A_S

So then I was just left to pull it all together and build up as much of the chassis as I could. This is where i came across my first "oh crap" moment where i made a stupid oversight by either forgetting something or doing it too quickly without thinking (I do a lot of these...). The chassis comes as 3 parts, one is the base and sides, 2 is the cockpit cabin and 3 is the ill fitting top suspension bit at the front. I'd been holding it all together with elastic bands as this gives tension and held it all in place quiet nicely, better than i could with my fingers when gluing. as you can see from the 4th picture in the previous post the cockpit section is joined to the sides along the leading edge, both of which are full of rivet detail. luckily there is a join line there on the real car so no need to fill and sand. However glueing would have to be through capilary action from underneith.... I decided to leave the elastic bands on being careful.... unfortunatly capilary action as such created a right mess around one elastic band.... and then my finger as i was holding it tightly in place waiting for the glue to dry... oops. As you can see, hours of clean up to get it to this stage as there is lots of fine rivet detail to avoid. I'm hoping it comes out ok primed and then I can finish it off with a dash of water based putty and it won't be too noticable. I'll also route some cables around here to take away the emphasis on the mucked up area! at this point I also sanded off the moulded on body clips, built the front wing and filled the join lines nicely with putty.

Hi Malc - yes I have some micro drills and a pin vice from my o gauge days, but i'm worried about doing as such because its such a fragile part, hard to replicate the bend accuratly and a spare would cost upto £40 as mentioned!

After going down a blind alley with this one, I decided to start modifying the chassis to take the (lovely) scale H/W PE cockpit detail. I won't be painting this, I'm going to leave it as raw metal because it looks fantastic. Bit disapointed the rivit detail is picked out as holes and not raised rivits though. If anyone knows a good supplier of rivits that would fit and can be bought in bulk at a good price i'd buy some and fit them. To get to this stage it involved use of the old demmel to knore away at the moulded weld lines. looks a mess, but it was hard to access with a circular cutting tool, so i had to use a straight tipped bit and chissel it away. looks fantastic doesn't it, and thats without the pedal asembly which also comes with the PE kit. you can see the ill fitting suspension mounts in the top left of this pic. not a great representation but the top peice doesn't really line up with the bottom, a lot of filling has been done to get it to this stage. The only bit left to modify was the moulded in front radiator mounts. These were sanded off with a sanding stick and rebuilt with Brass. Luckly as a result of building O Gauge Brass locos in the past, I have an abundance of brass rod and low melt solder plus a really good soldering iron. I could have gone the whole hog and rebuilt the side mounts as well. The scale HW set includes etches to rebuild the side mounts but i found them far too flimsy and hard to bend. I must have spent hours trying to do so, with the help of my dad (Whose building a 7 1/4 inch scale live steam loco - so has all the equipment necesery) and neither of us could get the required bents right and to look "nice". we even made a jig for the second one and still it looks just as messy as the first. Note: again you can just about pick out the poor fitting of the chassis top around the suspension arm mounts here. As you can tell, this really annoys me!

Initial work started on cleaning up the chassis and working out how to fit the front suspension. The kit build is a bit compromised by the fact that you can't build the chassis as one and then slot the suspension on. Its a hard one to explain The peice which you see I've held in place with the green and purple elastic band is not a great fit both in terms of where it joins the top of the tub and the radius of the curve on the suspension mount area - old kit of course, and needs to be fitted after you slot the front suspension through the 2 holes on the left of the picture. In the real car this is all one peice, or at least does not have obvious gap lines between the rest of the tub and this part. In an ideal world I wanted to fit this peice prior to fitting the front suspension and then modify the front suspension (Below) with some brass/metal rod and tap a thread so i can secure with nuts and bolts. This would allow me to build the tub as one and fill the gaps with filler, plus fill and then file a nice radus onto the ill fitting suspension mounts (no picture but from side view the bottom of the tub does not match well with this part and there is a ledge/offset between the 2. I might be able to post a better picture later). However the top suspension arm is very fragile and I daren't risk drilling it out for fear of ruining it. No problems if spares were plentiful, but the only opitions seem to be a replacement full sprue at £25 plus £15 P&P from Japan, or finding a scrap one on ebay. I've seen a few of these and even the scrap ones seem to go for between £30 and £40. on the picture below, I'd have to remove the angled bar on the left of the photo and drill out the 2 circles on each end. without a spare part to test this its not worth the risk So I've decided to build it as intended but through gritted teath, you won't see the join lines once the cockpit cowling is ontop of this anyway.

Hi all, After seeing Silver911's post recently and being encouraged to start one of my own, I thought I would do a thread on this build. I've had the kit for about 8 months and already made a start, but things were put on hold when a new arival appeared in october, meaning I had to clear my workbench up (conservatory table).. as you can see, it may be a challenge with said new arrival. all too curious... The next photo is all the detailing parts i've bought to detail up the DFV and various nuts and bolts. They include scale hardware PE set Ejan DFV hardware -distributor set/cam covers and MFH inlet funnel covers various rivits and simulated nuts to detail up the gearbox, cam cover and the windscreen cable ties and weldlines and tyre valves Indycals tyre decals, which I am a bit disapointed with, as they are the full tyre... not sure i will use them as I think it will detract from the finished tyre. various other bits and bobs one thing I'd really like to add would be the throttle linkage, but I am not sure where to purchase the bits for that. You may notice the missing chassis/tub - thats at my parents garage for modifying/detailing, and I've not brought it back. I'll post of that in a minute

sorry to drag this up - just catching up after being away for a few months - I’m glad you like it - there is always a debate about the colour. I worked really hard to get the right finish - testing both the TS spray and the LP mica blue on several different base coats. I went for the spray layered 4 or 5 coats lated on a grey primer in the end to get the richness. I find a lot of people paint them too light and the source images they seem to use are all taken from sunkissed Monaco mountains or baking hot san remo and Corsica etc where the light gives the car an almost medium to light blue hue. However having seen a few in real life and my memory of the time is a much richer shade of blue that under shadow and in flat light was quite dark

Thanks, I will catch up on that thread. I’ll be interested to see your engine as I did take some inspiration from your techniques and test them on a spare flat 12 312t engine I have (I might have shown you it in a PM). Obviously I didn’t have the skill or experience to use the oils but I was layering and trying to create a similar effect. Unfortunately I couldn’t decide on a suitable base colour for the DFV. That’s my first task. I will certainly think about doing a thread. I take a lot of pics and share with a friend by WhatsApp/ iMessage but I often find that if I finish work at around 5, all of a sudden its midnight and then 1am and I’m still working at the workbench - so thst leaves little time to post! 🙈. The thread would probably be more in the camp of ‘this is what I want to do, this is how I think I could achieve it, had anyone got any other ideas’ rather than a master class like this. The scratch building comes more naturally as I’ve done a few o gauge brass locos in the past and it’s very much a make do and mend sort of build, but on the weathering and panting side I’ve got a lot to learn!

Oh no! I’ve just spent the last 2 hours or so studying, reading and admiring from around p4 where I stopped. interestingly enough - I stopped because a new... kitten entered the household and I had decided to put my current build - the aforementioned Tyrell 003 Monaco on hold for the winter. As with the others - as much as I love what you have done, I’m so in awe of it, it makes my efforts feel quite inadequate! If you do make the Tyrrell - I’d love to see a thread and what you do with that. Andy

Hi all Just wondering what everyone does for re-chroming? I read a thread posted mid last year but that was mainly around suitable paints for a real car rather than the process of chroming. I've followed this tutorial on some test parts and it works well, but its a real faf - from memory (it was about 6 months ago I did my test peices) its 1.) Prime 2.)Zero paints Jet black 3.) Zero paints 2k clear (requires mixing a 2/3 part mixture) 4.) then waiting about 2/3 days and then chroming with Alclad before.. 5.) finally clear coating with alclad clearcoat. I really like this channel and it has some great tips but I am not sure if all that is overkill or not.... Especially the 2k clear step before chroming.... I asked the chap who runs the channel and he said its a must, but really? What does everyone else do? I'm rechroming all suspension and metal parts on a 70s 1/12 F1 car so I have quite a lot to do! Thanks

Thanks for the prompt reply Yes its the 2 part. I presume I can thin with Celulose thinners or Tamiya laquer thinner? (read this elsewhere) In terms of closeness I was about 3-5cm away so thats not the issue I don't think. I'll try and thin, although the primer seems to clog my pipettes so I can't see how much I fill them up second time round... lol!

Hi all Just looking for some advice RE zero paints filler primer (grey) and their etch primer. I've tried to use it on 2 models and both times I've ended up with a rough coat, sand like texture - Is this normal and should I have to sand each time? do other people find this as well or do i need to thin it more? I'm shooting at between 20-30 PSI on my Iwata exclipse 0.35mm Needle and I find the paint doesn't flow out the airbrush unless I open the apature > 60%. Any less preasure and it doesn't really flow at all. I am aware that the instructions say min 0.5mm recomended but unfortunatly unless I convert my airbrush or buy a new one that isn't an option. Keen to find out a better way before I let it loose on my main subject body as there is a lot of rivet detail and I don't think its going to be possible to sand around those if the coat turns out rough like in the following photos You will notice the rough texture and theres a lof of artifacts especially on the 90 degree locating pins on the square part and around the ball join on the suspension arm. You can see the corseness around the edges here and the lumpy surface with a few arifacts I then tried their etch primer on some metal parts. I had used it briefly on some mesh before, only opening the apature of the airbrush 50% and spraying around 30 PSI and it worked well, I had great control. However today after about 2 minutes i got this effect that I can only describe as Silly string or spiders web type stuff coming out of it and all over my peice.... When I tested the spray pattern this is what it was like.... Any advice chaps? Thanks Andy

Yes they do - are they expensive?

I have the dull aluminium - I think it’s possibility a bit too grey but I could try the Tamiya LP version

Hi all Just wondering which company and which product people would recomend as a replacement metal colour for Tamiya Xf-16 flat aluminium. The Vallejo one is about £7/8 in my local shop and the Alcad £4.50 so rather than buying both and testing which would be a bit of a waste of money, i was wondering what others thoughts on the best option would be. Its for a car radiator if its any help. So I don't want something too Chromy Cheers

Apologies for the delay, busy week at work and I've been working on the chassis today. Airbrush is an Iwata eclipse with a 0.35mm needle Compressor came with a cheapish kit of amazonn the peice in the pictures was just over sprayed, I didn't prime first, I sprayed over whatever metal silver finish the original painter had used to paint it years and years ago. The spoons I painted were primed with Tamiya fine surface primer light grey Colours I bought were only the pale burnt metal and dull aluminium, as there wasn't a lot of choice. What shades would you recomend to get a good contrast in finish? unfortunatly the shop didn't have a lot of choice/stock, plus they are bloody expensive when your "testing" and don't really know what you need! I also have the alclad dull aluminium that I purchased previously. regarding the runs - it just seemed a lot thinner than the dull alunimium, same settings and it was hard to get a consistant finish, hard to describe. not so much runs but more an inconsistant wet finish. Its hard to explain! I'm still undecided which way to go. I need a duller, darker finish finish than the valejo dull aluminium produces, which the Alclad provides. I guess an option is to clear coat the alclad with matt varnish - but would it acheive a similar base colour to the below? The other alternative is to try and acheive a similar effect using Alclad rather than Vallejo. I presume this would work? As you can see the DFV block was very "flat".

Yes, its hard to beleive isnt it? I was looking at some photos of a built Bentley exp speed 8 (le mans 2003) and I was a saying to a friend - to put this in context, I started watching motorsport in 1992, 17 years before that your talking mclaren M23s or Porsche 917s as being current. So to a new motorsport fan this is what a mclaren M23 is to me, and that is quite scary - same applys here.... It was a hard build - I found the chassis was slightly twisted when i'd started to put the suspension together and done all the paining.... but apart from that it's come out looking fantastic. I'm really pleased with it

Thanks - had a go experimenting on some spoons and my test block this afternoon. It didn’t go too well - but I didn’t expect to get it right first time. The pale burnt metal shot out the airbrush like nobody’s business - at the same PSI as the dull aluminium I was getting a lot of runs when trying to apply a wet coat. Turning down the pressure and limiting my aperture etc produced some artifacts and not an overly flat finish but I felt this might be a characteristic of the colour? the dull aluminium was not very dull - it was very shiny compared to the Alclad which at this stage looks a much better colour for a DFV block - which was a very dull light grey. this is the Vallejo dull aluminimum with a bit of pail burnt metal over the top. To be honest the shades are just to similar for me to determine what I’m actually spraying and if it’s adding any texture. I did the same with the pail burnt metal over the Alclad dull aluminium and I much prefer this finish. Left of the Ferrari was sprayed with the Alclad dull aluminium thenthe burnt metal - you can see the rough finished previously mentioned. I Thinned it slightly with Tamiya x-20 acrylic thinners. I couldn’t find much info on the best thinning method so this seemed as good as any. to the right is standard Alclad dull aluminium with no mist coat over the top as I say - the thing I found hardest was A.) getting the burnt metal to spray at a level that went on in a mist. I ended up at about 4/5psi and only opening The aperture half way and b.) actually noticing the mist making any decernsble difference to the colour when applied on Vallejo’s dull aluminium. Consequent I probably applied too much trying to make it a noticeably different shade. much to ponder on and more practice to be had. Unfortunately the shop didn’t have the full range in stock so I couldn’t try the durainium which might have made more of a difference!

Hi - using some micro fibre clothes - bought from Halfords for polishing the real car..!

Thanks - your explanations are great. my love o model shop does stock the Vallejo paints so I’m going to go down today or Monday and make a choice. I’ll probably test out on some spoons first applying the flat coat and then the mist coat. do you apply the mist randomly or do you target using reference photos? how long do you leave between the base and mist coats? 10/15 mins or so? thanks Andy

Thanks Ron I've been having a look at the Vellejo colours on the web but their little swatches don't give a great clue as to what the colours are! I'm trying to understand what you mean by this Ron - apologies for all the questions So for paining the block do you paint a base colour, say flat aluminium @ 24 PSI then before it drys a few mist coats of other colours on top @ 18 PSI close in? Am i understanding that correctly? Also another question I've had for a while (and i've yet to watch a video or read a post that conceptulises it well for me) is what is a mist coat - is this a coat sprayed from further away, without covering everything? I.e If i sprayed a mist coat on the primer I'd still see the primer through it?

Finished this off a couple of nights ago. Colin McRae's 1997 RAC winning impreza. Few mods to the Tamiya kit. Shunko decals, reniessance wheels and suspension to mimic the gravel spec tyres. I removed the moulded roof vents and did my own out of brass sheet and metal mesh. Adds a lot I think. I also had the Hobby design PE parts. Not sold on whether PE is worth it as most of the parts are inside and can't be seen but the etched detail above the subaru badge is nice. Much better than the Tamiya moulded stuff.

Thanks, I need to do a bit of research to see whether the alcald are acrylics etc - you mention using 2 vallejo colours to get the basic colour on the engine block and allowing the paints to mix together on the part - which Vallejo colours were they? I might try those, again need to check whether they are acrylic etc so i know if I can do the weathering over the top of them. As things stand I may use your technique of applying a wash and brushing off with a cotton bud, thats what Idid on the test peice (where its overly black around the edges). Still a little bit of time till I get to this point though, so I'm not in any rush. Currently rebuilding the radiator frame out of brass.

Thanks - I’ve just read your full thread - fantastic. You are right - I’m still learning ‘advanced’ painting but please ignore the test peice - apart from the weathering/detailing the base paint coat came applied - it’s from a wreck of a Tamiya 312T I bought on eBay 15 years ago! That’s why it appears brush painted. experience wise I’ve been building kits for 20 years including a couple of brass locomotives - now that’s a skill with all the bending and soldering, filling and forming of parts but paint wise I’m pretty basic... I do use an airbrush - an Iwata with a 3.5mm needle. I am fairly inexperienced with it, only bought it about 5/6 months ago As I’ve just got back into my modelling have painted 2 cars with it. One in this thread. paint wise I use Tamiya acrylic, lacquer, zero paints, humbrol enamels and Alclad. I planned to do my main block in Alclad dull aluminium but keen to combine it with something else to get a similar effect to yours. I’d like to do something similar as you did to your block but do the scrub coat and thinning with thinned enamels over the Alclad if possible. thanks for the offer of help Andy

Hi guys i just want to add some subtle detail to an engine block for a 1/12 F1 car I’m building. Luckily I have a test piece to try some things out on. I was wondering what everyone’s techniques are. I’ve tried a few things and not got anything I’m quite happy with. ive used Tamiya panel Line accent and an oil was from humbrol. The combination looks good but is a bit too weathered/strong. On the left hand side top of the block i mixed up my own wash But it’s too grey and doesn’t have the same pop as the black. how do you guys do this in terms of colour and application - run round the edges or brush on across the whole part? I did a mixture of both and used a cotton bud to smear some across the block. block before: after

I had an order needed from Spotmodel in spain so I've ordered the coarse from there. The postage costs mean you need to be buying a lot to make it worth shipping but as I needed some other stuff anyway, it made sense,