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Background There have been some beautiful Grand Prix cars in the post-WWII era. My personal favourites include the ‘shark nose’ Ferrari 156, in which Phil Hill won the world championship in 1961, when 1.5 litres was the rule, and the only Eagle-Weslake built, which Dan Gurney drove. The Lotus 72, however, may be the most iconic Grand Prix car of this – and perhaps any – era. Someone said the 72 was basically a standard chassis for the time. Colin Chapman and Maurice Phillippe, however, changed the shape of GP cars for the next 50 years and we’ve not seen again livery as refined as the JPS design. I wonder how many different models of the 72 have been produced and how many kits Tamiya has sold of its 1/12th scale version, which it has re-released a few times. There have been 1/8th scale versions too and Pocher is soon to release its own kit in this scale. I bought the Tamiya kit intending to model the R5 ‘D’ chassis driven by Fittipaldi when he won the Italian GP at Monza in September 1972, taking the world championship. In principle this might have been fairly straightforward, as the kit is based on a ‘D’ and Tamiya provides numbers and other decals for the ’72 Monza GP. The trouble, as many modelers well know, was with ‘additional detail’. I could find only a few photos with specific details of that car. Recognizing how things change from race to race and particularly from year to year, I’ve tried to be careful when inferring details based on pictures from other races, but without a complete picture some guesswork is inevitable. Another a drawback of modelling a car raced 50 years ago is that after 1972 all existing chassis were converted to ‘E’ and then later specifications, while many of the pictures you find online are of recently restored cars. Ian Wagstaff’s book, Lotus 72 Owners Workshop Manual, provided invaluable information, though in that, too, many of the photos are of rebuilt cars. The book includes Tony Matthews’ excellent cutaway drawing of an early 72D which also served as a useful guide, while Mike Oliver, who wrote the definitive book on the 72 (unfortunately I don’t have it), kindly sent me some photos with hard-to-find details. With one exception – drilling 16 holes in the 1.2mm brass tubing of the rear anti-roll bar for the adjustable drop-links to the uprights – I use hand tools and a small ‘pen’-type electric drill extensively. With an adjustable chuck, it accepts PCB micro drill bits, burrs, as well as sanding and polishing bits and the carbide cutoff disks that I seem to use for almost everything. Though recently completed, I’d lost track of when I started this model. My earliest photos say it was essentially five years ago. Since then, I retired and moved continents, from the USA, near Washington D.C., to the Southern Cape coast of South Africa. Why additional detail? Over the years I’ve made and collected all kinds of models, from railway-related ones – although I never built a layout – to household product miniatures, including – in the late 50s – some of the UK-made tiny reproductions of everything from packets of Player’s Navy Cut cigarettes to boxes of soap powder. The reason has always been the pleasure of a miniature version of something; and the more it replicates in its details the ‘look and feel’ of the prototype the more I enjoy it. If you compare some of today’s highly detailed tiny cars in HO scale – they have interiors, opening boots and bonnets, and even some engine detail – with, say, their diecastMatchbox counterparts, which I loved as a child, you get a sense of how ‘toy cars’ have improved in detail and accuracy. The early 1/12th scale Formula 1 car kits weren’t the precise scale models we get today. Tamiya’s earliest kits included a small motor and batteries, so, in spite of their general quality, the manufacturer sacrificed accuracy and detail for ‘play value’. This changed over the years with improvements in manufacturing techniques, a wider variety of materials being used, more competition and, not least, modelers wanting more accuracy. Even though the detail in Tamiya kits is marvelous, big scale kits allow and even encourage detailing, which, besides replacing (remaking) parts, often means substantially modifying the parts I do use. I thought I’d begin with photos of the ‘finished product’ and work backwards to earlier stages, to show the construction. That said, as I’ve not kept a careful photographic record of the construction, this will be a bit random. At the same time, I thought it might be interesting to compare details on the model against the prototype, using cropped sections of photos I’ve collected. We’ll see how it goes! [Apologies if this is confusing. I've redone some of the photos because they weren't properly lit and weren't particularly clear]

Hi all - I have decided to start another 1/48 DVa. Having built several before, this time, I have gone with the Revell boxing, which is a re-box of the Eduard kit. Revell have moulded this kit in a very light grey and slightly brittle plastic. Reflecting upon the fact that a tightly cowled Albie hides all of its secrets, I decided to bite the bullet and tackle something that i've wanted to do for a while; an un-cowled DVa. The first thing to do, unsurprisingly, was cut off the kit cowls, and thin down the fuselage sidewalls. I sanded off all of the interior detail, and thinned down the interior of the nose section with a dremel: Now, the real challenge... how do deal with those curves, and build all of the distinctive formers? Having sanded the fuselage, it was now not simply a round symmetrical section that I could use. I also really didn't want to make up each frame painstakingly by hand. I decided that I would use my Silhouette Portrait cutter to cut the formers from thin plastic. That would also allow me to design the lightening holes and have them cut out cleanly. To do this, the first thing I did was roughly get the shape of each frame using thin plastic. Some of the shapes were going to be a bit 'odd', due to the way that the plastic had been sanded, creating shapes / contours that weren't quite oval (mainly at the point of the firewall, as you can see I needed a slightly odd shape here): This then allowed me to scan the shapes into the Silhouette drawing program, and trace out each shape. The appropriate details were then added: I then used the Shilhouette Portrait cutter to cut the shapes from 0.010" plastic. I had to use this plastic thickness as anything thicker would have been too hard to cut. This plastic was too thin in and of itself for each frame, so in order to provide some rigidity I cut two pieces for each frame and glued them together: I then had the frames I needed to create the main structural elements: Next was re-adding the structural detail in the fuselage halves: And here it all is, VERY roughly placed within the fuselage. It may need a couple of adjustments here and there, but I think it will all work. And proof the fuselage halves still come together... I now have the basis to commence the rest of the interior. Phew...! Happy to take comments, tips and feedback. Cheers again! BC

Hi all I thought I would share my current build of mengs me 410 b-2/u2/f4. I started this build in Feb. I am planning to correct the mistakes in the kit (props and oil coolers) drop the leading edge slats and have 1 engine displayed. I am planning to use the following after market items. Aires cockpit for the meng kit. Eduard super fabric seat belts The following quickboost items-- ju 88 c/g gun barrels, (under fusalarge gun pack) Ju 88 mg 151 20 ( inturnel gun pod) Me 410 props True details me 110g wheels. Rmb 13mm mg 131 gun barrels ( rear guns) Vector corrected oil coolers. A sorted lead wire Paint used will be xtracolor and humbrol enamels. Airbrushs used are Badger 200 sg & Badger 200 g (fine tip) (The cut down blade is what I used for thinning the cockpit sides down) And my referances Now for the build. As I wonted to have the gun bay detailed as well as using the airies cockpit. I first joined the gun bay roof to the rear bulkhead. I then placed it in position inside fuselarge with the rear cockpit and marked around them. As I did not won't to remove any plastic were the kit gun bay is. I then started with the removal of plastic, from the top of the kit gun bay roof as this has the kit cockpit floor molded on it. And from the bottom of the airies cockpit floor. (My intension was to join the kit gun bay to the airies cockpit. But be the same thickness as the kit part.) as well as the fuselarge sides. The airies cockpit walls were thinned until thay were see through. Aswell as removing the casting block from the rear cockpit I was going to use my dremel for the removell of the plastic but the plastic is too soft. So I went old school and used a blade to scrap away the plastic. As the cockpit sides are curved I cut a no 2 bladed down to the size of the front cockpit walls. It took muliable test fits and scraping to get them to fit. As the airies cockpit coming is longer I had two options. Cut the airies part down to the length of the kit part or remove the rear cockpit bulkhead. I went for the removal of the bulkhead and more scraping of plastic. The cockpit and gun bay were first sprayed black then a base coat of rlm 66 (cockpit), rlm 02 (gunbay). Mgs were sprayed humbrol gun metal. Ready for the detailing. The results Thank you for looking, feed back and comments are always welcomed. Nick

Hi all this is my latest build, airfix's new ju 87 b-2/r-2. I added the following aries ju 87b cockpit (designed for italieri) Quick boost wing mg barrels, pilot & gunners seat, propeller, exhausts. Resin wheels & extra mg magazines & gun sight. Stretched sprue for the radio airial. Copper wire for trim activators. Eduard rear mg 15, 250 kg & 50 kg bombs Kagero decals for the aircraft markings Aero master & xtradecal for the national markings Paints used extracolor for the rlm 70,71,65,02,66 colours & colourcoats for the tan (a mix of giallo mimetico 4 & grigio sabbia chiaro to match the snake decal) . The rlm 70,71 was masked using tamya tape, the tan was sprayed free hand using a badger 200 g fitted with a fine tip. Weathering was done using pastels. Thanks for looking, comments are welcomed. Nick

Here is my bf 109 f-4z b,. W. nr 7473, flown by uffz Felix sauer of 10 (jabo) jg 53. San pietro sicilia March 43. On the 27 March this aircraft was belly landed on the beach near pozzallo could not be recovered before being swamped by the sea cousing it to be a 100% loss . Detail to the engine using lead wire, resin cockpit and wheels decals from kagero jg 53 "pik as" book painted using extracolor.

Here is my (very) long term project, started some 3 years ago if I recall correctly. In that time I have not progressed far due to glaring shape issues and the desire to onpen it up and display some internal detail. Here is a box shot ..and here is a shot of how the model stands at the moment. My main short term aim is to get the interior complete so I can button it up and start on getting the external shape right. Then I can get to work on the main wheel wells and finally the engines. Some progress will follow shortly.