Baz962

They must have been a trial, especially around the front sidepod area. Brave man!! I bottled doing the green bodywork decals very early in the build, just used them as a template for masking tape instead.

Hi, This is my first finished F1 car in about 30 odd years Kit: 1/20 Tamiya Aftermarket: Tabu & Indycal Decals. Scale Motorsport seat belt buckles. Scratch built belts. Paints: Zero, Tamiya acrylics and Alclad. There is a WIP somewhere, but can't yet figure out how to post a link to it! Thanks for looking.

Starting the beginning of the end now. The kit decals for the side pods were pretty nasty (old I think) and were silvering up something awful. Also managed to place one in wrong position, forgetting it overlapped the joint between side pod intake and the engine cover. Damaged it beyond reapair teying to remove it. Was stuck for a while, as couldnt get hold of replacement set anywhere,but luckily Indycals recently released a set of replacement/sponsor decals, which have helped me reapir my ham fistedness. All of the sub assemblies are decaled and have received a couple of coats of Zero clearcoat, now letting them dry for a day or so. Not sure whether to try polishing up or not yet; don't feel brave enough! Need to finish off wing mirrors and decide how to apply the 'mirror' finish to other side, probably use bare metal foil again. Pleased with how decals have gone on though. Just a few odd jobs to finish off and we'll be finished.

OK so we had a spare decal So the old, incorrectly aligned decal was smoothed over, and partially removed, new decal carefully cut around and placed in correct posistion Phew! Lesson learned; more care and attention required in future.

Nearly sorted now actually, and ridiculously easy! Because I chose to mask and spray all the green areas, rather than use the green decals over the yellow, I have a 'spare' decal to cover the incorrectly aligned one. Just need to carefully cut round it and apply! I'll put some images up tomorrow.

Believe it or not, I had already sprayed another 2 coats of Clear, only on that one part, purely to see how the the finish would look, and I don't fancy trying to clean that, then move the decal. I am happy overall, and learnt another important lesson!Cheers anyway and thanks for looking in

Considering the seat belts are decals, they look great. I have a couple of Revell F1 kits in the stash but no DTM's.......yet! Looking good so far

gasdriverca & Mafney I have buckled down & enthusiasm re-kindled! Made a start on decals, nose and front wing end-plates. One disaster already, Decals on the suspension cover are wrong way round/upside down. Ah well it was late!!! Have managed to get rid of most of over spray on the inside of the cockpit. Cotton bud and a tiny, tiny application of celluose thinners. Will touch up the inside of cockpit surround later. Ditto for the digital display inside cockpit. Bit blurred, but compared to image in earlier posts, an improvement.

Now following this with interest, as I have the Monaco version in my modest stash. Looking really good so far though.

What a great build. Loved the write up. We'll done Sir!

Really enjoyed looking at your build so far, beautiful work. So neat.

Has it really been 9 months since I updated this? Blimey time flies! I actually packed kit away when we went on holiday end of May last, then didn't look it it again till mid Summer, and really seemed to loose the inclination to do too much, not helped by the fact one of the white upper front wing planes has dissapeared (probably one of the cats) and I badly oversprayed the inside of the cockpit. Just goes to show you can never mask too much. Anyway a few images to show where I am now; Managed to overspay the decals inside the tub, And the driver display! Lost one of the white upper wing planes, and had to build another (left hand side) Undertray and radiators installed, might risk weathering the radiator cores with a dark wash too add some depth. Lots of the component parts ready, just need to push myself to finish, really lost the love for this kit. Dry fit of progress so far; Loads more still to do, but think I'll get some clear coat on, and apply some decals. Might then start to feel a little better about the whole thing.

Borrow a hand-held hair drier from the lady in your life, set on the lowest warm setting. I find this usually softens the decals up a treat, and persuades then to fold over curves more easily. Just be careful!!

I'd be in too, although not sure what with yet.

Beautiful car Beautiful work Inspirational!

"the other thing you could have used for the seat belt is the metal foil you get on some bottles of wine, " The wine drunk in this house comes mainly from a box! I think I did see a tube of tomato puree lurking in the fridge. I think I read somewhere the metal in that is malleable enough for belts. Something to try on next build though. Thanks MM, great advice as ever!

It has been a while since last post, but have been doing a little, not very often! Finally finished the rear suspension, and air intake trumpets, even though they will be hidden on final build. Next task we to remove moulded seat belts, and replace with something a little more realistic. I did have some Tamiya photo-etch buckles with the 'sticky-back' seat belts, but thought they were a bit too fiddly. Was then going to use some red ribbon, but that kept fraying when I tried to thread it through the etched parts. I tried using some red coloured card I 'borrowed' from the kids. I does not have the texture, but is easy to get to the right width, glues easily, seems to sit quite realistically and threads quite well, as long as you don't overwork it. Then it becomes too bend, and starts to 'delaminate' It look ok from a distance, and not too bad closer up. Also finished the rest of the dashboard and gear shift. I have not put any decals on yet, as I want to photo copy the decal sheet to cut out some masks for the green decals which I am going to spray instead. I have made a start of spraying the cockpit surround. Then I plan to insert the cockpit, then seal the joint between the cockpit floor and the tub, before applying final coat(s) of yellow. Otherwise there will a joint line that is not there on the full size vehicle. So the next task is too fill, sandthe join between floor and cockpit sides, prime and paint all the yellow on the tub. Could not resist a little dry fit to see how it is all shaping up!

Small update; Madmonk thank you for valuable advice on toning down the gearbox colour. Sprayed flat varnish with a couple of drops of smoke & has worked a treat. Dry brushed gearbox housing sides, but not too sure how this looks, as first time have tried this technique. Started work on cam covers. Wanted to try another trick I read somewhere - applying BMF over the logos, rubbing down with something soft, priming, spraying, then carefully sanding away to reveal foil again. Was quite impressed, but did chicken out on the sanding and finished off with a cocktail stick in places to remove paint. Over zelous sanding had worn away the BMF back to plastic again! Aplogies for the image quality, but should get gist of what I'm trying to say. Managed to get most of rear suspension on, just rear shocks and fuel rails etc to do next. Bear, did you mean all the decals in general, or the 'green' decals for the bodywork etc. I am planning to spray all the green parts, but may run out of talent, so if the green decals do a good enough job..............well it will save on masking tape if nothing else! Thanks for looking

Love the base. Perfect against your excellent build. Had Mr. Newey taken his head out of his hands since Sunday?! Leyton House +1

Hello there, Long time lurker, first second time poster. Got back into modelling a couple of years back. Read on here few days ago there were not enough F1 builds on the site, so thought I'd kick off with this; Some bits in a box Will aim to build OOB, but have some baccy sponsor decals, and will try and spray tyre logos rather than decal those; Started engine-gearbox-rear wing. Not happy with colour on gearbox. supposed to be a mix of gun-metal & matt brown. Might have another go, or spray with some smoke to tone it down a bit. Mind you, it will be mainly hidden when bodywork is in place. Drive shafts & some wishbones ready. Finally tonight two side panels that go either side of gearbox coloured and misted with Klear. Will let dry, sand and coat again, then a quick polish. That's it for now. Thanks for looking

TJD Models, 83 Main Road, Sutton-at-Hone, Dartford - Mainly R/C Aircraft, Cars , Boats etc, but has plenty of Tamiya, Revell, Airfix and a few others if I recall. ModelWorld at Maidstone, as previous poster alluded to, has fair few kits too.