mikevillena

I haven't been able to spend much time on the bench as I was extremely busy preparing for a job interview with CAT yesterday. Anyway, I used a lump of clay and borrowed the seat from my Tamiya 935/78 to determine how high to make the seatbelt mounting crossbar. It has to be at or higher than the shoulders: One of the many areas that I needed to improve on was the kit's disc brakes. Although much of it will be hidden in the final assembly I wanted to see what can be done. The intent was to replicate a near stock brake disc but ventilated and cross drilled. I started by sawing a slit and glueing tiny segments of .010 x .020 styrene: After trimming the excess styrene and sanding the disc round: The tricky bit step of cross drilling: I also started modifying the passenger seat based on some reference photos. Ultimately, the seat back will be hinged. I purchased some Alumilite Mold Putty and casting resin so that I can make a duplicate the 935/78 seat to use for the driver's side.

Robin, I've seen a striking GTA in French Blue.

Hi Shaun. The Tamiya kit provides decals for the gauge faces. I simply applied them to the scratchbuilt backing. I applied some MicroSol to help them snuggle down and coated them with Vallejo Gloss Varnish. I also used a tiny drop of the varnish to glue a piece of stretched sprue and laid the gauge needle on top of that to elevate the needle giving it a 3D effect. I forgot that Evergreen styrene has a surface texture so the gauge face is slightly textured when seen up close. Thanks Drew. I'm not sure it's talent. Rather it's more like problem solving. We as modellers are always asking ourselves "how do I replicate that in scale?". Sometimes you have to think outside the box. I've had a little more practice because of the extensive scratchbuilding that I was forced to do in my larger 1/10th scale RC projects. Now my challenge is to improve my build quality and to do so in a considerably smaller scale.

I'll be using the same Tamiya kit. I might also do an extreme DTM/Time Attack mid-engine 4WD conversion to my Ford Focus (cheap Revell kit) along the lines of my last 1/24th scale project of 20+ years ago. I noticed you have the Tamiya kit as well. Good on you!

Went back and refined the license plate. This time I used .010 clear plastic upon which to trace the characters. I also allowed the filler/primer paint to cure for several hours. The fully cured filler/primer paint was firmer so the impression was crisper this time: I decided to adapt the technique I came up with for the igauges on my ancient 1/10th scale Mini build. However, I won't be able to retain the moving dials:

Thanks Robin. I know it's taking a long time.... I haven't even ordered the paint as I'm on the fence on the colour. Corsa Rosso or Plain Silver?

Ah, you beat me to it! I was going to do something along the same lines but I might build mine as a Group 5 LeMans longtail as a modern take on Porsche's 935/78 Moby Dick. Anyway, brilliant concept and start!

Started working on some of the finishing details since I won't be able to spend too much time on the bench this morning. I thought about adapting my technique for scale license plates. Used some plastic cling wrap, the kit's decal sheet, a small piece of aluminum foil and filler/primer paint. After giving it a shot of black trim paint and painting the raised characters with titanium white acrylic: The 1/24th scale license plate next to a 1/10th scale license plate for my AE86: Overall, it came out okay but I will try to improve the technique further.

Dank u Richard

More F-1 stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJQF2NBw0MA

Found more interesting bits on YouTube: Some interesting F-1 bits: And Trans-Am with shots of my beloved Alfa GTA's and Boss 302's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt8ETck0V6I&feature=youtu.be&t=3s

Finshed the roll cage: I wasn't satisfied with it overall as there was an appreciable gap between the rollcage and the underside of the roof so I built another one "in situ". Formed the main hoop: I taped the bodyshell in place and built the rest of the cage. I also modifed the design slightly: With the main hoop and forward elements in place, I took off the bodyshell and added the final segments: I just need to add some gussets.

Hi Shaun. I used Maimeri artist's acrylic titanium white thinned with Aztek Acrylic Thinner and applied using the tip of my 5/0 brush. It's actually a series of dot and dashes. Hope this helps.

Harry, how come we don't have the "puking" smiley? I can't think of a better use based on what I just saw. MY EYES!!!!!

Building the roll cage structures. I used various diameters of Evergreen styrene solid rods and steam bent them. All of the joints are mitered as I have been doing for a long time.

Thank you very much Robin. I'm still not liking the headers as it looks more like a two stroke. I owned an RS125 so I am heavily biased! I think I need to use more burnt metal/purple glazes. I was initially going to leave the glove box as just a hole to say weight but I thought "what the heck" Thanks Mike. I don't really know what I'm doing but I'm learning and having a lot of fun!

Brizio, this deserves to be in the Louvre!

Not to detract from Jaguarman's thread but that is magnificent, MrObsessive! You've more than lived up to your username.

John, I was going to wait until you finished this build before contributing my "OH MY GOD!" or some other incomprehensable mumbling otherwise I would be posting accolades with every update and I would probably have trouble picking up my jaw with the several hundred other jaws on the floor! Absolutely brilliant and a tremendous source of inspiration.

Impressive work.

I'm guessing model (the weave of the CF on the fork is oriented poorly for it to work well). Has to be very large scale with lots of photo-etched, resin and 3D printed parts.

Cut out the glove box and fabricated a new cover. It will be hinged. As a prelude to building the rollcage I tacked on the dashboard: Also finished the plenum:

Some progress. Experimented with paint effects on the exhaust headers: Started the daunting task of scratchbuilding the hydraulically driven super charger by fabricating the plenum. It's a very tight fit. I also ground off the a part of the hood opening because there was a large gap between the bodyshell's hood opening and the firewall. I will be scratchbuilding all of the structures around the opening and the area underneath the vents to show the wiper linkage arms and motor. For the superchargers, I am trying out an old trick that I used to fabricate the turbos in my 1/10th scale 4AGE project: As always, everything looks very rough at this stage but I will be refining and adding details as I go.

Thank you Erik. It's very much a learning process for me so there will be a lot of one step forward, two steps back. Thanks to all for their patience and continued interest.

That plastic is looking extremely tired. There are cracks and fractures in the pillars. I doubt if soaking it further in checmicals will do any good; if anything it might degrade the base plastic even more. At this point you might have to give up or resort to mechanically removing the old build up. Start by glueing temporary support structures underneath the roof and pillars to strenghten things and to prevent further cracks. Then use various knife blades to chip and scrape off the build up. Maybe use a grinding bit with a mototool set to very low speeds if you are confindent to grind most of it off and finish off using knives and files. The molded ribs might be unsalvageable so use half round styrene to make new ones. Just my suggestion.