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Auto Union Typ C, German GP '36, Revisited


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Back in March 2020 I started work on Bernd Rosemeyer's German GP 1936 winning Auto Union Typ C in 1/24 scale, and while discussing the representation of the front grille I wrote "I wouldn't mind a Typ C from MFH in 1/12"...

 

Maybe MFH listened, I don't know, but in the summer 2022 this image appeared in a news letter, and on the MFH site it was announced:

 

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I pre ordered right away, it was impossible to resist, and in the late summer the kit arrived.

 

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I have been studying the parts since, and now it's time to revisit this fantastic car and driver and the German GP of 1936, now in 1/12 scale:

 

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Let's see what MFH provide in the box to work from then. First we have the larger resin parts.

 

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Then a lot of white metal parts.

 

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Two large sheets of photo etch.

 

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Outer rim parts in turned and drilled aluminium and moulded tyres.

 

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More smaller turned parts, clear parts, rubber parts, screws, spokes and nipples, rods, thread, wires, mesh etc.

 

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 Decals for both Bernd Rosemeyer's winning #4 and Hans Stuck's second place #2 cars. No decals for Rudolf Hasse's #6 (4th) or Ernst von Delius' #8 (6th) cars, although I suspect almost all of these kits built will be finished as Rosemeyer's #4 anyway. Both black and red numbers provided brings up some interesting research questions I hadn't expected...

 

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And last some pretty well printed instructions.

 

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I plan to work on this one for a while, most likely with interruptions for other projects. We'll see what happens as time goes on.

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33 minutes ago, Kitkent said:

swastikas are optional as in some aircraft kits?

There were no swastikas on the cars here, so they didn't have to deal with that problem.

 

It seems this was the situation in most GP's i Europe in those years, with exception like the French GP '34. The most common photos of the type C with swastikas are from Vanderbilt Cup '37 in USA.

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I made a little start yesterday cleaning up, preparing and assembling the first engine parts. The detailing is quite ambitious in the castings with lots of stuff that will be totally hidden when assembly progress.

 

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Building kits like this requires quite a lot of work in preparing every single part; cleaning, drilling holes, test fitting and adjusting. Little by little, piece by piece.

 

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It's necessary to think and look several steps ahead in the instructions or more likely look through all of the instructions to catch all holes to be drilled out and making sure everything will fit together much later on. It's far easier to drill a hole in the engine block now, rather than later when everything is painted and the engine is a completed fragile installation in the finished chassis.

 

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Smashing! I think MFH likes to go the extra mile with 'hidden' detail just in case modellers want to display the engine being serviced. Those that are sold separately are quite pricey, so including a separate 'display' engine would add a lot to the cost of the kit. On the Mazda 787B kit I left the rotors out of the engine and may find a way of artistically displaying them as separate items; ditto the flywheel and clutch, which are both exquisite but can't be seen once the engine and gearbox adaptor are mated up.

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1 hour ago, Sabrejet said:

Smashing! I think MFH likes to go the extra mile with 'hidden' detail just in case modellers want to display the engine being serviced. Those that are sold separately are quite pricey, so including a separate 'display' engine would add a lot to the cost of the kit. On the Mazda 787B kit I left the rotors out of the engine and may find a way of artistically displaying them as separate items; ditto the flywheel and clutch, which are both exquisite but can't be seen once the engine and gearbox adaptor are mated up.

Thanks!

That's quite possibly the case. I don't mind the hidden detail in a project like this, it makes for an interesting build and photos to be taken. Working on valve train and camshaft right now...

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Work continues preparing and test fitting engine parts, and gluing small assemblies suitable for paint. My plan is to go through the complete engine and gearbox, dry building like this, then paint and assemble the complete unit.

 

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I want to paint parts that as much as possible represent the real engine parts and avoid any visible joints that should not be there. Pretty much what one always strives for in scale model building, but in the case of the cylinder heads this means some tricky filling and sanding. I suppose white metal casting technique dictated this.

 

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White metal part preparation and dry building continues slowly.

 

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All these thin oval parts will build up the compressor housing. What first just seems like an odd way to increase the parts count I think will prove to be a clever way of producing the finned housing with precision and a minimal of mismatching mould lines. But we'll soon see. The brake drums with their cooling fins are built up in a similar way.

 

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Wow, what a kit! This one's certainly not for the faint of heart 🙂 

 

Not something I'd see myself do but I'm looking in, this is interesting!

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Me neither!  The thought of tackling something like this scares the 💩 out of me but it's fascinating to watch and admire the build progress.

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Only just discovered this and will be following your every move, Jorgen @Bengalensis.

 

A car such as this fully justifies a kit such as this and I'm sure the result will be on par, or better than previous builds of yours, all of which you've displayed here are commendable.

 

Best of luck with the build.

Rog

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On 03/01/2023 at 09:54, klubman01 said:

That is a staggering amount of detail (that won't be seen).  Fantastic.

Trevor

Thanks a lot Trevor. Yes, one will have to look a lot during assembly to remember what disappears. It would actually be possible to make the valve covers removable when I think of it.

 

On 03/01/2023 at 17:55, PROPELLER said:

I'm waiting for a masterpiece, simply..

 

Dan.

Many thanks Dan, I hope I will not disappoint.

 

12 hours ago, JeroenS said:

Wow, what a kit! This one's certainly not for the faint of heart 🙂 

 

Not something I'd see myself do but I'm looking in, this is interesting!

It's a bit overwhelming when opening the box, but a joy to work with. You'd have to enjoy resin and white metal preparation though.

Good to have you along as always.

 

9 hours ago, Neddy said:

Me neither!  The thought of tackling something like this scares the 💩 out of me but it's fascinating to watch and admire the build progress.

Breaking it down into smaller part projects will help a lot. But I would recomend some amount of experience of white metal and resin work prior to this, just to be comfortable.

Again, good to have you along!

 

8 hours ago, roginoz said:

Only just discovered this and will be following your every move, Jorgen @Bengalensis.

 

A car such as this fully justifies a kit such as this and I'm sure the result will be on par, or better than previous builds of yours, all of which you've displayed here are commendable.

 

Best of luck with the build.

Rog

Thanks a lot Rog, I hope you will enjoy the process and I hope to make justice to the subject.

I really like that MFH made the choice  to release this machine. I don't think I've ever ordered a new kit as quick as this one...

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Building up the compressor housing worked very well, but dry building first showed it was critical to align all the slices perfectly to avoid a skewed result. Then I spent time sanding and filling the inside smooth. Well, with the rotors present inside the surface have to match. Again, not to be seen later on

 

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All these white metal parts and some photo etch will build up the carburettor. The engine is a project in itself and that is almost true of the carburettor as well.

 

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A balancing act to check the main compressor and carburettor parts together.

 

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I decided to change the parts break down of the top water pipes to be able to fit the rubber hose joint between the two banks in a better way, or rather the only sensible way.

 

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The ends of the exhaust stacks are made from turned aluminium with milled angled ends. While it makes for 16 equal precision pieces looking good in the box I'm not convinced. The real stacks are one piece pipes (with an almost invisible weld joint much further down in the bend) so it makes for 16 interesting glue joints to make invisible before paint. But the worst is that they have way too thick walls.

 

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Most period photos show the stacks with a small rounded bead towards the outside on the tip of the pipe, but still nowhere near this thickness. Slightly rounding off the edges might be a good idea, but first I need to get the thickness down, probably by shallow chamfering the inside. In this respect it would have been easier to drill out complete white metal castings. Very well, one can always find something to complain about, and I would probably have done so the other way round too...

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I started with the preparation of the white metal castings which was less work than expected, very nice castings with minimal mould parting lines. To check that all parts would line up I placed the engine with cylinder heads upside down on a flat surface so the stacks could be dry fitted and rest against the surface. This should be quite close to the finished angle.

 

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Then I prepared the photo etched clamps. It's important to keep track of which one goes where and bend the ends correctly. I was thinking of gluing these in place next, but realized it would be better to finish the 16 glue joints between aluminium and white metal fist. And that means back to those thick turned parts.

 

I have an A2 sized cutting mat, but always find myself working far out in the near left corner...

 

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So instead I built up the gearbox, which was done without much trouble. I would have liked a bit more parts to build up the housing instead of just two resin halves. That would make painting easier as most sources point to a darker surface on the centre differential housing than the end plates and gearbox housing. But some masking will fix it.

 

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