4knflyin

Thanks. Of course, you wanted the wheels most. Do you recall if the mirrors were unnoticeably different from the originals? They’re my focus.

Hey there. I'm building this kit right now and have looked for the right side mirror to no avail. Thanks! Can anybody attest to whether it's worth printing these mirrors?

Thanks. How did you create the dotted lines on the steering wheel and front wing? Until I saw this post, it never registered with me that those lines on the wing exist. So, thanks for that too! ?.

And yet you did. And well.

You know, I think you’re right. I’m so used to using brake fluid that smells awful, bike racing blue. But I recently used DOT3 fluid I had around from when I worked on a friends car, and it had no odor at all and had the same consistency as the ELO. Brillient deduction, Watson.

OMG, that fact that this site doesn't autosave. This is the second time I've wiped out a post that I'd invested a significant amount of my waning energy writing. I don't normally yell when I'm alone. Just now was an exception. Hold on! What just happened. All of a sudden all the pics from the lost post got loaded into this one. Holy crapoly, if I'd have waited would what I wrote have populate this post? Anybody know? The Exhaust Here's where a month of this year went to pot. From overhandling, I broke off the headers on one side. I'd been using them like handles to hold the engine while I worked on it. The lasted months! Like so many other efforts in this thread, popping them off gave me the opportunity to do something I'd been thinking about for years: add weld beads to the collectors. Then I got the great (disastrous) idea to sink the headers into the collector, thinking it would ad a level of realism. My idea was drill out the collectors about 1 mm deep for each pipe. Like I said, it was a disastrous thought. Just awful, as it turned out, because my execution went terribly awry. With each day, I had more difficulty understanding how I got to the place I found myself. It started innocently enough, the exhaust on one side, manifold-back, came of in my hand. This was an opportunity to add those long thought about weld beads, as well as erase from existence the battleship gray headers, not to mentions all the join lines, sprue ejection marks, etc., and do something I'd never seen done before... actually collect the header in the collectors. The weld beads. I tried several versions of the idea had over the years: imprint something, anything that look like a welder's ripple, into a piece of wire. My thought was to pound into the metal the face of a jewelers file. It's always disappointing when what seemed like a good idea, in practice turns out to be crud. More so when you've been holding that idea for, oh, twenty or so years. lol. I tried stainless steel rod, which is what I had pictured all those years. With just a sledge hammer on anvil, SS was much to stout and non-compliant. Brass rod was better, but far from presentable. SS tube was pretty close, but the sharp ridges didn't take to paint very well. But copper tube?... At last. The copper tube was as close as I was going to get. But the whole concept was unworkable because I couldn't find anything useful to imprint and, once struck, to work with the result to create any that wasn't a circle of semi-circle. This was a good as it got: The copper still didn't take to the primer and paint, but at least it didn't sparkle like the SS. Next up was the method I learned about hear in a post that had a link to, who else, Plasmo. In is typical fashion, it was downright simple. Scribe a groove in which to put some Tamiya regular putty. Make a "custom tool" out of a piece of a soda can and a stick. Put the putty in the groove and use the tool to make the welder's ripple. In practice it's not much harder than the explanation. And the finished product: Given that I'd never scribed anything except a few panel lines to practice, I wasn't to upset with the collateral damage. But then this happened, and it opened a can of worms: And then this happened, the beginning of tens of hours steadily going backwards: That last bit of damage was after drilling out the collectors and attempting to fit the pipes. I'm going to post this now, even though there more to document, including what I think is useful method for lining up straight part... like an exhaust pipe. More later. Thanks for looking in.

I could have sworn you recommended old routers. And, bingo!, I took apart an early-century Linsys and (ding, ding, ding) it had three antennas, all with beautiful steel braided ground wires. Then I moved onto a dell laptop from 2000, and it had a ridiculously long antenna with a larger diameter core than the Linksys ones, and with thicker steel (0.4 vs 0.2 mm). It's a simple matter to change the diameter of these because the core wire is so easy to remove. However, the bigger you go, the shorter the length of braided wire you have to use. For example, using the Linksys wires: The inner wire is 0.65 mm. When I inserted a 1.5 mm core, the length was reduced by almost exactly two thirds. Excellent, excellent find. Thank you.

I recently found a product called ELO. You brush it on (warning about submerging parts), and when the paint start to separate, use a brush to remove the pain... or decal. Yes, it's advertised and I've used it for both paint and decals. So far so good. The only unusual mandatory step is washing the stripped surface with detergent afterward. The washing really is a must, but it all works, so worth a try.

I've been having a hell of a time getting a good paint result, so my next victim is going to be the subject model that is of low value to me when compared to some of the kits I have lined up. I've noticed what are identical to paint and decal cheater lines on the car. But that doesn't make any sense to me. Before I go a remove them, can somebody enlighten me as to why they're there? They run from bumper to bumper. I don't know of a popularized paint job that was two-tone, much less one that follow those lines. This pic can be confusing. The prominent line you see under the headlight is actually the mold join line. If you look closely, you'll see the cheat line runs around the outside of the lamp. Then it make that funky turn to bisect the b-pillar window before riding the ridge to the back of the car. (Again, there's a mold join before the funky turn that can throw you off.)

Boot clamps? Regardless, nice work.

Funny those toggle switches... I paid good money for some almost-as-good ones from Top Studio. Nicely done. Craftsmanship and cleverness are a great combination. Oh no! I just noticed... not the exhaust. You should have bend the panel. Also, did you add a governor to keep the top end to 70 kph, or just down a couple cylinders?

That build is gorgeous. I'm going to have to look it up

Nice! Very nice!. The cabinet on your desk reminds me of those old traveling salesman foldouts. The sander would not have been my first gutss, but it makes perfect sense. I have an entire house and I choose to sit at a particular window and so am limited to a 40" wide desk! My dining room room has the rest of my BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH. I just got an order of paints and that's pushing me over the edge to find a new solution. Thanks for sharing where all your delicious custom work comes to life. I wouldn't know where to begin if I go the 3DP route.

Care to post a pic? I’m having trouble envisioning what it is you’re talking about.

Well done. It looked like foil insulated hose. ?

LOL, I have a couple! You know what I’m about to go do. Thanks for the tip. And thanks to Bruce for turning me onto this thread… great stuff guys

Ken, I really hope you follow through with this. I'd bet my house that lots of people, members and web surfers, would be glued to it. I don't know where you'd put such a thread, but announce it here when you do, please. This build is great. I'm still blown away by you exhaust from a long time ago. Any chance that you could start posting larger res photos, even if it requires you to post them directly on the site? That last series made me realize you're getting to the point where a lot is going on and some hi-res pics would be beneficial. Thanks for sharing so much.

Sorry to jack your thread, Ken but, abs, have you seen them. I can't figure out what they did. Multiple inspections have left me 1) wishing for some better pics than they have released, and 2) I'll keep with TS and keep hoping they start releasing larger options (though I hear they're going to stop producing them completely... them and the metal AN fittings. Boo hoo).

Yeah, I get it. But while you're here, have you ever seen braided line hose like that? If I found it, I'd be buying that stuff in every size possible and in quantities that I couldn't explain. Was it ever available commercially? EDIT: Oops, we were ships passing at night. I was posting at the same time you were replying, so you didn't see what I'm talking about. It's the last pic in the decals post directly above your reply.

Just for grins: Last night I spent my time at my workbench applying the tabu, unerlaubt, sponsorship decals. The 1978 Type 79 is a Minichamps build, and the 1977 Type 78 is TSM (TSM even got it correct right down to the white seat!). Also, BTW, I bought the models in 2020, spent the next three years searching for and buying three separate 1:18 decals, none of which sufficed on it's own. It required having all three before I was able to complete the job. Let's not talk about the 18 months the three sets of decals just sat around wanting for attention. A large part of that was that between two cars and three decal sets, I had five distinctly different-colored decals. On the cars, you get away what seemed like it was going to present a serious clash. That the two cars came with markings that were such different colors I thought was strange. Noticeable, the TSM coming closest to the wheaten of the 1:1 cars got the top prize. And all three sets of decals were different colors, one of them was even the offensive goldish yellow that Tamiya supplied in the kit that's the subject of this thread. From that set I used only the British flag for the Type 79. Yet somehow, five different sets of decal colors seemed to work okay. Either that or my eyes are worse than I know. For your amusement: I had to graft the 'S' and 'l' on the right side of the 1977 car to spell the whole thing out. Sheesh. And now for one that shows something that has bothered me since I first saw it, and I wasn't even building at that time. Why is is that they have access to such beautiful actually wire braided lines and we have to put with cloth imitations?! Somebody needs to explain this to me before I have a heart attack one time when I'm reminded of it. A comparison of detail. On top, the TSM has more parts to remove because they have more to share. There's really not much comparison in this department. Detail matters, even if we can't see it without some effort, as we all know better than most. We're a rare breed. As a reminder, the white seat is correct for 1977, and not only for Team Lotus. I was surprised to find this out. And know the real comparison: The TSM (look at the wild job the assembler did on the spark plug wires): The broom bristles, in case you missed them. Shows how little they understood at this point in the car's development. EXIT: Wow. That decal work looks horrible, even if I can be excused for much of it because of the poor quality of the decals themselves. But looking between “John“ and “Player“, I remembered that, last night, I thought it was was funky. So I worked on it with solvent abhairdryer and what all, and I just couldn’t get it to look any better. Today, it looked like there was a hair trapped underneath it. Except I know better, and it was more likely excess carrier film. So I grabbed the model and, sure enough, it was that junk this decal sheet just would not let me get rid of prior to applying it to the car. Here’s a pic after working on it for 10 minutes, not daring to go further o dry decals for fear of wrecking it all together. I also removed some gro m the ‘JPS.’ Thanks for looking. Have a great day!

Unfortunately, that sexy rubber is for the next decade’s — the 80’s — F1 cars. I have to say though, my fear 45 years ago that a bad paint job would look worse than no paint job were unfounded In the end, I think. Even with the cracking paint and paint outside the lines, I prefer it. The nice new shoes were bought with the MP4/6 sitting in my pile in mind. That’ll be a good use of them, no? thanks for reading and commenting. It’s been a bit dry lately. I was thinking that, perhaps, I broken some unspoken rule. Lol ?

I’m sitting here waiting at the pharmacy, something more painful than seeing my recent work. So, instead of showing you that, I’ll show you something that delighted me almost as much as your assistance: tire markings made easy!! I still can’t get over how poorly my tire painting came out when I compare it to others’. I neglected to research it prior to starting, which I’m guessing would have helped. I would hope so, anyway. But in the meantime, these should help on a few of the kits in my queue. The pre-painted ones are going on a MP4/6. They are heavy! The feel is so different from the Tamiyas. I feel like, for all centricity, I should etch full-wet grooves in them. They have that feel to them. Aside from the molding tab left on them, which are tricky to remove, they are gorgeous. A worthwhile, one time, ¥10,000 purchase. Side by side with the Tamiyas from the McLaren box (no seam!): Next up? The trumpets and ignition are as done as they’re going to be ?

Thank you! Question: The 90° electrical connectors: those are purchased or did you produce them? Also, you succeeded in hiding the CF decal seems. Well done.

Randy, thanks. Your compliment pleases me ?. And in keeping with your format: John, thanks. This post is for you (and the nasty judges from lo those many decades ago) lol. Vindication. And Chia-Hao, I've been using the B276 (black) for about a month now and do really like it. Thanks for your input. Please keep it up (he said very selfishly). Tires and wheels can make or break a kit That's a personal view, but resin/plastic, and even badly cast rubber tires, suck. There's something very satisfying about a model that looks like, with a couple kW, it could go 0-60 in nothin' flat. But if they're wrapping badly fitting wheels, it gives the kit a cheap look. The latter is one of the issues I dealt with. Re: the seams on this model's tires, they're very unfortunate,very unfortunate. John got dinged by the judges on his build of this kit after making the absolutely correct assessment and call re trying to remove them. And now he can send a link to this post to prove to them, on top of the evidence he provided on their possible realism, that the seams can't be removed without putting the tires at structural risk. Or, to John's point back then, without removing the wear indicators in the process. The tires before and after: This was the start. I attached a Dremel mandrel to the wheel and used my drill, because it's more controllable at low rpm, to spin them while holding an 1800 grit sanding stick to it. That was slow going. By the way, they spin like so-so balanced wheels. It was pretty good. I eventually got to using an 80-grit stick. This removed some serious rubber that somebody else who's into dioramas could have made good use of as marbles in a corner. But I stopped here because those wear indicators were at serious risk. That's not obvious in the pic unless you look closely. But I do like the way it "freshened" the rubber, so I did the other one later. I was curious as to whether you could see the seam on the inside of the tire to know if it would ever disappear. Yeah, it would, but they would look like dragster tires in the end when you put even a mg of weight on them. Finally, about the ill-fitting rims. It turns out by chance that I read another build of a different Tamiya kit from the same era, both in distribution and F1 car from the late 70's, and he said the later kits had in their instructions the suggestion to remove 1 mm from the rear wheel widths to properly match the tires. I removed 1.5. See the second pic in this post for a before and after pic of the tire on the rims. Here's the the wheels comparison. And finally, I went through the torture that I anticipated it would be 45 years ago and painted the logos. In the end, I think the bad paint job look is better than the no-paint job look. Back then I was certain the reverse was true. The tire on the left was my first attempt, cleaned up. The one on the right was after switching to a better quality brush, which appeared to be the solution to my bad first attempt. It was about 3 am and I was too tired to do more than the 'G,' but I was convinced I was on to something. Completing this one and the remaining six sides proved differently. I don't get it. That 'G' was so easy to do, the paint just flowed to the borders and filled it in so nicely. I eventually moved to using a toothpick like everybody else. Oh, and the wheels got a paint job, too, using 30-year old Humbrol enamel. I compared it to the Mr. Color gold I have and there was no contest, even after polishing the Mr. C. (Wow, I just notice how badly the tire paint is cracking and that's just a couple days old — Tamiya flat white lacquer. Any suggestions?)

Thanks guys. Here’s the 0.65 mm installed.