1969 Morris Cooper S , build for a friend's birthday

I think we've all been there ..... Was having a text message chat with one of my main mini model swappers Matt (Panthersteve will know all the people I'm talking about) last night and he said "Jim's birthday's coming up soon , do you think we should get him something"? (Jim being our other main model swapper/partner in crime) one thing led to another and I made the comment that we should make a model of his mini . I remembered I had a 500 ml tin of paint in the right colour (Indigo Blue) from one of my mini's so the search for photo's of Jim's mini started . Then Matt pointed out that Jim's Birthday is on the 12th of this month so this has to be finished and posted to Melbourne by then ....

By the way Steve , if you let on to Jim about this Matt will hold you down while I de-knacker you with a blunt butter knife

The starting kit , I had to use the Austin version as it has the correct wheels but it still comes with the Morris grille (slightly different) . Will also have to convert the inside door trims to look like the Australian mini's wind up windows as opposed to the English sliding style (in Australia the morris 850's and 997cc cooper and 998cc cooper had sliding windows , the rest had wind up windows) .



Jim's mini ,







Indigo Blue is one of those colours that looks different in daylight than it does in shed lighting so will be interesting to see how it looks in miniature .

an arty shot of Jim's mini next to Peter Manton's 997 cooper at Phillip Island (this is the 997 cooper I made the model of before , it's now back to it's original red colour)




The rear window , Matt is currently scaling the stickers down and then will print them on transfer paper along with the number plates for added realism .

sports850 wrote:

By the way Steve , if you let on to Jim about this Matt will hold you down while I de-knacker you with a blunt butter knife

Your secret is safe with me Ian, I am too fond of my knackers to lose them

Cheers
Steve

PS. I look forward to seeing the end result.

This is a cool photo.
Have fun doing the copy of it.

Thought you might be Steve

Yes it is Monaro , I've still yet to see it in the flesh but have been drooling over the photo's of it for a few years now ....

now this is going to be a great,use a rusty razor blade if he talks.

Since it has rained here constantly today I got the day off work so spent a few hours on this , can't paint the shell yet obviously but brush painted the underbody and engine bay with the auto paint , painted and assembled the motor and interiorand pretty much got the chassis/interior ready to fit . I've nearly finished modifying one door inner to look like the wind up window version , will finish it and do the other one tomorrow when I get some new scissors since the old ones broke trying to cut the evergreen card ....

The auto paint , I worked it out , it's closer to twenty years old than ten ....



I borrowed Zen's idea (thank's for posting the pics Fred) of using masking tape to make a vynil like finish , only this time it's the firewallblanket and not a vynil roof ,



Groovy late 60's all black interior , including Smiths tacho behind the wheel like the real one



Waiting for the body now ...

looking good so

Woohoo , fine weather today so left the primered body sitting in the sun for a while along with the paint tin . Then started experimenting with different amounts of thinners till it sprayed nicely and gave it three coats with a light rub in between . Needs another light rub in places then will coat it with clear tomorrow after it's had time to cure a bit . It looks pretty similar to the different photo's above with the different lighting too which I'm impressed with .

Outside in the sun ,



Inside the shed ,

That's looking good Ian, when do you want me to send a pic of my car

Cheers
Steve

Hee hee ... Take a number and get in line I think Steve what colour's yours though and I'll see if I've got any paint .

Finished the paint to day , didn't bother with a clear coat as it looks alright as it is and I didn't want any problems with conflicting thinners (tried to use the auto paint with humbrol thinners and it went gluggy , the only clear I have is humbrol) so will polish it tomorrow night . This is only a trial sit together but I'm mostly happy with it considering it's the first time I've effectively used auto paint and thinners on a plastic body . I tried a couple of times before but the thinners ate the plastic (before finding Tamiya primer , that stuff is good) .



Interior should be finished tomorrow night along with body polished and then final assembly Tuesday night (transfers will hopefully arrive Tuesday too) before posting Wednesday to get to Melbourne by the weekend (fingers , toes , legs , arms and eyes crossed) .

good luck mate, thats a great job so far

sports850 wrote:Hee hee ... Take a number and get in line I think Steve what colour's yours though and I'll see if I've got any paint .

Hey Ian

Of course it was a joke, after all I should bve able to do my own But just in case you get bored and I reach the top of the list, mine is Cadet Blue

A question too, how did you do the mods for the door cards

Cheers
Steve

No cadet blue I'm afraid Steve , your number might have to go further down the list then

Basically I just cut some evergreen card to fit inside the door inner panel (if you've done a Tamiya mini you'll know what I mean) so the "door trim" fits flush-ish with the inner door like on a wind up trim . Then used some tiny offcut slivers for the winder and door handle , I should have lowered the height of the doorpockets too but didn't as they are a bit complex where they join the vertical bit and with the tight time limit I didn't want to get caught short . Realistically though , in the scale of the model the height difference is only a couple of mm's so not too noticeable . I'll get some photo's tomorrow night which will explain it more but I think if you look closely at it you will see it's a modification but if you look at the car it will be a windup window . I'm also cutting the front triangle from the sliding windows to use as a 1/4 vent window on each side and silver painted strip of plastic behind it for the frame . Unfortunately both windows will have to be down otherwise the windows will look odd with the sliding division or will be a different shade of clear ...

Nice finish your going to be a pro at building these things !

Sean

looking good there so far,see 4 minis today on the road one was a orange austin wagon.

Hey Sean , where have you been hiding lately , you've been a bit quiet here ? Allan , stop making me drool , not many mini's on the road around here .

Well , it's finished , Matt had a courier rush his transfer sheets yesterday so I had them last night to start fiddling with , just finished the assembly now and while I'm not entirely happy with the paint finish I'm very happy with the finished product , especially the transfers of the stickers that are on the window of the real one

Steve , hopefully you can see the door cards in this one , in the end I removed the bit of plastruct from the cut edge of the window as it looked too chunky ..



The first fitting of the transfers to the window , then I realised they were a smidgen too low so had to move them (some moved , some had to be replaced , thankfully Matt provided plenty of spares on the sheet , he also made heaps of transfers for the Monaro off road racer so will be fun when I get back onto it ) ,



The finished product










Now it's sitting in a nice warm spot to make sure everythings dry before I pack it in the morning and post it to Jim , all going well he'll have it for his birthday on Saturday . Not bad for a week's effort I think .

Hi Ian Not building models on a professional level now , I managed to get a full time job and have been really busy with work and family.
I am now however getting back into the modeling but no more commission stuff or kit based builds , all I'll be working on now is full scratch built stuff hence the MV Agusta thread I've started up again , I've also made a start on the Brabham BT24 project I mentioned a while back.
It's a huge project but it's a start all will be reveled on here in the not to distant future.

Sean

Hi Ian

Well done, it looks the goods. I'm sure Jim will be impressed, just not surprised ......................... he'll be surprised too!!

Cheers
Steve

NIce one Ian.

Nice build I think Jim will be really happy with it.

Very cool, numberplates came out really nice! Had a friend at school with a mini the same colour as this... memories....!

Nice job Ian! Just like the big one (seems strange saying big one when talking about a Mini )

Cool Mini Ian, I like the rego tag and the stickers on the window and the number plates really seal the deal. There is a certain satisfaction in building a model of a friend or relatives car. I would be too scared to post someone a built model so I hope it gets there in one piece.