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While taking a break from my 312T4 (in desperate need of purchase a magnifying lamp, as I'm having real trouble focusing on the wiring and tubing) I thought I would make a start on another of my favourite cars the Lotus 102, it wasn't a good car and had a part in Lotus's final demise but what a livery. I hope you enjoy this thread and apologies already for any rambling and pointless photo's taken to describe this build. Shood23 has already built a fine example of the car last year and I just hope this will be half as good as his. While doing my research I bought a build guide from the Modeler Site website by a William Chan which highlighted the changes from the Tamiya 102b kit, I also had a large a number of photo's of the chassis #4 car that was on show during the Classic Car show I visited at the Excel earlier this year so hope I am as primed as I can be. I shall, near as possible be reproducing the chassis #4 car of Derek Warwick, in my opinion one of F1's underrated drivers who never really had the car to challenge for the top. The good lady bought me the Tamiya 102b kit for my birthday and I had already purchased the Studio 27 PE upgrade, Shunko decal sheet and the Camel yellow paint from Zero all from our friends at Hiroboy. There is a Studio 27 white metal brake disk upgrade which I've only seen available from Belgium and I'm still not certain whether it's worth the extra £22, I'll probably wait to see how the car progresses before I make that decision. Also both Shaun/Shood23 and William Chan decided on a roadside kit due to the great difference of the kits Judd engine to the actual 102's Lamborghini engine. I did like the idea of having the rear cowling removable and hope nobody mentions the engine but while having an initial dry fix I noticed how bad the fitting of this section was, I've been working on a Tamiya, Williams FW13 kit and the fitting is much crisper so I may opt for a roadside kit after all but I'll delay this decision until all the alterations have bee completed. Anyway, the main modifications are to the bodywork with a pointed nose and raised section near to the cockpit, a slightly smaller and more angular air box and reduced bodywork around the engine. I also noticed, from my photo's, the rear diffuser was completely different all of which I have decided to alter, William Chan's guide doe's give some good examples of how to do this but as he had a resin nose and used the rear diffuser from a MP4/5, all of which I do not have I had to botch something together using poly sheet and tube. The nose was removed slightly in front of the actual moulded seam, so as to retain the seam line, the replacement nose was made from a rough skeleton of 2mm poly sheet then strips of 0.5mm sheet glues over to give a very basic shape over which I applied a layer of Milliput's fine epoxy putty and began to shape. To the remaining section of the cockpit I capped it off with a section of 2mm poly to get a good fixing surface when attaching the new nose, as you may see I left a small return to the base of the nose to match a similar return in the bodywork near the front suspension. I cut a section of the new nose to accommodate the front wing, then fitted the front wing to the nose with Milliput sandwiched between, left to dry and trimmed off the excess. The nose was attached and it quickly became evident my initial estimate of the size of the replacement nose was underestimated and a lot more filler would be required, that done the process of filing and sanding began. The grooves were made to give me a guide to the amount of filing back needed. Ready for initial prime coat. The addition to the front of the cockpit was from a section of 9mm poly tube cut at an angle, glue and packed with putty the lots of filing down. And I thinks its still slightly to large. Regards John

Please find below, images of my completed 1/20 Fujimi Ferrari 126C2, started Boxing Day. It started out a simple OOB but then I decided on leads & fuel pipes and continued with electrical wiring, trunking, paneling, hose, bends and driver. I can safely say I have thoroughly enjoyed building this kit. Hope you enjoy, for anybody interested my WIP is still reasonably current (I tried linking tread with no luck). Thanks for Looking. I would like to give my thanks to all the encouraging comments on the WIP and a special thanks to Phil B and Malc2 for sharing their knowledge of such a great car. Regards John

Ferrari 312T4 I've been building up to this one for as while, the good lady bought me this kit the Christmas before last, there has been a few threads in the past on hear but nobody has seemed to make it much past the cockpit and front suspension phases. As mentioned during my 126C2 WIP, I'm not a Ferrari fan, but I have to admit they do make a beautiful car, this T4 being one of the finest in my opinion. This is my first MFH kit and was daunted as soon as I opened the box, the amount of unreferenced white metal parts was a bit of an eye opener to say the least and I wasn't really up to the task last year. I had prematurely made a start last year and made a complete tosh of the tube, personally I'm not convinced with polishing the large tub section, I gave it an inadequate polish and in haste before any clear coat began adding other white metal and PE parts. This is when I stopped, I knew I was out of my depth. The 126C2 was a spur and exercise leading up to making a start back on the T4, and enjoyed every minute of it, I now have an airbrush and have had some limited experience with it, I used Xtreme Polished Aluminium and Chrome on the C2 with some success and an seriously vying away from the polishing route and onto spraying. While I'm contemplating this I thought I would make a start with the engine block, gearbox and rear suspension, the all parts fitted well to be honest with only the rear wishbone needing some adjustment. I know it is suggested dry fixing everything prior to gluing, which I haven't done to be honest but there was only one way of fixing the wishbone and will be hoping to test fix other sections of the rear suspension once this section is completed. So it all may come back and bite me. All parts seen were polished and washed prior to gluing and were given a couple of coats of Halfords etching primer prior to further spraying. This is a hell of a step up from the Fujimi kit and I still not convinced that I'm up too it yet but I've got to do it at some point and the thought of decaling up that gorgeous bodywork is enough of an incentive. Regards John

First posting for a while, what with work commitments and the Star Wars bug at the end of last year. I would like to apologies straight away, whenever I could, I have flitted through various posts and really should have posted some comments on some truly extraordinary builds, the attention to detail and skill involved on your builds is exceptional. My son bought this for me for Christmas, now that he has left school and got a job as an apprentice Spark, it's his first real gift from his earning so means quite a bit to me, although I come from a plumbing family where electricians were looked on as 'plumbers who were dropped on their heads at an early age', but that's another issue altogether. I have progressed quite far with this already, just haven't had the time to post, so I'm hoping my posts will come through quite quickly. I'm not a huge Gilles Villeneuve or Ferrari fan to be honest but the 126c2 has always caught my eye for whatever reason, the double rear wing at Long Beach, the feud beginning at Imola and resulting in GV's untimely demise, a Harvey Postlewaite design or just because I love the ground effects era of the early 80's, anyway I opted for the Imola version as I do like these cars without the front wing. I have three 1/32 scale versions from the master modeller George Turner who produced an exceptional resin kit for slot car market so a lot of the research for this had already been carried out. The final reason for choosing this kit is that my wife bought me the MHF Ferrari 312 T4 which is a monster of a build and I wanted to use this as a tester as I'm still not sure whether to polish the white metal of just paint it. This is my first Fujimi kit and have not complaints, it may be me but it doesn't have the feel as a Tamiya, this may be and there are a quite a few small fiddly parts. I started preparing the floor and chassis with the general sanding and filling. I wanted to add spark leads and fuel pipes to the engine block and had to add injector nozzles using polystyrene dowel and fuse wire, this and a resin driver are the only aftermarket additions I have made to this kit, I was thinking of the photo etch package but thought better of it. Primed, and coated the tub without thinking about the join line and added an extinguisher and oxygen bottle to the base out of some poly tube and filler, I can think of better things to do on a Friday evening when the wife's out but I ended up making these which will not be seen if the driver goes in, I also added some cable trunking from strips of 2mm poly sheet and hollowed out the ends for some wiring. The tub had to be sanded down and filled after to remove the join. More will follow very shortly. Regards John