Ferrari FXX-K

[harti20]

Hi all 🙂

After finishing the Ford GT it's time for a new project. Once again I chose something from Maranello, the Ferrari FXX-K. The kit is by Tamiya in 1/24 scale. I will also use the Detail Up-Set by HobbyDesign and the Carbon Decal-Set by Tamiya.

First I started with the engine. The resin part on top is not glued on yet.

Then I mocked up the engine and the monocoque to see how everything fits together.

That's where I'm at now. As always I'm looking forward to your comments, critics and plaudits 🙂
Urs

[PHolden74]

Some nice job goin' up here, keep it up Urs 🔥 I'm excited to see the final product.

[slusher]

Nice start!

[Ian McLaren]

I've been curious about this kit, I love Tamiya the basic kit is so well engineered and molded that you can work on additions knowing the foundation is solid and square.  I will be following this one with interest.

[harti20]

Thank you very much for your kind comments. I hope, I will do this kit justice.  I already started it about 18 months ago, but after cutting the engine parts from the sprue I had the impression that I'd be overextnded by this kit and put it back to my stash.

[harti20]

Hi all

Not much progress to show here, as I'm currently mainly working on another project which I won't be able to show before mid may.

Nevertheless some small steps are done. First the resin part for the engine you can see on the first picture in the starting post has received all its attachement parts and is now ready for the primer stage.

Then some of the body parts have been cut from the sprue. Now they need some sanding and removing of the injection marks.

That's all for this update. I wish all of you a good week
Urs

[harti20]

Hi all

Time for another update on this build. Work continued, although in small steps only. First of all a mock up to see if everything fits. As this is a Tamiya kit I wasn't really surprised that everything seems to be fine so far 🙂

Then the fins from the kit part have been removed to add the fins from the PE set afterwards. Some scratches have been filled with some sanding dust and Tamiya Cement.

The outsides of the doors have been assembled and sanded smooth

The join lines on the bonnet have been filled the same way I used on the diffusor. On the left side you can see the final result after sanding and polishing, on the right side you see how it looked after letting it sit and cure for a few days.

And that's how the bonnet looks now. I'm quite happy with the way it turned out. Especially as this was the first time I tried this technique to fill the seams.

When doing a mock up with the PE fins I noticed that I made a mistake at the leftmost groove. On the rear end it was about 1 mm too much on the right side. So I had to close the end of the groove and rescribe it. That's why I'm still sanding and filling, but it seems to come to an end as well. Once this is finished, all the sanding of the body parts should be completed and I should be able to start priming and painting them.

That's all for today. I hope that next time I have finished sanding the diffusor and that I found out whether the diffusor is made out of carbon or not. I already cut the stencils for the carbon decals, but when I looked at pictures of the original car, I only saw a satin black diffusor. Now I'm not sure anymore whether I should use carbon decals or only paint it black...

Urs

 

[beeRS]

Good work so far. I can tell this is going to be another epic build. I’ll be watching.

The FXXK is on my build list, but the carbon fibre decal work is scaring me off a little. 

[harti20]

Hi all

On 6/16/2022 at 7:11 AM, beeRS said:

Good work so far. I can tell this is going to be another epic build. I’ll be watching.

The FXXK is on my build list, but the carbon fibre decal work is scaring me off a little. 

Thank you very much. I hope I will do this kit justice

The diffusor is sanded, primered and painted now. As I couldn't find any picture showing the FXX-K's diffusor in carbon, I decided to make life easy and paint everything in a light black.

But let's start at the beginning
First I had to re-engrave the grooves for the two most inner fins. Initially I thought I wouldn't need them to install the fins and filled and sanded them. But when doing a mock-up I noticed that I'll need them anyway. In this picture all the grooves are engraved and widened enough to make the fins fit perfectly. That gives some more stability to the construction.

Then the fins could be attached

And to finish it off, everything was painted in Zero Paints Jet Black, mixed with a tiny amount of Brilliant White.

That's everything for this week. For the upcoming week I plan to blacken the panel lines and maybe apply some primer to the body parts.
Urs

[BVC500]

Great start, can't wait to see more.

[mrm]

The diffuser is in fact carbon. But they used their F1 “plain weave” (or whatever it is called) carbon, which is structural and not for show, like on the LaFerrari’s roofs of some cars. So it is finished in semigloss, which makes it look like plain black. Unless you look at it from really close. The only scale decal I have seen depicting this carbon finish fatefully in scale is on BBR’s 1/18 models. I guess if you use 1/43 scale plain weave carbon (looks like dots) it would be the closest. 

[harti20]

1 hour ago, mrm said:

The diffuser is in fact carbon. But they used their F1 “plain weave” (or whatever it is called) carbon, which is structural and not for show, like on the LaFerrari’s roofs of some cars. So it is finished in semigloss, which makes it look like plain black. Unless you look at it from really close. The only scale decal I have seen depicting this carbon finish fatefully in scale is on BBR’s 1/18 models. I guess if you use 1/43 scale plain weave carbon (looks like dots) it would be the closest. 

Thank you very much. I almost thought it had something to be that way, as I couldn't imagine Ferrari building a car for race tracks only without using carbon on the diffusor. But if it's almost invisible without getting very close, I'll leave it that way 🙂

Urs

[harti20]

Hi all

Only a small update this week, as I was mainly working on another project which could be completed yesterday.

The wiring of the engine has started

Then I tried to simulate the heat shield. Therefore I used some usual aluminium foil and pressed the handle of a tool against it to impress the structure. Afterwards I wrapped it around the manifold. I'm not really happy with it yet because of the wrinkles in the foil. Up to now I didn't decide yet whether I will follow this path or just leave it painted like the one in the background.

That's all for this update. I hope the next one will be more extensive 🙂 
Urs

[Raoul Ross]

Actually I like the foil/heat shield you made, can't look much different than the 1:1 does.

[mrm]

I have built a Tamiya LaFerrari, which I superdetailed. Spent endless days and nights researching where every wire goes and what every hose does. Got every available aftermarket detail part for it - photoetch and all. And after it got put together you can’t see 90% of the detail I was obsessing about.
  To each their own, but if It was me, I would seriously consider what would be visible and what not and save a ton of time and effort.  

Edited June 27, 2022 by mrm

[mrm]

1 hour ago, harti20 said:

Hi all

Only a small update this week, as I was mainly working on another project which could be completed yesterday.

The wiring of the engine has started

Then I tried to simulate the heat shield. Therefore I used some usual aluminium foil and pressed the handle of a tool against it to impress the structure. Afterwards I wrapped it around the manifold. I'm not really happy with it yet because of the wrinkles in the foil. Up to now I didn't decide yet whether I will follow this path or just leave it painted like the one in the background.

That's all for this update. I hope the next one will be more extensive 🙂 
Urs

Get an empty cigarette box and pull the foil from inside. It has the perfect texture for heat shields. 

[harti20]

1 hour ago, mrm said:

And after it got put together you can’t see 90% of the detail I was obsessing about.

That's what I was thinking about too... Maybe I'll make another attempt trying to improve the look of the heat shield and if it doesn't turn out the way I like I know that nobody will ever see it again once the FXX-K is finished. But it will definitely be a good practice for occasions it will be visible in another project 🙂 

[hobbyfella]

You’re off to a great start! This is a great kit, and with the Hobby Design detail set it’ll built up nicely. I really like what you’ve done on the lower rear diffuser! Awesome work! 

Fair warning, the silver kit decals for the body are a nasty mess. They crack and split if you look at them wrong. I got so far as to change the body color on mine and get after market decals. Maybe I got a bad set, maybe I need more practice on decals. 
 

Can’t wait to see what you do with this! Following! 

[harti20]

Hi all 🙂

On 6/28/2022 at 6:43 AM, hobbyfella said:

You’re off to a great start! This is a great kit, and with the Hobby Design detail set it’ll built up nicely. I really like what you’ve done on the lower rear diffuser! Awesome work! 

Fair warning, the silver kit decals for the body are a nasty mess. They crack and split if you look at them wrong. I got so far as to change the body color on mine and get after market decals. Maybe I got a bad set, maybe I need more practice on decals. 
 

Can’t wait to see what you do with this! Following! 

Thank you very much 🙂 I'll keep that in mind with the decals. Happily there are some third party decals available if the ones from Tamiya aren't usable.

This week I wanted to start primering and painting the body parts. Therefore I double checked whether everything was ready and went through the instructions. Doing this I noticed that I forgot to add two parts to the bonnet, so I had to add them first. And because you can't see any seam on the real car I first had to let the joint disappear by using the method shown in one of my previous updates. So I lost quite the whole weekend with letting the sprue goo dry and sand it back. I hope now that I'll be able to at least prime the body parts by the end of this week. In the picture I just spotted a very tiny seam where the two parts come together, so I'll check that again and maybe fill / sand once again to make it really smooth.

While the sprue goo was drying I primered the rims from the detail up set with Alclad Gloss Black Base and painted it afterwards with Airframe Aluminium, also from Alclad.

Finally I assembled and painted the brake discs from the detail up set. The center has been painted in Zero Paints Jet Black, while the outer part received some Zero Paints Carbon Grey. The recesses in the outer parts will be darkened with some Tamiya Accen Panel Line Black later.

That's all for this week 🙂 
Urs

[harti20]

Hi all

After finishing the filling and sanding on the bonnet, I was ready to start the painting process. As two of the parts that are supposed to be painted red are moulded in black, I decided to first prime everything black to get a uniform base color. When I saw all the parts in black I was considering leaving the body in black, but changed back to red shortly after. But a black Ferrari stays in the back of my head maybe for the FXX (without -K, the race version of the Ferrari Enzo).

After that two coats of Pure Brilliant White have been applied. As the paint had some coarse spots I had to sand it back in some locations. Now I will add one or two additional coats of white before continuing with pink and finally painting it in red. This time it will be a slightly different red than I used to use for the Ferraris I built so far, namely Rosso Scuderia.

Finally I finished the engine up to the point where I can install it on the undercarriage. As nothing of it will be seen once the car is finished, I'll leave it the way it is now.

That's all for this week's update.
Urs

[Funkychiken]

nice technique withe seams of the body components, I can't see myself having the skill or patience for that... coming along nicely! love it....

[beeRS]

I like the ‘sprue goo’ technique you’ve been using to fill panel lines. 
Nice job with the paint so far. I would never have thought of using black as a way of unifying the body colours. What a great idea. 
Keep up the good work. 

[harti20]

Hi all 🙂

Thank you for your kind comments, I really appreciate it.

This week the body parts got two or three coats of pink primer (unfortunately forgot to take pictures after that stage). After letting the primer cure I applied one thin coat of Rosso Scuderia. In the next few days I'll apply another one or two coats before starting the decal work and clear coating

While letting the primer and paint cure I started applying the CF decals on the monocoque. So far they went down without any major problems. But looking at the sheer number of them they will be keeping me busy for a while.

Parallel to painting the body parts and decaling the monocoque I also painted the air box. In the areas where I'll have to apply CF decals I didn't take that much care masking it because the overspray will be hidden by the decals later. The black paint on the large part on the right went down quite rough, so I had to sand it down, that's why it looks so blotchy. But again this part will be covered completley by CF decals, so I don't really care about that.

Finally there is the heat shield I showed in one of my previous posts and mentioned that I'll start over with it. Given the fact that nothing at all will be seen in the final model I can live with the outcome. If it was visible, I'd fix the corner on the very left side, but especially this part won't ever see any daylight, so it's absolutely ok for me.

That's all for this week. During the next week I'll continue painting the body and applying CF decals on the monocoque. If I'll need some change I'll start work on the dashboard.
Urs

[beeRS]

Great work Urs. With regards to overspray in areas that will be covered up with carbon decals, are the decals fully opaque?

[harti20]

Hi all

On 7/20/2022 at 7:04 AM, beeRS said:

Great work Urs. With regards to overspray in areas that will be covered up with carbon decals, are the decals fully opaque?

Thank you. Yes, the decals are fully opaque. But what I didn't think of was the fact that in some areas the decals won't fit properly (or I won't be able to lay them down in a way that everything is covered 😁). But that wil  be no problem to repair it once everything is done. I didn't take any pictures of this part as it's not yet ready.

The body parts received some more thin coats of red. Now I'll scrub everything with some scouring milk to smoothen it out even more. Afterwards it will be time to apply the decals and clear coat. After that the parts which need to be painted in semi gloss black will be painted accordingly. Another way to go would be to paint the black parts now already, then put decals and (gloss) clear coat and once everything is cured, mask the black parts off and apply some semi gloss clear coat over it. But as the black paint already dries with a very nice satin finish I think it's easier to choose option one. In any case I will mask off everything that has to be black before I continue, leave the masking tape on the model for a few days and then remove it (without actually painting anything), just to make sure that paint and primer stick good enough. If I rip paint off in this stage it will be annoying, but easy fixable.

Then I applied (almost) all of the remaining carbon decals on the monocoque and sealed them in with some matte clear coat this afternoon. Initially I wanted to apply a glossy clear coat over them, but when I looked again at my reference pics, I noticed that on the 1:1 car the carbon on the interior looked semi gloss at  most, if not dull. From the last time I used this matte clear coat, I had in mind, that it dries with some sheen, almost like semi gloss, so I decided to use this one. Well, today it turned out really flat... But somehow I like the look as it is, so I'll leave it this way. In the beginning of this paragraph I wrote that I applied almost all carbon decals. One on each side is still missing. I already put one of them in the water yesterday to apply it, but then noticed that something was weird. After consulting the building instructions I saw my mistake: these two decals can only be applied after the undercarriage, including the engine, and the monocoque have been united. As the masking of the fully assembled unit would have been to complex, I decided to go this way. Once this unit is finished it will be much easier to apply the decals and only mask off the areas needed for them to apply the clear coat.

After that the first PE parts on the rear have been glued on. The pipes aren't painted to make them a little more visible in the end.

Finally some switches and knobs on the middle console have been painted. The carbon decals enclosing this part are still missing. Thankfully the large front decal has wholes where the switches are, so that de detail painting won't be lost. To be honest, I knew that before and thought, that way I wouldn't have to pay that much attention to the detail painting 😉

That's all for this week's update. I hope you enjoy it and wish you all a good week 🙂 
Urs