Customer Reviews

The Car Modeller's Handbook

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It is what it is; A handbook on scale model car building. I found this very book very appropriately titled. Handbooks are not intricate, explicit, step-by-step instruction manuals. They are guides that cover the general scope of the subject or topic.

The Car Modeller's Handbook was published in the UK, so many of the reference products and materials such as paints and tools might not be available in other regions outside of the UK. Thankfully many of the model brands, paints, supplies, tools are distributed worldwide, so this is not a big worry when reading. The handbook works well for the customer if he or she has general model building skills. It is a good resource for awareness for beginning modellers; however, it does not have adequate information to serve as a "how-to" guide.

The handbook's pictures are all well done and all in glorious full color. (Please see the 5 user images I have provided for Amazon) There are 3 projects featured in the book. The first being a build that is straight up out of the box with no customizations or modifications. The second project concentrates on adding extra detail such as carbon fiber decals and photo-etched parts. And the final project is for direct customization, which utilize advance techniques. Each project is well covered for a satisfying reading.

I have been building scale model cars for over 13 years and I still learned a good amount of new information when reading this book. When searching for information on specific techniques such as applying photo-etched parts, transkits, or building styles, often it is very difficult to find a good amount of information whether on the internet or in book form. And more often than not, when it is in book form, it is usually very sparse and limited. I really dislike finding message board threads and forums on the net that require some sort of membership just to read the information, only to find out hardly anyone participates or even responds to your questions. The reading from this book will partially be a solution to that, and will give the reader a good amount of information to digest.

I do believe this is a necessary read for anyone looking to commit into this time consuming hobby. The only reason why I did not award this a 5 star review is because it is not a fully comprehensive "step-by-step" guide. A publication on that type of level would definitely require a lot more than 144 pages. That being said, I am very satisfied with this purchase and would recommend it if you take scale model car building seriously.

Don't buy this book if you are seeking a how-to on building a Hot Rod or muscle car. But the skills taught in each of these builds can relate to the skills needed to build other automotive styles.

If you wanna great guide to build some great Japanese kits and a conversion of a Ferarri kit - as well as a very good build of a Formula 1 Ferarri - this is the book for you.

This book is very well written with very good illustrations. Each build is given its own chapter which follows each build from start to finish.

I recommend this book for novice builders to build their skills and "raise the bar" on their builds.

After reading this handbook, I am going to start my car modeling sooner than I planed! Great information for anyone..........