AND WE ARE BACK!!!

Ok, it took way too long, but yes, we are back! Due to several reasons, but mainly because we moved into a new home, it took longer than expected before we could start up the hobby again.

And what a start it is! Not just one, but two of the large scale Jaguars from Revell.
Both will be side by side build, the Fixed Head Coupe is a customer comission and I will build the Drophead Coupe for myself. The DHC is a already started kit that I purchased, so some restoring is necessary. The FHC is ofcourse brand-new.

The DHC will act as a experimental build for the FHC, I will try new ways for building the car and design/manufacture new parts. It will be tried and tested on the DHC before using it on the customer’s FHC.

This will be my 3rd and 4th Revell Jaguar, it is a great kit and is able to turn into a proper masterpiece.
Be aware that the origins of this kit is from the sixties! Yes, this kit is 60! years old. Which is hard to believe when you look at the content and level of detail.
Yes, there is much to improve, when compared to our spoiled CAD/CAM generation modelkits, but still, it is a great kit.

First, we add a piece of styrene to close up the airfilter.

This is the FHC engine being put together in a rough shape, details will be added later on.

The spaceframe for the engine is looking ok, but has some molded in rivets/bolts. They just don’t look great.
I drilled each bolt for the location and replaced it with a styrene bolt.

This is the DHC engine, as you can see, it has to be restored. It was pretty much a glue-bomb and did take some damage when taking it apart.

A new piece of styrene had to be added on the intake side.

The intake manifolds were also in a rough shape, so they had to be restored as well. During that process, I decided to make new carburettors and cut the assembly in 3 pieces, the tube at the end will be replaced by a polished aluminium rod.

Even though the space frame looks ok, it can be improved. Some parts had to be kept for rigidity, but the parts on the inside will be replaced with new parts, making it look a lot better.

One of the most difficult tasks on the 1/8th Revell Jaguar, is to put the top and bottom body halves together, strong and without the seem in between the halves.

back in 2007, I wrote the ‘cracking the code’ manual for assembling instructions. But times change and I believe I can do a better job.
So there will be a ‘cracking the code vol. 2’ tutorial as well.

The body on the left will be the DHC and act as a guide and labrat.

The start is to cut this part of the interior tub, a critical part in the new tutorial.

It is very important to have the firewall and the cut part glued into place with the body for rigidity, strength and shape.

The firewall had a few parts molded in, which were quite mysterious as a shape. I used the Proxxon minitool to act as a mill and got rid of them.

At the back of the firewall, some styrene was used to cover the gap.

And some milliput was used on the front, to fill up the gap.