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No video tonight, I've spent the past 2 weeks having my first real holiday in about 4 years and I guess the lack of sanding put my body into shock because I've been sick since I got back but I'm almost fully recovered now.

There's a quick teaser of what I'm working on for the next video, some might even call it a spoiler. I needed a bit of a change of pace so I'm taking a quick  break from the Stagea to get some more work done on this Miata. 

I'm trying to see if it's going to be something I can finish in one episode or two but either way I'm hard at work and aiming to have it up as soon as possible. 

※ その下に日本語訳。

So I've had a bit of a dilemma lately.

As we all know, it's just me here. No editors or anybody to help with the sanding or fiberglassing, so that does mean that every now and then when orders pile up it is pretty tough to keep up with the videos which is why my uploads have been a bit inconsistent.

I'm sorry about that and want everyone to know that I am still alive and working as hard as ever on my builds and these videos.

But I also want to just take this time to dive a little into the behind the scenes and some changes that I'm making to my videos. Since I don't talk in my videos these posts are really the only chance I get to have a proper 1 on 1 with you guys haha.

So we're 30 episodes in to this Stagea build now, and it feels like the past 6 months have just been sanding bodyfiller and making moulds. And I know you guys are awesome and there's nothing you want more than another 40 minute sanding compilation, but I feel like even I'm getting a little tired of the same old thing every 2 weeks. 😂 

Because of that I've decided that I want to try a slight change with how often I upload and so for the next few months I'm going to be holding off a little longer between uploads so that each video covers more actual work.

The way I've been doing it until now is usually about 7 - 10 solid days work with 3 - 4 days compiling and editing the video, leaving me a couple days for my other fiberglass orders and if I'm lucky, maybe a day off. Then rinse and repeat every 2 weeks. That means only half of my time is really going into these builds and as a result, they take bloody forever.

I'm not giving up on my 2 week upload schedule for good, but I think it's important to find a good balance in life and so if I've got 3 fiberglass orders to take care of the same week I'm supposed to finish 2 moulds and make a video, it means the video probably isn't going up that week.

All that said, the next video is underway and I hope to have it up real soon. But I'm curious, if I were to add in smaller videos, less time demanding, what sort of stuff would you be interested in seeing? Various tips and tricks? Car meets? 4 hours of unedited sanding / fiberglassing? Random little side projects? Let me know.

You guys are awesome and you're support means the world to me so thank you.





最近、私はちょっとしたジレンマを抱えている。

というのも、僕は自分ひとりで仕事をし、これらのビデオを撮影しているため、たまに注文が重なると、ビデオをアップロードし続けるのがかなり難しくなってしまうのだ。

申し訳なく思っているし、まだ新しいエピソードのために頑張っていることを知ってほしい。

また、私が行っているいくつかの変更について、舞台裏で少しお話したいと思います。カメラに向かって話すことはないので、1対1で話す唯一のチャンスなんだ。

このステージアの製作も30回を迎えましたが、この6ヶ月間はボディフィラーを研磨したり、メス型を作ったりしていたような気がします。君たちはすごいし、もっともっとサンディングのビデオを楽しみたいだろうけど、僕だって2週間ごとに同じことの繰り返しにはちょっと飽きてきたんだ。😂 

そのため、今後数ヶ月はアップロードの間隔を少し長く取り、各ビデオがより実際の作業をカバーできるようにすることにしました。

今までのやり方だと、だいたい7～10日間しっかり仕事をして、3～4日でビデオをまとめて編集していた。これだと、他の注文のために2、3日しか残らないし、運が良ければ2週間に1日は休める。このため、私はこれらのビルドに半分の時間しか費やさないので、永遠に時間がかかるのだ。

2週間に1回のアップロードを完全に諦めたくはないが、生活の中で健全なバランスを見つけることは重要なので、複数のメス型とビデオを作る必要がある同じ時期にファイバーグラスの注文がたくさん入った場合、その週はビデオをアップできないかもしれない。

とはいえ、次のビデオは現在制作中で、すぐにでもアップしたいと思っている。でも、もし私がもっと小さなビデオを追加するとしたら、あまり時間がかからないとしたら、どんなものを見たいと思いますか？様々なヒントやトリック？車ミーティング？編集なしの4時間のサンディング／ファイバーグラスティング？ランダムな小さなサイドプロジェクト？教えてください。

君たちは素晴らしいし、君たちのサポートは僕にとって大きな意味がある。 

Who's ready for some more cyberpunk Miata content! 

Time for a break from the Stagea I reckon and so next week's video will be back to work on the Chimera! I aim to have it up at the regular time and date so set your alarms, YouTube has been doing a trash job sharing my videos with my subscribers lately so don't miss it.  


I also like to use these posts for a little behind the scenes since I don't really get a chance to talk otherwise.

So this year the goal with my videos is to try and balance my workload a bit better to hopefully not burn out. To do that I've decided to limit myself to strictly 7 days of solid work per episode, excluding editing. I quite often end up doing way more than this which usually leaves me with over 500GB of footage to edit and it can take days to get through it all. Hopefully cutting back will give me at least a couple days off every 2 weeks.

My other reason for wanting to do this is I'm trying to build up a bit of a buffer so I'm not constantly under pressure to get a video up. I've got some really big plans coming the end of the year that will require me to be out of the country for a couple months and I don't want to leave you with no videos, so I have to start working towards that now.

This will just be a quick detour with the Chimera as I just want to do a few small pieces around the front and then I'll get back to the Stagea and maybe even sprinkle in a few one-off episodes on some other odd jobs. 

We're finally back! 

I know it's been a huge wait but it's been a great past 2 months of working mostly off camera with the music going, jandals on, enjoying a kiwi summer. 

The next Stagea episode will be going up at the usual time this weekend and then it's back into regular uploads.

If you want to watch the video early and ad free, it's been up for a few days already over on my Patreon for members at all tiers along with some extra posts and some exclusive behind the scenes content.
 https://www.patreon.com/TofuAutoWorks 

※ その下に日本語訳。
Hey everybody! How we all doing?


It's been a pretty full on past few weeks for me, starting off with enjoying a little bit of time off over the break but pretty quickly getting straight back into working on the Stagea as well as some of my regular fiberglass orders.

Figured I'd give everyone a bit of an update on what's been happening the past month. 

Starting off with printing the entire widebody a second time because I wasn't happy with the initial fitment. This set me back about 2 weeks, and it wasn't helped by me forgetting to flip one of the parts and wasting 2 more days printing another drivers side rear fender.

After I finally got the prints bonded to the car I got stuck into everyone's favorite part of my builds, sanding body filler. I'm pretty much done with the rear fender now, and about half way through the front, then it's just the sideskirts and small details left to go.

In the next couple weeks I hope to start editing all the footage I've compiled and so hopefully soon after that I'll be back into the regular uploads.


I've been posting more in depth updates on the build over on my Patreon so if you're itching to see more of the progress feel free to check out the latest post and maybe consider joining for access to all build content.
 https://www.patreon.com/TofuAutoWorks 







みなさん こんにちは！

この数週間、僕にとってはかなり忙しい日々だった。最初は少し休暇を楽しんだが、すぐにステージアの仕事に戻った。この1ヶ月の近況をみんなに報告しようと思う。

まず、最初のフィッティングに満足できなかったので、ワイドボディ全体を2回目にプリントするところから始めた。それから、運転席側のリアフェンダーを反転させるのを忘れて、さらに2日無駄にプリントした。

その後、ボディフィラーのサンディングを始めた。これでリアフェンダーはほぼ完成し、フロントも半分くらいできたので、あとはサイドステップと細かいディテールを残すだけだ。

あと2、3週間したら、まとめた映像の編集を始めたいから、そのあとすぐに通常のアップロードに戻れるといいな。

Patreonに、より詳細な最新情報を投稿している。もっと見たければ、Patreonに参加するか、チェックすることを検討してほしい。
 https://www.patreon.com/TofuAutoWorks 

What an insane journey.

So I didn't mention this anywhere on social media, but behind the scenes a few months ago I decided to enter my cyberpunk Mx5 in the HotWheels Legends Tour.

I deliberately kept this under wraps because I've entered a lot of comps with this car and it's never once made a podium or brought home any type of prize at all, and I know how frustrating that can be for everyone cheering for this thing.


When they announced the regional winners a few weeks ago and I heard that this car had beaten all the competitors from Australia and New Zealand to make it through to the global semi finals, where it would face off against the top 20 cars from all around the world, I was stoked because I already saw that as a massive win.

From there the competition moved on to the top 10 and sitting there in lucky 10th place was the Mx5. 

Then finally Yesterday the judging panel filled with some amazing guests and automotive icons including Jay Leno and Larry Chen decided on which one to crown the global winner that would go on to be immortalized as a 1:64th scale die cast.


And as you can see in the photo, this little Mx5 that I built in a shed here on a farm in rural New Zealand ended up taking the victory. This means that this car will be turned into a 1:64th scale Hot Wheels that you will all be able to go and pick up one for yourselves.

It's honestly such a huge honor. Such an amazing lineup with so many inspiring builds to pick from. Congratulations to all the finalists, it was a real joy battling against the best of the best. 🔥

I'll finish off with a little sneak peak of the next video that will be coming up next weekend showing what's happening to this car to earn it's new nickname "The Chimera" and will be the final mx5 video for a little while as I get back into the Skygea. 

Just a heads up that there wont be a video up today as the "quick project" I had planned for the Miata ended up taking a lot long than I expected and is actually going to turn into a 2 part mini series.

Here's a small teaser of what to expect next week in Part 1. 

※ その下に日本語訳。
So the results from the poll were definitely in favor of RM35 and Skygea over the other options. From reading the comments it sounds like we should use RM35 for this particular build (R35 GTR front on an M35 Stagea body) and then Skygea for these swaps in general (Skyline fronts on Stagea bodies)

I had a lot of comments suggesting some cool ideas, but the reason I wanted to change the name was to fit the convention of all the other front end swaps. It's actually pretty important to have the name the right way around as that's how a lot of these cars are defined. The S13 Silvia and 180sx for example. A Sil-eighty, and a One-via are very different cars.

For that reason I think it would be a good idea to start calling this GTR Stagea build either an RM35 or Skygea or Both. Of course the most clear way of describing it is still "R35 GTR front end swapped M35 Stagea" but that's not a very snappy, YouTube title friendly name.

Then there's the whole discussion of the R35 not being a real Skyline. Now this is my opinion so feel free to disagree, but to me the Skyline range officially ended in 2001 with the introduction of the 11th gen and so if you ask me, the R35 GTR is the last unofficial Skyline.

But most importantly, Skygea just sounds better than Geegea, or Argea, and it fits the trend of all the previous gens. 

In short, call it whatever you like. I've personally been calling this car the Eikō Maru and I'll give a gold star to anyone who can find out why.


P.S. I also wanted to just let you know that the next video is going to be on the Mx5, doing a very highly requested video but it's taking a little while so it wont be up this weekend, but should be done by next weekend at the usual time.



：）



投票の結果は、RM35とスカイジアに他の選択肢よりも断然支持されました。コメントを読む限りでは、この特定のビルド（M35ステージアボディにR35 GTRフロント）にはRM35を使い、これらのスワップ全般（ステージアボディにスカイラインフロント）の名前にはSkygeaを使うべきだということです。

いいコメントもたくさんもらったんだけど、名前を変えたかったのは、他のフロントエンドのスワップの慣例に合わせるためなんだ。多くのクルマがそう定義されているように、名前を正しくすることは実はとても重要なことなんだ。例えば、S13シルビアや180sx。シルエイティとワンビアはまったく違う車だ。

そのため、このGTRステージアビルドをRM35かスカイジア、あるいはその両方と呼ぶのがいいと思う。もちろん、一番わかりやすいのは「R35 GTRフロントエンドをスワップしたM35ステージア」だけど、それだとYouTubeのタイトルにふさわしくない。

それから、R35は本物のスカイラインではないという議論もある。これは僕の意見なので異論があれば遠慮なく言ってほしいんだけど、僕にとってスカイラインは2001年の第11世代の登場で正式に終了したわけで、僕に言わせればR35 GTRが最後の非公式スカイラインなんだ。

しかし、最も重要なのは、スカイジアがジージアやアルジアよりも良いということだ。

要するに、好きなように呼べばいい。私は個人的にこのクルマを「Eikō Maru」と呼んでいるが、その理由がわかる人には金星をあげよう。


P.S.また、次のビデオはMx5で、非常にリクエストの多かったビデオを予定しているが、少し時間がかかっているので今週末にはアップできない。 

Today's video is the biggest single episode I've ever put together at nearly 50 minutes of ASMR sanding and fiberglassing goodness. 



But before that goes up in about 10 hours I wanted to ask you all a question. What should we call this conversion?

In the video titles you'll have seen me call it a "Sta-GTR" for short, but that name never really worked because with the normal naming convention, a Skyline front on a Stagea rear would be called a Sky-gea. Other examples: Sileighty, Onevia, Skyeighty, Silfiro, Odyvia etc...



The obvious name for this conversion would be a Skygea but 'TeChNiCaLlY' the Nissan GTR isn't a Skyline (Nissan why?) So what do we think? Do we call it a Skygea anyway or do we call it a Geegea, (Gtr x staGEA) or an Argea (R35 x staGEA) or maybe even an RM35? (R35 x M35) Let me know what you think in the poll or comments below. 

We just hit 100,000 subscribers!! 🎉🥳

This blows my mind, I'm still processing it but I still had to thank every single one of you that helped in getting here.


I wanted to do something to give back and celebrate this milestone but we ended up hitting 100k much sooner than expected so I wasn't quite ready haha. Rest assured I've been working hard behind the scenes on some pretty big developments for the future of Tofu Auto Works as well as setting up new ties with a team of incredibly talented people on the other side of the world who I am massively looking forward to teaming up with. 

What I will say though is that this new partnership will be great news to everyone outside of NZ who has been interested in ordering my fiberglass parts. Very soon we'll be able to say goodbye to NZ shipping prices and I can finally start offering parts to you at a super affordable rate so that I can share this hobby that I love with all of you. 



I'm not really the sort of channel that tries to make a big deal out of the YouTube side of things, I really just enjoy working on cars, making my videos and letting YouTube happen. So I thought I'd throw the ball to you. What would you guys love to see more of going forward or even as a 100,000 special? (And don't ask for a voice reveal 😂)

When I started this channel back in 2020 the plan was honestly to just share the occasional video for a handful of people as I tried to find a replacement for build forums of the old days. I genuinely never expected to get here and I'm so grateful to all of you for supporting what I'm so passionate about. 

So again, thank you all so much. 🙏