Post by plastheniker on Mar 16, 2018 15:01:37 GMT -5
Hi,
about 25 years ago, before I started a highly detailed pair of 1/20 Casadio-Revival 1951 Alfettas Tipo 159A (that I will show here later), I thought it would be a good idea to build a Merit/Smer/Atlantis 1/24 Alfetta 158 first. I hoped this would be a good way (still without the help of the www) to learn the differences between the very similar 158 and 159. Moreover this would offer the opportunity to test some solutions on this inexpensive kit without risking the pricey Casadio-Revival kits.
Considering that this kit was released in the mid-fifties and thus is one of the oldest kits still available one should not be surprised that the box content is truly rudimentary. There are only few and very simplified parts. Casting quality and fit, however, are surprisingly good.
In any case building an acceptable model requires many modifications, a lot of time and some skills.
I remember the following major problems:
- Except seat, steering wheel and a simple dashboard there are no interior details, so a lot of scratch building and detailing is indispensible.
- This kit has a lower and an upper body half, so OOB the model would have a conspicuous horizontal gap between these two halves that the 1:1 car doesn't have. Therefore both halves must be glued together and the gap must be closed before painting. This makes joining body and chassis a bit fiddly and requires some pondering.
- The louvers of the bonnet were hardly perceptible. Moreover the mentioned gap between lower and upper half of the body was directly at the lower ends of the lateral louvers which made it nearly impossible to fill and sand the gap cleanly without damaging the louvers. Therefore I decided to replace all louvers of the model.
- As can be seen on this picture
tyre and rim are one single styrene part. The spokes of the wire wheels are simulated by clear discs with engraved lines. The tyres have no tread pattern at all. When I built my model there were no aftermarket parts so I had to make my own tyres and real wire wheels. I am not sure if even today really suitable replacement parts could be found. One should never forget that any compromise regarding rim/tyres dimensions particularly on an open-wheeled car is always very conspicious.
- The most difficult problem is the radiator grille since the kit hasn't any radiator grille at all. There is only a massive nose cone without any opening while the grille is reproduced by some faint raised lines as seen on the photo above. Since I built the model I never saw a successful attempt to make this "grille" look halfway acceptable. This is the reason why pictures of finished models are taken so often from angles where the grille is not clearly visible. Covering the grille partially (as sometimes seen on the real Alfettas) doesn't improve much. The necessary realistic model grille has to be convex in all directions, it should consist of 36 vertical bars with equal distances. Notabene in 1/24 it is not much larger than a thumb nail, so building such a grille from scratch is a real challenge.
All in all IMO this kit is recommendable only for most experienced modelers who are willing to tackle all problems with a lot of time and a lot of effort.
about 25 years ago, before I started a highly detailed pair of 1/20 Casadio-Revival 1951 Alfettas Tipo 159A (that I will show here later), I thought it would be a good idea to build a Merit/Smer/Atlantis 1/24 Alfetta 158 first. I hoped this would be a good way (still without the help of the www) to learn the differences between the very similar 158 and 159. Moreover this would offer the opportunity to test some solutions on this inexpensive kit without risking the pricey Casadio-Revival kits.
Considering that this kit was released in the mid-fifties and thus is one of the oldest kits still available one should not be surprised that the box content is truly rudimentary. There are only few and very simplified parts. Casting quality and fit, however, are surprisingly good.
In any case building an acceptable model requires many modifications, a lot of time and some skills.
I remember the following major problems:
- Except seat, steering wheel and a simple dashboard there are no interior details, so a lot of scratch building and detailing is indispensible.
- This kit has a lower and an upper body half, so OOB the model would have a conspicuous horizontal gap between these two halves that the 1:1 car doesn't have. Therefore both halves must be glued together and the gap must be closed before painting. This makes joining body and chassis a bit fiddly and requires some pondering.
- The louvers of the bonnet were hardly perceptible. Moreover the mentioned gap between lower and upper half of the body was directly at the lower ends of the lateral louvers which made it nearly impossible to fill and sand the gap cleanly without damaging the louvers. Therefore I decided to replace all louvers of the model.
- As can be seen on this picture
tyre and rim are one single styrene part. The spokes of the wire wheels are simulated by clear discs with engraved lines. The tyres have no tread pattern at all. When I built my model there were no aftermarket parts so I had to make my own tyres and real wire wheels. I am not sure if even today really suitable replacement parts could be found. One should never forget that any compromise regarding rim/tyres dimensions particularly on an open-wheeled car is always very conspicious.
- The most difficult problem is the radiator grille since the kit hasn't any radiator grille at all. There is only a massive nose cone without any opening while the grille is reproduced by some faint raised lines as seen on the photo above. Since I built the model I never saw a successful attempt to make this "grille" look halfway acceptable. This is the reason why pictures of finished models are taken so often from angles where the grille is not clearly visible. Covering the grille partially (as sometimes seen on the real Alfettas) doesn't improve much. The necessary realistic model grille has to be convex in all directions, it should consist of 36 vertical bars with equal distances. Notabene in 1/24 it is not much larger than a thumb nail, so building such a grille from scratch is a real challenge.
All in all IMO this kit is recommendable only for most experienced modelers who are willing to tackle all problems with a lot of time and a lot of effort.
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