Ready for the final colour

A nice cleaning was done with a 3000 grit abrasive on the yellow paint to remove the little inclusions. It was time to mask what will be the yellow stripes and markings. The main yellow stripe running from the white spot on the nose to the engine bulkhead was really straightforward. Decals showed that it was 13mm wide, so I made a masking ribbon of the same width and placed it on the body in three steps. The first was on the nose cone. There is a small challenge in making sure that the curved edge near the future white dot will be sharp and graceful. I used the second steel washer bought in that purpose and made a circular cut, the radius of which is 1,5mm larger than the dot itself. It was put into position thanks to its opposite cut out and aligned with the axis of the whole body thanks to two references. My first reference is the line drawn on the mask of the dot. The second one was a mark drawn on a piece of masking tape put near the windscreen area. The longer the distance between those marks is of course the better, and once the nose is placed onto the main body, it is easy to put the first mask into place. I removed the nose cone and wrapped the remaining of the mask on the inside. I used a toothpick to make sure there is no air trapped near the edges of the mask nor around the wrapping area.
The second step is even easier. I put the nose back onto the body and use the new mask as a starting point. Aligning the stripe is done thanks to the rivet shapes on the upper body panel. Again, I made sure that there was no air trapped, especially on the concave-convex area near the windscreen.
The final step was the little stripe behind the driver, easily positioned thanks to the rivets on the body.
















The tip of the nose is entirely wrapped. I had to make the mask totally from scratch. References about the width and shape of the yellow "mouth" contradict a bit. Restored chassis show a thin "lip" and a long-ish straight stripe to the white dot. Photographs from Mr Oliver's book show wider lips and almost no straight stripe, which is what I tried to copy. I used the decal (which is, by the way, a third way of seeing the mouth) as a template. The fillet joining the stripe to the lips is approximately the same as the radius of the white numbering circles, so my beloved steel washer came into action once again. As with the first mask on the nose, I used the second washer to offset the mask a bit. I then tried to wrap the mouth with as even a width as I could.
Each time I feel that the spacing between the new mask and the maks for the white dot is too narrow, I use a toothpick to push back the mask a little. I just hope it will not cause a mess with the new coats of paint.

The "team Lotus" side markings are a bit tricky. The easier way would be to proceed by masking the areas not to be sprayed, however that is not to be the case. I have to mask the exact words, with each letter perfectly aligned and spaced. I do not think there is much choice. First thing is to draw the markings on a piece of tape, then to follow the edges of the letters with the knife. Easier said than done... Despite my efforts, I cannot do something efficient enough to have all the letters perfectly aligned and spaced, so I give up on this. I now have a choice: either there will not be any "Team Lotus" markings or I will try to paint them by hand after I have painted the body in BRG. In any case I cannot use the decal since the yellow tint is not the same as the Tamiya paint and the lettering is a bit offset.

Time to paint the body: second colour

As with the white paint, mist coats came before wet coats. The yellow paint seems a bit harder to work with. The mist coats were hardly even but then it is not really important at this stage. The wet coats were a bit more like a pain in the backside. I got a nasty run of paint right between a mask and the edge of the chassis, where there are lots of rivet-like imprints. Wet sanding it was a joy but I managed not to soak the tape nor flatten the rivets. The second wet coat was seemingly easier.
I do not like this paint much: it feels as if the yellow does not cover the surface to paint very well. The darker places and the concave zones (like the fuel port of the body) will need some manual touch up, or so I think... I am glad the rest of the body will be a dark green since it will kind of blend those darker zones.
After the final wet coat, I saw that the lower part of the air intake of the nose cone was not sprayed as much as the rest of the part, so I masked everything else and resprayed that area. In fact many of the darker zones of the parts are not quite well covered by paint. For instance, the top edge of the nose cone that comes against the body will need some touching up at the end of the whole painting affair...
Time now to mask the yellow bits!

Ready for the second colour

I let the white paint dry for a few days before working on it again. After a clean up of the body in order to softly remove the final defects in the paint (3000 grit), it was time to place the masks which will protect the white areas of the body. There were a few difficulties on the way. The first one was to make sure to get perfect disks since the paint will show every little roundness mishap. Consequently I did not rely on a pair of cisors but on a steel washer, the diameter of which is very close to the diameter of the decal. Then, with a sharp modelling knife pressed against the washer, it is quite easy to cut the masking tape following the right shape. It is better to try to find a thin washer because the punching operation making the washer itself will be much more regular. You will not get an oval washer or one with poor edges. The one I have is a bit smaller than the decal, but that should not show much on the end product (if there is an end product ever...).
The second difficulty is in finding the right position on the nose cone. There are enough material reference points on the sides of the chassis to make those ones easy. The nose cone is a beautiful piece of bodywork, smooth and perfectly rounded. The main drawback is that it is so smooth that there is nothing to pick as a reference point. I tried to solve the problem by measuring and marking the nose cone. I drew two small penciled lines at each end (the radiator opening and the opposite end). A top view of the real car gave me the distance between the mask and the radiator opening. Job half done! So I unrolled enough masking tape to cover the length of the nose cone, spread it on a clean surface, drew a middle line length-wise, picked a reference near one end of the tape, and finally cut a disk at the right scaled distance from this reference. I removed the tape to place it on the nose cone, leaving only the disk behind. Positioning was made easy by aligning the middle line with the two marks I made on the part, and I took care to place my reference on the tape right at the tip of the radiator opening. I then just had to place the disk in its location and remove the rest of the tape from the nose cone. Job completed!
The final difficulty is in chosing the proper masking tape. Paint work on the Lotus 25 revealed adhesion problems and paint accumulation along the edges of the masks. The accumulation is obviously related to the thickness of the tape. I have a 50mm wide roll of Tamiya masking tape and I cannot understand how I could forget it while working on the Lotus 25. The tape is strong, very thin and sticky. It is quite worth the price.

The parts are now ready for their first yellow mist coats!

Lotus 25 without masks

I cannot deny I felt pretty stressed before I removed the masking tape from the Lotus 25. I already saw that it did not stay in place where there were crevisses in the moulding of the body and I expected something close to a mess. Looking at the pictures it is a mess indeed, however I feel confident I will be able to make up most of it without too much effort. White is over green, so sanding should be enough to repair. I just hope I will not have to do too much touching up.
Next time I will think twice before using common, house work bound masking tape on a model: it is never sticky enough and much too thick.

Cockpit part 1

That part will give me some troubles when I try to get it into the body of the car. The assembly manual shows that the cockpit should be ready in place before the cover is placed onto the monocoque. However, I chose to close the body before anything else, mainly because the parts do not fit perfectly together. So now I do not have much choice but slide the cockpit into the body from the rear opening. Easier said than done... There are lots of plastic ends that go in the way of the ribs at the bottom of the monocoque. I had to cut them out in order to make some way. The artillery at Jena all over again!


After a thin coat of primer and some assembly, I painted the side walls in a neutral grey tone. Blame the various pictures from 1967 found on the internet for that... Some would prefer a metallic approach, but I will stick to the real thing as much as I can.

























The seat is also a source of trouble. I do not intend (at least for the time being) to use the driver figurine of the kit, so I have to find a way to render a visible seat. The Modeler Site guide uses a piece a real leather shaped in the plastic part itself. Even thought the idea is tempting, I think it would look a bit bogus since the grain of the material would not really be at the right scale. I may still change my mind about this, but for the moment I went the easy way by painting the seat in flat black. I painted a first layer so as to cover all the primer and minimise the lighter areas. Then I painted a second, very diluted layer so the crevisses in the moulding would be completely soaked. With the quality of this moulding and the slight variations of reflectivity of the paint, I would say that the look of this seat is more than enough. Until of course I think about something better... I initially wanted to dry-brush the seat with a slightly different tone of black, but I have the feeling that the big scale of this model does not require it here.

Radiator

Both parts were cemented together before painting. The whole radiator was painted Flat Aluminium: two brushed coats on the perimeter, in order to give an even surface and a good finish, and only one coat on each grid side. I just wanted to give the minimum metal effect to the grids before giving them a thorough black wash, which gives the part some depth. Then the grid bars were highlited with flat Al again. As the result was not very obvious, I did a second, darker wash.

Time to paint the body: first colour

I spent so much time far from this model that is looks like a new challenge to me. However, since I got some good results on the body of the Lotus 25 and since I need to have a finished body to go on with the Lotus 49 kit, I must take a deep breath and make the jump. At the last minute I decided to follow the Modeler Site Lotus 49 guide by Tony Allen. He starts with a white coat of paint, then add masks for the number areas and goes on with a yellow coat. After masking the yellow stripes he finally applies the green coat and unmask the body before spraying a clear coat. I must confess I am quite skeptical about adding so many layers of paint and I hope I will not lose the details on the body. On the other hand, it makes sense to start with the lighter colours and finish with the darker ones, as I can see with the Lotus 25.















Those are the nose cone and cockpit with their final primer coat. There is no dust or hair at all in it and that should prove a perfect base for the white paint.










Those are the same parts after the white wet coats. I encountered quite a few undesirable things trapped in the paint after each coat but carefully sanded them off with a fine grit (3000 or 4000). The second wet coat was applied only on the surface which will need them: the top of the nose cone and the sides of the cockpit. The edges of this second wet coat will be finely sanded so as not to be visible on the end product. After each wet coat, paint tends to run at the bottom of the part. Those runs are lightly sanded if I think they will be visible, meaning that the underside of the body is not as cared for as the top and sides.

Last details on the engine

The wiring is now in place and each piece of flexible tubing glued into place. Cyano glue was necessary to join those different materials and to save the time usually dedicated to applying some pressure on both parts until the bond correctly together. The black tubes are bundled together with a small strip of electrical tape.

References for HMS Victory

There is a model of the HMS Victory sitting in the attic and waiting for me to start building it. It is the Heller 1/100 plastic kit. Given the size of the model and the detail level, it is worth looking for some good reliable starting point. Obviously the two main challenges will be painting and of course rigging the ship.


McKay's book is a nice one to have close to the work in progress. It offers lots of drawings of the outside and of the inside of the ship, allowing someone with too much time at hand to add many details to his model. There are also sketches for running and standing rigging. This book must be the result of a hard and passionate work and is available here.
















Longridge's masterful opus is what some would dare to call the bible for tall ship modellers. It has every bit of information for anyone tackling the task of building a model ship from scratch. It is that thorough... From the construction of the keel to the diameter of any rope on board, Longridge gives it all. It is consequently a very technical read, but written in the style of someone who went himself through every step of the building. It is available here.













The internet is still the best source of information for the choice of colours and for pictures of any detail outside or on board the ship. The official site is of course the first stage of a larger search and even offers pages dedicated to model makers. Finally, my favourite one is Pete Coleman's forum and is the best place to share advice and ask questions about the Heller kit.

Practice time

I used the Tamiya Lotus 25 Climax kit to practice a bit before getting serious with the Lotus 49. I painted the whole body in green first then masked the proper areas in order to paint the yellow stripes. When I removed the masking tapes, I had some bad surprises.


















Some paint soaked the tape and I will have some repairs to do. The white areas will be painted when the whole body is assembled.