Ebbro 1/20 Lotus 88b

[Hugh Jampton]

Yet another one started, the wife bought me this for my birthday a few months back, to be honest I only took any notice of the Lotus 88b after the Essex liveried kit was released and knew I had to have the more traditional Lotus JPS liveried kit when launched.

 

Lotus 88b (1) 

 

 

I also went the whole hog and purchased the Studio 27 Carbon Fibre decals & PE parts along with JPS decals, costly but easier when the price of the kit has been offset.

 

Lotus 88b (7) 

 

This is the first Ebbro kit and I must say I have been really impressed with the detailing, there’s some very fine parts in this kit and the moulding seems to include parts for the 88, I only noticed after I started glueing the bottom section of the Cosworth engine, fortunately I realised before it set.

 

Lotus 88b (4) 

 

Starting with the engine block, I apologise the images start after painting, as I have little patience and couldn’t wait for Zero and Extreme metallic’s to arrive from Hiroboy, I used a mixture of Vallegio paints I bought from a local shop, I find these quite thick but managed to mix a few different shades for Flat Aluminium, Gun Metal and Metalic Grey.

 

Lotus 88b (4) 

 

Now that they’re fitted, I’m inclined to cut the fuel hose nozzles off and drill out for passing fuse wire as I find this easier to fit the hose, it still baffles me that anyone can manufacture 0.4mm tubing but I’m still learning and treading 5Amp fuse wire into the hole the best possible solution so far.

 

Lotus 88b 

 

I had an issue with the rear suspension, the lower wishbone started to deflect when the wheel hub was fitted, as mentioned previously I have little patience and I very rarely dry fix and this would have helped but managed to resolve this by trimming the hub and section of gear box under the top suspension arm.

 

Lotus 88b (

 

Began work on the underpan adding the decal and now stumbling on to the chassis.

 

Lotus 88b 

 

More photo's to follow, this is only my second posting since switching to Flickr and can't remember how I posted the first time, so please be patient.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Regards

John

 

 

 

 

 

 

[NickD]

A great subject. Looking good so far.

[Hugh Jampton]

Thanks for the comment Nick.

 

 

The builds progressed onto the chassis and side radiator panels, the side pods were sprayed gloss black to take the CF decals and the PE parts were added, I’m never too sure as to whether the grilles but with a black backing they look ok.

 

 

All the small parts to the front suspension have been variously spayed and hand painted, got quite fond of the reservoir bottles.

 

 

CF control panel decals added along with the dials from the original decal sheet, there slightly off centre but so tricky getting them plumb. The PE set came with 3 rims for the dials that really set it off and just waiting to finish it all off with a couple Top Studio toggle switches I bought a year or so ago, I’m still not convinced they were worth the bother as there so tiny.

 

 

I know fitting the top half of the chassis is going to be a pig as I’ll probably need to fill the join and spray before applying the CF decals so the suspension and openings will have to be well masked.

 

 

Looking too far ahead as I’ve only stated the harness and slipped back onto the engine but I must say this is a really nice kit (at the moment).

 

Regards

John

[shood23]

Oooh  I'll be keeping an eye on this as I have the 88 Essex car to do at some point. That control panel looks the dogs b.........s with the carbon on. 

 

Shaun 

[Hugh Jampton]

Thanks Shaun, the control panel does look nice, I will take a photo once the toggle switches go on.

 

Lotus 88b (32) by , on Flickr

 

I've carried on with the engine block, placing the spark leads into the cam cover (I'm winging this as I really haven't got a clue what I'm talking about), it looks to have be pre-drilled but I opened up further with a 0.5mm drill bit.

 

Lotus 88b (34) by , on Flickr

 

Next, my latest attempt at fuel hoses, I have previously laboured on 3 other engines (Mclaren M23 & 2 Ferrari 312 engines) all with success but all 3 causing severe headaches as I had to stretch the 0.2mm internal hose opening over the plastic molded nozzle nearing 1mm in diameter and already fitted to the engine block. Once I fixed the injector nozzles in place I realized this may be another pain in the backside, it was then I had a brainwave, cut the nozzles off and drill a 0.35 hole through though the top of the injector, still already fitted to the engine block but I remember for next time.

 

Lotus 88b (37) by , on Flickr

 

The hose was still lightly stretched with a needle the I super glued a small length of 5 Amp fuse wire into the hose, leaving most of the fuse wire outside of the hose to insert and glue through the injector, so much easier and looks ok in my opinion.

 

Lotus 88b (38) by , on Flickr

 

With the hoses and leads placed and hidden into the engine parts, I fitted another 2 leads out of the 'electrical box' on top of the engine.

 

Lotus 88b (40) by , on Flickr

 

I was always going to remove the chrome from the supplied funnels (I took a few photo's with the kits chromed funnel) but remembered I had a turned set for the M23 that I haven't used yet so thought I would use with the PE plate supplied in the S27 aftermarket sheet. I hope you agree it looks so much better.

 

Lotus 88b (41) by , on Flickr

 

Lotus 88b (43) by , on Flickr

 

Lotus 88b (42) by , on Flickr

 

Just a few shots with the engine block combined with the gear box and rear suspension.

 

Lotus 88b (45) by , on Flickr

 

Lotus 88b (46) by , on Flickr

 

Lotus 88b (47) by , on Flickr

 

I now need to get on with the cockpit, thanks for looking and sorry if I've garbled on.

 

Regards John

[shood23]

The engine is looking wonderfully detailed and the McLaren funnels only add to the realism. 

 

Shaun 

[Hugh Jampton]

Thanks once again for the comments Shaun. Your right, the turned funnels and PE plate look so much better than the kit part but that’s the point of aftermarket parts I suppose.

I have turned back to the cockpit this week and it’s been playing on my mind for a while, the finished cockpit and front suspension need to be inplace before fitting the top and bottom halves together then CF decals placed over externally.

 

Lotus 88b (49) by

 

Before all of that I finished the control panel placing the PE dial rings and toggle switches, the dials are slightly on the wonk but can’t be seen with the naked eye.

 

Lotus 88b (51) by

 

Lotus 88b (54) by

 

The seat was painted flat black and dry brushed to give the surface some depth then the Studio 27 harness was fitted onto the seat, it’s only my third one and slowly getting the hang of it.

 

Lotus 88b (56) by

 

Both half of the tubs were glued together with no real hassle, I had taken the edges of both parts back to the plastic and used standard polystyrene  cement, clamped, lightly filled and left to dry.

 

Lotus 88b (57) by

 

Lotus 88b (58) by

 

Lotus 88b (60) by

 

After sanding down the tub joint all holes into the cockpit and front suspension were masked, the tub sprayed black and left ready for CF decals.

 

Lotus 88b (63) by

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Regards

John

In my urge to progress I started to decal up the left hand side of the cockpit, the decals are on the brittle side and broke quite easily but could join back up without any issues, the photo isn’t great, what with lamp reflection, glossy decal and micro sol plastered all over it but had to shoot off to work.

[Hugh Jampton]

A long weekend and as usual, not very much covered. To be honest the decaling of the tub was finished friday, the Studio 27 decals are quite brittle an broke in a few places but due to the CF design of the decals themselves it was quite easy to it line up.

 

I started with the side panels and left the top decals encase of any unsightly laps, once the decals had dried completely I gave the tub a couple of coats of clear lacquer (for my sin's, I'm still using the Halfords clear lacquer), with new found patience the first coat was fine unfortunately that's where it ended and applied the second coat before the first was dry which resulted in some of the edges turning up and exposing the white underside of the decal.

 

 

Lotus 88b (69) by 

 

I should have taken a few shots after this but quickly went into recovery mode and infilled the white lines carefully with my trusty Citadel black then a coat of satin varnish and am really happy with the result.

 

 

Even before applying the CF decals I had a slight issue with them, the first was looking at photos of the 88, the cross pattern seems a lot tighter on the actual car and not as prominent, I may be wrong and I have just received the S27 decal sheet for the Lotus 91 and its the same size, I'm not overly concerned with the size but I was thinking about toning down the decals with a black wash but being so happy with results after the satin coat I'll be leaving it.

 

 

Just one further addition was adding some Hiroboy 0.4mm black wiring to, what I believe is, the throttle control using a small section of shrink tube as the connection between the 2 pieces, there is a similar throttle control near the engine and will be doing the same there.

 

I'm nearing the stage of combining the tub and engine sections so hopefully will update in a few days.

 

Regards

John

[Hugh Jampton]

A weekend of missed opportunities with the build, sitting down watching mindless pap on the box when I could have been working on the 88. Got a few bits done though as I added a couple more lengths of cable just under the throttle cable, I have only a few reference photo's and haven't a clue where they go either but they look ok and can be trimmed later.

 

 

I finally attached the engine block and tub together and I can really see it taking shape now. the S27 PE parts always include the triangular engine mounting which I inevitably leave as, in my opinion, think the moulded part looks good enough, if sprayed well but the reference photo's show a second similar plate fixed directly to the tub so used these to look like this other plate.

 

 

I'm not happy with the exhausts at the moment, the instruction say a matt black and reference photos differ between the black and tarnished metal, I sprayed using a bronze, purple, blue and black layers onto the original metal finish and thought I'd cracked it until I fixed them to the engine , I may give the some further attention shortly using layers of washes.

 

 

The floor was one of the first things I started but never been happy with the finish, I never seemed to get an even finish, all down to my spraying technique nothing to do with the model itself. After I gave the majority a satin clear coat I gave (all bar the front section) a dry brushing, its a personal choice and I'm sure not liked by many but I feel it gives a surface some form of 'depth'! Probably complete bunkum but keeps me happy and can hide issues.

I've never used foil for the heat reflective section so sprayed Aluminium and used the sponge technique to dirty it up a bit.

 

 

 

 

The chassis/engine is now attached to the floor and looking ok, just got to add a few ancillary pieces and additional piping/wiring the on to the bodywork.

 

 

 

Still enjoying this kit thoroughly and thanks for looking.

 

Regards

John

 

 

 

[shood23]

Looking great John. I know how you mean about the carbon decals seeming to prominent or bright, i normally time them down with a thin coat of tamiya smoke. 

 

Shaun