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

[Malc2]

The question is 'what is regular Bugatti blue'

The answer is not straightforward as you may think, look here:-

https://www.carscoops.com/2022/07/bugatti-looks-back-on-their-signature-french-racing-blue-as-they-update-it-for-the-new-era/

 

M.

[Mike]

55 minutes ago, Malc2 said:

The question is 'what is regular Bugatti blue'

The answer is not straightforward as you may think, look here:-

https://www.carscoops.com/2022/07/bugatti-looks-back-on-their-signature-french-racing-blue-as-they-update-it-for-the-new-era/

 

M.

Dont! I've paid my money, I've taken my chance

[Mike]

The paint arrives this afternoon from Hiroboy, and it's a lovely shade.  One thing I noticed was that it was "Bugatti Type 35 - French Racing Blue", which certainly settles two trains of thought.  The darker blue however, I'm going to suggest was a later colour that was applied by someone that didn't understand the relevance of the colour.  I'm not basing that on any evidence of course, just my quarter-wit

 

 

Also, if anyone else wasn't looking forward to filling the seam along the front floor of the cockpit?  Fret not.  The museum photos show it having a floor mat in front of the pedals, so I cut a tiny square of 0.01mm sheet styrene and glued it into place over it, intending to paint it a very dark grey later on, which will give it a lift from the almost total red in the cockpit.

 

 

The rest of the seam line will be buried beneath the gearbox thing, so doesn't matter.  Now where did I put the control stick when it fell off?

[bigbadbadge]

Glad you got the paint side sorted Mike, that floor mat is certainly a bonus too.

Looking good

Chris 

[Mike]

There's not been too much time for modelling this last couple of days, but today I did a little bit of work on it.  I had a rummage through the decal stash to find the wood-effect decals that I knew I had knocking about somewhere.  I reviewed a few sheets from HGW Decal a few years back, and one of them seems to be suitable for the task in hand.  Sheet 548021 is light wood/natural, and should do the job nicely.  You can see it below, and may or may not also be able to see that I've used Milliput to fill in the small gaps around the bay walls, and primed them ready to accept some light wood shade later, as although the decals are light-fast/opaque, I'm likely to leave some tiny areas around the edges, so want them to show up as little as possible.

 

 

If you're in the market, you can still find the decals at HGW here.  They do some great stuff, including what I consider to be the most realistic-looking seatbelts on the market presently.

 

I've also finished off preparing the intake grille inserts for the tail and glued them in place after fettling them a little bit first so they fitted better.  I've noticed on some pics that there is a little hump between the V-elevators in some pictures that's not present on the kit, so I'm going to have a little bit of a looksee round the web to see whether it's original or not, and if it's a feature, I'll make one up from a small piece of styrene sheet and glue it in the middle.

 

 

The instructions tell you to paint the cockpit in Gunze Mr Color H43, and having picked that out of my rack, I'm pretty happy to use that as the base, with a little bit of modulation on some of the parts, as the seat for example seems to be a slightly different tone from other parts.  We'll see how that comes out

 

[RichieW]

22 minutes ago, Mike said:

We'll see how that comes out

 

I am eager with anticipation!

 

Richie

[bigbadbadge]

Looking forward to seeing the wood effect decals. Nice fettling on the intake vanes.

Chris

[kiseca]

51 minutes ago, Mike said:

There's not been too much time for modelling this last couple of days, but today I did a little bit of work on it.  I had a rummage through the decal stash to find the wood-effect decals that I knew I had knocking about somewhere.  I reviewed a few sheets from HGW Decal a few years back, and one of them seems to be suitable for the task in hand.  Sheet 548021 is light wood/natural, and should do the job nicely.  You can see it below, and may or may not also be able to see that I've used Milliput to fill in the small gaps around the bay walls, and primed them ready to accept some light wood shade later, as although the decals are light-fast/opaque, I'm likely to leave some tiny areas around the edges, so want them to show up as little as possible.

 

 

If you're in the market, you can still find the decals at HGW here.  They do some great stuff, including what I consider to be the most realistic-looking seatbelts on the market presently.

 

I've also finished off preparing the intake grille inserts for the tail and glued them in place after fettling them a little bit first so they fitted better.  I've noticed on some pics that there is a little hump between the V-elevators in some pictures that's not present on the kit, so I'm going to have a little bit of a looksee round the web to see whether it's original or not, and if it's a feature, I'll make one up from a small piece of styrene sheet and glue it in the middle.

 

 

The instructions tell you to paint the cockpit in Gunze Mr Color H43, and having picked that out of my rack, I'm pretty happy to use that as the base, with a little bit of modulation on some of the parts, as the seat for example seems to be a slightly different tone from other parts.  We'll see how that comes out

 

That is an amazingly good fit. It looks like a single piece!

[Mike]

49 minutes ago, Black Knight said:

I think you just see the 'bump' in these photos

 

https://www.eaa.org/~/media/images/museum/collections/1938-bugatti-100/dsc_4417.jpg

 

 

That's the exact photo where I first saw it

 

40 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Looking forward to seeing the wood effect decals. Nice fettling on the intake vanes.

Chris

 

Taa It's not perfect, but a bit of test-fitting and redoing paid dividends

 

 

26 minutes ago, kiseca said:

That is an amazingly good fit. It looks like a single piece!

 

It's looking decent, but I'm hoping that adding some layers of paint will help it all merge together.  It's gonna be fun getting a smooth finish either way

[psdavidson]

Dunno how I missed this build before now but I'll be foollowing along for the rest of the trip

Looking good so far

 

I built the smaller scale version in the PRRSS GB a little while back and this version is on my wishlist

In therms of parts,it looks like pretty much a scaled-up version of the small one but with more detail and some of the resin parts replaced by plastic.

 

You seem to have managed the cocpit internals better than I did.

 

I painted mine in the bright blue Mr Hobby recommended in the instructions, even though I also have a bottle of the Zero Bugatti Blue (somewhere)

I don't think it's vastly different, just maybe not prototype accurate, but it worked for me

 

/P

[Mike]

50 minutes ago, psdavidson said:

I painted mine in the bright blue Mr Hobby recommended in the instructions, even though I also have a bottle of the Zero Bugatti Blue (somewhere)

I don't think it's vastly different, just maybe not prototype accurate, but it worked for me

Whichever colour we paint it, it's only ever going to be a best guess, but I figured that Mr Bugatti would be keen to keep his budding heritage and that of the French Racing team going with the proposed transfer into the air.  Looking at that original piece of canvas, the darker shade has been on the airframe at some point, but without looking at its edges, we'll never know whether there was one colour, or maybe even more before it.  A lot can happen in 70 odd years   I'm basing my choice on what seems logical to me, and can cope with being wrong

[kiseca]

1 hour ago, psdavidson said:

Dunno how I missed this build before now but I'll be foollowing along for the rest of the trip

Looking good so far

 

I built the smaller scale version in the PRRSS GB a little while back and this version is on my wishlist

In therms of parts,it looks like pretty much a scaled-up version of the small one but with more detail and some of the resin parts replaced by plastic.

 

You seem to have managed the cocpit internals better than I did.

 

I painted mine in the bright blue Mr Hobby recommended in the instructions, even though I also have a bottle of the Zero Bugatti Blue (somewhere)

I don't think it's vastly different, just maybe not prototype accurate, but it worked for me

 

/P

I just went and found that thread. Your 100p looks lovely, and I see you managed to get the gearbox and shaft lined up rather better than I have!

 

Mine didn't come with cockpit masks... or I lost them and forgot I ever had them.. did those come with the kit?

 

I agree the 1/48 looks like a scaled up version of the same kit with some small improvements, particularly around the tail assembly.

 

I am still waiting to see if the gap on the front of the wing joint has been scaled up too!

[Mike]

1 minute ago, kiseca said:

Mine didn't come with cockpit masks... or I lost them and forgot I ever had them.. did those come with the kit?

They're extra.  You can see my review of them here.

 

1 minute ago, kiseca said:

I am still waiting to see if the gap on the front of the wing joint has been scaled up too!

I've been working on that with mine.  I was wondering whether I caused it by slimming down the edges of the bays, but I wasn't sure.  One thing has happened as a result of my slimming down the edges though.  The leading edges are easier to flex, so I think I'm going to be able to pinch them together with the help of some super glue to join the seams.  This was always going to be a medium/short run kit, so that sort of thing comes with the territory, and makes a completed model that bit sweeter

[Mike]

4 hours ago, Black Knight said:

Hardly any two had the same shade of blue on them and many of the cars were in original paint. Although the blue was generally in the same range there were differences, especially on the 35 and 51s. The 57s and saloons were of a darker shade of blue and the earlier cars, the 13s,  were of a lighter blue

I don't doubt it.  As well as "shade drift" over time, there's probably all manner of environmental factors such as sunlight, temperature etc. that can affect the hue of paint, particularly in ye olden days before we fully understood the chemical composition of pigments, binders and so forth.  All well above my head of course

[Mike]

I got a bit of bench time this evening, and while watching a few documentaries I cut up lots of bits of HGW wood grain decal, and applied it piecemeal to the roof, walls and details of the bays.  The sheets are sectioned into panels, and I managed to use up two sections in the process, with minimal decal going to waste, usually because of my tweezers going through it.  It's a fair few years old now, and is very thin, so you have to be careful not to poke holes in it.  I used some DACO strong setting solution, and used the same paintbrush to move the decals and smooth them down, as the spaces were too small for cotton buds.  Each section was measured and put in place, with tiny strips covering up the areas above and below those little details in the bay, which merges in pretty well if you get the grain the correct way around.  I've literally just finished working on them, so that's probably why you can still see some of the edges if you look carefully, as a few parts overlapped slightly to ensure full coverage.

 

 

I'll have a close look at it tomorrow once the solution has fully dried and the decals have settled down, and even though I've managed to cut out the decal from the little recesses in the inner walls already, I might have to do some tidying up and smoothing to accept a little dab of silver or chrome paint later on.  Now I'm going to scamper off and grab my handheld Shark vacuum to take care of all these tiny scraps of decal paper laying on my desk

[Mike]

It's tomorrow today I've had a quick squint at the decals, and they've settled down nicely.  There are a few bits of slightly less-than-perfect grinding hidden away, but they'll hardly be seen by even the most aggressive viewer, so I'm not going to sweat over it.  I've just put a quick coat of Klear on with a brush and it's starting to look a bit shiny.  I'll put another coat on and then decide whether it's a good time to close up the wings, and wash it once it's together. Not sure either way yet.

[Mike]

I've not had much time for the old modelling this weekend, but I did get time to put another coat of Klear on the wood decals, followed by a coat of panzer grey on the supposed metal bits, with a Mirror chaser.  I decided to do a quick tape-up to see how it looked, and also to have a squint at the join between wings and fuselage.  It's not simple.  Some braincells are going to have to be exercised on the subject

 

Here's the bays:

 

[kiseca]

So, despite promising myself I'd wait to see what pitfalls befell you on this build before committing, I've gone ahead and ordered the 1/48 kit.

 

The reason: My 1:72 version just went through the paintshop and..... it's just such a beautiful little craft, it's worth the headaches. Also previous dialog on this thread has told me maybe my expectations were too high for low volume kits and it's better, with rare subjects like this Bugatti, to have a kit needing some extra care and attention than to have no kit at all.

 

Mine will arrive sometime after Christmas but that's fine, it will be ages before I start building it and by then Mike has hopefully found (and documented  ) all the traps to look out for.

 

One thing, mine's going to be wheels up. It is such a space age, unique shape in the aircraft world, it looks sleek and fast even now. Until you put the undercarriage on it, at which point that wide legged, somewhat awkward taildragger stance instantly dates the craft back to the 1930s. So my 1/48 will be wheels up, showing her sleek beauty to its fullest (and adding a challenge of splitting the landing gear doors, which are moulded into the gear down position... )

[Mike]

37 minutes ago, kiseca said:

Also previous dialog on this thread has told me maybe my expectations were too high for low volume kits and it's better, with rare subjects like this Bugatti, to have a kit needing some extra care and attention than to have no kit at all.

I think that's a fair summation of the kit, yeah

 

In between writing reviews and taking pics I've been mucking about with the wings a bit to see if I can figure out a way of getting them to fit neatly.  So far I've got the upper wings super glued to the fuselage along their join line, and I've been fettling the lower wing for fit against that surface.  Here's the state of play right now:

 

 

In case you were wondering about the tail, it's just dropped in loosely for now, with no glue.  The joint should be a lot better when it's attached.  There's a little bit further to go yet with the wings before I can commit to glue, and I'm pretty sure there's going to need to be some trimming of the outline of one or other whing surfaces, but it should result in a decent join where it's most visible.

[Winded Penguin]

This thread is turning into a 'must book-mark' for someone planning a future build of this subject, in any scale 👍

[Mike]

I've not had much time at the workbench for some reason.  Can't imagine why

 

I managed to get the wing lower on yesterday using a combination of CA at the roots and liquid glue for the rest of it.  The fit isn't bad, but it needs plenty of fettling, and the upper wing joint needs to be erased completely, as it's not there on the real thing, according to the pics I've seen.  I've applied the first coat of CA as filler to the joints and just blew a thin layer of primer over it to show up the many blemishes that are still left to be dealt with.  Here's where we're at:

 

 

 

I've still got a lot of work ahead of me, as I want to give it a lovely shiny coat of Bugatti/French racing blue.  I'll have to tidy up those circular intakes in the wing roots too, as one of them is decidedly drunk at the moment.  I'll probably fill them both and drill them out again.  I really need to put some masking in the bays too, before I accidentally squirt paint into it and ruin all my work

[kiseca]

She's looking very nice, Mike.

 

Mine arrived today. Was amused to notice that a 1/48 Bugatti 100p is very nearly the same size as a 1/72 Spitfire😄

[bigbadbadge]

Looks great and good to see it all together now, not long to the blue paint now.

Cracking work, especially on joint the lower wing part.

Chris

[Back in the Saddle]

This will look great once you get the blue on! 👍

[psdavidson]

Looks like you managed to get the wings attached without too much fuss

It's starting to properly take shape, and I'm regretting cancelling the pre-order for the big'un