Nacho Z

While working on the new injectors I also worked on trying to make a mesh air funnel cap. I am fairly happy with the results. I had some fine mesh that I bought years ago. I had these tools that I use to form parts when I build metal models. The mesh pieces are not 100% uniform and I may have to do some tweaking on a few of them. It is not really noticeable to the naked eye. I do think they add a nice touch. I will leave them brass. I have seen plenty of photos of F1 cars from this era with both silver and brass. I think the brass will add visual interest. I made the rings by wrapping 24 gauge wire around the appropriate sized drill bit. Just a mockup, nothing glued in place yet. I like it! Here is a shot of all the pieces that will go into the air funnels and injectors.

You are off to a good start, Curt! I'm looking forward to seeing your progress on this one.

This is just too cool, Craig!! I love all of the colors on all of the things...lol. But really, they all play so well together. Great job!

Andrew, I’m not sure how we’re not best friends…lol. Maybe we were separated at birth? ?. I’m a big fan of Andy’s work. When I decided to do the Williams FW14B I started to gather aftermarket items and reference material. My wife reached out to Andy and I have an autographed copy of his Clearview book. I was really looking forward to getting the Ferrari one too but I don’t believe it was ever published.

Hmmmm, I have the Lotus, still sealed. I have heard that about it. Another motorized kit I believe (?). I have older friends who have these kits from the original releases. They give me the horror stories…lol. They are also good sources for knowing how to fix some of the issues and where to get corrected aftermarket items. I have got just about everything that can be had for the Williams FW14B. That may very well be my next large scale kit on the bench.

Unfortunately, Andrew, I believe you are correct about Master Club. I have a decent stash of them. I also agree with you about the air funnels. I will shoot them with Alclad or AK Interactive Xtreme Metals. I will lean toward the highly polished finish vs. a duller finish. Thanks for the reply. I appreciate any feedback that I get. I don’t think this build is everyone’s cup of tea. It may pick up a little steam the further along I get in the build.

Hi, Curt! I think we just met today over on FB…lol. Welcome to the forum. BTW, I have a current thread going on my Matra MS11 in the WIP section.

Keeping on the subject of air funnels and injectors. I have been concentrating my efforts and work on these. At this time they are not finished but are close to being done. I will share the progression of my work. I will keep repeating that I am not the world's best scratch builder. I have a general idea of what I want to accomplish and then it takes me several tries to figure out how to make it. The kit supplied injectors are incorrect for any Matra engine that I have seen. The kit supplied injectors are also poorly molded and would have taken a lot of work to make them look presentable. Here are two pictures from the internet of what the 1:1 look like. This is what the kit supplied setup would look like. I came up with a basic game plan of how to make new ones and how to correct the existing air funnels. I glued the incorrect injectors into place on the funnels. I cut off the injector "arms" and then filled the leftover gap with CA glue. I hit the CA glue with accelerator and sanded the area smooth. I tried to create the base for the new injectors by hand but quickly realized that I would never get 12 uniform bases. My wife cut them out for me on her Cricut. They are slightly oversized. I wanted to be able to add the injector nozzle and two bolt heads to each one. I cut two different sizes of brass tubing to represent the nozzle and its base. I used .7mm MasterClub bolts. Here is the first mockup. Nothing is glued into place yet.

Good question, Bruce. I’m sure they thought about it and came to the conclusion that this was the best way to go. I have scratch built new, correct injectors and shot the funnels in primer to check my work. I have found that I had more sanding and/or putty work on those attachment points.

I really like this one. It takes me back to my high school days when those cars were just used cars and they looked like yours. Great model! Thanks for sharing.

Very nice, very nice indeed!

She really is beautiful, Chris! Like Pierre stated above, these kits have huge potential but only in the right hands. Outstanding work!

I’m a little late to the party but I do want to wish the best and a speedy and full recovery to whatever is going on with you, Snake!

I have been horrible about commenting on your other builds even though I’m blown away by them. I am going to follow along on this one and try to do much better on commenting. I know for me it is nice to see others appreciate my efforts. It gives me a little extra incentive to keep posting my progress. Not that you need it but good luck on this build!

This is just fantastic!! Kudos to you!

I'm still early enough in this build that I can jump from one step in the build sequence to another. There is still a lot of work to be done before I can start gluing and painting. I'm actually still figuring out what I'm going to leave as is and what I'm going to try to detail. I'm also trying to test fit as much as I can. Here is the underside of the front where the nose will attach. There was a gap that could not be ignored. I added sheet styrene. Looking from the front to the rear. Sheet styrene has been trimmed and sanded. Another view. I have started work on the engine. There were a lot of kit parts that were chromed and the 12 air funnels were some of them. Unfortunately the air funnels and injectors needed to be cleaned up. There are terrible attachment points on the funnels and the injectors are incorrect for the Matra V-12 engine. I have made new injectors. But first, look at how Tamiya tooled the funnels. The attachment points are on the delicate and highly visible funnel lips. I did two sessions of oven cleaner on the kit chrome trees. The chrome came right off but the lacquer coating gave me some issues. Here is a picture of all 12 air funnels cleaned up. The opening at the base is where the kit injectors go. I had one air funnel that had a chunk broken out of it at the attachment point. I did some careful filling and sanding with Tamiya putty.

Like Dan said, I've been following him on IG for some time. Never get tired of seeing his posts.

Thank you, Chris! I have more interesting updates coming shortly.

Rich, I consider this high praise coming from you! I am basically quoting this from several other guys who have built this kit, it is nearly impossible to build an exact replica of a certain car with what you are given in the kit. My goal is to build a clean, well detailed model which may or may not have existed in real life. As you know these cars constantly changed. Photographic evidence is lacking for this Matra so I’m doing the best that I can with what I have and the skills, (or lack there of), that I possess.

Not the most exciting update but I wanted to show what I'm working with in terms of quality. This really increases the build time to an already long-term build. Keep in mind this is a '60s tooling. The rear bulkhead had both raised and indented ejector pin marks. I use CA glue and kicker to fill these in. Sanded smooth. Part on the left is prior to clean up, the one on the right is after. Another thing that I had read about this kit and photos of built kits backed this up was that the wheels were too wide for the tires. In the release that I am building there was a little note in the supplemental instruction sheet that said to remove 2.5mm off of the wheel back along a small ridge. Here is the result of removing the 2.5mm of material. Original on the left, modified on the right. The tires now fit perfectly. Last up is the front bulkhead. There is literally no kit supplied detail to it. With any luck it will look like the picture below when I am done with it. This is from the restoration of the real car.

I love it!! I was born and raised in North Dakota not far from Minot / Minot AFB. I would see these all of the time. What an awesome plane and what a great looking model!! Bravo!

She looks great, Mike! Am I correct in thinking this is 1:8 scale?

Man, Rich, you are my hero!! You literally build all of the models that I have in my stash and you build them to such a high level! I truly look forward to seeing your posts even though I’m not good about commenting on them. This is just fantastic! Top shelf in my opinion. Thanks for sharing.

The next update is what I call the evolution of the gauge cluster. I want to add some detail to it. I tried a few things and had more failures than successes. However, in the end I will end up with a nice assembly. Here is the kit part. I have cleaned up the ejector pin marks. The gauge bezels are to be aluminum in color. There is no way that I can paint them neatly. I thought I would paint it black with a wire ring on the top of the bezel. This is the first experiment with some spare wire I had laying around. I just wrapped it around a drill bit. See the far right gauge. This might work. Second experiment. I might be on to something. I need to get the rings to lay flat and I need to close up the small gap. I will replace the molded in toggle switches with these beautiful Top Studio items. Those homemade bezel rings were bothering me and then I remembered that I had Scale Motorsports "Wizard O's". Much better. Toggle switches temporarily installed. There were these weird wells in each gauge. I am sure that when I place the decal in the gauge area it will slightly sink into the hole. I used my punch set to make discs. Problem solved. Here is the backside of the gauge cluster. I will wire and/or plumb each one as appropriate. Each gauge has a bracket that holds it in place. I tried to replicate the brackets with leftover PE runners but was unhappy with the results. I had nothing thin enough. I will use BMF instead.

This is too cool!! Your example is one of the nicest I’ve seen. Great job!