Alfa Romeo 8C 2300, Monaco GP '32

[Vesa Jussila]

These small adjusts make wonders. Really nice work.

[Malroy]

Your attention to detail is fantastic and also your workmanship.

I am on my second Italeri Alfa Monza. I have made my own spoked wheels from the kit ones using .3 mm wire.

I am doing my best but your modelling has made my efforts look a bit substandard.

 

[Ghost69]

Superb.
I really like the red you use, can you tell me the reference and the brand.
I'm sorry but I don't understand the translation of "semi gloss clear was sprayed". Is it a varnish that you apply on the red?
Thank you very much.

[Bengalensis]

23 hours ago, Vesa Jussila said:

These small adjusts make wonders. Really nice work.

Thanks a lot Vesa. It's slowly getting there.

 

7 hours ago, Malroy said:

Your attention to detail is fantastic and also your workmanship.

I am on my second Italeri Alfa Monza. I have made my own spoked wheels from the kit ones using .3 mm wire.

I am doing my best but your modelling has made my efforts look a bit substandard.

Many thanks for your kind praise.

Wow, into a second one! Making your own wire wheels is an impressive undertaking.

I'm sure your work makes you proud. and the most important thing is that we enjoy doing our work, improve our skills as we go, and not least enjoy the inner mental journey while doing the research.

 

3 hours ago, Ghost69 said:

Superb.
I really like the red you use, can you tell me the reference and the brand.
I'm sorry but I don't understand the translation of "semi gloss clear was sprayed". Is it a varnish that you apply on the red?
Thank you very much.

Thanks a lot.

The red paint I use is the Alfa red mix from Zero Paints:

https://www.zero-paints.com/Alfa_Romeo_8C_2300_Monza_Rosso_Paint_60ml--product--7983.html

The "semi gloss clear" is indeed like a clear varnish,but a 2K automotive product. And instead of using ordinary full gloss 2K clear/varnish I'm using a "semi gloss" clear, you may call it satin, or a little more towards matt/flat.

Hope this helps.

 

[Ghost69]

Hello
Yes, thank you very much for your detailed answers.
I've always preferred satin to gloss in paint, but it's a matter of taste.
I'll look into it ;o)
Good luck with your model which I follow with passion. 

[Bengalensis]

The day has been kind in that I got the bonnet sections fully sprayed, both aluminium inside and Alfa red outside. Now they need some drying time overnight.

 

 

I have another riddle to solve. Now this will be a long boring reasoning... The impression has been made that the car ran at the Monaco GP -32 without any kind of protective mesh in the grille opening, and that's also how Italeri shows it in their instructions for this version, with only the shroud and neither the inner frame nor any mesh fitted.

 

The race number was absolutely painted directly on the radiator, deep inside the shroud, and the impression on the few photos found from -32 is indeed giving the impression that no mesh was fitted. But close inspection reveals that the thin inner frame is actually there, with its six locking bolts. Why would that be the case, but no protective mesh?

 

Over the last days I've been discussing this with my researcher friend and tried my theory: I think that there was actually a thin protective mesh fitted, but it gets more or less invisible in the old B/W photos. Otherwise it makes no sense to have the thin frame fitted. Furthermore; if I was the team manager in 1932 (I wish), I doubt I would send my cars out for over three hours of open wheel racing in the streets around Monaco with naked radiators. For sure the streets of Monaco are very much cleaner than Targa Florio will be in three weeks time, so we won't need the more sturdy and heavier stone guard nets, but I wouldn't send my star drivers out, chasing down the Bugattis, following close behind them, to stress them into mistakes, and run the risk of a punctured radiator from the odd debris thrown up, for saving the little weight of the finer mesh we can use...

 

With more discussions and studying of photos we arrived at similar conclusions, and I decided to make some testing. Here I'm using the simple black plastic mesh we often find in Tamiya kits, just for a first test.

 

 

 

 

Now I have cut and painted a better quality Aber photo etched mesh in all flat black, to further reduce any reflections. We'll see how that looks later on.

[johnlambert]

Your reasoning seems spot-on to me, there would have to be something to protect the radiator.  Your solution looks very good indeed.

[Bengalensis]

19 hours ago, johnlambert said:

Your reasoning seems spot-on to me, there would have to be something to protect the radiator.  Your solution looks very good indeed.

Thanks John, it does seem a very unnecessary risk to have nothing at all.

 

I have continued my inner mental journey in this matter. Today I replaced the plastic mesh with the photo etch I cut and painted flat black. This is Aber S20, the piece is cut at 45° angle on the sheet.

 

 

 

 

I have been playing around in B/W with filters and resolutions, and it becomes even clearer to me that a possible finer mesh would easily disappear in the old photos from 1932.

 

 

I think this is how I will make it.

[silver911]

To my tired old eyes that solution looks perfect...and very sound reasoning behind it.

 

Ron

[Bengalensis]

3 hours ago, silver911 said:

To my tired old eyes that solution looks perfect...and very sound reasoning behind it.

 

Thanks Ron, good to know my thinking still makes a little bit of sense...

[Ghost69]

I found this, you can clearly see a grille in front of the radiator even if it's not exactly the same model.
Personally, your reasoning seems to me fair and realistic.

Manu

 

https://www.fiskens.com/cars-for-sale/Alfa-Romeo-8C-2300-Zagato-Spider/12457.htm

[Bengalensis]

16 minutes ago, Ghost69 said:

I found this, you can clearly see a grille in front of the radiator even if it's not exactly the same model.
Personally, your reasoning seems to me fair and realistic.

Manu

 

https://www.fiskens.com/cars-for-sale/Alfa-Romeo-8C-2300-Zagato-Spider/12457.htm

Yes, that is the standard mesh found on many of the cars. Italeri supply that mesh in the kit as photo etch, but it's probably not fine enough for the Monaco -32 car and some others. I think it's more suitable for most customer sports and road cars.

[Bengalensis]

I have a number of things to fix before the radiator shroud and bonnet can be fitted permanently. One is the ignition wires. There are probably many better and more sophisticated ways, but I'm taking a simple route. Even cheap.

 

I want to have the plug connections fitted from the side with a top screw. I found some old wire with five soft leads in it, and the brown might do. I cut short pieces of the grey tube Italeri provides and slid one onto the wire, removed a piece of insulation and separated the strands 50/50, put a suitable small drill in-between and twisted around it.

 

 

Holding the loose ends with a set on flat pliers I twisted tightly around the drill, then cut of the excess slightly outside the drill, slid the piece of grey hose against the drill and gave the wire some basic shape. Sliding the drill out left a small loop.

 

 

The loop was placed over the top of spark plug and secured with a tiny amount of CA. With that cured the wire was cut to length and inserted into the collector tube.

 

 

 

In the end I had eight wired plugs that could be finished with a small drop of brass paint each, and also a lead to the coil.

 

 

Now things get messy. I need nine leads coming out of the common hole, five backward and for towards front, and that won't really fit, despite the fact that I have hollowed out the tube a good deal when assembling it. After some failed attempts I used only the brown insulation, glued four and five together and ground down the glued ends with a sanding disc in the Dremel. After some repeated work I had these two pieces.

 

 

With a good deal (a lot) of persuasion I managed to get the five into the rear and the four into the front of the opening, and then routed the leads somewhat between each other. Why the whole assembly didn't break while working I don't know... The whole thing was secured (hopefully) with some small amounts of CA around the edges. We'll see tomorrow if the mess can be routed well enough to the distributor. The firing order is already given on the valve cover, so there are few excuses...

 

 

[Vesa Jussila]

Looks realistic, Not really specialist of this period, but looks really good.

[Ghost69]

17 minutes ago, Bengalensis said:

Yes, that is the standard mesh found on many of the cars. Italeri supply that mesh in the kit as photo etch, but it's probably not fine enough for the Monaco -32 car and some others. I think it's more suitable for most customer sports and road cars.

Oups, sorry, I don't speak a word of English.
The translation is sometimes imperfect.
I misunderstood what you said    ;o))

[Toftdale]

When I first heard of this kit I was quite tempted to by it.  Now I seen this thread I not so sure I will,  as I know however well I build it it would never be even in the same league at this and everytime I looked at it I would just think 'its not as good as Bengalensis's' 🤔 Thanks for sharing 👍- Andy

[Codger]

1 hour ago, Toftdale said:

When I first heard of this kit I was quite tempted to by it.  Now I seen this thread I not so sure I will,  as I know however well I build it it would never be even in the same league at this and everytime I looked at it I would just think 'its not as good as Bengalensis's' 🤔 Thanks for sharing 👍- Andy

That's not a good reason to deprive yourself from having a modeling experience that stretches your skills and a very nice model on your shelf. You may or may not be right about your result but you can enjoy seeing the car every day instead of looking for Jorgen's thread.

You can go as far as you want and still enjoy the result.

[Armchair]

I agree with Codger, I am building one and trying to include as many of Bengalensis  improvements as I can, so far so good, but more importantly I am enjoying the ride.

 

Bryan

[Toftdale]

49 minutes ago, Codger said:

That's not a good reason to deprive yourself from having a modeling experience that stretches your skills and a very nice model on your shelf. You may or may not be right about your result but you can enjoy seeing the car every day instead of looking for Jorgen's thread.

You can go as far as you want and still enjoy the result.

Thanks CodgerI appreciate your advice,  however the statement was more of a cack-handed attempt of a complement.   I did consider getting the kit, but then I realised I have more kits than I could ever build.  I should be thinking of selling not buying 🙄. 

[Bengalensis]

3 hours ago, Toftdale said:

When I first heard of this kit I was quite tempted to by it.  Now I seen this thread I not so sure I will,  as I know however well I build it it would never be even in the same league at this and everytime I looked at it I would just think 'its not as good as Bengalensis's' 🤔 Thanks for sharing 👍- Andy

Just go ahead and build, for the enjoyment of it, and for the joy of doing the best you can, or "just" the best you want to do. That's what I do, and for the joy of all the travels my mind do into different times and places when I'm messing with these things. And that's why some of the models I do end up quite OK. The more you build just for that sake, the better the models will get.

[Bengalensis]

I managed to hook up all the leads to the distributor, just. It's a little cramped, but it's as good as it'll get here. I have also worked some thin grey-black and brown oil paint on the fire wall, radiator and the brighter parts, to tone them down a little. It isn't much visible in the photos, but the difference is larger in reality. For now, at least, that's it.

 

 

 

 

Before fitting the bonnet I had to tackle the exhaust fit, that wouldn't clear the upper bonnet section. It turned out to be two problems, first my scratch built rear bracket was too high and had to be lowered and touched up, then I had to thin down the mounting tabs on the manifold, which allowed it to angle down just a tiny bit more. Problem solved it seems.

 

 

So the hinge pins were inserted into the bonnet halves and radiator shroud, then I put the hole assembly on the car, adjusted the fit and taped the parts down. Then glue was added from the underside to fix the radiator shroud.

 

 

The left side low bonnet section was glued after that. Then some important drying time followed.

 

 

With the glue fully cured opening the bonnet halves could be tested. It actually works.

 

 

Here the exhaust is only dry fitted, there's more work remaining before it can be glued.

 

 

It's time for gold stripes, race numbers and some other stuff, so I slammed together this not very sophisticated jig to make the model easier to handle.

 

 

The decals have been excellent to work with, but I have the idea of spraying both the stripes and the numbers. It will also provide the opportunity to alter both the gold and the white shades, and maybe change the width of the stripes.

 

 

The Italeri decal stripes are just above 3 mm wide. I used 3 mm masking tape to make the line and have a look. I think it's a little too wide, but one may think it's OK.

 

 

So I tried 2 mm tape. I have nothing in-between, but of course I could cut my own. However I like this better, but one may think it's too narrow. That's how it is with these things.

 

 

Then the work to obtain the best compromise starts. In a model all proportions and aspects are never perfect, and the stripe can never be routed to fulfil all coordinates seen in reference photos. After some adjustments back and forth I arrived at something I think I can live with, after turning it around and looking.

 

 

 

 

 

The real masking was then made along the tape stripes, starting with 2 mm tape. Discs were cut from Tamiya tape to finish the front end points.

 

 

I have no idea how the stripes met at the back end. Either to a sharp point going downwards, or going round the tail in a radius. As they took the work to make the elaborate end points at the front I opted for a nice flowing radius at the back, just because it looks good.

 

 

I know my masking work is often over elaborate, but better safe than sorry... Time for some spraying. I choose Alclad Pale Gold, partly as it will cover in very thin layers at fairly low pressure, and also as it would give me a somewhat more vintage looking gold colour than the decals, even if not much perhaps

 

 

With masking carefully removed there's now a gold stripe. As usual my pictures don't show the red correctly, and neither the gold, of course. But most important there were no nasty surprises to deal with. So far I'm very happy with this.

 

 

 

 

 

But there are still the possibility for problems. I now have to mask the race numbers across the stripes, and hope that removing those masks will not lift the stripes... I plan to use the low tack masks Italeri provide in the kit. They worked very well on the radiator, but who knows. But after this I'm not in the mode to risk any nasty surprises tonight, so that will be for tomorrow perhaps.

[silver911]

Another very enjoyable update...and your precision is admirable...the overall presentation is stunning to my eye.

 

Respect

 

Ron

[klubman01]

Another step closer!  Really like the way you dealt with the gold stripes - quite risky at this stage of the build - but they came looking fabulous.

Trevor

[Ghost69]

The risk paid off, this golden line is perfectly successful.

[Brandy]

I agree with those above, that stripe has come out beautifully. 

Good luck with the numbers!

 

Ian