial is to help the reader, especially to those who has never built a Hooben T55, to solve the problems I had to deal with, alert them to several problems that appears after some use, like it happened to me with the one built in 2011. As I said before, I built a regular T-55 of the Russian army and the IDF Tiran 5, but in the assembly steps, I’ll concentrate in the general points. Then in a later tutorial I will offer, it will show the variants needed for the Tiran 5. So here you will see pictures of different models, about the same topic.
By Gary Wickham
There has been quite a buzz around this release for one simple reason. Its a "Snap Tite" kit. Ok, so MENG refer to it as "Cement-Free Assembly" but whatever you call it, you are meant to assemble it without the need for glue. Normally this type of engineering is reserved for the basic, beginner style kits to make it easier for novices to construct their first model without making a mess with all that pesky glue. We have come to expect such kits to be very basic, often lacking detail with low part counts, to suite beginners.
By Mario Covalski
Chevron presented us some time ago a conversion kit, that allows us to transform the Tamiya's 1/12 Tyrrell P34 1/12 scale in its 1977 homonym. In this note I will describe which were the problems I found in building this complicated and compound kit, and the way I solved them.
By Mario Covalski
The goal of this short tutorial is to share with the reader the construction of the 1/16 RC Leopard 2A7, based on the Tamiya 2A6 and trying to copy the Meng 1/35 kit, which is an excellent reproduction of the real tank. To avoid creating false expectations about this tutorial, I’ll not make any reference to the assembly of the Tamiya kit, or the painting of the model, I just will focus on the modifications. During the construction I took some artistic license (as I use to do).
By Modeler Site
Over the end of the year, we are offering a preview of the articles we were proud to have during 2018. Enjoy them and happy new year.
By Fabrice Marechal
The Porsche 917 is a Paddock kit that is no longer commercially available. It's sometimes available on collector sites such as Modelart111. The body has been completely reworked at the level of the vents, all was perforated. The body was painted with Gulf Gravity Colors blue, the orange decals were then applied and retouched with a brush with X-6 Tamiya orange. The body was then clearcoated with 2-component Zero Paint varnish. Here pictures I have taken during the build.
By Fabrice Marechal
The Ferrari Dino 206 is a Le Phoenix kit which is no longer available commercially and very difficult to find even on collector sites. As the Porsche 917, all air vents have been perforated. The bodywork was first painted in red with DS Colors and blue stripes delimited and painted Gulf blue also from DS Colors. The white lines were made using white decals. The body was then varnished with 2-component DS Colors. Here pictures I have taken during the build.
By Fabrice Marechal
The kit has been completely reworked so that the front and rear cover and the wheels can be removed and re-placed, I have shared a video to show it. Details have been added to the engine, such as spark plug wires and fuel lines etc. The rest of the build was completely done out of the box, less the necessary modifications to make workable the mentioned parts. The bodywork was painted with Ferrari red from Gravity Colors Spain and has been varnished with 2-component lacquer also from Gravity Colors Spain. Here pictures I have taken during the build.
By Fabrice Marechal
Revell have going on offering Super cars and luxury reproductions in 1/24 scale, this article will be about the Porsche Panamera Turbo. I’ll not extend in a complete kit review , however every time I open a Revell box, the first things I examine are: the bodywork, the brakes and wheels. For these last ones, it must be recognized that Revell have improved them. The wheels size is correct and not undersized as it happened at times, besides they are molded in a single part. What still doesn’t’ like me is the chromed they’re provided with, lack of realism and adds extra work to the modeller. Unfortunately, the brakes are not well represented. This tutorial aims at showing with images the steps I followed to correct the problems and get the finished model.
By Mario Covalski
A couple of years ago, I discover www.Ludwigs-Hobby-Seite.de, a web site where Christian Ludwig offers his kits mostly made of plastic, cut with the CNC technology. So, I found a kit to convert a Heng Long 2A6 to the 2A4, that is to say a previous version.
By Mario Covalski
Since I built the Tamiya Leopard 2A6 I was always interested in the evolution of the tank, the Leopard 2A7. I had seen few scratch conversions on forums and youtube but, I’m not brave enough to do that. When OKMO through DKLM offered the conversion I fall in love with it. The parts are 3D printed and of very good quality, includes the FLW 200 robotized weapon station. I managed to add some servos to make the machine gun mobile. I didn’t write a tutorial as I didn’t take many pictures during the build, but this gallery could help others to face the project I hope so.