Lotus Europa 1/24 Tamiya

[wimbledon99]

How you doing with this one - Any progress?

[Chimpion]

The build has been progressing slowly, uploading the photos even more slowly. I can now post the latest update.

The engine is pretty much complete and mounted in the chassis. I might add wires to the spark plugs made from left over rigging from the Airfix Cutty Sark.

The dashboard is done. I messed up one of the decals but it's barely visible and once inside the car it won't be noticeable. The decals are quite shiny, so I decided not to put a finishing clear coat on as they look like they're coated with glass. Inside the car the risk of them getting rubbed off is minimal. I tocuhed up a few spots after seeing this photo

For the first time ever I used metal foil for the chrome around the windows. The first attempt wasn't too good, but the second window looked at least as good as it would have done had I painted it.

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with it.

I've now applied the first metal decals and gold pin-stripes to the engine cover. The pin-stripe decal broke up leaving an ugly gap. I tried using a gold fine liner pen to fill the gap but it was too wide. Fortunately the ink just wiped off. The next attempt involved coating the whole lot with clear gloss (Revell no. 1 enamel thinned to around 65%), application of masking tape leaving a very thin gap, then brush painting with an old tin of brass enamel from Precision Paints (it's great paint). The colour matched almost exactly, btu on peeling off the masking tape a further section of the pin-stripe came away in spite of the coat of clear varnish. This evening I carefully remasked and painted the missing section, and part of the previous paint came off with the tape.... Hopefully tomorrow I'll get it sorted.

It's going to be tight getting this finished on time. Although there's ages left, I'll be away for three of the remaining weeks, on holiday in Croatia, then on business trips to California and Dresden. I'll do my best, but it's going to be close.

[wimbledon99]

Nice progress Chimpion. Looking forward to the finished article

[Chimpion]

I have to accept defeat on this. Two long business trips that have meant me being away for 9 of the last 14 days have put paid to any remaining hope of being on time. I'd rather take my time and get a good finish than rush it and make a mess of what promises to be a nice model. I will continue to post progress reports here. Congratulations to all those who met the deadline.

[Col.]

Please do continue to post updates as you work on this one. It looks great so far and there are quite a few of us enjoying your progress.

[Chimpion]

Sorry for the long delay, but I finally finished this about a week ago. I took photos at various stages so can now finish this build article.

This is the state the model was in at the end of the group build.

I'd messed up the gold stripe decal at the back. Also I didn't quite get the LOTUS metal decal on straight. The former I was able to correct later with carefully masked gold paint and a thin brush. The latter was impossible to correct, but isn't very noticeable in 1/24 scale.

This was the chassis and engine :

and this was the bodyshell :

and the dashboard and seats :

[Chimpion]

I fixed the dashboard and seats and put the wheels on. I'm pleased with the result - this assembly stage makes a huge difference. The model stops being an engine and chassis and looks like the inside of a car.

[Chimpion]

The bodyshell went on without too much difficulty :

[Chimpion]

Finally, the finished model.

This represents pretty accurately my current skill level. I think I made a pretty good job of the engine, but in the end gave up on trying to add ignition wiring. I did try, but struggled to get them to stay in place. The dashboard is OK, but to be honest it can barely be seen on the finished model, and what little can be seen looks well detailed.

The attempt to use metal leaf for the window trims was educational - next time I'll try with thicker foil as the leaf was too thin. It broke up into very tiny pieces on making contact with just about anything.

I'm still learning how to get a good finish to the body. I did learn on this build the importance of thinning paint even when brush painting. Despite the earlier disasters I got the best finish I've ever managed on the underlying body paint. The decals were delicate and some of them broke, but I managed to align the broken parts on all of them except the one on the back, which I repaired with paint. The colour match between the decal and paint was amazing .

I then had a serious dilemma - I really didn't want to risk damage to the decals, so I knew I needed a clear coat. Given the problems I encountered earlier which I think was caused by overthinning the enamel paint, I decided to use an acrylic clear gloss (Revell aqua) thinned to help the surface self-levelling. I still got some brush marks and lost the lovely finish underneath. I decided to just give a very gentle 8k and 12k micromesh polish to the regions well clear of the decals, as I didn't want to risk sanding off the decals. The end result isn't great, but it's probably the best I could have achieved given my current skill level. It certainly looks good in the display cabinet.

This kit goes together very nicely. There were no fit issues to overcome. The hardest part was fitting the small chrome parts especially the wing mirrors and door handles as I'd filled the fixing holes with paint.

[Col.]

Well done on getting this one finished and thanks for showing us the progress as well as the result