Ferrari 275P #23, for the 1964 Sebring 12 Hour community build

[Ace-Garageguy]

The wheel parts need to be square and concentric with the lathe jaws in order to get good fitting roundness. Here I'm making a plastic tubular spindle to turn the rim off of the Monogram kit wheel, using a 1/16 steel axle to center the wheel relative to the chuck.

After the tube glue joint was hard, the spindle was chucked up in the lathe, and an X-Acto #11 blade in a standard handle was used as a cutoff tool.

2 parts, ready for assembly.

Assembled on the right, what we started with on the left. Wire-cored part above is the new hood surround for a 250 GTO, like's on the real chassis under the body skin.

All pretty painted with buffing metalizer, buffed, and blackwashed. Not as nice as PE or hand-laced or printed wires, but definitely gives the correct initial impression of an outside-laced front wheel (on right). And cheap. Compare the front wheel to the rear wheel, on left, done previously.

Mocked up on one of the donor gloobombs. I think it's a big improvement far as the initial look of the car goes, and I like it.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by Ace-Garageguy

[Rattlecan Dan]

Man, this is going to be a very nice build. Looking forward to the completion.

[afx]

Nice work on the wheels and a definite improvement.

[Pierre Rivard]

Looks nice Ace. It now looks like it should with out-laced fronts and in-laced rears. Well done sir!

[Ace-Garageguy]

Bodywork's moving along nicely. Holes for the fuel fillers and headlights are getting opened up to allow use of nicer parts than Monogram speced for its slotcar. The sugar-scoops of this body were heavily damaged with excess gloo, so opening the backs of 'em also eases cleanup of the damage with round files.

I think it's pretty obvious a different headlight with a dished reflector and a close-to-correct clear Marchal or Cibie lens should be a big improvement.

Lotsa work to correct the mold-separation lines in this body, as well as the resultant too-square transition between vertical and horizontal surfaces. And of course, as you hack down the square-shoulders, the panel lines disappear, requiring very careful rescribing. But it's worth whatever effort it takes, in my opinion.

 

[250 Testa Rossa]

Looking good! I can't wait to get going on mine!

[Ace-Garageguy]

On 10/3/2023 at 1:18 AM, Rattlecan Dan said:

Man, this is going to be a very nice build. Looking forward to the completion.

 

On 10/3/2023 at 5:29 AM, afx said:

Nice work on the wheels and a definite improvement.

 

On 10/3/2023 at 8:23 AM, Pierre Rivard said:

Looks nice Ace. It now looks like it should with out-laced fronts and in-laced rears. Well done sir!

 

On 10/3/2023 at 4:26 PM, 250 Testa Rossa said:

Looking good! I can't wait to get going on mine!

Thanks for your interest, and for taking the time to comment.   

[Ace-Garageguy]

Though very nice results can be obtained by modifying and detailing the kit one-piece seat tub, I elected to liberate the seats and scratch a new tub from styrene sheet. The glooiest of my available tubs went under the hacker's saw...

Seats separated and cleaned up, with a mockup spacer to help me determine the dimensions of the new tub...

New under-construction tub fitted to chassis, allows more prototypical footwell length.

While that was going on, I made up some tight-fitting mounting pins, so the body would always go back in exactly the same place. I find this to be helpful sometimes in maintaining centering of the wheels in their arches, and exact ride height and stance.

The nose is getting treated to a little more meat under the leading edge, so the rounded contour of the alloy bodywork can be more accurately represented. Lower body panel being close-fitted prior to bonding, too. Also, the side-light holes are being elongated and deepened, again to better represent the prototype, and to allow me to use close-to-correct lenses.

After carefully establishing the ride-height, I made up some Q&D supports for a wire axle that's compatible with the new front wheel centers...and these will figure later in the build.

I'm happy with this ride-height and stance, wheels centered correctly in arches. Note the glooey and unsalvageable windshield has become the first mold (the first "master", actually, with several more steps required to get to a correctly-sized vac-form mold) for a vacuum-formed replacement in clear PET or styrene.

Interior tub progresses, with seat supports, separate frame cross-tube. I can paint the parts separately, get a nice texture on the seats, and use buffing metalizer on the alloy panels, all prior to assembly.

Everything mocked-up together. Now comes the cutting of the outer walls and fabrication to match the interior door openings of the real car.

Getting there (note the cross-bar holding the rear of the windshield mold in rough alignment; this won't be on the completed model).

 

Edited October 11, 2023 by Ace-Garageguy

[afx]

Stance looks right to me.

[afx]

What was the kit source for your headlights?

[Gramps46]

Really impressed with what you have accomplished.  Please keep us posted with your progress.

[Ace-Garageguy]

5 hours ago, afx said:

What was the kit source for your headlights?

Unknown parts-box source. They measure out correctly for the 7" H4 bulb/reflector/lens/bucket assembly that would have been used on this car. I've seen the very popular Lucas 7" buckets used on all manner of Euro-built competition cars, and photos of the 275P where the headlights are visible show a very visually-similar mounting.

Real Lucas buckets look like this, and they're very easy to mount to flat panels, hence their popularity with race-car constructors. Ferrari sometimes used production Lucas lights in other applications too. The retainer ring would be chrome in this period.

The lenses I found (that luckily fit my chrome-rimmed reflector buckets perfectly) have a lens-fluting pattern similar to period H4 units from Cibie, Lucas, Marchal, Carello, Magneti-Marelli etc. Similar lenses are available in many Tamiya and Fujimi sports car kits, and I suspect that's where mine came from. (EDIT: I just looked in the Fujimi 330P4. It has the correct lenses.) The lens fluting is decidedly different on period 7" Euro H4 units than on US 7" sealed-beams of the same period. Period Marchal lenses, below.

While we're on the subject of lights, I've opened up the holes in the rear body panel because they were heavily gloo damaged, but also in the hope of finding correct taillights. Photos show the 275P apparently used an earlier, small-round-reflector version of this very popular Carello (I think) light unit that was, again, used on a wide variety of European competition and production cars. I actually bought a relatively cheap Hasegawa Lancia Stratos thinking I might get lucky, but the rear lenses are this later, wide rectangular reflector version.

EDIT: The Fujimi 330P4 also has the correct-for-the-275P, small-round-reflector taillight lenses.

 

 

Edited October 11, 2023 by Ace-Garageguy

[Ace-Garageguy]

36 minutes ago, Gramps46 said:

Really impressed with what you have accomplished.  Please keep us posted with your progress.

Thank you, sir. Will do.   

[Pierre Rivard]

Ace, for tail lights you may want to check out GeminiModelcars. They have a variety of sizes available. Clear colored resin drops over PE.

[Ace-Garageguy]

2 hours ago, Pierre Rivard said:

Ace, for tail lights you may want to check out GeminiModelcars. They have a variety of sizes available. Clear colored resin drops over PE.

Yes, thanks. I've seen several resin-drop taillights from a few sources, even some that get the split-color orange-over-red like the correct ones.

But they still lack the fluting and other details of the real ones. Probably because I've seen so many of the real lights, they are one of the things that jump out at me.

The plan at the moment is to cast clear resin copies of the Tamiya 330P4 lenses I have, and color them with Tamiya transparent colors. I've already sourced aluminum tube that's the exact diameter for scale-correct trim rings. Cutting it into narrow enough rings is a little challenging, but breaking out a new unworn miter-box and a fresh 32 TPI razor saw should probably ease the job considerably.

This is just another of those things that invariably crop up on my builds, taking what started out as a "simple, quickie curbside" and turning it into a succession of forays down endless rabbit holes...and that usually result in my sidelining builds for "later, when I have more time."  

[Ace-Garageguy]

The 275P as raced at Sebring used rectangular Marchal driving lights mounted low, with a lens design like this Marchal 656...correctly represented in the Monogram kit too.

I found a pair of clear ones in 1/24 scale that look vastly better than the chrome ones in the kit. They're slightly oversize for exact scale, but they look SO much better I'm going to use 'em. The light bays needed to be opened up somewhat anyway, and I'm sure I can get the look I need.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Ace-Garageguy

[Rattlecan Dan]

It's that attention to detail that makes you so good. I can empathize with your nuances during the build. Having to fabricate certain things to achieve the look you want. I have a penchant for doing things the hard way myself. Lol. Keep up the great work.

[Ace-Garageguy]

On 3/11/2023 at 6:11 PM, Gramps46 said:

Here is the cut out in doors I was telling you about.

Thanks again for the multiple references re: the door cutouts and door inner shells.

It took me a while to establish exactly where to cut the new inner tub, as there's a discrepancy in the kit windshield pillars' relationship to the door cut-lines that was throwing me off.

I'm trying to get the interior tub as close to right as possible, as I'm intending to do a full-detail build of a 275P when I have "more time", and I'd like to be able to just pull measurements from this one rather than doing everything again from scratch.

I'm glad I ended up doing this particular car (chassis #0812), as it seems to have had quite a history besides its early racing career as a 250P. Besides finishing second at Sebring one year and winning the next, it burned at LeMans, was rebuilt and raced as a 275, was then heavily wrecked at the next LeMans, got rebuilt again as a "lightweight roadster" and raced reasonably successfully under Luigi Chinetti and then Carl Kleiner (second in class at Sebring '65). After that it was rebodied as the showcar below (circa '67), and was ultimately rebodied again, in the late 1980s, as its first incarnation.

                       

Anyway, I've got it figured out, and she's moving again.   

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

I've mentioned frequently that I think one of the most worthwhile upgrades to any model is posable steering, and I think it's especially important on this one.

So I made up some quick but accurate control arms and spindles to achieve it.

After carefully establishing the ride height / stance in an earlier step, and drilling the tub for a brass axle to maintain it, I made up an upper cross piece that would put the front track at the right width to keep the tires in correct relationship to the wheel openings...depth-wise.

Next step was to make some lower arms that were the same width, and begin fabbing a spindle...kept square as shown. The 1/16" styrene stub axle that will result is more than strong enough to support the weight of its corner of the little car.

Putting a brass axle back in let me make precise measurements of where the stub axle needed to be relative to the height of the spindle.

The previously made spindles were trimmed appropriately to achieve that measurement. The spindles and the control arms were drilled for wire kingpins, plenty strong for the application.

voilà...   

Edited October 29, 2023 by Ace-Garageguy

[Ace-Garageguy]

Front lower body panel now permanently installed, seams being worked. And a little additional fill was required in a couple areas where the Tamiya white putty had shrunk in.

The auxiliary light bays are getting opened up to accommodate the nicer Marchal lenses I found. As I mentioned earlier, they're slightly over-scale, but I can make 'em look pretty close to right. And please forgive the soft focus, as it's impossible to override the autofocus in the old camera I'm using.

I pinned the cockpit airfoil or roll-bar cover or whatever it is. It was no mean feat to get .021" pins drilled into those thin sections without breaking through the sides.

[Pierre Rivard]

Excellent sir! What tires are you using for this build. These do not appear to be the ones that came with the kit.

[Gramps46]

Looking like really good progress. The posable steering is description and photos were welcome.

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

On 10/29/2023 at 5:06 PM, Pierre Rivard said:

Excellent sir! What tires are you using for this build. These do not appear to be the ones that came with the kit.

They are the rubber tires that came in the original 1964 issue. Subsequent issues have had less satisfactory replacements.  

On 10/29/2023 at 8:26 PM, Gramps46 said:

Looking like really good progress. The posable steering is description and photos were welcome.

 

Thanks for looking in. I was pleased with how the posable setup worked out.

The door cutouts and inner door-shells took a little more thought, but they're coming along nicely too...and thanks again for the reference shots.  

[Ace-Garageguy]

Cut lines for the interior tub were determined on body from reference shots, transferred to tub and marked.

Opening was cut for LH door, transfer template made to duplicate it on right.

Tracings were made of tub panels to facilitate duplication of tub for full-detail build, later.

Sills and jams were added.

Tub checked in body shell. There's a little tightening up and smoothing to do yet, but it's going to be just fine.

[absmiami]

Super …