Front wheels

Since they move freely around their axle, the front wheels are not difficult to put into place. I just hope that the stopping parts glued on that axle will be strong enough. I would have prefered them to fit a bit more tightly because the way I see it, only the bead of glue will hold the wheels. Once again, it is not a problem for a static model, but could prove tricky when it is moved from one location to another. The toe angle will have to be adjusted manually too, because of the weight of the wheel vs the softness of the steering links. Finally it looks like the right hand side wheel is a bit more forward than the left hand one.

Front wheel hubs, part 2

The hubs take their proper location easily. The links between the hubs and the steering rod are very small and flexible. Given the weight of the wheels, it will definitely be better to make it a static model. There was no problem fitting the black tubes to the brake calipers and inside the monocoque. I would mention though that it is easier to slide it there before trying to the bal joints in place. One of the glued part of the upper arm deatched itself while I tried to pry and move the tube. It was not broken however, and was soon back where it belongs.

Torsion bar

The torsion bar would have been easier to work on before the rear suspension. There are two attachment points to the engine and the upper suspension arms come in the way. On the other hand, those arms help a bit to keep the attachment points in place. The links between the hubs and the torsion bar must be joined by "hot fix" (flattening the end of the parts with a hot device), a process which I do not enjoy much, but seemingly efficient. This whole assembly looks very fragile anyway.

Rear suspension

There is not much left apart from assembling the remaining parts. The rear suspension is a complex sub-assembly with no less than six contact points to either the monocoque or the engine to fit in one single operation. I always wanted to avoid touching the chromed parts with my dirty fingers, but now it is just impossible to do. I hope there will be no long time stains or blemish developing from that.
I started with the left side, which I figured was to be the most difficult because of the side duct. I chose the following order:

1. lower triangle attachment. It is the stronger point of the whole assembly and its conception should prevent a total collapse if anything goes wrong afterward.
2. transmission shaft. It is easy to forget (I forgot it on the right side, fortunately early enough to correct the situation) and cannot be positioned later on.
3. short upper arm. It slides around a sub-assembly on the engine.
4. spring. It fits tightly on the shock absorber lower half. It is then easy to compress and slide under the long upper arm.
5. shock aborber. The upper half slides around the aforementioned sub-assembly once the shaft is placed inside the lower half. At this point, the suspension shows its higher strength if need be.
6. long upper and lower arms. They fit inside the holes at the end of the monocoque.

There are finally two body panels to cement over the long arm attachment points, with no problem at all. At first sight, the wheel hubs look to follow a vertical axis. None of the parts is cemented, the suspension is meant to be a fully working assembly, but I would never try it as it looks very fragile.

There are a few defects popping out at this stage. The left lower long arm is pushing on the exhaust pipes, even though it looked like the latter were in the right position. It is unfortunately impossible to gauge this before. The left upper attachment hole on the monocoque is not quite aligned with the hole on the left hand cam cover. It is a serious issue since it shows that the engine tilts slightly clockwise. I am afraid that the car will not stay on four wheels but on three... Like the front suspension coil springs, the rear ones are flexed a bit and I do not like the look of it. The ends of the springs sit quite well on the shock absorber parts but the plastic is simply not strong enough for the stiffness of steel.
Even though it is not pictured below, the right rear suspension is quite similar. The only issue to be mentioned is the long upper arm pushing onto the little boxes moulded on the cam cover.

Side duct

I ran out of white and racing green paint and postponed the side duct. However here it is, stretching fore to aft, properly attached to the rubber tubes and to the side of the cockpit. The multiple paint and clear coats sprayed on the cockpit made it impossible to fit the duct in the holes: the holes were no more at the right size. I preferred to shrink the attachment bits instead of widening the holes because I did not know how brittle the paint job could be. Cracks or other types of damage would make me very sorry at this stage of the assembling... The duct holds by itself, I did not use glue to cement it on the body of the car, I shall see whether it is a long term issue or not.
Painting the duct itself was not much trouble, except that the white paint tended to run a bit, even though I kept the part horizontaly while painting and drying. Consequently, I made several thin layers instead of building thick ones. I sprayed some clear onto it aftewards and applied 3M compound onto the surface in order to give it some shine. I sanded the straps and painted them in their right colours (Red Gore for the "rubber" parts, undercoat of Boltgun Metal then Titanium gold for the metal straps).

Attaching the engine

Today is the big day: the monocoque will be joined forever with the engine, until death, or a cat, does them part... The operation was not straightforward. Without the bottom black tubes, the engine fits quite easily: the bracket slide in and the engine is put into place thanks to one plug on each cylinder bank. With the tubes, nothing moves, so I have to widen the holes at the bottom of the rear bulkhead in order to give more room to them. Nothing is quite rosy though, as the engine seems to be tilted upward at the rear...

Roll bars

I am about to end the building of the Lotus quite soon, or so I guess. There is not much paint job left, and lots of assembling to do. I put the roll bars in their place but had a bad surprise. The front bar does not fit the model at all! Its left hand attachment point is completely out of the body of the model, and looks weird (see picture). There is not much I can do about that except replace the bars, but I have no material at hand, nor talent enough to do so.

Tyres

The tyres provided in the kit are made of soft rubber. It is still stiff enough to stay firmly in place when the tyres are fitted on the rims. I am not sure whether they are true to the real tyres, I simply have not enough documentation. There are pictures from 1967 showing no side markings, markings outside and inside, whitish markings and golden ones... I have not found any proof of the "F" logo, or at least of a highlited one. So it will be kept free of paint. Another weird detail: one side of the front tyres have "Fireston" with a missing e... The main "Firestone" and circle are painted ochre #15 (Andrea Color). They look golden on pictures, but gold paint looks always bogus on a model, except for metal parts. For obvious reasons, the metal particles in the paint are not scaled down, so it looks somewhat off. The ochre paint will have a better finish, especially on pictures. It is hard to paint accurately, so every area where the brush went a bit too wide was cleaned up with a toothpick. Unfortunately, that means that the paint does not adhere to the ruber that well either and will be vulnerable later.

Wheels

The spokes of the rims are in chromed plastic too but I am no fan of that at all, especially because the real spokes are not chromed. I painted them semi-gloss black but left the rest of the rim in all its blingy glory. The overall paint was sprayed, but the sides were touched up by brush. It is highly unlikely that it will be spotted out once assembled. In order to highlight some details, I painted the nut assembly chrome silver, then titanium gold for the washer and titanium silver for the threaded end. Due to the poor covering of those titanium paints, I would advise to paint a metallic undercoat to get a better looking visual impact.
Both parts of the rim were then glued together and finally the brake rotors are attached.

Brake rotors

The brake rotors are painted boltgun metal. On every colour picture I have seen from the cars in 1967, the rim of the disks were fairly rusted (due to heat probably), so that was painted Tin Bitz.

Front wheel hubs, part 1

Like the rear hubs, the front ones are painted semi-gloss black. The brake stirrups are painted chrome silver and enhanced with boltgun metal. I want them to look like they are made of different parts.

Carbon fiber decals

Yes I know: I usually complain about how difficult I find to place the supplied decals, and now I want to put CFRP decals everywhere... No logic here, but only the wish to get one more notch in detailing the kits. CF decals come in plain sheets, mine were bought at Scale Motorsport. They keep decals for the main modelling scales and have different weaving patterns. I chose one which is quite common (1000 series) as I wanted to try it on a few selected parts, but others are available in different patterns and colours (to simulate aramid fibers for example). There are some bits of advice coming with the decals and they prove quite useful.

My first trial is on the endplates of the front wing. The outside face is painted dark green but the inside one shows the base material. I used the Formula Perfect book to find the general orientation of the fibers. Since there is no template, the first thing to do is to create one. In order to do so, I put a piece of masking tape over and around the shape of the part to be covered. I cut it out directly on the part and then place the tape on the decal sheet and then cut out the decal. After the mandatory time in warm water and the usual soaking of the surface of the part with Microscale softener, my first surprise was to see how thick the decal is. With thickness usually comes stiffness and I suddenly was confronted once again with what I hate most about decals. How will that stick to the part, and with how much damage will I end up? The vortex generator of the end plate was indeed a challenge and I wanted to find out what gives better results: a larger excess piece of the decal or a smaller one. How will either wrap around the bulge of the part?

I was a bit disappointed to see that the softener did not seem to have any effect on the decal (thickness at play here again). However, the use of a hair drier (at lower setting) made wonders! Used with a Microscale soaked cotton swab to push the decal around the part, everything took its place with no fuss. A dry swab was useful to remove bubbles and creases, and now the thickness had a positive effect: the decal is strong and does not want to tear easily. It showed me that a smaller surplus of decal was better: the larger one has to fold over itself. I am not really bothered by that since I wanted to put CFRP decal only on visible areas, thus excluding the underside of the endplates. I finished the job with the larger, flatter pieces, which were much easier to put into the right place.

Masking the body (red areas)

The relative ease with which I cruised past the first masking stage of this model backfired in a twisted way once I decided to prepare the parts for the red paint application. I used the same method as for the green areas: a first counter-mask identical to the decals supplied with the kit, to be used as a guide for the actual masks.
First, it took me a whole week to get things right. On the one hand I am dealing here with continuously curved surfaces, there is very little aid to place the decals or masks correctly. I have the feeling that one of my masks used on the Lotus 49 was not centered on the nose cone and I did not want to repeat history. So I tried and tried again until I found something hopefully suitable. The engine cover and the sides of the cockpit were easy to deal with and the main challenge was the nose once again. I could use the Castrol logo found at the tip of the red stripe as a gauge for the width between the masks, but it had to be placed evenly from right to left and exactly perpendicular to the axis of the body. I find it difficult to be sure and the next un-masking operation will tell...
On the other hand, it looks like the decals supplied are a bit larger than they should. I am convinced that the bottom of the green area is too low. If I want to keep a white separating stripe which will look proportionate with the model, the top of the red area will also be too low. That should translate in the Loctite logo being partly on the side pods, where it should not be. Once again, time will tell...
This time I chose to keep the whole front of the model assembled before being painted. Runs of paint will give me hell for it I am sure!

Green areas

The Park Green spray paint is easier to use than the white paint. It covers the model much more and is more opaque. The masking tape was removed without any difficulty but revealed a few surprises. I did not mask the sidepods enough and some spray went onto areas whcih should stay white. I guess I will have to brush some touch up eventually. Same story at the border of the masking tape: there are a few runs of paint but nothing too disappointing. I sanded the edge of the front suspension cover: as layers of paint tend to accumulate, the fitting of the parts is a bit impaired. Anyway, that part will be cemented to the cockpit, so I do not need to care too much about the interior of it.

Formula Perfect Manual

The early 1990s are definitely somehow pre-historical. No internet with Imageshack or Flicker or any image bank, no digital photography, merely magazines and VHS tapes to get visual references. At that time Tamiya was in full swing with their 1/20 F1 models and they published a few books full of close up pictures for some of their kits. I recently got this one, 5th in the series, to help me with my new kits.
Those books are today somewhat hard to find, except at Mac's, on-line shop which I have just discovered and now heartedly recommend for modelling supplies. So here's to you and your great sense of customer care Ian!

Front wing

Good intentions do not always pay off. I tried twice to build the 107B with the decals and twice I made a mess. I hate large decals, simple as that. Here are the front wing elements with their decals on and even those I cannot get right... I removed all of that in warm water with a shot of vinegar (I placed them a few years ago) without any problem. Of course, the second picture is the new end product with new paint and new decals. Needless to say that I am quite happy with that.

Primer takes place before nice coats of hard paint. The lower front wing is painted Camel Yellow (TS-34) first. The end is then masked and the rest painted Racing Green, as well as the outside of the end plates and the flaps.


When I removed the masks on the lower lip, I found out that paint eventually found its way under the tape (not a real surprise, I am anxiously waiting for what it will look like on the cockpit) and I had some touch up to do. A smooth sanding of the extra green paint resulted in making the primer visible on the edge of the area where the nose will be attached. Fortunately I had some Golden Yellow from Citadel, which is quite close to Camel Yellow, but flat. Hopefully it will not show after a few coats of clear.

I used decals to finish the wing: the Good Year ones were not a problem at all. Then I cut out the blue stripes from the main decals of the flaps and finaly the Burmha logo. It is fascinating to see that the Camel Yellow and Racing Green match the colours of the original decals, with more shine as a bonus. So far clear coats have not messed the decals like with the Lotus 49, and I am glad because that would have meant that another kit would have to be bought to start again (for what? fourth time?).

Masking the body (green areas)

Working on both a 1960s and a 1990s Lotuses makes it obvious how things became more complex at some point in time. The body of the 49 is merely made of two separate elements: a nose and a cokpit. The body of the 107B is made of a nose, a cockpit, a front suspension cover and an engine cover. Anything different from a plain paint job gets very complicated very quickly!
I had to assemble some of the parts together in order to do the masking and make sure that there would be perfect joint lines between every body components. The decals were very useful to get the right shapes and to help to place the actual masks onto the body.
My fears are about paint running under the masks, and I do not think that I will be able to prevent them. I also think that I should remove the front suspension cover to paint it apart from the cockpit. Odds are that the paint will cement both elements together and even the sharpest blade will make a mess of that.

Preparation and primer

Priming is now a classic operation, so here it goes on the various parts making the body of the car. Prior to that, some adjustment has to be made on the two halves of the cockpit. Careful cementing (alignment is important) goes with some repairs on the joint lines and some sanding to prevent huge gaps between cockpit and nose and cover. I am proud of what I did on the front suspension cover: it comes with two holes for the antenna, but one has to be removed. I, for once, did a great job cutting it off with a very sharp blade, as close to the surface as possible, and then sanding the part to level things. Then mist sprays and thin sprays will get me going.

New Lotus to hit the workbench

Here we are again! It looks like springs awakens in me the will to work on models. It could be seen as an ideal winter hobby, but I always come back to them around Easter. This time I wanted to go back to my late teens and build again my first two Tamiya kits: the Lotus 102D and Lotus 107. It was 1992 and I was cheering for the F1 team, getting the 102D at my hobby shop and waiting anxiously the end of season for the release of the 107. The year after came the Lotus 107B, and I will use it as a test, a bit like the 25 before tackling the 49. It is quite convenient since this kit is still available. I managed to get a hold on 107 and 102D kits thanks to e-bay.
I still have my models at my parents' home. I even have pictures of them. Get me some tissue for me to dry a bit because those were old times when paint had to be applied with a brush, and only a brush and when I used vinegar in place of Microsol because noone told me about it. I should say I am glad to have made some progress since then, but it was a world to discover and I had my dose of challenges, stress and disappointment. I guess I should not write that, but the kits were built without paint on the yellow areas (hey, the plastic is yellow, what is the problem?) and all the decals were used. There are pin holes where trapped air was inevitably found, and do not even think of opening the engine cowls or everything breaks apart...
My goal is obviously to build them again but by using what I learnt on the 49: spray paint and masks. With the 107B, masks will be somewhat complex and challenging, especially around the cockpit. I also expect to try my hand at pinstripes.