Howmet TX, Le Mans 24h 1968

[Bengalensis]

The extensions over the front wheel arches, such typical add on's for Le Mans, has been shaped and test fitted in their groves which had to be adjusted just a little. I plan to leave them off until after the primer is done and sanded as I want to have that tacked on look they should have,

 

 

All vac forms were then cut and test fitted. The usual care was required but nothing problematic so far, the fit seems fine.

 

 

The last parts to clean up were the lights.

 

 

Time for some painting. All parts were pinned one way or another to make painting as trouble free as possible.

 

 

The first spray session was the usual light grey 2K surfacer I tend to use for most parts that will need a round of inspection, micro filling and fine sanding.

 

 

Then some gloss black enamel as base for various metal colours on small parts.

 

[Bengalensis]

During a somewhat messy day, spelled "w-o-r-k", which even disrupted my morning sleep, I managed to sand all the primer and sort most parts for first colours. Then just recently I sprayed the white base on the body shell. And yes, first I forgot to add the front arch extensions. After the first coats on all bottom edges I felt something was wrong. In time thankfully. It was an easy job to quickly glue them in place and continue the white spraying. Next is masking for the orange patches which will be a little bit involving.

 

[klubman01]

W-O-R-K, Yuck!  Fancy that getting the way of real stuff!

Seriously, starting to look good.  Best of luck with the orange paint.

Trevor

[Kitkent]

You’re doing a very nice job on what is quite a complicated model. I saw the original car race at Brands Hatch,it crashed right in front of me,I think I still have the picture that I took. I also thought that there was ever only one car,every day is a school day! Chris.

[Malc2]

This is just ACE!

 

M.

[Bengalensis]

On 08/08/2022 at 20:39, klubman01 said:

W-O-R-K, Yuck!  Fancy that getting the way of real stuff!

Seriously, starting to look good.  Best of luck with the orange paint.

Trevor

Yes, it's a real misery... It does help pay for cars, car parts and resin kits though, so at least it's doing something good 😎

Thanks a lot, I think I've put your luck to good use today...

 

On 09/08/2022 at 21:47, Kitkent said:

You’re doing a very nice job on what is quite a complicated model. I saw the original car race at Brands Hatch,it crashed right in front of me,I think I still have the picture that I took. I also thought that there was ever only one car,every day is a school day! Chris.

Thanks a lot Chris. Nice to have been there at the time! I thought at one point about build the car as it appeared in the BOAC race as I have built the Ford P68 from the same race, but it was back to Le Mans in the end.

 

5 hours ago, Malc2 said:

This is just ACE!

 

M.

Thank you very much Malc, very happy you like. I hope todays work is not letting down... 😎

[Bengalensis]

Morning masking time. There are decal patches supplied for the orange sections on the lower sides, but It will probably be easier to paint and it will ensure the same colour for the orange on the nose. I cut masks about 1 mm larger diameter than the white roundels for two reasons; first there should be a thin white distance outside the black line that isn't part of the decals, and second it avoids the orange stripe possibly being visible under the white decal. Hopefully extra work pays off later.

 

 

An hour masking...

 

 

Five minutes spraying and fifteen minutes unmasking.

 

 

Then I spent some time spraying the basic colours on all the parts, and in the afternoon there was another hour of masking, now for the dark blue. I still don't really know if the light recesses where black or the same dark blue, but I thought it best to include them in blue area for the moment.

 

 

Another fairly quick round in the spray boot and we have dark blue.

 

 

After unmasking, a work not be rushed and to be done with care, it's now starting to look like something. The plan now is a very light 1200 sanding of the paint edges, even if they are very fine at this stage, then a few thin coats of 2K clear, brought down a bit in gloss with mixing semi gloss in. When that's done it will be time for the polished aluminium looking centre section.

 

[klubman01]

Ooh, that looks really nice!  Well done with the masking, etc.  Never an easy job.  It's all taking shape nicely.

Trevor

[galaxyg]

Very nice masking and result

[JeroenS]

Beautiful!!

[PatW]

Coming along very nicely!

[rob Lyttle]

It's great to see this being done, and done so well. It's a blast from my slot racing days past, alright! 

I haven't got that much surviving from the late 60s heyday but one of the scrapbook survivors, with pages from Model Cars magazines, has 3 turbine types including the Howmet. 

There really was high hopes at the time for this technology being tamed. 

As well as the Howmet I have the "prototype parade" drawings and write-up for the STP Paxton Turbine and, who remembers the Lotus 56 Indy Wedge ....??

Just as an aside - some light entertainment as the next session of painting is prepared..... I did some house maintenance work for an elderly lady some years ago and her (long deceased) husband had designed, engineered and basically masterminded the building of a jet turbine engined railway locomotive. Not turbo-electric but a direct drive arrangement. She still had several photos of the loco pulling trains on trial around the North of England! I could tell she was still smarting and disappointed that British Rail had cancelled the project. The noise must have been tremendous as the train ripped through a station 🤩

I believe she said the machine was saved from the scrap yard and put in a museum, in York maybe? 

Anyway, it's remarkable who you meet when you're out working with the public, isn't it? 😎

I hope these cars are all being looked after in museums and collections. I'm doing my bit with my Prototype Parade cuttings and articles! 

Right, back to work here, carry on.... 

Edited August 12, 2022 by rob Lyttle
Clarity

[Windy37]

As you have found , it's always a good moment when you successfully unwrap a well masked up  car . 

 Gary . 

[Bengalensis]

On 11/08/2022 at 20:53, klubman01 said:

Ooh, that looks really nice!  Well done with the masking, etc.  Never an easy job.  It's all taking shape nicely.

Trevor

Thanks a lot Trevor! Yes, masking can be a bit of a pain. I'm oping to finish the aluminium centre section during the weekend.

 

On 11/08/2022 at 21:12, galaxyg said:

Very nice masking and result

Thanks a lot! I'm very happy so far.

 

On 11/08/2022 at 21:49, JeroenS said:

Beautiful!!

Thank you very much Jeroen!

 

13 hours ago, PatW said:

Coming along very nicely!

Thank you very much!

 

9 hours ago, Windy37 said:

As you have found , it's always a good moment when you successfully unwrap a well masked up  car . 

 Gary . 

Thanks a lot Gary! Yes, it's a lways a very good feeling, when all goes well. Always a bit nervius.That

 

10 hours ago, rob Lyttle said:

It's great to see this being done, and done so well. It's a blast from my slot racing days past, alright! 

I haven't got that much surviving from the late 60s heyday but one of the scrapbook survivors, with pages from Model Cars magazines, has 3 turbine types including the Howmet. 

There really was high hopes at the time for this technology being tamed. 

As well as the Howmet I have the "prototype parade" drawings and write-up for the STP Paxton Turbine and, who remembers the Lotus 56 Indy Wedge ....??

 

Just as an aside - some light entertainment as the next session of painting is prepared..... I did some house maintenance work for an elderly lady some years ago and her (long deceased) husband had designed, engineered and basically masterminded the building of a jet turbine engined railway locomotive. Not turbo-electric but a direct drive arrangement. She still had several photos of the loco pulling trains on trial around the North of England! I could tell she was still smarting and disappointed that British Rail had cancelled the project. The noise must have been tremendous as the train ripped through a station 🤩

I believe she said the machine was saved from the scrap yard and put in a museum, in York maybe? 

Anyway, it's remarkable who you meet when you're out working with the public, isn't it? 😎

I hope these cars are all being looked after in museums and collections. I'm doing my bit with my Prototype Parade cuttings and articles! 

Right, back to work here, carry on.... 

That's some great memories Rob, thanks for sharing!

 

Yes those were optimistic times indeed. The Lotus 56/56B even raced in Formula 1. And not to be forgotten is the Rover-BRM from Le Mans -63 and -65, well worth a good model to be built.

 

Would that locomotive by any chance have been British Rail GT3?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_GT3

 

[Bengalensis]

After clear coating yesterday morning I had another masking session this morning.

 

 

And then the gloss black enamel base for the aluminium was sprayed. I had to give it a little more paint than planned to reach a good surface; hopefully it will not be a problem with the masking. This is now getting a few hours drying time.

 

 

All parts are more or less finished as well.

 

 

I'll see how the turbine and exhausts feels when the parts are coming together, if something more has to be done.

 

 

The rear lights are still drying on the backside.

 

[JeroenS]

Meticulous painting, as usual. Really nice, all these small parts. 

[Bengalensis]

2 hours ago, JeroenS said:

Meticulous painting, as usual. Really nice, all these small parts. 

Thanks Jeroen. One of the most difficult "car" engines to paint convincingly I've encountered so far...

[klubman01]

Looking better at every stage.  Love the paintwork on the engine.

Trevor

[Bengalensis]

34 minutes ago, klubman01 said:

Looking better at every stage.  Love the paintwork on the engine.

Trevor

Thanks Trevor. The "colours" one can see on the engine varies quite a lot from photo to photo, so I'm doing a good deal of guestimation here.

[rob Lyttle]

9 hours ago, Bengalensis said:

Would that locomotive by any chance have been British Rail GT3?

Yep, that's it. Memory is tested but I'm sure the lady was Mrs Hughes. 

This car is looking fantastic, a great combination of colours 👍

[Bengalensis]

12 minutes ago, rob Lyttle said:

Yep, that's it. Memory is tested but I'm sure the lady was Mrs Hughes. 

This car is looking fantastic, a great combination of colours 👍

Thanks Rob! Fantastic, what an interesting story, and it gave me an interesting read about the project 👍

[Bengalensis]

Aluminium sprayed and then masked off. To my relief all was fine with the black base and masking. It still needs the light wiping off with soft cotton cloth, but I won't touch this anymore until at least tomorrow.

 

 

Then another experiment. The two Howmets had fluorescent square patches under the race numbers at Le Mans on both sides and the rear. They are not always directly visible, but sometimes seen as light greenish tone. What is more visible though is that these patches were not cut through the panel lines as the white circles where, so something has to be done to add this.

 

I cut three pieces of white decal film and sprayed two of them with different amounts of very thinned down transparent green paint. The third was long shot. I had a pot of old Humbrol "Glow in the dark" paint from the Airfix Skeleton reissue that I obviously never used in my self portrait build, but it was well dried up. I managed to thin it into something sprayable, but it crazed the decal film and also it needs much thicker coats to work in the dark and make a difference in daylight.

 

[klubman01]

2 hours ago, Bengalensis said:

Thanks Trevor. The "colours" one can see on the engine varies quite a lot from photo to photo, so I'm doing a good deal of guestimation here.

Nothing wrong with a bit of educated "guesstimation"!

Trevor

[Bengalensis]

17 hours ago, klubman01 said:

Nothing wrong with a bit of educated "guesstimation"!

Trevor

No, quite often it's the only way to make progress.

[Bengalensis]

The rear lights are finished. There are pros and cons with this multi part photo etch approach, compared to the 25 year old one piece resin castings.

 

 

The aluminium surfaces felt secure and have now been wiped clean.

 

 

I'm leaning towards black for the head light recesses. The instructions says so and it's difficult to be sure from the photos I have found.