This will be a build log for the Mister Craft Hobby Kits 1:24 1950 Alfa Romeo 'Alfetta', which I bought from my LMS as a bargain impulse buy while buying some paints...
Box shot:
Now for the highly detailed sprue shots:
Sprue 1:
Sprue 2:
3rd and final clear sprue, showing "spoked wheel" effect transparent disks:
Not exactly a detailed kit, it only has 51 pieces in total!
Still, at least it wasn't too expensive.... And should be a fun build.
EasyEight96 wrote:Nice car the old formula 1 cars are the best. The spruces for the kit though....
I think some basic scratch building / detailing will be in order, and perhaps an attempt at wire spoked wheels... And perhaps add some ignition leads etc to the engine. Should look reasonable once finished!
Not the most detailed kit, but can surly be turned into a great looking model. It's hard to get those Alfas to look bad.
I know Hasegawa released a set of plastic and PE wheels for their Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa as an upgrade set, and KA models, Hobby Design and Acu-Stion have made full metal wheels for that kit as well. You might be able to find one of those sets and use. Think the Hasegawa is the cheapest of them as it's a plastic rim and not turned aluminium. Or if you want to go down a slightly more expensive path with the wheels I'm pretty sure Model Factory Hiro released the wheels from the 250 GTO as separate items as well. Those are just a scaled down version of the ones I used on my 1/20 Alfa.
JonMW wrote:Not the most detailed kit, but can surly be turned into a great looking model. It's hard to get those Alfas to look bad.
I know Hasegawa released a set of plastic and PE wheels for their Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa as an upgrade set, and KA models, Hobby Design and Acu-Stion have made full metal wheels for that kit as well. You might be able to find one of those sets and use. Think the Hasegawa is the cheapest of them as it's a plastic rim and not turned aluminium. Or if you want to go down a slightly more expensive path with the wheels I'm pretty sure Model Factory Hiro released the wheels from the 250 GTO as separate items as well. Those are just a scaled down version of the ones I used on my 1/20 Alfa.
Anyway good luck and have fun building.
Cheers Jon.
Those Hasegawa photo etched wheels sound nice, they also sound expensive as well!
Now I have had experience before in building wire wrapped wheels (abliet not entirely succesfull for my Airfix 1:12 Blower Bently):
Split rims & remove & split hub, use jig to wrap fishing line spokes:
MK1 wheel, albeit wibbly wobbly:
I might be able to adapt this technique to build wire wheels for the Alfetta, although they may be somewhat fiddly at 1:24 scale, compared to 1:12 on the Airfix Bentley....
I've still not done any real work to this kit yet, apart from gathering reference images off the internet. But hopefully soon!
WOW those Bentley wheels must have taken a lot of work! We some times make wire wheels for motorbikes at work. Not lacing them, just making the hub, rim and drilling all the holes. And that is a lot of work and hard to do. And those things are big and easy to see, not sure I would want to do it in 1/12 scale, let alone 1/24! But I have that same Bentley kit somewhere so who knows I might have a go at it when that gets build some time in the distant future.
JonMW wrote:WOW those Bentley wheels must have taken a lot of work! We some times make wire wheels for motorbikes at work. Not lacing them, just making the hub, rim and drilling all the holes. And that is a lot of work and hard to do. And those things are big and easy to see, not sure I would want to do it in 1/12 scale, let alone 1/24! But I have that same Bentley kit somewhere so who knows I might have a go at it when that gets build some time in the distant future.
Lol, the Bentley wheels were less than successful - i ended up making circular aero disks to cover them up...
The technique i linked to above doesn't need holes drilled in the rim or hub, you basically wrap wire from one pin, round the hub to the opposite side until you have all the wires wrapped.
Watch this space! I may attempt a mock up first before tackling the kit wheels
Set of 4 wires rims 1/24, Profil 24
Reference: P24JR72-82
1/24
Wire wheel set
Diameter 17.5 mm & thickness 7.2 mm & 8.2 mm
Metal rims: 2 front, 2 rear & 4 inside
Photoetched wires & nuts
4 resin hubs
For Maserati 151, Tipo 63, Aston Martin DP 214, Ferrari 250...
That Mr Craft Alfetta 158 is a re pop of the old Merit kit from the 1960's. It was made for a number of years by SMER along with re popping the Ex Merit Talbot Lago GP car as well. I believe Atlantis Models were making them and now it looks as though the moulds are being re peddled again under the Mr Craft brand.
There was a detailing up article in an Automotive Modelling special published by the Airfix Modelworld magazine publishers Key Publishing.
The kit would benefit greatly from retro fitted wire wheels to replace the old decal on clear plastic disc insert dating back right to the Merit days.
South Eastern Finecast make kits to build up your own wire wheels in 1/24th scale and also make some photo etched wheels in the same scale too.
The Alfetta is a long neglected subject along with many other racing cars from the 50's era from mainstream plastic kit manufacturers.
sprue shots:
