The Mechanic's Modelling Page

26/07/2026

Well, is was a bit quicker than I had originally expected, but the Datsun 240Z Custom is now finished.

This is one of my favourite cars from my childhood, I even had a Matchbox die-cast and in my teens, built the old Revell US BRE 240Z race car of which I now have the re-released kit in my stash.

So, this 240Z from Tamiya is a very nice kit to build up. As par normal with most Tamiya kits, this assembled up without any problems. There was just a couple of time where something did not seem to line up properly, bit a little rejigging and things fell in place. When assembling the rear bumper, make sure you clear off any chrome plating on the joints to allow the parts to sit properly. As said in the previous post on this project, the base colour is Tamiya's Laquer paint Pearl White with their Pearl Clear over the top. As I am building this model as an UK version of the car, I took some options of the Japanese version and some of the US version of the kit to create the UK version.

All I can say, if you like these old Datsun 240Z's and would like to build your own model of this car, then get the Tamiya kits. They do two versions of this car, the Custom one as you see and the stock one. We'll worth the money.

25/07/2026

The other car project to get back on track after this heatwave is the 6th Gen Mustang. After a lot of work on the bonnet with the conversion back to a stock bonnet, it looks like I have finally got there. It took multiple sessions of priming, sanding and more priming and sanding to get the filled areas not to show through the base colour.

So far, there is only the base coat down so far. I did try a couple coats of the Pearl Clear, but it didn't look right. So I gave it a couple more coats of rhe Tamiya Racing Blue to take it back to the original colour. I still need to give the body a few coats of clear first before progressing any further with the Mustang.

25/07/2026

Now that the weather has cooled down a bit, it was time to get two of the car projects back on track.

The first one is the Datsun 240Z Custom. This project just needed the clear coat finished off before moving on to final assembly, detail painting and decals. To refresh your memory, this has been painted with Tamiya's Laquer paints Pearl White with their Pearl Clear over the top. I had to rub down the first lot of clear in a few spots after a fly and a couple of fluff landed on it whilst still wet. I managed to get the worse of the fluff out, except for a couple bits which are too deep and would require a major sanding session and complete respray.

So now the process of assembling and detail painting begins to complete the bodyshell and hopefully get this finished o er the next two or three weeks.

21/06/2026

Sorry for not posting much over the last few weeks, but you know how life gets in the way of things. This included spending a week down at my Dad's doing a couple of jobs for him as well as his 91st birthday.

Well, below are the latest stage photos of the Ferdinand "Gluebomb" project, of which a lot of the work has been done over the last couple of weeks. This work includes most of the weathering of the tank, building the display base and doing all of the scenic work on it. The tree trunk is 3D printed from a free file of a simple tree, I did not want a large tree on this base so scaled the file to this size. The terrain was made from florists oasis foam, carved and covered with thinned down decorating filler. Then painted brown, followed by the scenic mud used on the model in the track ruts. The remaining areas were then covered with static grass, toned down afterwards with two different shades of green. The tree , branches and general ground cover was detailed using various scenic materials and twigs found in the garden.

It is not quite finished yet, still need to get some figures and decide on which animals to add to the scene. But it's not far to go now depending on the weather for painting and how long it takes to get the figures.

I have also included some photos from a little bit earlier during the painting of the tank.

27/05/2026

Got the Tomcat finish and surprisingly quick time.

Starting on this was a spur of rhe moment, I needed a break from working on the two car projects that are on the go. This is the Tamiya 48th scale F-14D Tomcat, basically built straight out of the box except for the addition of some Eduard seatbelts. This was because I didn't think the decal seatbelts were up to the job and would be too flat for this scale, so a set was ordered and fitted once they had arrived.

I chose to do the Grim Reaper scheme on rhis model, thought it would be a contrast to the Tomcatters one that I have already built. My only issue was that the painting instructions only had a mixing formula to.make up the dark grey used on the scheme. It would have been nicer if Tamiya had put the FS numbers on the instruction sheet as well, but they don't. So it was a bit of time going through my Tomcat books to find the same scheme in one of them to get the correct FS numbers. Once these were obtained, I used the equivalent paints from the Mr Hobby range and painted the model.

When it came down to the decals, I did have a few little problems with them. Something that I have never had with Tamiya kits in the past was decals breaking up when trying to get them into position on the fuselage. This happened on the Grim Reaper badges on the tails and a couple other of the larger decals. Another thing I had noticed was that the carrier film seems to be a bit thicker then the past Tamiya decals that I have used. I will need to see what any of the other later Tamiya kits are like when I build them.

In all, an enjoyable build apart from the messing around with pain colours and the decal issues. Assembly as par normal with Tamiya kits passed with any headaches and everything went together cleanly. So now I'm down to two more 48th scale Tomcats in the stash, a 32nd one and a few 72nd kits. I guess I will have another Tomcat urge come upon me at some point soon...

27/05/2026

Finally got around to taking some photos of the Hawker Tempest Mk.V Series 2 that I finished at the end of last year.

This is the Eduard Profipack edition of the Tempest, so including the etch for the interior and paint masks. As par normal with Eduards kits, this built up without any issues and as normal a joy to build.

Assembled straight out of the box along with the etch that came with the kit. The camouflage scheme was painted with AK Interactive's Real Colors WWII RAF day fighter scheme set of lacquer paints. It was the first time that I had used their lacquer paints and I did not have any issues using them. The invasion stripes were masked and sprayed, no decals to use in the kit. The model was finished off with the usual weathering of dirt, soot and oil leaks.

I do happen to have another Eduard Tempest sitting in my stash. This one will have a few extras added to the build for when I get around to starting it. So far I have the Eduard resin engine to go in it, but there will be other items to get for it later on.

26/05/2026

Finally decided to brave the heat and get back to some modelling. This extreme hot weather has put a gold onto the two projects that I was originally going to work on, they will have to wait until it's a lot cooler.

So today I finished all of the construction on this Ferdinand that was given, which I did a part dismantling to straighten a few bits out. All that was needed today was to add the final detail parts around the hull to get it ready for priming. Before I started priming it, I had a quick look online for photos of the Ferdinand in action. Mainly to see where they carried their spare tracks, general stowage and camouflage techniques. There didn't seem to be a set method for carrying the spare track links, some were mounted on the rear panel to the right of the loading hatch, some in a cradle on the side armour plate and one with a few on the front armour plate either side of the gun barrel. There was also a lot that didn't carry any spare links at all. So I opted to make a cradle to mount them on one of the sides.

With the forecast for the weather to get a bit cooler tomorrow, I hopefully will get some undercoat colour down on the hull and some base colour afterwards. So fingers crossed for a cooler day...

04/05/2026

28/04/2026

It has been steady progress on the Tomcat over the last week and a bit. All of the main construction work has been done along with the main painting. The fuselage is a present is now painted in the scheme of the aircraft I am modelling, a Grim Reaper aircraft from September 2004, in Light Ghost Grey, Dark Ghost Grey and Gunship Grey, with the tails and fuselage spine painted Black. Next the model will get a few coats of gloss clear before moving onto the decals, detail painting and some weathering. Final assembly will follow to get the aircraft built.

Once this is done, I will move onto the payload which is already assembled. All of these items just need painting and having any decals added to them.

16/04/2026

Whilst I have the two car projects stuck in the painting stages, I needed to get on with another project. I was originally thinking about getting another project off the "Shelf of Doom", but I have also had a niggling to build another Tomcat. Out of my Tomcat stash, this Tamiya 48th scale F-14D was on the shelf along with the Tamiya 32nd scale one, so I chose this one as all of the rest of the Tomcats are packed away in the loft.

This is being built straight out of the box, so no aftermarket extras on this one. Over the last couple of days, I have got the cockpit built up and the front undercarriage bay assembled. I still need to do some weathering on the undercarriage bay, which will be done once the main bays are assembled.

Work will continue today with assembly of the main undercarriage bays and the weathering of all bays at the same time.