Finishing the engine

The cam cover highlights were painted flat aluminium and the spark plug holes flat red. The flat red from Tamiya is a real pain: it is as clear as their flat black and strips itself when it dries a bit too much on the brush. Many coats have been necessary to get a dark finish, not really astounding even by my poor standards!






The various accessories were painted in different shades of metalic paints: chrome aluminium, flat aluminium, silver titanium, and Citadel's chainmail and boltgun metal. The golden bits are from Citadel too, but I should have made a mix of gold and mithril silver to cut the brightness of the paint a bit.

Continuing the engine

I did not describe the assembly of the gearbox as it is completely straightforward. I made however early mistakes, as I wanted to make parting lines (those on the cylinder block) disappear and found out later that they were useful for painting! The whole part was primed again before being painted. As usual, the primer was a great help for highlighting surface defects and correct them.

The whole assembly was painted flat aluminium, except the cam covers (they will be dealt with at a later stage) and the strap and pulley side. The later was evenly painted with semi-gloss black. Seeing how the engine will be attached to the body, the details will never be visible, so I just made sure to have an even colour and no missed spot. Two layers of paint were sufficient enough to give the engine a nice metallic aspect, but a third would have been required if I wanted to leave it as is. My goal is to weather the engine through a black ink wash and a flat aluminium highlight over it.

The wash is a tricky thing if no attention is paid to it. By its principles, you drop a liquid paint into crevices to highlight the tiny shapes. Consequently it follows the basic rule of fluids: it flows from the higher spots to the lower spots. That means you need to be careful when you leave the engine to dry: the washed portions must be perfectly horizontal otherwise the ink will accumulate in the lower recesses. That also means that you cannot apply the wash on every side at the same time. So patience is your friend for this operation. The flat aluminium brush I did after that took away most of the wash to leave only what was in the deepest recesses.

The cam covers are painted flat black, except for the tips where flat aluminium was used. As with the dashboard, successive layers were applied perpendicularly from one another to ensure a good paint covering and to minimise brush patterns.

Dashboard part 1

The dashboard was initially primed while not separated from the bundle and I painted it there as well. The attachment point is on a non visible line of the part, so that was easier to handle that way. I painted it semi-gloss black, with three layers, changing the brush direction for each of them. If I did not paint first lengthwise, then crosswise, the brush pattern is too visible and not a nice thing. Both sides were painted with the same method.








Once it was dry, I painted the dial rims and start/ignition panel in chrome silver. Some black touch-up was needed afterwards, of course. It is worth doing it neatly in order to avoid the "hand painted in China" effect that ruins everything. The inside of the dials is also chrome silver.

Underside of the body

I have cemented the back section of the cover to the halves of the body. The rear bulkhead is in place for positioning and clamping purposes but still movable. The thickness of the various parts in play here is not in the practical range, so I wonder what I will get once the rubber bands are off. I have still not decided how to tackle the sides of the cover. From some period pictures, a gap can clearly be seen. Reproducing the same effect may not be easy. I am not fond of cutting the part as it is too definitive a solution, but I would like to give a more solid look to the body.

I have spread Tamiya putty onto the whole underside to level the joint between the halves and to mask the disastrous battery trapdoor. I am not satisfied by the result. It is smooth but not even in some places, but as it is only the underside, I do not worry about it. I need to patch the line where the nose cone will fit and all will be ready for a first layer of primer.

Begining the engine

As work on the body is to take some time, mainly waiting time for the putty to harden, I decided to have a go at the engine. I have sprayed some primer on all the parts still attached to benefit from their being easily accessible to the paint. Of course, there will be some job to cut out flash and mold lines when parts are separated and prepared to be cemented together.

I followed religiously the instruction manual. I first glued the upper part of the block to the gearbox side end, and assembled the lower side of the block (side walls and pan). This sub-assembly was flexible enough when I glued it to the strap and pulley end. My aim was to align the wavy patterns and I will deal with the protruding edges at a later stage.




I then assembled the lower and upper sections in two steps. First I cemented the upper part to the strap end, and once this hard enough I glued the lower part to the gear box end. That gave the free play between part required to make a good alignment in preparation for the cam covers. What is left is a good deal of work on the parting lines to make them disappear.

There is shine... and there is shine!

I was not at all impressed by the finish I got from the roof and hood of the Europa. As I ran out of primer when I wanted to start the engine block, I put the Lotus 49 aside and got back to the other one. The first picture is what I had after 1500 and 2000 grade sanding, then 3M rubbing and finally car waxing the body. That is a dull finish, full of seemingly deep scratches that came from who knows where... I went back to a thorough 1500 sanding in order to get rid of the scratches and to have an even surface for the subsequent stages. A light sanding with 2000 grade paper gave also a good result, and I then tried to use 3000 and 4000 grade sanding pads on the roof. I did not think at first that those two pads would be of any use as I had a bad feeling about them. An equivalent paper would be quite smooth to the touch and the pads felt gritty. Anyway it was worth a try and there was no scratch left after having used them. I went on with the rubbing compound and then the wax, only to have a finish no better than the initial one. It was not mirror-like enough for me.

I started over at the 3M compound stage, this time using a soft cotton cloth. After wiping the dried wax, my eyes opened to another kind of reality. That was some serious shine I had in front of me! Just have a look at the second picture to see the difference. I will not pretend the result is perfect, as some defects in the paint are still visible, but it is now much more satisfying. Conclusion: drop the microfiber cloth for polishing and go the soft cotton cloth way.

Starting the Lotus 49

I have finally bought the articles in the Modeler Site in order to have some good pictures and answers to my previous interrogations. Mr Allen points out that the inside of the tube can be inserted through the back of the cockpit if the rear bulhead is not cemented, so I decided to go that way. He also seems to make no case of the suspension holes not fitting the shape of the body, so I will let them as they are too, instead of ruining everything. Both halves of the tube are glued together, with the battery door between them. I put the front and rear bulkhead in place and kept them there with soft rubber bands to allow the glue to gel while the parts are in their correct location. Then I cemented the lower and side borders of the front bulkhead to the tube. I placed the cover at that time to give a hint about what the assembly may look like after. I could see that the nose cone will then fit quite well. After a few hours wait, I cemented the front portion (fuel trap) of the cover to the halves of the tube, and only this portion. I do not want to rigidify the whole tube too much before I have a chance to make the adjustment to the nose cone. This time I used stiffer rubber bands in order to maintain a strong and even contact between the glued parts. Furthermore, in Mr Allen's article, the rivets were sacrified to the sake of the shape and in order to get a smooth surface between the cover and the tube, free of any parting line. I want to keep the parting line, and in fact I want to enhance it. Pictures of the real car clearly show how the whole thing came together, and there is definitely a gap between the metal panels which I would like to reproduce. However, the cover is quite thin in that area and I will have to find a good solution to give a realistic look to the final product.

Finally, this picture shows the slight misalignment between the nose and the tube. I will try to correct that by shiming the right side , thus lowering the left one. In theory, of course, because I will have to see how strong the bond between the tube and the cover is before doing anything. I want to avoid any kind of adjustment by grinding through the thickness of the tube.

Yellow stripes

I am close to finishing the tests I wanted to make with the Europa body. I have sprayed two stripes of yellow paint, one one the hood and the other one on the roof. The green paint was applied with a masking tape in place of the stripe, then I peeled the tape to mask the borders of the stripe. All went well as I sprayed the yellow and the end product is not that bad. There are thickness variations at the borders of the stripes, but they level pretty well after sanding with 1500 grade paper. The peeling is a trouble-free operation, paint does not stick to the tape and there is no glue marks on the masked area thanks to the Tamiya product. However, I should have taken a greater care of the various shapes to wrap as paint managed to slip under the tape in small volumes. I guess the unwanted paint could be scraped to leave only the green visible but I did not bother with that.

I took advantage of this operation to make a full polishing and waxing of the roof and the hood, but I am disappointed by the result. The whole areas were sanded with 1500 and 2000 grade paper before rubbing the 3M compound but I have nasty reflections of light. It feels almost as if the lone waxing of the paint in its original state would have given a better shine. I wonder how to correct this for the Lotus 49. I will do another 2000 sanding + rubbing + waxing and see if that changes anything. Maybe I should use an intermediate grade between 1500 and 2000?

Body of the Lotus 49

OK, there are some surprises in stock with this model. First of all, there is no instruction for painting it. Except the exterior which is perfectly detailed at the end of the manual, there is no indication whatsoever. There is consequently an urgent need to find some good colour pictures of 1967 and mainly close-ups. I have too few of them. In this site, some hints can be made out but the car is a replica, fitted with modern elements, so the interest is real but limited. I will need the Modeler Site guide for detailing, which should give me close up pictures and probably answer some of my questions.



The picture on the left show the parts needed to assemble the whole body of the car. I was readying them today for some fixing at the gaps between them (using Tamiya putty), and bad news abunded.



The rear bulkhead is quite good, apart from some needed touch-ups because of ejector prints in the part. The two halves of the main tube wrap around it very well but it seems there is no symetry as the right half goes a bit more towards the centre of the bulkhead than the left half (see 1).







The front bulkhead is a true nightmare, as there are huge gaps that I cannot explain. In fact, as the two halves of the main tube are exactly symetrical in that area, I guess the defect somes from the bulkhead itself. Unfortunately I have no caliper with me to validate some measurements, but there is a serious problem in that area (see 2). I have also noticed that the holes intended for suspension arms in the bulkhead do not fit exactly with the shape on the tube. I wonder what do so for that. Should I glue parts together, cut through the hole area to conform it with the shape on the tube and then drill other holes? Will I risk a messy suspension assembly, one wheel in the air while the three others are on the shelf?


















The lower hinged trap door is to be cemented to the tube, as there is no need for batteries anymore. Tamiya putty will help keep the parts together and gap-free. The cockpit aperture and fuel trap area will have to miraculously fit between the halves of the tube and the two bulkhead. I will have to check whether there should be some gap between body panels or if the putty will be used again.

All of this is a real kick in my rear side as I have always thought the painting stage would be the most difficult one. The body of the car is the car itself. If I make a mess of it, there is no way the model will be a success nor a pleasure to look at. I cross my fingers and hope a good night of sleep will bring some light on the matter at hand.

Here it is!

It has been a mere week of waiting but here it is, in perfect condition under its factory wrap. This is the fruit of a courteous and efficient deal on eBay, and it was not an expensive one by the way.





The only defective part is one of the decal sheets, which stayed in contact with a printed paper for too long. The ink of the paper sticked to the decal sheet and remained there after I separated both. That is not really a problem as I intended to paint the white areas anyway to keep only the black lettering to transfer. Age took its toll too as some transparent areas turned yellow, which means they are almost unusable.

Some sanding, polishing and waxing

While the Ferrari is recovering from its Easy Off treatment, I decided to have a go at some finition on selected sections of the Europa.

Both sides are neat and clean so I wanted to see the effect of water sanding before polishing. In this picture, the rear portion of the door is sanded with a grade 2000 paper. As fine as it seems to the touch, it is quite enough to scrape the surface and make it lose whatever shine it had. The side has then been rubbed with a 3M Grinding Compound. This cream is supposed to make any sanding with grade 1500 and above disappear. Truly enough, the shine comes back and it looks as new. I rubbed the model with a microfiber cloth so as not to damage the paint. I use such clothes on my real car, which is very dear to me, so they cannot hurt a model. Abrasiveness is very fine but effective as the cloth shows green paint onto it. The final step was a coat of wax, using an Armor All standard wax.

The initial surface was not half bad, so the effect is not particularly obvious. The picture tries to point out differences in light reflection. The border of the reflection looks finer where the paint was sanded. When the reflection spreads on both areas, the difference seems a bit more understandable. I would be very curious to see what the reflection would be if I had sanded with a grade 200 first and then with a finer grade paper. The aim is to have a totally sharp border on the reflection.


However, unless I can one day make a really shiny body, I think I could live with that kind of finish. It looks quite on par with what toy makers provide on toy cars. I can see my own reflection on the finished sections of the model.

I also tried a less-than-perfect section: the front left wing, which had a mate finish after the second wet coat of paint. The half-wing close to the headlight has been sanded but not the rest. The sanding could definitely be better, maybe if started with a grosser grade, because it cannot cover all the orange peel effect. Like I did for the side of the body, the Grinding Compound was thoroughly used on the whole wing, then wax was applied.

The final effect is very instructive: the compound can smoothe the defects a bit but is absolutely not sufficient by itself. The sanded portion is a lot better looking, in fact the front and the rear of the wing are of two different standards.
I like this example because it highlights different things. First, sanding must be adapted to the defect. Here I should have started with a grosser grade paper, then picked finer ones. As I can testify, there is no need for a long, hard sanding. It just has to be enough to blur the surface evenly. That way, I think there is no need to fear the sight of primer through the paint! Second interesting point is that a grinding compound really grinds. It works as a very fine paper. Third point, even if it is not illustrated in the pictures, wax adds to the shine, and should protect the paint, if I am to believe the indications on the bottle. Fourth point, sanding corrects even major defects. The orange peel effect on the wing qualifies as major in my mind. However, if sufficient paint has been previously applied, there should be no worry about working on the surface of the model. Next time I see orange peel after the final wet coat of paint, I will not bother any more and get some sanding paper.

Back from the dead!

I was so certain that I got rid of it! Well, I was wrong, as I have found it buried in its original Castrol Super Clean. This is the F360 body of which I made a mess while painting. Too many runs of paint. Browsing the web about a way to strip the paint, it looked like Castrol Super Clean was efficient and harmless towards the plastic. So I bought one litre of it and let the body bath into it for days, then weeks, and I saw no peeling whatsoever. I was pretty discouraged. Time flew by and the solvent in the cleaner evaporated, and I found it earlier today, with a thick crust of cleaner around its front half. It was maybe two years when I let it bathe, so I can confirm that the Castrol product will not harm the plastic! Paint was lifted in spots and easy to scrape. I took off most of it under running water with a toothbrush. On the picture, it had just had a spray of Easy Off Oven cleaner. After all, the internet says it can strip paint too, so I have to try it!
Now maybe I can hope to finish the F360 some day...

Continuing the Europa

This is the second wet coat. The whole body looks smooth except on some place. I used the same method as for the first wet coat, with 4 covering of the length of the car. I think I could have done with 3 because I noted a clear tendency to have paint running on the sides of the body. However, there is nothing horrible this time.
The light reflection on the parting lines of the hood makes me think that there may be an excess of paint, I do not know.






The coat looks pretty even and should only need a good polishing operation. Here again, I think there may be an excess of paint at the door lines, so perhaps a light sanding is in order.



The reflections of the light seem satisfying but the picture shows that the left front wing has a mate finish, compared to the right one. It is as if I had made a mist coat during the wet coat. It is perhaps a problem of distance between the can and the model. I may have lifted it too early or stopped spraying before having sufficiently cleared the body. I think I should leave it as such and try to see what a polish compound and light sanding can do.







This is how it looks from a little afar. The front left wing is clearly mate compared to the hood.







This is what the boot lid looks like after its first wet coat. The finish is dull, but I think I can expect it to be smoother after the second coat. However, I am surprised to see some fish eyes. I have not touched the part at all during the night and I wonder how its surface was contaminated. I think this means a thorough sanding to the primer if necessary.

Boot lid of the Europa

This is the lid before the first wet coat. I have chosen to heavily mist it so as to even the paint more. I am not sure whether it is efficient or not, but from the look of it, the finish is convincing. The overall aspect is mate once again, but I think it is because it still needs a good build up of paint. Next step will be to put a wet coat of paint on it and see the result. I intend this part to be a test bed for the need of a good polishing before applying a clear coat over the paint. Half of it will be polished before, and then all of it will be polished after the clear coat is sprayed.

First trial on the Europa

This is the Europa body after a first wet coat. Preparation included sanding mold lines, priming and 3 mist coats.

I sprayed the paint at a 15 cm distance, trying to move at a constant speed in a continuous left to right to left again movement for a total of 4 passages over the model. I kept my eyes on the paint itself during the hole process so as to watch its flow on the surface. Once the right flank was done, I shifted to the top section interrupting the spray only for a brief shake of the can. After 3 passages, I rotated the mounting in order to face the left flank and did the same as above, finishing by the top again. I sprayed the left a bit more slowly than the right as I have spotted a small run of paint at the base of the front right wheel arch.

The finishing touches were directly in front of the front and rear bumpers, with 2 passages each. I figured there must have been a non-neglictible amount of paint already in place, so I wanted to avoid any running problem.









The body shows very little shine only but I hope that can be fixed by polishing after a second wet coat. There is a tricky section where the rear window is placed, as the spray is partially blocked by the roof line.








The quality of the picture is poor but sufficient to show a blemished area on the door. It was there after priming and appeared when the paint started to dry. I wonder what causes it as it is directly exposed to the spray of paint. There again I hope it will only be a bad memory after polishing.

Some references about the Lotus 49

Web-based research was satisfying, as I have found these links:

First thing first, I will need English instructions, as I expect mine to be in Japanese, given that the kit comes directly from Japan. This site has them.

It may be 1/43 in scale, but the result is outstanding. Here is a step-by-step report of the painting and assembling.

Some piece of advice, in French.

The Formula 1 Modeling Website has a forum that can be useful.

Of course, the wonderful book by Michael Oliver: Lotus 49 The Story of a Legend. It is great for the history of the car, and has many backstage pictures of some details. However, the best ones are in black and white.

Some useful links about painting

That is where I sweat the most: painting a full body. Applying paint with a brush, even down to a tiny level of detail has never been a problem. I have made lots of figurines and that makes me able to get some good results. However, regarding cars, my first experience has been a nightmare. It was a Tamiya F360, yellow, with Tamiya paint in a can. Trying to get what was referred to as a "wet coat", I finally ended with lots of runs, and clogged details. And it was neither smooth nor glossy... I am currently trying again on a Lotus Europa body this time, with a proper primer and more hopes. Pictures should follow, if I can get something out of it. If not, then I am in trouble!

Here are some links that could prove useful:
Basics of spray painting, by Ray.
How to lay down a perfect paint job, by Alex. This one is about a F360 and was my reference at the time I tried to make mine. However, I never got as far as described!
Those links were picked from Brian's Model Cars, where many more tutorials are present and a forum seems very active.
The Modeler Site showcases many wonderful pieces of art, but archives are not free. However, they are not really expensive either, and I am considering buying their article about the Lotus 49.

Here's where we start!

I have created this blog with one idea: to provide some step-by-step building information for models I have yet to make. My main project is a Heller HMS Victory, which should require many years before its completion. In the very near future, I should get a Tamiya Lotus 49 model (1/12) that will get priority over the ship.

I do not consider myself as a talented model-maker. I have too little experience and probably not enough dexterity to create a wonder such as those real artists can produce. However, I went through the process of looking for tips and pictures over the internet to have some references, some warning before ruining a heavy time-consuming work. Even though not quite fruitless, my search gave very poor results and so I decided to start the job myself, and I hope I will be able to keep it up until the end. The Lotus may take several weeks, but the Victory will take several years. Who knows what will Blogger be by the time I complete it? Will I still take the time to comment on the stages of the building?

Anyway, this blog is on its way and I hope to post soon about my works in progress.