Tamiya Jaguar XJR-9LM (1:24)

[dr_gn]

Finally got the carbon decal template sets from GPM (after 6 weeks). I thought since it was my first attempt at carbon decals I'd treat mself, but I'm not looking forward to it:

Also the Renaissance decal set:

Must admit I feel a bit ripped off with that, I assumed it was an entire decal set, not just the tobacco logos. You do get an external details etch set and some turned parts which are nice, but....£20 odd quid?

[dr_gn]

Bit more progress, more or less finished the water pipes now. Made the hoses out of heatshrink and the pipe clips out of Tamiya tape painted silver. The pipes themselves are copper wire from bits of twin and earth. The tank brackets are bits of old photo-etch. Just needs a couple of pressure lines and an overflow pipe on the header tank:

[macgregor]

Great job on the pipes, great colour scheme you have chosen, can wait to see her finished.

Mac

[dr_gn]

So the first attempt at carbon decalling the floorpan was a disaster (much like the seat and dashboard!).

the Scale Motorsport template set is absolutely crap - the templates are nowhere near good enough to get the decals to conform properly. One of the main templates is actually printed such that it includes part of the white decal border. I experimented with some spare sheet and despite being extremely thin, the do not like compound curves at all. I've now made my own templates by sticking Tamiya tape to the floorpan ensuring all pieces only have to curve in one direction. This can be confirmed by the tape becasue on removeal it will stay flat. I've then stuck the tape to card and cut around it. I can now make a full set of symmetrical decals which will hopefully fit (after stripping the chassis of paint and knackered decals yet again! Going to try to source some Fairy Power Spray since I've run out of brake fluid...

Edited August 12, 2011 by dr_gn

[Rishi]

Hi,

Nice work on the water pipelines.

The carbon fiber floor plan is complex. I have the Scale motorsport Enzo superdetail kit. I have read about the Scale motorsport decals being oversized on http://italianhorses.net. need to be careful and plan well when building the Enzo.

What about Acetone? I have used it to strip acyrilc before, but in short dips.

Cheers,

rishi

[dr_gn]

Hi,

Nice work on the water pipelines.

The carbon fiber floor plan is complex. I have the Scale motorsport Enzo superdetail kit. I have read about the Scale motorsport decals being oversized on http://italianhorses.net. need to be careful and plan well when building the Enzo.

What about Acetone? I have used it to strip acyrilc before, but in short dips.

Cheers,

rishi

Rishi,

It's pretty clear that the guys at Scale Motorsport have never tried their own template sets - at least for this one, and looking at others available I'd be surprised if they were any better.

If I put my own accurate templates over theirs (at least the ones that look *anything* like mine), the SM ones are much bigger. Easy to think that it's no problem becasue you just use Microsol, but it doesn't work if the decal edge happens to have to bend in two places, or needs a cut in it that wasn't shown on the template.

To add insult to injury, on the SM instructions, it gives a web address where you can supposedly find an online tutorial for applying their carbon decals. When you get there they expect you pay for it!!! Screw that.

I won't be using thier products again if i can help it.

Cheers.

[dr_gn]

Anyway, sod this, I'm calling the carbon decals finished. As a final insult - they show every speck of dust, especially dust that's been trapped under the final varnish coat :-( Luckily there is heat reflective aluminium in a few places in the engine bay, and under the diffuser, so that might cover a bit up, plus the front of the splitter has to be painted gloss BRG.

[Obi-Jiff Kenobi]

Once it's all assembled and the details painted, you won't notice the dust. It hardly shows in the photos anyway. Cracking bit of work.

[dr_gn]

Finished the aluminium heat reflective foil in the engine bay this evening, I used "Bare Metal Foil" for the first time. Strange stuff, doesn't appear to be self-adhesive, but...is.

[Moofles]

deeply deeply impressive build. great work.

[dr_gn]

So apart from wiring and fuel/cooling plumbing, the floorpan is just about done. Painted the splitter in BRG (central support yet to be added - it's p/e and very fragile). The radiator looks good with the p/e matrix in there (treated to a dark wash), and the radiator supports/jackingpoints/towing ring are all p/e too fromthe studio27 set:

Seat is fixed in place, as is the gear linkage and ECU. The retaining bands for the ECU are lead wire painted black:

The Berocca tablet foil worked a treat for the fuel cell heat insulation (btw the large circular bit in the middle isn't an ejector mark, it's a moulded-in fuel cell cover.

Next job is rear suspension, bulkhead then engine. I'm hoping to finally get some pictures from Jaguar soon, but if I don't get them before long, I'll unfortunately have to guess what I don't know in terms of pipe routing.

[ptcruiser]

I don't know where you are are how you're fixed time and location wise, but you could do worse than arranging a trip to Browns Lane to the Jaguar & Daimler Heritage Trust. I had total access to NUB 120 (XK120) and the curator was extremely helpful. I believe they have an XJR9 there?

Rich

[dr_gn]

I don't know where you are are how you're fixed time and location wise, but you could do worse than arranging a trip to Browns Lane to the Jaguar & Daimler Heritage Trust. I had total access to NUB 120 (XK120) and the curator was extremely helpful. I believe they have an XJR9 there?

Rich

Rich,

I'm near Sheffield. The curator of JDHC said he'd send me the photos I wanted (weeks or maybe even months ago). I got an e-mail last week from their mechanic saying he'd send me the pictures in the post. Nothing ever turned up, so as far as I'm concerned is was a big waste of time. Apparently the car was shipped to the USA recently.

Also wrote to JD Classics, (and - can't remember who, but someone else who races one) and got nowhere.

It's no big deal - I'm pretty sure that the details I need will be almost invisible, and almost certainly won't be noticed by 99.999% of anyone who's going to ever see my model (annoyingly I'm one of the 0.001% of people who will notice!).

Cheers.

[tank152]

Amazing work going on here. I've only ever built 43rd scale closed cars. But i've a 1:24 Hasegawa 037 with a Studio 27 grade up p/e set waiting in the wings so will be trying my hand at some detailing work with that. I'll be following this build from now on.

[ptcruiser]

Rich,

I'm near Sheffield. The curator of JDHC said he'd send me the photos I wanted (weeks or maybe even months ago). I got an e-mail last week from their mechanic saying he'd send me the pictures in the post. Nothing ever turned up, so as far as I'm concerned is was a big waste of time. Apparently the car was shipped to the USA recently.

Also wrote to JD Classics, (and - can't remember who, but someone else who races one) and got nowhere.

It's no big deal - I'm pretty sure that the details I need will be almost invisible, and almost certainly won't be noticed by 99.999% of anyone who's going to ever see my model (annoyingly I'm one of the 0.001% of people who will notice!).

Cheers.

I can feel you angst! It is very frustrating when you don't get what you were promised, but hang in there! There is a strong possibility that precise routing of some stuff varied anyway, so you can always defy someone to "prove it" wrong

Rich

[dr_gn]

I can feel you angst! It is very frustrating when you don't get what you were promised, but hang in there! There is a strong possibility that precise routing of some stuff varied anyway, so you can always defy someone to "prove it" wrong

Rich

Yeah, my favourite phrase is "modeller's licence"

[Raptor]

Like you, I've found JD Classics really uncommunicative - anyone out there had any luck?

Cheers

Rich,

I'm near Sheffield. The curator of JDHC said he'd send me the photos I wanted (weeks or maybe even months ago). I got an e-mail last week from their mechanic saying he'd send me the pictures in the post. Nothing ever turned up, so as far as I'm concerned is was a big waste of time. Apparently the car was shipped to the USA recently.

Also wrote to JD Classics, (and - can't remember who, but someone else who races one) and got nowhere.

It's no big deal - I'm pretty sure that the details I need will be almost invisible, and almost certainly won't be noticed by 99.999% of anyone who's going to ever see my model (annoyingly I'm one of the 0.001% of people who will notice!).

Cheers.

[dr_gn]

Been a bit meh recently with this. Too many errors with the kit and too much scratchbuilding.

For example, this is the r/h engine bay side panel. There's an oil cooler behind it, but no duct. The Studio27 etch kit has the duct as a correction feature, but it's the wrong shape (tapered instead of parallel sided). FFS why did they do that??

So you have to cut out a rectangle, and fit the new duct. I ended up cutting the etch sides of the incorrect part, and building it up with plasticard to get the correct geometry:

Then after filling and priming, it looks OK, but what a hassle.

Done a bit more work on the bulkhead too - mainly drilling holes for hose connectors on the oil tanks:

[dr_gn]

So tonight I found a fault with Tamiya masking tape. It eats Tamiya acrylic paint. No idea why, but it did.

After spraying the body with Tamiya Gloss white, and adding the photo etch door hinges, left for a couple of days to harden and then masked ready to spray the purple bits:

First semi-disaster of the evening - I got hold of the correct Tamiya TS Purple spray (which is supposed to match the decals). I sprayed it through a straw into an old Vallejo bottle, so that I could then use it in my airbrush rather than straight from the can. After 1/2 hour of degassing time I opened the bottle. Seemed OK, so I swirled it around gently to see if any bubbles remained. Suddenly a load of paint sprayed out of the bottle and - luckily straight onto the cieling of my office (much to Mrs.GN's alarm and disapproval) The model and various bits were undamaged amazingly:

Anyway, put the remaining purple into the airbrush, and it went on like a dream - mirror finish. So I removed The masking tape, and poo-poo! where the tape adhesive had touched the white paint it had reacted and left a sandpaper finish. It wasn't a glue residue, it was an imprint in the white paint.

Not too surprised that something went wrong - it's rare for me to complete a model without redoing some major part, but..Tamiya tape?? Currently the body is sulking in a large vat of brake fluid...not a good evening. I can only imagine it was the solvent in the degassed paint that did something. Tamiya model, Tamiya paint, Tamiya tape - but still a disaster Wierd.

Edited October 15, 2011 by dr_gn

[dr_gn]

Bodywork painting - another nightmare! I've noticed on other models of this car that the yellow stripe decals are not opaque. It's not good enough to hide the purple/white demarcation under the decal because it looks crap - the yellow looks 'dirty' where the purple shows through. I've tried, by trial and error, to get the demarcation spot on to the edge of the decal. Whether this has worked or not remains to be seen. If it hasn't - it's too late becasue decals cant be saved for another try!

So here's the body as painted and lacquered (Tamiya TS spray cans used through the airbrush):

The headlamp covers have a green border around them. I was puzzling over how to mask this accurately for some time, before coming up with this:

It's a scalpel blade stuck to two wooden sticks. You mask the entire lens up, then run the stepped bit of wood around the edge and let the blade cut the tape:

Results were quite good. Just need dipping in Klear now:

Might try adding the yellow stripes to the body tonight. If I got the masking wrong don't expect any updates for a very long time!

[keefr22]

That's a really good save - the body is looking very nice! Strange that happening with the tape, haven't heard of that before.

Keef

[dr_gn]

That's a really good save - the body is looking very nice! Strange that happening with the tape, haven't heard of that before.

Keef

Thanks. Brake fluid is fast becoming my most used modelling tool :shithappens:

Apparently the masking issue isn't that uncommon with certain Tamiya paints:

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=79863

[keefr22]

Brake fluid is fast becoming my most used modelling tool :shithappens:

Used to be mine too - prefer Fairy Power Spray now!! (have a 911 body soaking in the stuff at the moment. Again!!)

Keef

[dr_gn]

Yeah, the masking worked just fine

[Scarlet]

Excellent job so far.