Bandai 1/16 Ford GT 40 MkII #98. Miles-Ruby, Daytona, 1966.

[speedgraflex]

Historic Racing Miniatures takes that Gunze Sanyo kit to the next level. That’s for sure. Thank you for checking in and your words, Joe. Thank you so much for being here. It’s truly an honor.

One idea I am trying out on this kit is to relax the grip to make proportions exactly to the 1:1 Original; in order to do this I would be better served finding a Trumpeter 1/12 kit. However, kind of like the conversation with Bolleken about Heller versus Fine Molds 109s, there is more of a fun factor than a form factor. I wanna get close and hit the feel of these mods, the feel of the car after a hard won fight to win the race, and really the thought of seeing a white paint job covered in dust, dirt, oil, grease is exciting!

[speedgraflex]

I am glad I found this reference. This is one of the first “Shelby-ized” cars sent to race Daytona. I was wondering how the paint shop treated the line of the fender after the car was widened. Here, clearly visible is the method—the line carries over the fender not on top but along the side.

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I am practicing my scribing on the bonnet panel using Mr Creos / Mr Hobby scriber and a dental pick. There is definitely a learning curve here. It is easier to manage a deeper and wider 1/16 grove than a 1/32 one but there are no straight lines on the panel!!! Every side is curved, all four corners are curved!!

[Stikpusher]

Yes, scribing on compound curves is not a simple task. And the larger/longer that the lines are, the more chance for things to go off the desired location.

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We are rolling. No tires yet, and still—we are rolling.




Hit it!

[KSaarni]

Oh yeah Bruce!

And what an even more beautiful shape this beauty has after all hours of work!

When the build is in this stage, you really would want to see more eagerly a layer of primer on it (just primer, nothing more colorful yet, that joy comes later) , so you could see the, sort of final result of all these fantastic surgery steps made!

- Kari

[speedgraflex]

Thank you so much for checking in and your thoughts, Kari—these mean the world to me. I agree with you about taking the car into a monochrome—this is going to happen once I finish the rear deck scoops! There are two other modifications—one to the roof and one to the rear deck air flow over the engine that I am debating about doing. I do know I put the air scoops on the "To Do" list.

When those scoops are done, I am going to prime this entire body in Tamiya White. Cans. Because... I can! It's a "Big Boy" so using can primers does not bother the finish one bit... and in fact the scale and the white primer seem to be made for each other, so I might leave the Tamiya White Primer as my color coat, then black semi-gloss for the hood. I also need to shoot black and grey primer on the interior sections. I think—paint the white first then follow up with masking that and painting the black underneath the body, fenders, rear deck, etc. All part of the first step!

No assembly or gluing until these sections are squared away. Building the engine is gonna be fun because i am going to keep it black, silver, grey in anticipation of making it post race filthy!