MFH Abarth 1000-SP 1/12

A lot of work and a battle of wills but it's spectacular, high finish auto modelling! ....and I'm a dirty tank guy .

Yikes! Maybe you got a stronger batch of tape.
Have you seen the trick about putting the tape on the back of your hand before masking? It will pick up some of the oils from your skin and make it just a bit less tacky. I've read this somewhere...might have been here.

It must be something with the gloss paint Paddy. The Tamiya tape also has some texture to it and that could be part of the problem. I now use some tape that I bought at the local hardware big box store. It is purple, very smooth. and the tack of the adhesive is so low that it will lift itself off over time just due to the strength of the paper pulling up. It masks quite well and I have not had any trouble with it pulling stuff off the surface (paint, decals) so far. Not sure if it is available in the UK, but will take some photos of the tape and post them later.

Thanks paul
I tried to polish out the damage but it goes right through the paint. i hope a gloss coat will level it a bit.
I posted the same problem on face book and several people suggested they had the same problem , one guy sugested he sticks the tape to his jeans first to reduce the tac but its not a strength thing, its a chemical thing.

Here is the painter's tape I have been using Paddy. Not sure if it will work better or otherwise on the Tamiya gloss colors. It has done just fine with everything I use, even the Alclad seems to work ok with it.







Not sure if it is available in the UK, but it is 3M so might be readily available world wide.

While i wait for the body paint to harden i have started fitting the glass did i mention i dont like vacform


Its held in place by 0.05mm rivets.

strangely the decals on this car are different each side so while the right has a square number board the left has a round one.



I got the decals on the dash and i am pretty proud of my self as i never have a lot of luck with small decals and these are small. About half a mm x 1.5mm , the resolution is really good as even at this size you can read them.




And i did a bit of work on the interior. again the rivets on the metal parts are 0.05mm , its a magnifier and tweezer job.

paddy said:

its a magnifier and tweezer job.

Click to expand...

Labor of LVE, actually!

The rivets are about the size of many of the watch screws I deal with Paddy. Make sure your tweezers are prepped so they don't launch small parts.

Fortunately you can buy some MFH rivets separately so i just bought 2 packs of 75 ,half mm rivets anticipating about a 30% tweezer launch loss rate ( this is based on experience so far) My theory is eventually they will be so many on the floor they will become crunchy under foot and easier to find..



You can see the originals are turned alloy and the replacements are cast but all you see is the head so they will do. Lets face it you will need a magnifier just to see them on the finished model anyway but the camera will pick them up which is always the problem

I just stocked up on some Scale Hardware, they are not offering the really little .3 mm stuff anymore. I got stocked up on the .5 and up. waiting for shipping info.

You may hate the vacuform but you sure are the boss of it. Looks great.

I can hear the guys in the paint shop. "You said make it round!" "And you said make it square!!" "bloody hell!"

Welcome too todays daily conundrum quiz

The Abarth has a rear view mirror mounted on a stand as i doubt the plexiglass screen was up to it....
However the stand is considerably taller than the screen



and you can see the mounting holes are way back from this position



The conundrum is.
Do you shorten the legs on the stand. and make the mirror obviously to low to see over the back.
Do you re drill the holes which means one will be off the front of the dashboard
Do you cut out a section of the screen
Do you leave the mirror off.

My thinking is as its a plexiglass screen they would just cut a nice shaped notch in the class (which is also the easiest thing for me to do.)

You can see top right in this picture the culprit



another option which i just thought of is to re make the rear leg of the tripod, longer with a dog leg so its straight down from the mirror to under the screen height then back to the mounting hole............which i think would look best ? ands of course is a brilliant idea

paddy said:

another option which i just thought of is to re make the rear leg of the tripod, longer with a dog leg so its straight down from the mirror to under the screen height then back to the mounting hole.

Click to expand...

I bet if you could zoom in on that culprit you'd see just that. That or the forward leg is closer to the edge of the dash.

I think this is what they did in the picture i posted above .



I just remade a longer rear leg for the tripod and moved the holes in the dash as far forward as i could without dropping down the curve.

More importantly i have got that vac form screen to fit and its now riveted in position Now for the switches in the dash which again will be a tweezer job. I need some better tweezers as the ones i have just cross over when holding small parts

Git'er done Paddy!

Got some switches in


The camera curse strikes again. That damage to the top right of the screen doesnt show to the naked eye but i will polish it out anyway

Paddy, you might check out the thread I did a number of years ago about how to rework tweezers. I am a watchmaker and use fine tweezers all day every day in what I do to earn a living. Even the best tweezers have to be reworked periodically to keep them up to snuff (sometimes at least once every day)

Here is the link to the thread. It shows different tweezers and gives steps on how to rework the tips.

TOOLM TIME Tweezers

If you want to get some really good watchmaker level tweezers, I would do a search online for a watchmaker supply in the UK. You can spend $20 to $40 dollars for a good starting pair though there are some that are a bit cheaper and once the tips are redone they will work just as good as the expensive ones. If you have any questions please feel free to PM me and I will be glad to assist.
Here is the thing about the cost though, if you do choose to say buy a $40 pair, you will have AND USE THEM a lot and with proper maintenance they will last and work forever.
I recently bought two expensive 5A sized pair to use at home. These are very pointed and expensive yet the steel isn't soft so the tips hold up and they work perfectly for all the super tiny stuff I handle. I have not had to rework the tips yet and the pressure to close them is minimal which is extremely important when handling tiny shit.

Thanks for that Paul, i need to read your full text on the link
I think a lot of the problem i have is the length from tip to weald is too long so the amount of sideways flex is to great allowing the tips to just
cross





I might drill through the hajndles and rivet them to reduce the flexible length ?

I can tell from the two photos that you need to do some serious work on the tips. If when you squeeze the tips together and they slip around the surfaces that meet are not good. My post gives a good step by step instruction on getting the tweezers up to snuff where they will work properly. If they are a bit rough it might take 30 to 40 minutes the first time to get them right. After that, if they get a little worn it only takes a minute or two to clean them up.
People that launch parts from tweezers usually need to rework them. but that is something that none of the general modeling community ever knows or teaches. It makes such a huge difference though.
We have a GOOGLE meet coming up next Saturday morning. I should set up and try to do a demo on reworking your tweezer tips and how to actually hold and work with them.