Tamiya McLaren Senna

[harti20]

Hi all

As I still wasn't in the mood to continue work on my FXX-K, I'll start a new WIP. As stated in the title, I'll build the McLaren Senna. Additionally I will use the PE detail up set by Hobby Design and the carbon decal set by S.K. Decals.

I already know S.K.Decals from my Haribo-Mercedes, so I knew that the decals will stick to the part as soon as they touch and won't easily move afterwards. In fact I ruined the first decal I tried to apply  Happily the decal set offers to quite large areas of carbon fibre where one can cut out decals if something went wrong. Nevertheless I'm thinking about re-ordering the set to have some spare decals (just in case...). The part where I tried to apply the decal is the rear body panel which won't be easy to cover with decals anyway as it has a very narrow curve on each side. I didn't even manage to lay down a self made decal with some ScaleProduction stuff (which I usually like very much).

Then I assembled and painted one of the rear fenders. After the experience with the rear body panel I clear coated it (after that picture was taken), hoping the decals would be easier to move around.

Meanwhile the fender got some paint (which I will have to touch up later) and the first carbon decal. Additionally to the clear coating I added some drops of dish liquid to the water I soaked the decal in and have applied to the fender before hitting it with the decal. Neither clear coating nor adding soap to the water really did help, but as the shape of the fender made it easier to lay the decal down without too much wrinkles it turned out ok I think

Finally the seat shells have been painted and the first transparent carbon decal has been applied. Meanwhile this seat had its paint stripped as I noticed that I made a mistake when doing the stencils for the decals. Because the decal is transparent, it's not that easy to fix it, because I have to make sure that the decals don't overlap, because in the overlapping areas the pattern would be darker. Luckily a lot of the inner part of the shell will be hidden by the upholstery, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'm sure there will be other challenges doing the rest of the interior.?

That's everything for today. I hope to have piqued your interest and am looking forward to your tips, critiques, suggestions and plaudits 
Urs

 

Edited August 22, 2022 by harti20

[mrm]

I have zero attraction to the real car. Where the P1 is a visual masterpiece of perfectly flowing and balanced forms, the Senna looks to me like an origami gone bad. Seeing the car in person (one attends the local cars and coffee somewhat regularly) didn’t help either. Besides I find the use of Ayrton’s name very gimmicky. 
  The model however picks my interest from time to time, more from engineering side of things and because the extensive potential for use of carbon fiber with combination of accent colors. I’ve seen a couple of these built at contests with great quality and I will definitely follow your progress on here. My local hobby shop has one of these kits on their shelf, but I never felt the urge to pull the trigger on it. Now, if Tamiya made the F1 or the P1 with opening doors to the level of detail of their Enzo or LaFerrari I would have been all over them. 
Perhaps your build can motivate me to get one of these. 

Edited August 22, 2022 by mrm

[harti20]

Hi all

On 8/23/2022 at 12:19 AM, mrm said:

I have zero attraction to the real car. Where the P1 is a visual masterpiece of perfectly flowing and balanced forms, the Senna looks to me like an origami gone bad. Seeing the car in person (one attends the local cars and coffee somewhat regularly) didn’t help either. Besides I find the use of Ayrton’s name very gimmicky. 
  The model however picks my interest from time to time, more from engineering side of things and because the extensive potential for use of carbon fiber with combination of accent colors. I’ve seen a couple of these built at contests with great quality and I will definitely follow your progress on here. My local hobby shop has one of these kits on their shelf, but I never felt the urge to pull the trigger on it. Now, if Tamiya made the F1 or the P1 with opening doors to the level of detail of their Enzo or LaFerrari I would have been all over them. 
Perhaps your build can motivate me to get one of these. 

Thank you for your comment  I'm following your Pagani with great interest. I always wanted to build a Huayra myself but was always discouraged when I read about the issues others had with the back of the car. Your build made me look closer at the original and what should I say... I removed it completely from my wish list, because I got the impression of a really ugly car (before I always only saw the box art or finished model kits of it). But I'll sure keep following your build as it's interesting nonetheless. Everyone has his own taste, I like the McLaren Senna and can't understand why others don't find it attractive ?

But now the the progress of last week. Mainly I cut the parts for the interior off their sprues, made a mock up and had a look at which parts will need carbon fibre decals in the end. It will be quite a lot, but I think most of it shouldn't be that complicated. As I didn't start making stencils for the decals I refrained from taking pictures of these parts as I thought that wouldn't be of much interest.

Beside of this I painted and assembled the brake discs from the detail up set.

Each of these brake discs will still get 10 PE parts in the center (there where you can see the recesses in the black parts). But of course you can't just glue in these parts, they have to be folded by 180°. As I had some trouble finding a way to do this, I decided to show my way that worked out best for me. If somebody knows of a more efficient / easy way, I'd be happy to hear that.
 

That's how they looked like before bending them

To start, I pressed them down in my cutting mat with a Tamiya paint stirrer to get a bend

Then I held the part down with the stirrer and bent it to a 90° angle with the blade of a knife

After that the stirrer was replaced by a razor blade and the knife by the stirrer to bend it even more

Once that was done it looked like this

To continue I could slip it off the blade and position it like a advertising stand

To finish and close the gap, I slowly approached it with the chops(?) of a bending plier, trying to touch it on both sides at the same time, to avoid overbalancing it and then press it flat.

I only remarked now that I forgot to take a picture of a completed part. I will do it when I'll mount them to the brake discs.

Last weekend I had to wait on somebody to finish work, so I decided to start assembling the engine. So far all the parts that have to be painted aluminum have been assembled. Before primering and painting I'll sand the glue joints flush so there will be no visible mark where the parts meet.

That's all for today's update
Urs

[beeRS]

The Tamiya Senna kit is another wonderfully engineered masterpiece. I’m sure you will do another amazing job on this Urs. I’ll be watching. 
Thanks for sharing the PE folding process. It’s something I will have to do at some point. 
Was the SK decals your only option available for the Senna?

[harti20]

Hi all

Long time I didn't post anything on this build, but my priority in the last few weeks was to finish the Ferrari FXX-K and after that I hardly had any motivation to build models. But now I have some small progress to share. I didn't stick to the instructions at all, I only did what I felt like doing, so don't wonder if the parts don't really go together 

On 9/30/2022 at 7:31 AM, beeRS said:

The Tamiya Senna kit is another wonderfully engineered masterpiece. I’m sure you will do another amazing job on this Urs. I’ll be watching. 
Thanks for sharing the PE folding process. It’s something I will have to do at some point. 
Was the SK decals your only option available for the Senna?

Thank you for your kind words. I hope to do this kit justice as it is a really challenging one. By the time I bought the decals the SK have been the only option available. Meanwhile there is another full carbon set by Scale Motorsports but that costs about three times as much as the one made by SK decals.

First I assembled and installed the engine as far as I could. There will be more parts to be added later.

Then assembly of the front cooler has been done

And finally I needed some distraction from applying all the carbon decals on the body parts, so I decided to start applying carbon decals on the interior parts ?

First a pic of the middle console which got some clear carbon decals on one side. I'm quite curious about that as this is the first time I'll use transparent carbon decals.

For the rear upper part of the middle console I used conventional carbon decals.

That's all for this update. I hope you won't have to wait another two months for the nex one on this build ?
Urs

Edited October 24, 2022 by harti20

[Funkychiken]

It's coming along expertly, I for one have this in the stash and think it's a stunner of a cat... looking forward to more progress! 

[Andrew McD]

I've had this one sitting on the shelf since last Christmas when my daughter gave it to me.  I've recently moved it up in the queue of models to start and will be anxious to see your progress.

[935k3]

On 8/22/2022 at 3:54 PM, harti20 said:

Hi all

As I still wasn't in the mood to continue work on my FXX-K, I'll start a new WIP. As stated in the title, I'll build the McLaren Senna. Additionally I will use the PE detail up set by Hobby Design and the carbon decal set by S.K. Decals.

I already know S.K.Decals from my Haribo-Mercedes, so I knew that the decals will stick to the part as soon as they touch and won't easily move afterwards. In fact I ruined the first decal I tried to apply  Happily the decal set offers to quite large areas of carbon fibre where one can cut out decals if something went wrong. Nevertheless I'm thinking about re-ordering the set to have some spare decals (just in case...). The part where I tried to apply the decal is the rear body panel which won't be easy to cover with decals anyway as it has a very narrow curve on each side. I didn't even manage to lay down a self made decal with some ScaleProduction stuff (which I usually like very much).

Then I assembled and painted one of the rear fenders. After the experience with the rear body panel I clear coated it (after that picture was taken), hoping the decals would be easier to move around.

Meanwhile the fender got some paint (which I will have to touch up later) and the first carbon decal. Additionally to the clear coating I added some drops of dish liquid to the water I soaked the decal in and have applied to the fender before hitting it with the decal. Neither clear coating nor adding soap to the water really did help, but as the shape of the fender made it easier to lay the decal down without too much wrinkles it turned out ok I think

Finally the seat shells have been painted and the first transparent carbon decal has been applied. Meanwhile this seat had its paint stripped as I noticed that I made a mistake when doing the stencils for the decals. Because the decal is transparent, it's not that easy to fix it, because I have to make sure that the decals don't overlap, because in the overlapping areas the pattern would be darker. Luckily a lot of the inner part of the shell will be hidden by the upholstery, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'm sure there will be other challenges doing the rest of the interior.?

That's everything for today. I hope to have piqued your interest and am looking forward to your tips, critiques, suggestions and plaudits 
Urs

 

Try soapy water under the decal by brushing it on the part.

 

under the  d

[harti20]

Hi all

On 11/23/2022 at 9:48 AM, 935k3 said:

Try soapy water under the decal by brushing it on the part.

I already tried that, but with no success. Maybe I was just to closefisted with the soap, I'll try it again in future

Somehow the McLaren turns into a never-ending story. On one hand it might be caused by the fact that I want it to turn out as perfect as I can do it, on the other hand I will have to do some carbon work no matter where I want to continue with it. And that's the kind of work I can't really find the right motivation right now. Nevertheless some minor progress has been made, although it was more of a "one step forwards, two steps back" kind...

The interior parts have been painted in dark grey (here I will have to check again, as the paint looks quite uneven and grainy in this picture)

and green.

The green parts will mostly be covered with transparent carbon decals later on. The time I tried to make some stencils for the decals I ripped off the paint on almost every part. So I'll have to strip most of these parts, sand and repaint them. If I remember correcty I painted these parts without degreasing them first as I tried to get some motivation back and just do something to get it going...?

Some parts of the underarriage have been painted

and the second rear fender got its carbon decals. Furthermore I noticed that there is a small spot which had to be painted in green, something I completley forgot on the first part. So I had to mask over the decals (which luckily have already been sealed by two thin layers of clear) and repaint the air inlet. Happily nothing got ripped off when removing the masking tape afterwards  Now there will only be some small spot repairs needed where you can see the white primer shine through.

That's all for today
Urs

[beeRS]

Ace work on the CF decals. It takes a lot of skill to make them look that good. 

[harti20]

Hi all

On 12/6/2022 at 6:30 AM, beeRS said:

Ace work on the CF decals. It takes a lot of skill to make them look that good. 

Thank you very much for your kind comment. In fact the decals by S.K. Decals fit very good and are quite easy to apply. The only downside is that you have to position them almost perfectly at first touch as they stick very fast to the surface.

It's been a long time since my last update. On one hand I was kept busy by other builds and on the other hand I couldn't find motivation to continue decal work on this one. But now I finally managed to make some progress on this build.

First of all a few parts that will receive carbon decals in the end have been primed in black

After that the first ones of them got their carbon decals applied. I started with an easy one, the diffusor (not yet finished)

and then some parts of the doors.

That's it for today's update. I hope it won't take another 7 months for my next update on this build
Urs

[Dann Tier]

Looking Fantastic!!

[Funkychiken]

The carbon decals are looking great!

Bad luck with the pair coming away with the templates... Still coming along nicely!

[harti20]

Hi all

Thank you very much for your kind comments

As I am quite busy in my new job and was knocked out by a flu last week there's not too much I could show you, but some small progress can be presented anyway

In one of my first posts in this topic I showed how I folded these fiddly little thingies for the brake discs and promised to show pics of the final product. I didn't finish with all four brake discs yet, but at least one can be shown, so here's how it looks like 

Additionally work on the carbon decals continued (at least on the outside). But if I look at my progress so far and how many decals are still left on the decal sheet, I think they'll keep me busy for the next few months (or even years??). Not to mention all the carbon decals needed for the interior... ?

That's it already for today's update.
Urs

Edited November 20, 2023 by harti20

[harti20]

Hi all

After having finished the Morgan and a Shelby Mustang it was time to continue with my McLaren Senna. In my opening post I wrote, that I didn't manage to add CF decals to one part at the back of the car. As this very part is quite large and therefore will be noticed if not decalled, it was crucial for this build to get this covered. Otherwise I would have had to switch to another color scheme for this build. So I first tried to finish this part. For this reason I made my own stencils a few weeks (or months, I don't really remember exactly) ago. Last weekend I tried it and was quite successful. The difficult spots are the ones in southwest, resp. southeast direction from the silver exhaust opening in this picture. The curve is so extreme that it's almost impossible to cover it completely. There is a small triangular spot on each side where there is no decal, but for the moment I can live with that. If necessary I think it would also be possible to cover that up with small patches.

As this part turned out so well, I decided to continue with more CF decal work on more body parts and finished some of the front parts

Then I masked off the monocoque and painted the upper part in gloss black. After that the first metallic sticker and the PE grilles have been applied.

That's it for today. I think that now, where the most complicated part (at least on the exterior) has been completed, the updates will follow in a more timely manner
Urs

[Noah H.]

This build is looking great. Impressive decal application.

[harti20]

Hi all

On 4/15/2024 at 9:05 PM, Noah H. said:

This build is looking great. Impressive decal application.

Thank you very much

Only a minor update today, but one that caused a lot of scratching my head, trying to find a clever way to apply the decals on the splitter section. The instructions for the decal set tell you to first assemble kit parts B27 (upper part for the splitter) and B33 (lower part for the splitter), before applying decals 24L and 24R. The problem is, that B27, according to Tamiya's building instructions has to be glued to the underside of the body in step 12, whereas part B33 has to be attached to B27 in step 44. If they're glued together before step 12 it won't be possible to put the body on the undercarriage, as B33 would then block the front axle. After quite some time of thinking and turning the pieces around, I found a way by cutting B33 into four pieces.

Here's, how it looked before I cut anything

And the same part after cutting

This way I was able to glue the smaller three parts to B27 and have the area assembled where the decals should be applied to. So I glued them together, primed and painted everything black and started applying the CF decals. I'm not finished with them yet, but a large part has already been covered (without applying decals 24L and 24R so far...).

After I applied some of the decals I looked ahead in Tamiya's building instructions to look what could be done next to get some relief from applying more CF decals. And there I saw it... A few steps later there are four smaller parts (two on each side) which have to be glued to the splitter and therefore should be from underneath into a cavity... You might already guess it: the two smalles parts from B33 are now closing this cavity... ? Fortunately I already found a solution to this problem: I'll only have to shorten the four horizontal pieces on the side where they should reach into the cavity a little bit to fit them between the vertical faces of the splitter...

That's it for today's update. Soon I'll reveal in another thread the second reason why I didn't make that much of a progress since my last update ?
Urs

Edited April 29, 2024 by harti20

[harti20]

Hi all  

The carbon madness continues ?

First the diffusor was carbonized

Then I realized that some parts of the monocoque still need carbon, so those were also applied

And finally the headlights

Slowly but surely there is light at the end of the tunnel, at least as far as the carbon work on the body is concerned. The carbon work on the interior took another step back. I had started with transparent carbon decals from Scale Motorsports, but was never really happy with them. So I rummaged through my carbon decal stocks and discovered that I still had transparent carbon decals from Museum Collection at home that I had never used before. After a short test with them, I decided to switch to Museum Collection. The big catch: the Museum Collection decals have a slightly different pattern to those from Scale Motorsports, so the decals I had already applied had to come off again... As the adhesion of the Scale Motorsports decals was one of the things I was never really happy with, they were fortunately quite easy to remove with a bit of sandpaper and a pair of tweezers. Simply sand one corner with sandpaper, at some point the decal will detach from the part underneath and then you can pull it off with tweezers like a skin until it tears. Then the whole game starts all over again...  Here is an example of the center console after removing the carbon decals:

Meanwhile all the components treated in this way have been re-primed and painted and are now waiting to be carbonized again. There may now be a delay, as I only have one sheet of the Museum Collection decals and am now waiting for supplies, which are currently waiting for an airplane in Japan after being cleared by customs. However, as there are still some decals waiting to be applied to the exterior, I think I should be able to fill the waiting time ?

So much for this week's update ? 
Urs

[harti20]

Hi all

Carbon work on my McLaren Senna continues. After building my Mercedes GT3 in the Haribo livery I was very happy with S.K.Decals, so I didn't hesitate buying their full carbon set for the McLaren Senna once it came to market. But the longer I work with this set, the more tedious it becomes. The decals themselves still are of a very good quality: they adhere very well (in fact, once they touched the surface of the part where they should be placed, they almost won't move a single bit), are easy to apply and react very good to MicroSet / -Sol. But every single decal is too large for the part it covers. Especially with smaller parts it becomes very annoying when the decal is 1 to 2 mm too large on each side... But fortunately I'm coming to an end with the carbon work (at least on the outside).

This week was completely dedicated to the spoiler

Then I noticed that some parts I previously had covered with carbon decals needed some color from the Studio 27 decal set. As I never was able to apply any of their decals I had decided to paint all the unicolor surfaces instead of using their decals. But as these parts already had carbon decals attached I didn't want to risk ruining the carbon decals by masking them. So I decided to give it another try as I still could paint and re-carbon the parts in case I wouldn't be able to handle these decals again. But what should I say: I finally managed to apply them without any (bigger) problems ?

After this success I became a little rollicking and decided to give it another try on a part I already had planned to paint it myself ?

But there are still two decals I'm a little afraid of (these are the only ones I wouldn't be able to paint them myself anyway), as they will have to cover all the horizontal surfaces on the spoiler (one decal for the lower part and one for the upper one). As these parts have been quite tricky to cover with the S.K.Decals already I'm afraid it could turn into a nightmare...
To finish today's work I applied one really easy decal ?

That's it for today's update. As I'll be home the upcoming week I should be able to find quite some time to continue building. The goal for this week would be to finish the carbon work on the outside of the McLaren ? 
Urs

[mrm]

Very nice so far.

[harti20]

Hi all

On 5/27/2024 at 10:00 PM, mrm said:

Very nice so far.

Thank you very much

 

The carbon madness on the bodywork continued and.... I can hardly believe it myself... could be completed ? I left out the outside rear view mirrors though, as I didn't manage to apply the decals there without wrinkles. So I will deviate slightly from the original, but keep the basic color scheme

In my last post I complained about the fact that most carbon decals are sometimes massively too large. Here is an example of a small (approx. 0.5 x 1 cm) part that was to be carbonized, with the decal applied to it but not yet wrapped around the edges

This is what the part looks like (viewed from the other side) when the decal is finished

Something that also caused me a bit of a headache was the doors, as they are provided in the decal set as completely carbonized, but I need a colored stripe in the lower part. This would have been included as a decal in the second decal set from Studio 27, but as the decal should have been curved inwards at this point, I preferred to paint the area. So I decided to paint the strip first and then apply the decal. Then it had to be cut along the edge. I did it exactly this way on the first door, which unfortunately resulted in a slightly wobbly edge between the paint and the decal. On the second door, I then cut the decal further inwards along the sharp edge and applied a triangular, self-cut decal, which led to a much cleaner result. Here you can see the first version

And finally, the lower wing of the spoiler was given some color in the form of a decal from the Studio 27 set ?

That's it again for this week. I should be finished with the bodywork soon (a few Studio 27 decals are still missing, then it will soon be time to clear coat it), then the carbon madness on the inside will continue... ?
Urs

[SpikeSchumacher]

??

[harti20]

Hi all

Not much progress made over the past two weeks, mainly because of two surgeries I had to undergo, where especially the second one kind of knocked me off for a few days. But this weekend I had some time to continue work and used it to progress on the body work, because I would like to have everything ready for clear coat by mid july, otherwise I'd have to wait another five weeks for my son's school holidays to end, as I don't want to work with 2K clear when he's at home. Now it's time to add some color to the quite boring carbon grey ?

First the front has been partially assembled to be able to apply some more Studio 27 decals

Then the headlights received some color

And finally the first door got the Senna XP lettering applied. Why Studio 27 decided to split the stylized "S" at the beginning onto two decals (the outer bows on the same decal as the rest of the lettering and the inner "S" on another decal) will remain their secret, I suppose... ?

That's it for today's update. Now there are only four more decals on the front shown before, the lettering on the other door and the upper small wing of the spoiler (that's the one decal I fear most because of the part's curvature). Once these decals are applied, all the body parts will be ready for clear coating which would mean (at least seen psychologically) a huge step towards completion ?
Urs

[harti20]

Hi all

The decals of both decal sets are now used up ?  However, shortly after applying the last decal I got quite annoyed with myself ? 

But first to the positive part of this update: the second door also got its lettering

Then I tried my hand at the second wing of the spoiler and of course, as I feared, the decal tore in two places (the fear was not the number of tears, but the fact that it tore, just to avoid any misunderstandings ? )... But maybe I'll get another chance to repair it, because...

After I had applied the final decals to the front (the two narrow strips on the left and right), I wanted to have a look at my reference photos of the interior and stumbled across the following picture:

https://www.carpixel.net/wallpapers/19501/2020-mclaren-senna-xp-the-home-victory-us.html ? As you can easily see in the reference photo, the stripes should have been on the vertical surfaces (partly on another part of the kit) and not flat on top. Then the currently rather strange looking front end of the stripes would be logical and would merge into the vertical part of the splitter...

At the moment I'm leaning towards somehow removing the two strips again. If the carbon decal underneath would also be damaged as a result, I would still have enough spare material from the S.K. Decals set to cut it to size and reapply it myself. Only the two strips I could possibly piece together from leftover decals from the Studio 27 set, as I painted some of them instead of using the decals. However, if the carbon decal also had to be replaced, then the Studio 27 set would probably have to be purchased again, as the McLaren logo also comes from there and would then probably be irrevocably destroyed.Fortunately, the Studio 27 set is a) still available and b) not too expensive. That's also the reason why I was talking about another chance with the spoiler decal.

Between attaching the two stripe decals and realizing that they were attached incorrectly, I tried for about the third time to cover the outside of one of the seat shells with a transparent carbon decal and failed for the third time... That's why there's no photo, because the seat shell is still just a green-painted seat shell... ?

So much for today's update. Clear coating before my junior's school vacation is definitely not going to happen, so the construction will probably take a little longer and will definitely see its second birthday...
Urs

[harti20]

Hi all

Not much has happened here. The incorrectly applied stripes and the fact that I just can't manage to cover the seats with carbon in a reasonably attractive way have dampened my motivation somewhat. But at least I've made some progress with the incorrectly applied strips. A friend gave me the tip of using a brush dipped in lukewarm water to brush over the incorrectly applied decal again and again to soften it and from time to time carefully try to get underneath the decal with a sharp knife to lift it up a little. If you succeed, use a brush soaked in water to get under the decal and remove it piece by piece. After half an hour I had removed about 1 cm of the first strip. After another half hour I was still the same distance away... I then put everything aside and tried again a few days (maybe even weeks) later. The second time I used slightly warmer water and made much better progress. After about 90 minutes, I had removed the strips on both sides, except for a small piece on the far right at the front, which just wouldn't come off. A day later and after another half hour of brushing and trying to remove it with a knife, this piece also gave up its resistance and could be removed. At the moment I still have a few small pieces that have crumbled away during removal and have settled somewhere on the carbon decal. But they can be removed easily with a little water. What bothers me more are the few places where the carbon decal has suffered a little. At the moment I'm still a bit undecided as to whether I should remove the carbon decal in the same way and attach a new one, whether I should simply stick repair patches over it, or whether I should leave it as it is. I'll probably try the repair patches first and see how noticeable they are. But now a picture of the current state  

Unfortunately the damaged spots are not that clearly visible in this picture. It's the bright spot on the left bottom corner and the two larger bright spots on the very right, close to the edge. I bought myself a new camera a few weeks ago and still have to get used to it
Urs