MFH Abarth 1000-SP 1/12

[paddy]

So i am laying the foundations here of my first MFH car build.
Its rather daunting being multi media, white metal, resin, vac form etc, basically a whole new experience for me.
I dont really know what to expect in terms of fit, drilling required and alignment. I guess i will need a good flat plate or i will be building a twisted mess.
Glue is a slight problem, they say you should use CA but i didnt find it very good on white metal, fine in a peg and hole situation but not very good on a surface to surface join.

This is a 1966 Fiat Abarth 1000SP and like all MFH cars now its 1/12. A good scale that ties in nicely with Italeri vintage cars and is big enough for me to see what I am doing .

You could be forgiven from this picture for thinking this is a 5 litre (300ci) monster designed to eat up miles in the 24 hour LeMans and you would be half right.
Its actually 1 litre (60ci) 4cyl 105 bhp minnow designed to eat up miles in the 24 hour LeMans
Its only when you see a guy next to it you realise at just under 1000LB its actually quite small

Fiat Abarth 1000 SP

The Sport designed to turn gentlemen drivers into winners.

www.stellantisheritage.com

 

[paddy]

So what's in the box ?





I will call out the parts as i go but this is the basics

 

[jknaus]

If you get a small pane of safety glass, it is very flat and perfect for doing the aligning.

James

 

[Heavens Eagle]

Paddy, I have found that different brands and types of CA work differently and have different properties. Lately I have been using the Bob Smith brand medium (in the purple label and cap) that I bought at the local hobby shop.

First off it doesn't outgas and make the white frost around it. Second is that I put a drop or two on a sapphire crystal and dip it off with a small wire applicator. I then usually let it set till the next build session and take a razor blade and scrape it off clean.

You ask what does this demonstrate. All the CA glues set up and dry hard within a couple 3 hours on the crystal. As it is sapphire it is super hard and doesn't tend to scratch or mark up with a steel razor blade. The crystal is also inert for the most part so no chemical reactions.

Where this process becomes a learning episode is that the Bob Smith purple (medium) dries and when I remove it the dried puddle is flexible an rather tough to remove. It isn't brittle like some other CA's. The Fast set CA's and other brands (like from Hobby Lobby fast and medium) shatter into fine powder when scraped off. I have also mixed CA's which have given other improved or so-so results. The brittle CA's can be good if you are just tacking something in place to be popped apart again later. (which I have done on occasion) I also use the Bob Smith purple (medium) as a filler for narrow cracks or even some surface imperfections as it has an accelerant to set it and then it files and sands very similar to styrene.

So you might try some different brands and types of CA. For a watch crystal, If you have a local watch repair shop that does watch repairs on Rolex or Tag, you might see if you can obtain a slightly damaged used sapphire watch crystal or two from the watchmaker. Explain what you plan on using it for and that a watchmaker friend in the US suggested that use. New crystals are EXPENSIVE, but used damaged crystals that are badly chipped around the edge have no use and are usually trash.

I also epoxy the watch crystals I use to a small block of wood with the damaged side of the crystal to the block and the inner side (usually undamaged) up for use.

 

[paddy]

That's great info Paul, i have also found that CA has a shelf life see here

CA glue has an average shelf life of 1 to 2 years when unopened and stored in a cool, dry place, but it can be significantly extended by refrigeration, potentially lasting for several years in some cases. Once opened, CA glue's shelf life decreases dramatically to around 2 to 6 months,

I think this is my problem as I have opened bottle well over a year old, I have new unopened bottle up to 2 years old so I think the first thing to do is buy a new bottle for this build. I doubt that the loss of strength is quite so much of an issue with styrene but white metal seems to need 100%. I will go for Bob smith as i did have that white misting on the last build using just a generic CA.
Many thanks for you post, its opened my eyes to not all CA's are equal.

 

[paddy]

This is for the benefit of other newbie MFH builders like me.

the parts are not on a sprue as such so they are not numbered or marked. they come in a plastic bag, this must make packing these boxes hard adding about 500 parts rather than just 5 sprues

so how do you identify the parts to the pictures which are numbered in the instructions with a prefix as M metal or RE resin T turned E etched and so on.

Well what they dont tell you and i have no idea why after all the years they have been going , is that on the MFH website you can download a parts list like this

It is actually well thought out so if you look at parts like 161 and 167/8 one sprue has 9 parts and one has 10 so you can identify parts that look similar in the packs.
This was the trouble i had with my Brought motorcycle rescue because of all the models MFH have made , it was the only one without an online parts list. I did write to them twice but no reply.
anyway once you know this the who build makes a lot more sense

 

[paddy]

This is the basic engine block balanced together before and after going in my barrelling machine. the second picture has 36 holes drilled in it so far which you cant see.. you have to take each part and see if anything attaches to it at a later point in assembly by going through all the assemble stages in advance then drill a suitable hole.

Not sure what to do with this, they didnt build many and some are painted black and some natural finish.
I am leaning towards a mix because its actually not easy to get a durable paint finish on this white metal even using an etch primer.

Strange little engine and quite interesting actually …The Abarth twin-cam engine was built on the Fiat 600 base. The unit, located behind the driver, achieved a power output of 105 HP at 8,000 rpm. Considering its displacement of under a litre (982 cc) the engine would have had a specific power in excess of 100 HP/litre with the car weighing just 480 KG. This value was considerably high for that period, also bearing in mind that the 1000 SP was designed to excel both in short uphill races and in long, hard, endurance races.

Bear in mind the factory tuned Mini Cooper S 995cc at the time produced about 65bhp

It appears to be a motorcycle engine, twin cam, 4 cylinder ,4 barrel carbs but this was nearly 10 years before the Japanese produced a similar spec engine for a bike…so well ahead of its time.
As an aside i have ordered some crushed walnut shells to see if i can better the finish on the white metal on certain parts like the cam box etc,

 

[Heavens Eagle]

 

[moon puppy]