By Modeler Site
Over the end of the year, we are offering a preview of the best articles we were proud to have during 2015. Enjoy them and happy new year.
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By Edwing E. Merlo Paredes
On several occasions, when surfing around HLJ, I saw the Greedy 9 on sale. To be honest, the tuning aspect of the art box showing this magnificent green Mazda RX-7, tempted me more than once, but it didn’t get me very excited cause in the short description of the kit, I realized that this is one of those models which doesn’t feature a detailed engine, and this is exactly, what I like, to get detailed engines. But, in the end, that tempting picture of the box really convinced me, thus I ordered it.
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By Antonio Busciglio
One of the most attractive aspects of modelling, in my opinion, is the detailing of mechanical parts, especially for old cars like this. So with this article I’ll share with the reader the work done in the nice Hasegawa Ferrari 312T2 1976 kit. The built model represents the car which Niki Lauda won the GP of Monaco with, over Scheckter and Depailler.
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By Andreas Rousounelis
The Range Rover is a 4x4 luxury British that first entered production in 1970, and is currently at its fourth generation. The Revell kit depicts the first generation 5-door version. In the following sentences I will share my experience building the kit and some modes I made to improve it, I hope they will be useful for others.
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By Edgardo Azzollini
The model represents the Ferrari 312/69 (0019), drove by Chris Amon (NZ), Monaco 1969, 1st practice on Thursday, May 15th 1969. This article has been written following the kit Instructions, showing pictures of each step, and it aims to be a guide for others that want to follow the same way.
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By Guy Golsteyn
Before opening the box, I advise you to take some time to admire the beautiful artwork decorating the box. True artists produce time after time gorgeous illustrations at the Tamiya factory, reflecting a perfect image of how beautiful a model you will find inside. On condition that you are willing to invest some time and effort of course. And to help you I will try to guide you through the building process to achieve this goal.
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By Juan Layos Pantoja
This is one of those kits resting on our shelves which for one reason or another, we’ve never built and perhaps one day, not knowing why, one decides to get down to work! Let me mention that it was not a straightforward kit to build, besides of being an old one, some parts don’t fit properly as it use to happen with some Tamiya kits, especially with regard to the hood which needed to be dry fitted prior to the paint body work and subsequently.
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By Guy Golsteyn
I intended to build this Ducati almost “out of box”, meaning that I won't execute any sophisticated conversions or intensive super detailing. First of all this kit is already pretty good detailed, in spite of its age, and furthermore it's not a racebike, but a classic streetbike from the ‘80s that has never heard of carbon fiber or electronic devices. The only exceptions I will allow myself are the wiring which I will replace by thinner wires to add some realism, and the joint screws at the cowling exterior...
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By Fabrice Marechal
The LaFerrari accelerates from 0-100 km/h in less than 3 seconds and has a top speed exceeding 350 kilometres per hour (220 mph). 499 copies will be produced and sold for an astronomical price more than one million euros, clearly not within everyone’s reach. So, take advantage of this opportunity Tamiya gives us to start building our own LaFerrari…at quite a considerable price…
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By Alessandro Prini
The result showed below, is a mix of Tamiya 1/24 Porsche 911 GT3, Scale Production GT3-R transkit, Quik Skins BMW M3 Gtr wheels, Scale Production and Carpena Red Bull decals sets. The Tamiya GT3 is a curbside model, lovely as usual, with the exception of the doors fenders (definitely oversized), taillights and headlights in the area of the turn signals (too simplified).
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By Guy Golsteyn
A year or so ago, Tamiya re-issued this famous 1:6 kit. Before that re-issue it used to be a very expensive and rare kit, now it suddenly became very reachable and looking at my Honda CB750 history I just had to get this one. Today has come the day that I decided to start building it. It wasn't an easy decision, because building the kit also means losing it as a kit. But ok, kits are designed to be built and not to be collected...
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By Guy Golsteyn
To be able to execute this conversion I needed a 1/24 Tamiya Porsche 936 as a base. The question was: which one? Tamiya has two kits available: the 1977 Porsche 936 and the 1978 Porsche 936. More research learned me that the Porsche 908/80 in fact turns out to be a mixture of both models. The overall shape of the Porsche 908/80 comes closest to the 1977 Porsche 936, with the high side wings holding a large rear spoiler. But behind the air scoop of the 1977 Porsche are four air intakes which are not present on the 908/80. The central air intake, escorted by two air intakes to both sides and covered by some protective mesh caps are identical as shown on the 1978 model. So I decided to use the 1977 model as a base on which I made the 1978 adaptations. Finally I could start modeling!
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By Alessandro Prini
A mule or prototype car is used to test new materials and engineering concepts, so many details on the final car do not appear on the prototype. In the case of the 911 GT1, the first prototype car tested a new composite fiber material called Duroplast, and it was used on the car nose only. Over a period of eight months, between the end of 1995 and beginning of 1996, Porsche AG started testing its new 911 intended for the GT1 class. Although the styling of the GT1 retains some resemblance with the conventional 911, it is not the usual 911 but a highly advanced pure race version.
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By Edgardo Azzollini
This article aims at sharing with the reader, my experience building the model that represents the car which won the 1967 Italian Grand Prix in the hands of John Surtees. Taking advantage of the opportunity of the step by step pictures I’ve been taking, the article will be based on commenting them.
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By Mario Covalski
One of the biggest challenges for a modeler who builds motorcycles in 1/12 scale, is to modify a wire wheel and make it look realistic; specially without having to buy an aftermarket kit. Anyway, there are no kits for this kind of modification (except for one of the Acu-stion for the Tamiya XV1600 kit), so it's not possible to get one. So any modeler attempting to do this task must rely in his/her ability in order, to get a good result.
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By Fabrice Marechal
ABT Sportsline is a motor racing and auto tuning company based in Kempten im Allgäu, Germany. ABT mainly deals with Audi, and the related primary Volkswagen Group brands - Volkswagen, Škoda, and SEAT. It was clear that ABT would not be satisfied just by preparing the new Golf but they would give to the Volkswagen Golf GTI a special treatment as the king of the compacts deserve.
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By Fabrice Marechal
In 1991 Mazda became the first Japanese manufacturer to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Mazda was also the only that produced rotary engines for competition use. Tamiya have offered the 787B chassis #002 in its 1991 Le Mans “Charge” livery. The kit of this article is a reissue of the white 787 and 787B that competed at Le Mans in 1991. Note that #18 is 787B chassis 001, whilst #56 is 787 chassis 002. The 18 finished 6th and 56 finished 8th overall at the 1991 Le Mans race.
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By Mario Covalski
For those who are motorcycles´ lovers, every Tamiya´s new release is full of expectations …and excitement. The Hayabusa Yoshimura couldn't be the exception, after the success, her "sister", the factory version, had. The goal of this article, is to make comments step by step with photos of the parts and assemblies about some modifications or additions which I'm sure, will be useful, specially for beginners.
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By Guy Golsteyn
It has been a while since I last built a rally car model in 1/24 scale. Well, I will not tease the rally fans any longer and get to work: I decided to use a CBCom transkit to convert a Ford Escort group A into a Ford Escort WRC. I'm talking about the Ford Escort used by Belgian rally drivers Patrick Snijers and Dany Colebunders during the 1997 Circuit des Ardennes Rally which unfortunately they didn't finish.
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By Edwing E. Merlo Paredes
First of all, it’s necessary to take a look inside the box to be sure if the content is complete and in perfect conditions. One of the most common and discouraging problems is that once the project has started, we can find out that there are broken or missing parts.
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By Mario Covalski
Three years ago I bought Chevron's conversion trilogy for the Ferrari 312T to T2 '77, the Tyrrell '76 to '77, and the M23 '74 to '76.
Within a year, I built the two first kits and let the McLaren for the "proper" moment (inspiration, motivation, etc.).
A few months ago I had the opportunity to convince a Japanese modeler, Mr. Kenji Yagi, to translate a few pages of the instruction manual for me. This translation is available with the PDF version of this tutorial.
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By Edwing E. Merlo Paredes
There are many Harley Davidson kits available from different manufacturers, but without any doubt Tamiya have produced the best versions. I refer to model kits, comprising a lot of parts, which were developed with a high level of detail and match the original models. And if that were not enough, in 1/6 scale. The Tamiya's Harley(s) were born at the beginning of the 70s, time when large scale models were preferred by hobby modelers. Nevertheless, the design of those models was adapted to the demands and techniques of those times and of course, they are completely different from nowadays assembling techniques. This means that today modelers will have to face certain obstacles at the time of giving the model a realistic look.
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By Guy Golsteyn
I have been collecting all the 1:20 Tamiya F1 kits since Tamiya started producing them back in 1978, but the McLaren M23 was missing from my collection because I had the clever idea to trade the finished model for a bow and arrows once I finished it. So I have been looking for it since ages, until I discovered Ebay some 25 years later. I paid quite a high price to complete my collection with the one missing kit, but it was the very last that I needed, so what the heck.
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By Mario Covalski
In 1993 I had in my hands the 1/12 Ligier kit by Heller; I was about to buy it but the decal sheets were too old and in bad condition. Since that moment, I've always had in my mind the idea of building a model of the JS11 (which impressed me when I saw it in 1979), and detail it as much as possible, because these Heller kits are really poor in quality and inaccurate. So, a few months ago, while I was talking with an importer, I saw the box in his office and the idea came back back to my mind. Needless to say that a few hours later I was examining the kit in my house.
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By Crescenzo Consolato
Since time ago, I had in mind to build this Tamiya kit with a higher level of detail trying to replicate the F189 which ran in the 1989 Portuguese GP. Although it’s widely known that the Tamiya kits come highly detailed offering a very good quality, I had to make several improvements to match this one to this Portuguese GP version. The reason is because this Tamiya kit represents a F189 of the early season.
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By Mario Covalski
This article aims at providing the beginner a complementary guideline, apart from the Tamiya instruction's manual, including photos of a detailed and quality enough model to encourage him/her in what we could call a hard and laborious work.... facing for the first time with a Tamiya's box.....with a 1/12th inside.
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By Martin Klein
The 312T2 Monaco ’76 is Hasegawa’s the first 1/20 Formula 1 kit so I was very curious about the quality. After inspecting all parts the summary from my point of view is that Hasegawa did a magnificent job. All parts are very detailed and will result in a nice model without any modification. On the other hand the level of detail provided gives the opportunity to add more detail and thus realism and this is the path that I am going to follow.
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By Nicolas Perez Fiorentini
The model I built represents the motorcycle in the first five races of the 2004 championship. In this model I added all possible scratchbuilt details, no etched parts, resin ones…etc. In the article below, you will have a clear explanation about how I made and added every new part, cable, electronic box,…etc
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By Mario Covalski
The first Catherham from Tamiya coming to my hands at the end of 1994, was the “Cycle Fender Special” (10202), since the “Super Seven BDR was out of stock, and it was impossible for me to get it from the stores I used to buy kits. From that moment on, my affair with which, I think is the best scale car kit ever produced, began. And here my comment: probably, you have seen better detailed kits, or even superb models limited editions.
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By Edwing E. Merlo Paredes
I built this model as per instructions except when I used the Hobby Design detail set and some extra part. This article is devoted to novices so as to help them to build, which is perhaps, their first F1 model.
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By Fabrice Marechal
Certainly, Italeri offer us a kit that, once finished, is really a beautiful and shocking model due to its size, we are not accustomed to seeing a Fiat 500 in 1/12 scale. There is very little to be changed or improved to make the most of it. Unfortunately, some construction steps are not easy to understand and instructions are not always clear. In this respect, Italeri did nothing to facilitate the modelers’ work, and assembling the headlights, window frames, bodywork, etc., are a bit complicated. I built the model almost out of the box, enhancing the painting and assembling was correct and error free as far as possible, and I think it will be an excellent guide for those who want to face this project, having in advance the difficulties you’ll have to face and a good painting guide.
By Fabrice Marechal
When I received the Revell kit, I realized about its qualities but also about its weak points. And the main, is the way the vent grilles present in the front mudguards, the hood and especially on the front bumpers were represented; and the singular design of the front grille. I invite you to follow the images of this model construction, which was laborious, but with a worthwhile final result!
By Alessandro Prini
A photo gallery of other model from the master!
By Mario Covalski
These are the new times of Pocher, hand in hand with Hornby, the brand that offer models which represent high technology subjects as Lamborghini cars and Ducati motorcycles. Manufactured by Ixo, the Chinese company, they are the fashion of the time, huge 1/8 scale cars with metal body and chassis, already painted (luckily!). They compete with Amalgam and other brands with less expectations but to fit any budget and if you have some experience as model builder, the result will be acceptable and even excellent. The aim of this tutorial is to share the step by step in the Lamborghini Huracán construction, the last Pocher issue explaining the work achieved so that it may be useful for less experienced modelers and collectors.
By Mario Covalski
The aim of this article is to share with the reader the pictures I’ve been taking during the build. It’s NOT a step by step since I worked following a DVD provided by Paul Koo, a friend of mine, which was of good help. However, I think that there were missing things as a better paint description and several problems I’ve found which were not explained in the DVD.
By Barlas Pehlivan
The Moebius Ford Range pickup is a beautiful kit, but I wanted something more, so I decided to build a customized model. I wanted a small truck with a very weathered paint and even looking ruined by rust, and a twin wheels axle. Achieving a weathered paint would not be a problem but the rear axle of the Moebius kit is of single wheel, so I would have to search for good references and the material to represent the twin wheels axle. The aim of this brief article is to share the work accomplished.
By Fabrice Marechal
When I assembled the Mirage IIIC, I used several products from Ammo Mig. Though I was very satisfied with the result, I decided to use AK Interactive products for the 918 to have a different experience. Certainly Revell have improved the wheels quality and their design but improvements don’t always mean accuracy and I have my doubts about size accuracy of wheels, so I replaced them with the Plamoz ones. I invite you to follow this Porsche model build where I only made two changes in the body to get the result you see here.
By Antonio Busciglio
In this article, I want to share how I detailed the 1/20 McLaren MP4/2 as ran (and won) the 1984 F1 championship. The car I wanted to reproduce is the Lauda’s, only driver to have won the championship after a retirement and a subsequent coming back to the races (notably, Lauda is also the only driver that won a world championship after receiving the last rites, after its terrible accident in 1976).
By Mario Covalski
By Fabrice Marechal
For this article Ebbro provided me a test-shoot that’s to say a test of an injection mold, and there were no references about the year this DS model represented belonged to, so I started to look around the net for pictures that could help me. Looking at the body carefully and comparing with several photos, it was obvious that I had to make sure about certain points.
By Federico Collada
Not long ago, when Asuka was still Tasca, they started to add some beautiful 1/24 scale models to their catalogue. The Panzer II and the BMW were as outstanding as they 1/35 Shermans, a referent worldwide. When a few months ago I saw the forthcoming Bantam BRC 40 in this scale I was a bit surprised for the model chosen to continue the 1/24 catalogue, a little known Jeep that lost the race against the Willys.
By Antonio Busciglio
The Tamiya kit represents very well this icon of the 1988 season in its general shape but not regarding the mechanical parts and the cockpit area. As this is one of the F1s I like best, I decided to build it adding the superb Top Studio detail set (TS in the text) that includes resin and PE parts what makes novices to modelling feel fear. Besides, I’ve added several modifications and extra details which were necessary adding an extra effort. This article is to share my work with the hope that those who are less experienced than me, can build this model with some extra help.
By Fabrice Marechal
Looking at the photos of a real 300SL body, we find out Tamiya have made an excellent work. However, it’s possible to go even further and give the body of this Mercedes an additional touch of realism. Regarding the chassis Tamiya also made a hard work with the tubular frame, very realistic indeed! besides of being quite simple to assemble. The engine and cockpit are not far behind. To paint this marvel, I chose silver that is unavoidable for this beauty. So, the aim of this article is to share with the reader the building, painting and weathering process of some parts, in such a way that they can be reproduced by a modeller with a minimum of experience.
By Alex Nahooy
The Derek Gardner designed Tyrrell 007 made his marks true the ’74 and ’75 seasons.In expectation of there new P34 challenger the first 3 races of 1976 were raced by the final and revised version of the 007.
I would liked for MFH to have made the ’75 version,but by making the ’76 version MFH could use more parts of the Tamiya P34…resulting in this beautifull transkit ;correct rear wing and support,rear radiators ect.Most of the rear end parts of the 007 indeed come from the Tamiya donor ( Engine,gearbox,suspension and rear wheels).
By Felice Ferriello
Tamiya offer an excellent model for Ferrari lovers, that can’t be missing in a collection. In my opinion, it’s a very complex kit so not recommended for novices or those who want to spend some time distracted and relaxed with a simple model. Its complexity obliges you to study very carefully the instructions preparing a building plan, altering the instruction steps to get a good result.
This article aims at sharing with the reader the work achieved during several months to superdetail this beautiful model, providing lots of images.
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 Fabrice Marechal
By Mario Covalski
This article aims at leading the reader through the assembly process of a Tamiya Datsun 240Z in 1/12 scale. On next pages, I’ll explain the different techniques I used for the construction of the models, and though some of them are obsolete, they’re still very useful for beginners. Although this article is focused to novices, I think that even will be useful for advanced modelers to take ideas and several recommendations, if they have not built this kit yet.
By Fabrice Marechal
By Fabrice Marechal