1977 McLaren M24 - Tom Sneva

[ModelcarJR]

This one is done! See Under Glass for completed photos. Thanks for looking! ?

[ModelcarJR]

Thanks, Cameron! I decided to go with Tamiya TS-23 Light Blue which looks like a dead match for the color of the decals from IndyCals. Here are a few tips that I learned from building this Model:

1.  Lay out the white metal parts just like in the instructions to make sure you have them all. That's how I found out that I didn't have the plenum for the engine and Kevin at Silver City was happy to send it to me. He also sent some other parts that were missing which were plastic rods for the suspension supports. 

2.  I ditched the wheels and tires from the kit as the wheels weren't correct in my kit, they were more a star pattern instead of a straight bar pattern. I used some wheels from an old AMT kit, the Mario Andretti and Rick Mears PC-6 kits. The Gaterade McLaren also has the right wheels. I used a nice solid set of rubber tires from the later AMT kits to avoid anything not fitting and avoid all the clean-up of the resin wheels and tires. 

3.  If you use the kit tires, I guess you have to glue the flat back of the tire to the hub of the rotors and maybe the tire fits the circumference of the rotors well. Its not so much of a problem in the back as there is plenty of supporting white metal there, but in the front the thin white metal axle coming out of the kingpin is a problem because it will break easily. i would suggest drilling out the kingpin and replacing the axle with 1/16" brass or plastic rod. 

4.  The supports for the rear wing should be in the middle of the wing wide enough for Norton decal that goes there. I misinterpreted the instructions and put the supports on the inside of the endplates for the wing. My mistake but I am not going to fix it now. 

5.  The resin drilled out pretty easily so I shouldn't have replaced the engine with a plastic piece to add the spark plug wires. I should have stayed with the original engine and just drilled out the plug holes a bit. 

6.  My engine cover was not the same as the one pictured in the instructions so the decals don't fit exactly like they are photographed on the real car. It also cause some issues with painting and the putting the red/yellow stripes around the cockpit and engine cover. I had to do some splicing and patching with those stripes. 

7.  the windscreen is just a vacu-formed piece of clear acetate that was not long enough for my cockpit and there was no slope to the front of it. You might ask Kevin at Silver City if he has a better windscreen for the kit. Same with the engine cover above if you want to make a more accurate replica. 

8.  Finally, it was my first time working with white metal so I found it very brittle and you really don't want to try to bend it much. I didn't polish many pieces I just painted them. 

 

I think that covers my issues pretty well. I hope it helps. 

[flashman1957]

That's what I needed. And thanks loads for the extra tips, and for sharing your build! I'm definitely saving this for when I build mine.

Cameron