Building the Pocher 1/8 Lotus 72D, Emerson Fittipaldi 1972

[brady]

3 hours ago, Bosco said:

When you have 2 parts in a package labeled BC-1, you would think they are both the SAME length!

Your frustration is understandable. Both BC-1 lengths in my kit are identical but I've heard of others with different lengths. Hornby UK has been good about supplying missing parts from what I've heard (except for the safety belt material). Did you contact your kit vendor?

 

After decades of experience building all of the older Italian made kits I like to remind myself that Hornby has improved on the fraught assembly process of the Pocher Classic kits, even if unfortunately still honoring their mistake prone ancestry.

[Griph]

4 hours ago, Bosco said:

Well, gentlemen, I am getting very close to my last nerve with this model. I have over 60 years of model building, so I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing. I have completed the DeAgostini/Model Space 1/8 Senna McLaren, 1/8 GT40 and almost finished with the IXO 1/8 Porsche 917. The assembly that has me VERY close to boxing this model up and putting it on my "Shelf of Shame" uncompleted is the attachment of the BC-1 braided steel lines. NOWHERE does it tell you the 2 lines are of DIFFERENT lengths. When you have 2 parts in a package labeled BC-1, you would think they are both the SAME length! I inadvertently attached the shorter one to part Q1-5 with CA glue. When I tried to stretch it to go into part Q1-4, guess what, it was too short! I cut it off and compared it to the other BC-1 line and it was definitely shorter. Thanks Pocher for letting me know! If I can get the longer one attached without looking like a hodge podge of glue smeared fixes, I just might try another assembly. I will let you know if Pocher has finally gotten on my last nerve.

Bosco

Hi Bosco

This model has had more than the normal quota of frustration. I have had my own battles with the braided cables. In the end I dumped them and used Tamiya braided pipe and cut them to length as I needed them. Just wish I’d done that before fixing the BC-1.  I ended up making a bit of a mess of one of the rather obvious connectors trying to remove the BC-1, before throwing the old in the bin. I cut off the old BC-1 and drilled out the bit left in the socket with small drills and a pin vice. I am close to finishing the model now! It is worth it, but probably wouldn’t do another Pocher model anytime soon! 

[cmatthewbacon]

...and on that note, I battle on.... 😜

 

 

 

Not heat shrink sleeve, since I don't have any big enough, but the handy black Milliput I keep in the fridge. I rolled out some to a thin and flat sheet, let it cure to the point of being leathery (a couple of hours), and wrapped the corners and central join. The Jubilee clips are aluminium duct tape strips with lengths of solder for the tightening screws.

 

 

It's a swine to get in position, though. In the end, I cut off the pins on the brackets that mount to the engine block behind the intake trumpets because there's not enough flex in the part between them and the short tubes into the cylinder heads to pop them into place without breaking. Note that overflow tube coming down and right from the brass collar under the filler cap...

 

 

 

... because I can't see from the instructions where the other end goes. Based on how long it is and where it heads towards in the pictures in my reference images, it looks like it's either the hole in the U-shaped raised piece by the pipe at the bottom of the block (arrowed in the top picture) or the top or bottom of the T-shaped junction higher on the block, by the blue and red pipe connector (circled in the top picture). But it might be somewhere else entirely. Anyone got any ideas?

 

Got my ribbon now...

 

Toolkit for seatbelts. Ribbon, etched metal hardware, and contact adhesive. Looking at pictures of the real thing, I'm not convinced about the black material. I'm going to do it all with 5mm and 3mm blue ribbon, and not "grosgrain" which seems well out of scale (it's the same material as the belts in your car or mine...)

 

First assembly:

 

A closer look at the reference materials suggests some different finishes, and I've also applied the decals:

 

 

 

Which will look like this in place:

 

This means that I have a lot of spare 3mm and 5mm ribbon if you want belts that look like the above, or one lucky winner can have the spare Pocher-supplied ribbon from my kit to double up their issue and have enough to do both belts as brand manager Simon intended...

 

 

 

I couldn't resist popping the wheels in place to see how it looked. Not unhappy with that, though there is still a way to go...

 

best,

M.

 

 

 

[Dinky]

Great progress and good work on the pipes @cmatthewbacon

 

After trying various types of gold for the mirrors without the desired result, I'm back to a gloss black as a base coat for the next attempt.

If anyone wants to know what it looks like with black mirrors, let me know and I'll upload a photo

 

[Griph]

13 hours ago, cmatthewbacon said:

...and on that note, I battle on.... 😜

 

 

 

Not heat shrink sleeve, since I don't have any big enough, but the handy black Milliput I keep in the fridge. I rolled out some to a thin and flat sheet, let it cure to the point of being leathery (a couple of hours), and wrapped the corners and central join. The Jubilee clips are aluminium duct tape strips with lengths of solder for the tightening screws.

 

 

It's a swine to get in position, though. In the end, I cut off the pins on the brackets that mount to the engine block behind the intake trumpets because there's not enough flex in the part between them and the short tubes into the cylinder heads to pop them into place without breaking. Note that overflow tube coming down and right from the brass collar under the filler cap...

 

 

 

... because I can't see from the instructions where the other end goes. Based on how long it is and where it heads towards in the pictures in my reference images, it looks like it's either the hole in the U-shaped raised piece by the pipe at the bottom of the block (arrowed in the top picture) or the top or bottom of the T-shaped junction higher on the block, by the blue and red pipe connector (circled in the top picture). But it might be somewhere else entirely. Anyone got any ideas?

 

Got my ribbon now...

 

Toolkit for seatbelts. Ribbon, etched metal hardware, and contact adhesive. Looking at pictures of the real thing, I'm not convinced about the black material. I'm going to do it all with 5mm and 3mm blue ribbon, and not "grosgrain" which seems well out of scale (it's the same material as the belts in your car or mine...)

 

First assembly:

 

A closer look at the reference materials suggests some different finishes, and I've also applied the decals:

 

 

 

Which will look like this in place:

 

This means that I have a lot of spare 3mm and 5mm ribbon if you want belts that look like the above, or one lucky winner can have the spare Pocher-supplied ribbon from my kit to double up their issue and have enough to do both belts as brand manager Simon intended...

 

 

 

I couldn't resist popping the wheels in place to see how it looked. Not unhappy with that, though there is still a way to go...

 

best,

M.

Hi Matt, I’ve been putting off the seat belts for some time, but I have to make a move on it now! I’ve just discovered an issue - the SB-1 material supplied is only 200mm, however, from the quantities listed in the instructions, 2 x40mm, 2 x 45mm and 2 x 67mm, I need 304mm! How did they get that wrong!  
 

if you have any SB-1 left I’d be grateful of it please? Let me know? Thank you! 

[Schummie]

20 hours ago, Griph said:

Hi Bosco

This model has had more than the normal quota of frustration. I have had my own battles with the braided cables. In the end I dumped them and used Tamiya braided pipe and cut them to length as I needed them. Just wish I’d done that before fixing the BC-1.  I ended up making a bit of a mess of one of the rather obvious connectors trying to remove the BC-1, before throwing the old in the bin. I cut off the old BC-1 and drilled out the bit left in the socket with small drills and a pin vice. I am close to finishing the model now! It is worth it, but probably wouldn’t do another Pocher model anytime soon! 

Well, I’m not a Pocher employee, but I feel these things are not typical Pocher.

An old and wise modeller learned me the art of dry fitting.  Modern Tamiya kits fit extremely well. But these kind of kits like the Pocher, Tameo and even MFH all need some ajustment.

A take it as part of the hobby. But I also can understand if you say, look I payed 800 Euro’s, so I expect near perfection.

Anyhow, through dry fitting I found out that there were different lenghts of braided cables, before I glued them.

And also this forum prevented me for a lot of possible mistakes. 
Anyhow I like this kit and build. I do modify a lot of parts, but I use all the parts. I only bought some micro bolts and a few metres of ribbon.

One can build this kit out of the box and have a nice detailed result. 
And if you want, and have the time, you can easily modify this kit, without buying expensive after market modyfing packs to make it even more real.

So I would for sure consider another Pocher kit. If it’s an F1 icon that is.

And surely Hornby will learn and try to do an even better job next time.

 

 

[brady]

7 hours ago, Griph said:

I’ve just discovered an issue - the SB-1 material supplied is only 200mm, however, from the quantities listed in the instructions, 2 x40mm, 2 x 45mm and 2 x 67mm, I need 304mm! How did they get that wrong!  

if you have any SB-1 left I’d be grateful of it please? Let me know? Thank you! 

It's quite a few pages back in this thread, but all Lotus kits are short of seat belt material, and so:

 

Quote

Anyone (meaning everyone) needing more blue safety belt material, and not wanting to go grey waiting for a resupply from Hornby: it's merely a common type of hair ribbon called "Grosgrain". Find matching blue colors locally or online in 3mm and 5mm and have at it.

 

Looking at photos of the real belts the Grosgrain texture supplied looks too coarse for 1/8 scale, so maybe try some standard ribbon too.

http://scaleautoworks.com/images/Lotus72belts.jpg

 

It seems the kits supplied enough material according to the lengths called on page 30, without acknowledging you need "x 2" for each length.

 

 

[cmatthewbacon]

1 hour ago, brady said:

It's quite a few pages back in this thread, but all Lotus kits are short of seat belt material, and so…

I have about 9m each of the 5mm and 3mm I used left, so if what I’ve shown above is acceptable to you, just PM me and I’ll pop 50cm of each in the post…

best,

M.

[cmatthewbacon]

Testing out a new lens on the "proper" camera, and getting some sense of how hard this beast is going to be to photograph when the time comes...

 

 

 

 

It's amazing (well, maybe not) what a difference decent lighting and an DSLR camera make. I feel some dusting coming on...

 

As you can see, I put a bolt through the wheels and spun them up on my drill against some 800 grit wet and dry.

 

best,

M.

[Griph]

On 25/03/2023 at 22:52, cmatthewbacon said:

 

 

It's a swine to get in position, though. In the end, I cut off the pins on the brackets that mount to the engine block behind the intake trumpets because there's not enough flex in the part between them and the short tubes into the cylinder heads to pop them into place without breaking. Note that overflow tube coming down and right from the brass collar under the filler cap...

 

I did exactly the same, far too many things to connect and juggle past things, cutting the tabs seemed to be the only way after several failed attempts!  After doing that, the only parts I glued were the connections into the two side radiators.  The rest just clipped into place firmly, with some relief from me!!  Pocher must think we humble model builders have more that two hands!!

Thanks again for the seatbelt material! 

[Griph]

19 hours ago, cmatthewbacon said:

 

It's amazing (well, maybe not) what a difference decent lighting and an DSLR camera make. I feel some dusting coming on...

As you can see, I put a bolt through the wheels and spun them up on my drill against some 800 grit wet and dry.

Camera's seem to pick up dust that is invisible to the naked eye. Even after good dusting, still manage to see more in the photos!  I need bionic eyes!!
Great idea with the wheels, I'd done mine the hard way!

[Griph]

On 26/03/2023 at 18:29, Schummie said:

Well, I’m not a Pocher employee, but I feel these things are not typical Pocher.

An old and wise modeller learned me the art of dry fitting.  Modern Tamiya kits fit extremely well. But these kind of kits like the Pocher, Tameo and even MFH all need some ajustment.

A take it as part of the hobby. But I also can understand if you say, look I payed 800 Euro’s, so I expect near perfection.

Anyhow, through dry fitting I found out that there were different lenghts of braided cables, before I glued them.

And also this forum prevented me for a lot of possible mistakes. 
Anyhow I like this kit and build. I do modify a lot of parts, but I use all the parts. I only bought some micro bolts and a few metres of ribbon.

One can build this kit out of the box and have a nice detailed result. 
And if you want, and have the time, you can easily modify this kit, without buying expensive after market modyfing packs to make it even more real.

So I would for sure consider another Pocher kit. If it’s an F1 icon that is.

And surely Hornby will learn and try to do an even better job next time.

 

 

Very good advice, as a relatively newbie to model building, particularly at this scale and cost, Ive been building the IXO Porsche 917KH over the last two years and am just about 80% finished, but this is my first sojourn into Pocher.  I still have a lot to learn, and we all learn from our mistakes.  Advice like yours is hard won!  Considering the cost of the model, mine has turned out overall pretty well (to me anyway).  I will probably do another one, if the right model comes along. Thank you for all your advice!  It has been appreciated!

[Bosco]

On 3/28/2023 at 10:17 AM, Griph said:

Very good advice, as a relatively newbie to model building, particularly at this scale and cost, Ive been building the IXO Porsche 917KH over the last two years and am just about 80% finished, but this is my first sojourn into Pocher.  I still have a lot to learn, and we all learn from our mistakes.  Advice like yours is hard won!  Considering the cost of the model, mine has turned out overall pretty well (to me anyway).  I will probably do another one, if the right model comes along. Thank you for all your advice!  It has been appreciated!

Griph, I'm also building the IXO Porsche 917. Have you gotten Box 21 yet? They seem to be about 2 to 3 weeks behind schedule on this one. I'm guessing we'll be finished when we get Box 21 to 24, whenever that will be!

Bosco

[Griph]

51 minutes ago, Bosco said:

Griph, I'm also building the IXO Porsche 917. Have you gotten Box 21 yet? They seem to be about 2 to 3 weeks behind schedule on this one. I'm guessing we'll be finished when we get Box 21 to 24, whenever that will be!

Bosco

Hi Bosco! Nope, no one has box 21. Ixo have announced that it is delayed:

 

“Hello La Team Ixo,
We've just had confirmation that our Porsche Box 21 will be available from mid-May 🙌.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused due to this delay in delivery which is completely beyond our control.
We are listening to you by email: [email protected] - [email protected].
See you very soon!! Nice day”

 

Mid May is a long time to wait. No details of why it has been delayed, but I guess it will also affect those who are doing the 12

month subscription with Agora Models UK! Guess we will have to be patient!

regards

David

[Schummie]

Some progress in pictures from the Netherlands. Mods inspired by posts in this forum. To return the favour.😀

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FE hose clamps will be added, but are still in transit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For me, I'm helped a lot by all the pictures in this forum. Together with the upraded manual it saved me a lot frustration.
If you think, too much pictures, please let me know. It's not my intention overkill.

 

Regards,

 

Eric Schumacher

 

[Griph]

1 hour ago, Schummie said:

Some progress in pictures from the Netherlands. Mods inspired by posts in this forum. To return the favour.😀

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FE hose clamps will be added, but are still in transit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For me, I'm helped a lot by all the pictures in this forum. Together with the upraded manual it saved me a lot frustration.
If you think, too much pictures, please let me know. It's not my intention overkill.

 

Regards,

 

Eric Schumacher

 

Eric

Hartelijk dank for sharing, don’t apologise for the number of photos! They are great! Fantastic work! 👍🏻

[Schummie]

Question; Does anyone of you have some reference pictures of the wires on the instruments/gauges on the dashboard?

Every wire, hose and tube is there on the engine in this kit. Really impressive. In that light, the dash is put a bit behind I feel.

In the books I have on this car, there are no good pictures from the back of the dashboard.

 

[Griph]

7 minutes ago, Schummie said:

Question; Does anyone of you have some reference pictures of the wires on the instruments/gauges on the dashboard?

Every wire, hose and tube is there on the engine in this kit. Really impressive. In that light, the dash is put a bit behind I feel.

In the books I have on this car, there are no good pictures from the back of the dashboard.

 

There are a couple of photos on page 61 of the Haynes manual?

[brady]

2 hours ago, Schummie said:

Question; Does anyone of you have some reference pictures of the wires on the instruments/gauges on the dashboard?

Every wire, hose and tube is there on the engine in this kit. Really impressive. In that light, the dash is put a bit behind I feel.

In the books I have on this car, there are no good pictures from the back of the dashboard.

 

Here's one http://scaleautoworks.com/assets/L72Dash.jpg

[Schummie]

8 hours ago, Griph said:

There are a couple of photos on page 61 of the Haynes manual?

I only have the Pete Lyons book, and a Emmerson Fittipaldi book. 
But the picture from Brady is already very helpful. 
Thanks for helping me.

[Noel Smith]

Sounds like a challenging build, even for very experienced modellers! 

 

So many of the old Pochers remain partly built as many would be model builders bought them who had no model making experience and bit off more than they could chew.I

 

The new Pochers under Hornby ( Airfix to you and me) should be good kits to build. Airfix make superb large intricate aircraft kits that get rave reviews for their detail and quality of fit and instructions, so I would agree with some comments that given the price of the new Pocher F1 kit one would sort of expect something on a par with Tamiya for the money.

Experienced car modellers just see it as per for the course in building highly detailed car models.

[Bosco]

On 3/30/2023 at 4:27 PM, Griph said:

Hi Bosco! Nope, no one has box 21. Ixo have announced that it is delayed:

 

“Hello La Team Ixo,
We've just had confirmation that our Porsche Box 21 will be available from mid-May 🙌.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused due to this delay in delivery which is completely beyond our control.
We are listening to you by email: [email protected] - [email protected].
See you very soon!! Nice day”

 

Mid May is a long time to wait. No details of why it has been delayed, but I guess it will also affect those who are doing the 12

month subscription with Agora Models UK! Guess we will have to be patient!

regards

David

Thannks,

Bosco

[cmatthewbacon]

 

Starting to look like a car rather than a bunch of sub-assemblies now, though this is very much a test fit...

 

 

The instructions are a little bit unclear (really?) on where the wiring loom connects. I used Gorilla Glue Contact Adhesive for these, since it's flexible and once they are in place they stay there. The walkaround book I have is helpful but not definitive by any stretch. R4 and R2 join up, I think, and R5 seems to just head downwards. Still looking for any advice on where the overflow pipe from the cooling system (top R) connects at the other end. My reference isn't helpful, since restored historic racing cars have a header tank for the cooling system, but in period they didn't.

 

 

The far end of that loom connects to the battery terminals (circled). This is where I wish the battery cables could be unclipped.... otherwise it's a real swine getting the rubber wires into the two holes in the plate where they should terminate.

 

 

R2 is attached to a pin in the conduit (K5). Although the part is moulded in black, in real life it's aluminium ducting, so I painted that part silver.

 

 

Which ends up looking like this. R4 is still waving in the breeze at this end, so I deployed some heat-shrink sleeve. In reality this whole set-up is a mix of insulated and braided wires, wrapped in spiral rubber binding and merging and splitting at several points.

 

 

Now I have discovered why you might not fit the lower floor to support the engine and stabilise the back end -- those two diagonal braces coming forward are supposed to be screwed down to the rear deck from underneath. However, if you put the A screws into the lower ends before assembly and cut off the heads, they work just as well as locating pins to glue the whole thing in.

 

 

The fairing behind the cockpit is a tricky fit. You need to slide the top plate through the roll hoop, and then snap the two pins on the bottom into the two sockets behind the cockpit. The rear anchors of the belts interfere with fitting the fairing as well. Better to unscrew them and put them back after it's in place.

 

 

 

This is what the belts made with non-Grosgrain ribbon look like in situ. I'm happy, though interleaving them so they all settled down into the seat was not as easy at I might have liked.

 

 

It might not be super obvious, but I painted the wheel rim with Tamiya NATO Black, just to get some differentiation. I know the original is not the MOMO wheel that many of the historic racing cars are sporting, with Alcantara on the rim, but I wanted to break up the OOB moulded plastic look...

 

best,

M.

 

 

[cmatthewbacon]

 

Just making a start painting the dash and doing a bit of detailing. It's odd.... almost as if they planned some more detail here and then didn't do it for some reason. The two outer instruments have pins (circled) that look for all the world like the end attachments for the narrower tube like you find all over the rest of the car, and the central one a very crisp socket (which is where the rev counter drive cable should fit)... Any way, I shall busy it up myself!

 

best,

M.

[Schummie]

On 25/03/2023 at 23:52, cmatthewbacon said:

...and on that note, I battle on.... 😜

 

 

 

Not heat shrink sleeve, since I don't have any big enough, but the handy black Milliput I keep in the fridge. I rolled out some to a thin and flat sheet, let it cure to the point of being leathery (a couple of hours), and wrapped the corners and central join. The Jubilee clips are aluminium duct tape strips with lengths of solder for the tightening screws.

 

 

It's a swine to get in position, though. In the end, I cut off the pins on the brackets that mount to the engine block behind the intake trumpets because there's not enough flex in the part between them and the short tubes into the cylinder heads to pop them into place without breaking. Note that overflow tube coming down and right from the brass collar under the filler cap...

 

 

 

... because I can't see from the instructions where the other end goes. Based on how long it is and where it heads towards in the pictures in my reference images, it looks like it's either the hole in the U-shaped raised piece by the pipe at the bottom of the block (arrowed in the top picture) or the top or bottom of the T-shaped junction higher on the block, by the blue and red pipe connector (circled in the top picture). But it might be somewhere else entirely. Anyone got any ideas?

 

Got my ribbon now...

 

Toolkit for seatbelts. Ribbon, etched metal hardware, and contact adhesive. Looking at pictures of the real thing, I'm not convinced about the black material. I'm going to do it all with 5mm and 3mm blue ribbon, and not "grosgrain" which seems well out of scale (it's the same material as the belts in your car or mine...)

 

First assembly:

 

A closer look at the reference materials suggests some different finishes, and I've also applied the decals:

 

 

 

Which will look like this in place:

 

This means that I have a lot of spare 3mm and 5mm ribbon if you want belts that look like the above, or one lucky winner can have the spare Pocher-supplied ribbon from my kit to double up their issue and have enough to do both belts as brand manager Simon intended...

 

 

 

I couldn't resist popping the wheels in place to see how it looked. Not unhappy with that, though there is still a way to go...

 

best,

M.

 

 

 

I have some doubt about the two belts that go from the fire extinguisher to the bottom of the seat. This way they look to have no function.

They come from nowhere, and the end nowhere. 
Is this right?