Special Hobby Chase me! The Bugatti 100 Air Racer in 1:48

[Mike]

I’ve been drooling over this new one from Special Hobby even in its 1:72 scale form, and I’ve literally just posted the review of it this avo here, plus the masks that you can get to cover up the canopy during painting.  It’s always a danger to pull parts off the sprues to tape it up, mainly because it sometimes leads to reaching for tools, and we all know that often results in the dreaded… MODELLING!

 

This is one of Special Hobby’s shorter-run kits, and isn’t going to be a shake-and-bake wünderkit that falls together by any stretch of the imagination, but that’s not why we’re here.  There’s a little roughness here and there around the seamlines where the parts join together, and the fact that it includes resin detail parts is an indication that it has been tooled this way, as not everyone will be interested in this little racer.  Me?  I’m interested

 

I started mucking about with the fuselage halves, and soon began putting cockpit parts together.  It’s not your average cockpit due to its custom racer ethos, and there was a modicum of confusion in my mind about where to put the two fairings that cover up the drive shafts that pass through the cockpit area, which was resolved by test-fitting the rear bulkhead so you know where to butt the rear of the tubes, as the slight step in the rear that corresponds with the interior of the wing root fairing, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.  Once the parts were cleaned up, it went together well enough, although you will need to place the support under the seat/floor part as a bit of a leap of faith after enlarging the notch a little to ensure it will fit.  I used liquid cement to give me wiggle room and that did the trick.  I also assembled the 2-into-1 gearbox at the front that converts the two input shafts into two concentric prop-shafts, and managed to partially sand away a box-shape on the top, so replaced it with styrene stock.  Oopsie!  This helped me get everything lined up in my head, and to guess where I needed to make any adjustments.  Only the tip of the port fuselage had a slight missing bit right near the join-line, so I built that up with styrene and sanded it to shape. 

 

I’ve also been fiddling with the wings and the tail, tidying them all up first, then checking where any alterations are needed.  I scraped the trailing edge of the wings, and thinned out the openings to the gear bays to give them a more realistic look, but I overdid it and need to put some small quantities of Milliput into the undercuts, and smack my own wrists for getting carried away I’m going to use Milliput for the easy clean-up to minimise any post-cure sanding that would be difficult due to the location of it, not to mention irritating, even with some fancy narrow sanding tools at my disposal.

 

The tail was a similar proposition, needing a little fettling, and the addition of the resin pen-nib fairing at the rear.  It needed some test-fitting and sanding/slicing, and the bottom portion of the fillet was slightly lop-sided at the bottom, so I added a bit of sheet styrene to it and trimmed it to profile, then slimmed it down until it fitted better.  I also decided to move the tail assembly back by half a mil, so the fairing and the rudder trailing edges matched better, and while I was there, to get it to fit more snugly, I trimmed a few swipes of a sanding stick off here and there so I got maximum contact surfaces too.  I’ve prepped two of the three grill combs that slide into the slots in the leading edges of the tail, and they’re possibly the hardest parts to prepare due to how close together they are.  I have a set of stainless-steel sanding tools from Galaxy Tools, but they’re a bit thick at 1.4mm, but the smaller DSPIAE ones are only 0.5mm thick, even with one layer of self-adhesive sandpaper attached.  I used one of those plus a #11 blade to even up the two halves of the moulds and smooth them out, then gave them a quick coat of liquid glue to get rid of any swarf.  Two down, one to go

 

That canopy is really nice! Can you see the wiring on the IP?

 

I figured that I would be able to paint the cockpit with much of it in situ, so trapped the seat assembly in position between the two halves under the drive shaft fairings, leaving the bulkhead and instrument panel as a separate assembly after wiring up some of the dials at the back with some lead wire and fitting it to the coaming for a third assembly.  The gearbox and front bulkhead are similarly loose so I can paint it better, and I think the front bulkhead will need slimming at the front because it projects forward from the fuselage a little.  The inner face has some nice strengthening detail on it, so I’ll make sure that doesn’t get mashed in the process.  Moving forward, I noticed there were some fairly big seams running down the props, so decided to put the contra-prop together while I was getting everywhere dusty.  Each prop is separate, and there are two per boss, fixing into a cylindrical slot with a peg making sure you get the alignment of the blades correct.  The moulding seams were actually quite easy to remove, complicated only by their small size, but I soon had them done, taking care to put the right pair on the right hub.  As usual there was a bit of fettling needed to get everything fitting nicely, but once they were, they were rather nice and dainty.  I reamed out the axle holes to get them on the prop shaft and test fitted them, which was when I found that the bulkhead sticks out a bit too far.  That’s easily knocked back with a sanding stick though, which I’ll get round to later.

 

 

With the cockpit basics in place, I elected to close up the fuselage, which I did with super glue (CA).  It’s not the standard method for plastic kits, but I wanted the joints to be strong, and as there’s going to be a bit of sanding of seams to get a smooth surface, I also wanted it to be available to work on soon after gluing.  Most of the gluing could be done from the inside thanks to the lack of wings at this point, so I started under the cockpit floor, then worked back along the top of the fuselage spine, all of which can be done from within, topping up with CA applied from outside by running a gluey old blade along the seam.  With the seam glued, I immediately sanded them back roughly, and will sort them properly later on after a bit of primer gets sent their way.

 

I’ll probably give the canopy a dunk in the Klear tank to increase the clarity even further, then mask it with the masks I also reviewed this afternoon here.

 

Catch you next time

[bigbadbadge]

Such a fantastic looking machine. Keen to see what this goes together like.  

Great start Mike

Chris

[k5054nz]

Excellent start Mike! I'm hoping to build this so I'm very excited to follow along.

[Mike]

39 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Such a fantastic looking machine. Keen to see what this goes together like.  

Great start Mike

Chris

 

8 minutes ago, k5054nz said:

Excellent start Mike! I'm hoping to build this so I'm very excited to follow along.

 

Thanks guys.  I've been doing some priming and sanding of the seams to minimise the seams, as I'm going to paint this as a pretty clean, shiny aircraft as it would have been when they rolled it out onto the airfield in the 30s.  I'll be doing some looking at the few pics of the original, and will probably have to look at the replica that crashed if I come up short on info.  I'm concerned that the gear bay roofs don't have any detail other than the socket for the gear legs, so I will have a ponder on that, but while we're on the subject of the gear legs, they're pretty nicely done, with only a very fine seamline running down them.  I've already scraped and sanded that away, and will be priming it next.  There are only seven parts left on the sprues right now!

[Black Knight]

I'm awaiting delivery of one of these sometime

I'll watch your build and learn from all your mistakes  

[Mike]

1 minute ago, Black Knight said:

I'll watch your build and learn from all your mistakes  

there's a word for people like you

 

Actually, and in all seriousness, if any model I build on here helps someone build their's a leetle bit easier?  I'll be OK with that

[Bronzemeister]

Excellent choice!  Wonderfully bizarre French plane.  Break away from the pack and paint it red however.  Red ones go faster you know.

 

Bronzemeister

[Eivind Lunde]

Great to see this has been released in 48 scale, I'll definitely pick one up so following this with interest. The fate of the replica that was attempted flown a few years back was very sad, both because the pilot was killed and that we now will likely never know how fast this plane could have been.

[shortCummins]

I'm also waiting for one of these to arrive, such am elegant design

 

rgds

John(shortCummins)

[Mike]

More parts titivation going on today, such few that are left.  The fuselage seam isn't far off ready too, which is nice

 

More pics later

[bootneck]

Cannot see any pics Mike?

[Mike]

3 minutes ago, bootneck said:

Cannot see any pics Mike?

There’s only two in the first post Mikey. Hit refresh or reboot your device if they’re not showing.

[Mike]

I dipped the canopy last night, and it's now dry and even more clear, which is nice I cracked open the mask set I reviewed and applied it to the part, with a nice result

 

 

If you go and look at the review of the canopy masks, you'll see where the extra tape to finish off the opener came from

[k5054nz]

I had a look through the photos I've gathered of the real deal and the replica and - surprise surprise - not a single wheel well image. Sorry Mike. Hopefully something's out there, or the EAA Museum could help?

[hairystick]

I'm very tempted to get one of these, especially in :48th!

Having followed the build of the replica 100 she is a beautiful shape.

 

14 hours ago, Mike said:

I dipped the canopy last night, and it's now dry and even more clear, which is nice I cracked open the mask set I reviewed and applied it to the part, with a nice result

I've been doing it the other way around. Paint, then clear dip.

The reason is the stickyness from the tape was tending to blurr the clear finish (even after letting it totally harden up).

 

[ianwau]

Oooh!  Following with interest!  I started a scratchbuild of this in 1/48 over a decade ago.  But a sixth sense said there'd be a kit of this..  Only took a decade - must source one...

 

[perdu]

On 03/12/2022 at 23:46, Mike said:

there's a word for people like you

Prudence?

 

I am enjoying this Mike, always fancied it as a future scratch build myself.

 

Now not necessary, thank the gods and other divine creatures that guide us.

 

👍

[Malc2]

Amazing aeroplane even more amazing the original survives, I have always been a fan of it.

Here are the pics I have of the original after restoration of the U/C and well - hope they are of some use.

 

Malc.

Edited December 5, 2022 by Malc2
spolloing

[Mike]

8 hours ago, hairystick said:

I'm very tempted to get one of these, especially in :48th!

Having followed the build of the replica 100 she is a beautiful shape.

Succumb!

 

8 hours ago, hairystick said:

I've been doing it the other way around. Paint, then clear dip.

The reason is the stickyness from the tape was tending to blurr the clear finish (even after letting it totally harden up).

Can I ask what brand of tape you're using?  I've NEVER had any issue with tape marring the clear parts, although I do always use genuine Klear.  The best thing about doing it this way is if you mess up, you just dip the canopy again and all the Klear and paint melts away.  I had to do that on my Vultee Vengeance, as I'd forgotten to mask one pane.  Dip and clean, re-dip, re-mask & repaint with no after effects!

 

4 hours ago, Malc2 said:

Here are the pics I have of the original after restoration of the U/C and well - hope they are of some use.

Abso-tootly!  Thanks so much for that

[kiseca]

Ooh, glad to see this one being built. Hope you don't mind me folowing to see how it turns out.

 

I was dead set on getting it until I started building the 1/72 version, and my enthusiasm cooled completely. I am finding the fit and finish to be really bad, and the sprues for the 1/48 version look pretty much like a scaled up version of the smaller kit with one or two changes, the tail section being one of them. The lack of locating marks, as you found on the propshaft fairings in the cockpit, is shared with the 1/72 version as well, and has been a common challenge with the cockpit assembly.

 

So, for now the 1/48 version has dropped off my wishlist as it looks likely to be most of the same issues, just the gaps I need to fill will be larger... but she's such a beautiful bird, maybe your build can reignite my desire for one. Maybe I'm learning that I'm just not built for small run, rough-around-the-edges kits, but I'm looking forward to watching you bring this one to life.

[Mike]

1 hour ago, kiseca said:

but she's such a beautiful bird, maybe your build can reignite my desire for one.

I suspect we'll never see a better kit than this one of such a rare and unusual machine, although I've been wrong before and am perfectly willing to be proved wrong again

 

The way I look at it is this: If I don't build this one, I'm unlikely to ever build a Bugatti 100, so I've approached it with my eyes open, prepared to put a bit of effort* in to get the finish I want Did I mention that I'm really enjoying it?

 

 

*Some would call it modelling skills, I'm not sure I could do that

[kiseca]

5 minutes ago, Mike said:

I suspect we'll never see a better kit than this one of such a rare and unusual machine, although I've been wrong before and am perfectly willing to be proved wrong again

 

I think there's a very good chance you will be proven correct in this. 

[Mike]

4 minutes ago, Black Knight said:

My order for this kit is on its way from H

 

There is the Planet Models kit

But whether it be better or not I dunno

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/PLA21748?result-token=aMQbH

Planet Models are Special Hobby's resin kit brand, so I'd expect them either to be very similar, or the plastic one easier to build because that's what most of us are used to.  Dunno.  As mentioned above, I've been wrong before

[Mike]

I've been mucking about looking at pics of the 100, and those pics that @Malc2 posted up, and it looks like most of the internal structure is plywood, or wood to go back a step up the categorisation. This pic below is a bit blurry, sadly, but shows the largest portion of the bay:

 

 

Click to get a larger version. I'm seriously considering just laying some sections of wood decal on the insides of the bays, and some narrow sections on the walls.  I'll paint the backing with a mid-brown first, to cater for any gaps.  I still need to fill the gaps I left around the resin bay walls after thinning the edges down though.  I'll do that next session when I'm a bit more awake

 

[k5054nz]

13 hours ago, Malc2 said:

Here are the pics I have of the original after restoration of the U/C and well - hope they are of some use.

Superb work, thank you! I must say I'm surprised at the rust on some of the parts.