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1/24 Ferrari 348 tb


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Hello All,

This one has also been on the 'shelf of doom' for some time. Probably about 4 or 5 years...

It's the Hasegawa Ferrari 348 tb. It'll go well with the other Ferraris that I have been working on.

What with the 308 having been finished, and the 288 GTO nearly complete, I thought that I would clear the decks of old builds and add this one to the list of 'in progress'.

y4mKS2zDO8iqHQC7TnLwtwB_-LqyKpegV9i_DD5J

The box. A pretty car, if not quite so beautiful as the 308 & 288...

y4mdegKY24mp6cZ7N9RuSc3fNxcIvf4HQ6oM18U9

The sprues. It doesn't look a lot, but the engine is already built and almost ready to be put aside.

y4mK6uAzWg6lYsjqY8dLyy019lWqyPWXbwx5Bvn8

... and, the instructions.

I'm hoping that this Hasegawa kit will be a bit more successful than a couple of others I tried...

I tried to construct the 1/24th Ferrari F189, but it went completely pear-shaped on me and the body work would not fit. I binned it!

I also tried the 1/24th Jaguar XJR8 (or was it the XJR9?, I can't remember). That was going well, then I managed to split the rather large wind-screen!

That ended up as spare parts...

On the other hand, the 1/32nd F-16 seems to going rather better.

Anyway, more pictures...

y4mCtaamjBKPEdUrC18efmn1fOpYUFxOpXNm-VRL

y4mzW3a6UBATTqCyTU6MILhpzESwY9qraQUroxJw

y4m-Bqusa0Gp2HWi9Q07iITSYHAy_zkNoLJjq_3L

y4my7Zqm9RdJBdUJOBmqDoGBgs2f3EviZBaZdywR

The body has been painted with Halfords acrylic spray paint. I can't remember the colour. But I don't need any more (unless I screw up with the cement!). If I do, I'm pretty certain that I can mix up the right cocktail of (Tamiya) colours to get a near enough match.

y4me7jO5vCeBbDlFk2HR78XeJ8RlLZB-73SzRTBH

The engine, not quite fully assembled.

Again, I have added ignition leads. No engine looks right without ignition leads, except a Diesel. Actually, my wife's Meriva is a petrol, and the ignition leads are nowhere to be seen. Each spark-plug is fed by it's own coil in an ignition block that sits on top of them. Anyway, utterly irrelevant in this case, as the 348 has separate leads to each plug, and they go ... somewhere!

(More on that later!)

y4msAsVtQLofa-HI33utEOB9BZGANrXEfrMYLyil

The wheels. Matt chrome seems to work on car kits. I always thing the the high-chrome finish looks too toy-like on 1/24th scale! (Actually, I built the Revell 1/8th scale Jag, and the chrome on that looked too bright and toy-like!)

y4mnZDZmgJ1XWTRSXQPHMK7dAosZAjfL_HstitKI

The windows, door-mirrors and the engine cover.

That's it for the moment.

 

Thanks for looking, Alan.

 

 

Edited by Alan R
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Hi Roger,

I am hoping so.

 

I also have a Fujimi 365 Daytona and 365 Daytona open top and a Ferrari 246 Dino to build. A right Ferrari-fest...

 

Anyway, one small update to this. I mentioned above that the ignition leads went ... somewhere.

I did the usual Google thing, and searched for Ferrari 348 Ignition images, and got a load of pictures. One shoed that the leads disappear behind the engine. Another showed that the leads connected to a four-way ignition 'coil' block attached to the back of the cylinder block, as far as I could tell.

Another image showed what these blocks look like. They are square with four points where the leads go.

I even found that you could buy new coils from Europarts for 91 quid... A bit of useless trivia, that.

Anyway, here is where I have got with my scratch-built coil blocks...

Untitled_zpsauzdzh9z.jpg

They don't look much, but consider each of those grid boxes is  1cm across...

What they are made up of id a 3mmx3mm square of 30 thou card, with a 2mmx2mm square of 20 thou card cemented on the top.

Underneath (I haven't got any pictures of the bottom) I have cemented two half rounds of 3/64th diameter rod, to simulate the coils.

Then I have cut eight very short lengths of 3/64th rod (or was it 1/16th...), and drilled tiny holes in the ends of those shot segments of rod (Not without a huge attrition rate...),

then glued them on to the corners of the coil blocks.

Obviously, more work to be done. Some careful sanding and painting will make them look a bit better.

 

Thanks for looking, Alan.

 

Edited by Alan R
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  • 1 month later...

Hi All,

Some progress. I have managed to do some work on the engine.

I decided that a wash to bring out the details was required. I mixed up a bit of dark brown Humbrol enamel and a bit of matt black Humbrol enamel (about 5 parts dark brown and one part black), 'watered' it down with about 5 times as much enamel thinners, and liberally washed over the various parts of the engine. It seems to have worked, as it both 'popped' out the detail and gave the engine a slightly 'used' appearance.

Anyway, here are the pictures:

Ferrari348_0034_zpslc4b6ny3.jpg

Ferrari348_0032_zpsxtvabvve.jpg

Ferrari348_0033_zpsfvuc6uzf.jpg

Ferrari348_0031_zpss2l9qwbc.jpg

All I need to do now is get the floor-pan and suspension worked on, so I can fit the engine. Then I think, progress will be a bit faster.

 

Thanks for looking, Alan.

 

Edited by Alan R
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3 hours ago, FunkyChiken said:

Did you do a wash on the engine

I did indeed do a wash on the engine. I used a mix of dark brown with a touch of black enamel, heavily diluted with enamel thinners. I then just allowed the very thin paint mix to gather in all the crevasses around the engine. When it was dry, the detail popped out.

 

Cheers, Alan.

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A minor update for this. While I am waiting to around to paint the floor-pan, I have started on the rear suspension. So far I have primed the brake discs. I usually start with a grey primer coat, followed by a black coat over that. I learnt this trick from war-hammer modellers who paint their figures black, followed by the metallic colours. It seems to provide a good base for metallic.

I did he same with the rear-strings and axles, thus:

Ferrari348_0035_zpsnd59nrmb.jpg

They haven't come out too bad.

All I need to do is paint the disc-brakes and cement them to the stub axles.

 

Thanks for looking, Alan.

 

Edited by Alan R
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8 hours ago, Alan R said:

I did indeed do a wash on the engine. I used a mix of dark brown with a touch of black enamel, heavily diluted with enamel thinners. I then just allowed the very thin paint mix to gather in all the crevasses around the engine. When it was dry, the detail popped out.

 

Cheers, Alan.

Thanks Alan!

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  • 1 year later...

16 months since the last post. How did I let that much time pass?

Anyway, I have mode some progress on this little fellah.

The engine and rear suspension were the first to be mounted on the chassis thus:

y4mdk_MrS4vD2VG0s_HdSG8Be9vuLDMquPKZTNda

Here is the engine in the chassis:

y4mWsFFCvl9i4UGp7TOothfFS8hKFjNXOGL8wiU0

I'm quite pleased with how the ignition leads worked out.

The front end, minus the front suspension:

y4mSHHJ6NTSR5NQBoznmTH0LmClmIQj4ciuxELFv

and finally for this instalment, the front suspension partially made up:

y4mL7RQcRlnEegZq01EP6ZgmMl7L4ESGjUHI9Rim

Please forgive the blurry image, hand held in low light, despite an ISO of 3200 (that's all my elderly EOS 30D can handle)

More soon...

 

Thanks for looking.

 

All the best,

Alan.

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Another minor update from the last one.

I have managed to install the front suspension, but not steering.

The front suspension sub-frame was not lacking a minor drama.

The manner in which the upper wishbones are attached to the sub-frame looks a bit dicey to say the least, but after a little dry-fitting and careful cementing, they appeared to be properly set in place.

I left them over night to allow the solvents to do their work and weld that parts properly.

The following night, I wanted to install the sub-frame into the floor-pan.

Easily done, and all appeared to go well. However, after a period of time, (about two hours later), I picked it up and the top wishbone on one side of the chassis fell out, followed by the axle king-pin... :(

After much cussing and profanity, I did manage to wriggle it all back together and properly cement the wishbone in place and put the king-pin back in.

All seems good...

So, here we are now:

y4mmDhTI-MQgYxbMOf0Lki6UexQ7LAQhMWZD7Wqb

I have also got the seats prepped for priming. Any sink-marks and open gaps in the joins have been filled and sanded back.

 

More to come!

Thanks for looking, Alan.

 

 

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Good work, particularly in getting the suspension put back together. I think one of the most annoying parts of the hobby is when something falls off which you thought you had fixed properly, especially when it's a fiddly piece as this sounds.

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Hi Spiny,

Yup! Just to make things worse, I tried to fit the steering rack and I discovered that it was about 1mm too short. Not much you would think, but enough to make the front wheels turn inwards, by quite a large degree (about 20°, to be precise-ish). It would have looked decidedly cross-legged! (not cross-eyed...)

My usual solution is to cut the rack in the middle, then cut a length of tube as a sleeve and slip it over the two parts of the rack and carefully re-align the hubs so that they are parallel. Then I leave it to set. I'll post a picture tomorrow to show what I mean.

However (!), the top wishbone decided that then was a particularly good time to part company again!

This time, not only did I have the hub and the wishbone to realign, but half a steering rack attached to the king-pin as well. 🤬

Well, again after much cussing and profanity, I got it all aligned, the sleeve over the two separated parts of the rack and the hubs parallel, and all is peace and calm again

My wife wonders why I do this hobby if it causes me such grief, and I sometimes wonder the same thing myself!

However, when you solve a problem and beat the cussed thing into submission, you get a real sense of satisfaction.

 

All the best,

Alan.

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i built this kit a long time ago and don't remember having any issues with it. keep going, because it is a nice kit. i remember when i built mine that i couldn't be bothered sanding the roof to remove the mold line for the targa top, so i just painted that section black and used the TS badge instead of the TB badge.

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Hi Spoly,

It's not a show stopper, just a minor irritation. I have built far worse models over the years.

Anyway, here are some more pictures highlighting the issue:

y4mfOrUmq2u4xDZ6vCO13WY-xKyu92CFubM85Ai8

This is the chassis with the front wheels adjusted to be parallel. They may seem a little out, but in reality, they aren't.

 y4m-tPUhd5Z6rpPz0pnjJ_OiQj4TneVlUumTuD1D

Here's the corrected front suspension. Doesn't look too bad to me.

y4mhMGD26k1zKmSb9TxoRGtmiGXpBsfKfJ0L5QN_

Here's the solution. I split the steering rack in the middle, cleaned up the ends then slipped a styrene tube over the ends, adjusted the axles until they were parallel, then popped some cement down the tube, thus locking the rack at the correct length. I have used this trick to sort steering racks on models before. It's usually a permanent fix.

 

That's all for the present.

 

Thanks for looking,

Alan.

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Its something I kind of stumbled upon whilst trying to solve a similar problem some time ago.

I'm glad that someone else might find it useful.

Obviously, this fix only works here because it will be invisible when the car is fully assembled.

 

All the best,

Alan.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi All,

A small update. I have managed to prime the seats, ready for painting black leather colour (Tamiya   X-18, probably).

I do have a very large aerosol tin of Halfords' Satin Black which I may use, as it does produce a particularly good finish even from the can...

Anyway, the picture:

y4mNsZzVNcYtWBV7MiwkzqaPiJa_wpVl8Ii_fiHR

Now, the sharp eyed of you will notice that there are four seats and the 348 is a two-seater.

That's because I did a batch priming session, and the cock-pit and the two seats at the front are for a Fujimi Ferrari 246 Dino I'm working on.

The front valance is from the 348 though.

Hopefully, I'll get all of these sprayed satin black soon.

Edited by Alan R
Speling... :)
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Hi All,

 

Another small update.

The seats and the front valance have been painted. When I looked at them, I noticed that the filling I had done on the seats looked decidedly dodgy.

So, I re-sanded the sides of the seats, and re-painted the seats.

I think that the end result was worth the extra effort.

Some pictures:

y4mFOQa7POCBCe2Fhu425mYLeJRv0i8usrxnlsAC

 

y4mMsP8yXEiWlG30tlB9aoAz8SWmn7a1KyikwroV

 

y4mSIxeuHRsq1jGfzqTF4h6EyL0F0fOznmp07jfv

 

y4mJl78TtQcyqE8LGfcKkHxtv7o_yvN461yr2EW0

 

These are ready to put in the cockpit.

 

More soon.

 

Thanks for looking,

Alan.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi All,

Another minor update on this one.

I have managed to assemble the cockpit ready to attach to the floor pan.

y4m52Z8WcGYz5XMQ4Pzf4wQgAp6D1mZ4gWC78VN3

The two rectangular things on the right are the two radiators that have to be fitted at the same time as the cockpit.

y4mALI1vJ8ZAlaeAzqK0JPStEFSYmrMauAQZJKnN

In this picture, you can see the gear stick between the seats. The shaft was given a coat of Molotow chrome, and the ball a touch of gloss black. You can't really tell that easily. However, I know it's there...

y4mdIM1fbUd6c-ENsgRzSrvrI1Kse7ToB4fZPCIr

 

The dash-board and steering column ready for installation. These have now been attached to the cockpit ready for installation on the floor pan.

 

More soon.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Alan.

 

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Very nice ignition leads indeed! And all the rest as well. Good repair works, when things do not go as planned.

(happens more than once in this hobby!)

Thanks for posting this here. Very useful!

Carry on!

 

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  • 3 months later...

Hi All,

Sorry about the delay in updates. I'm not entirely sure why. Just time flying, I suppose.

Anyway, some updates.

The interior has moved forwards somewhat.

All the gubbins is in the passenger tub:

y4m52Z8WcGYz5XMQ4Pzf4wQgAp6D1mZ4gWC78VN3

Well, missing the dashboard here... :(

y4mALI1vJ8ZAlaeAzqK0JPStEFSYmrMauAQZJKnN

That little delicate thingy at the back, that is somewhat out of focus is … delicate!

It broke whilst I cut it off the sprue!

However, with a bit of care, I managed to fit it and get it looking the right shape.

The dashboard:

y4mdIM1fbUd6c-ENsgRzSrvrI1Kse7ToB4fZPCIr

 

The window frames are semi-gloss black, and need to be painted on after the shell was painted.

I did this by applying 6mm Tamiya masking tape, pressing it tightly onto the body with a cocktail stick, then cutting away the excess with a scalpel blade, thus:

y4mJBIBgLbJBiDr1BtXHPmcwYVi_snrwBKXgaTuX

I then carefully applied the semi-gloss to the frames and gutters.

When I peeled off the making tape, there was no bleed-through under it. Phew!

 

While that was curing, I put the cockpit on to the floorpan, thus:

y4mN6OZUSy6IHcWVSVj64H0n4wZty_wXyW9H6GOR

y4m72m7pLAuCQ791W0mjgSZxXevunn0-EAvDWz81

y4m57fENvKtEYyHucRmJGo_YB4fhCmOB51vJ4sh4

y4mtwOfMU76HM3cxni79tv6gsSo6GImql369oq_l

y4mcUtNLXwRmBjAC_dZg6K4GUAo_jw57vA6QrlGW

 

So, this is where we are at this point:

y4mfy73GbuRSmjtymx_XySorSVmg2WsGE6ocH11o

y4mGKT7oPzj6dJu7qDBIuT8VmLo3jRjybp1uDZzQ

There is still an awful lot to do. None of the lights are fitted, there is more to do on the engine, and the glazing needs to be installed.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Cheers, Alan.

Edited by Alan R
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Well, just to drag my other main interest in it, we all know, don't we, that the 348 evolved into the 355 in 1994. The Mk2 MR2 pre-dates that by 5 years, yet the 355 looks more like an MR2 than the MR2 looks like the 348, which it was supposedly inspired by. A perverse way, I suppose, of wondering whether a 348 kit could be turned into an MR2 - nobody does models, of any size or type, of the MR2. Very disappointing!

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