Went to visit Winkinson Automobilia 2 weeks ago in Vancouver. The shop is amazing, a lot of diecasts, books, etc etc. People there are very friendly. They put a real Renault R24 nose cone, Ferrari F1 rotor and a Renault R202 exhaust pipe there.. and they let me hold and touch the parts too... The Ferrari rotor is made of carbon and it is extremely light, like less than 5 lbs or so.. The Renault exhaust pipe's welding work is simply amazing too..

They have some Minichamps 1/18 F1 diecast on sale. I picked up a Montoya's McLaren MP4/20 at CAD$45.. Not bad. I spent few hours to convert this one into a West livery version. Not 100% accurate because the West one is supposed to have a black front wing, but it is fun.. Although this is only a diecast, Minichamps did a good job to capture the accurate McLaren shape... not like Revell 1/24 one where nose cone and front suspension layout are all wrong.




Alright, better get back to finish up the Minardi!!

Happy New Year to all,

I haven't done much modeling for whole last month. I got myself a crazy gift on boxing day. I bought myself a new 2008 Acura TSX... My old 98 Accord will have new owner soon after serving me and my wife for almost 160K miles in the past 9.5 years... including close to 5 round trips to Tamiya/Con too.

As for modeling, hopefully I can resume by end of Jan after my day time work load eases up a bit.

Enjoys,

Finally made some progress on Minardi M193 cockpit. I used Modelers D923 CF decal to cover entire surrounding and coated with semi-gloss coat. Dash was covered with SMS CF decal. Seat was sprayed with SMS texture spray paint and then covered with flat black. Result looks quite pleasing. Seat belt was done with Modelers 1/20 seat belt set. Very minor wiring (only 1 wire ). Next part will be brakes, uprights, suspension, transmission and undertray... Enjoys..

I drove to Anaheim last Fri to attend IPMS National 2007. My F2001B won the open wheel competition 1/32-1/20 scale category and Model Cars Magazine Editor's Pick. I am so happy about it.

IPMS National contest is hugh, much bigger than Tamiya/Con. Tons of aircraft and armors... plus sci-fi that you don't get to see them at Tamiya/Con.

Entry fee is not cheap, I paid $25 IPMS membership + $40 contest entry fee. Parking at Marriot hotel is $20/day + hotel... Ouch.. But I had never been to IPMS National before, so I counted this as my contest experience. I will soon post more pic that I took on the show on Modelersite.com.

Enjoys,

Some progress on the Minardi. All CF decal are applied on front and rear wing. Clearcoating and polishing is done on front wing. This time I used Tamiya polishing compound and modeling fax after micro-mesh polishing. Result is pretty good. Rear wing is more difficult to polish because I didn't separate the wing end plate from lower wing element. big mistake.. so I will clear coat it again and only polish the outer end plate surface. The mirros are CF-ed as well. At the time I am writing this blog, rear wing and mirrors are just clearcoated and being baked in the dehydrator.

I bought a Gunze leveling thinner as suggested by Master Johnson and it works much much better than regular Gunze lacquar thinner.