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).

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.

Cockpit part 3

I finally cemented the cockpit assembly into place. My first disappointment was to see that it looks like there is a ton of space between the dashboard and the rim of the body. I hope that the windshield will make it less visible. If not, then I missed a good chance to paint things black!
I managed to put the steering wheel where it should be without breaking any part. The challenge was to make a correct alignment between the angle of the steering column and pinion, the fitting at the cockpit end of the rod and the wheel itself. I will never try to make the wheels turn with the steering wheel: A) there is no protection on the paint and B) there is too much friction in the guides of the steering mechanism for the operation to be safe.
I wanted to model some wiring behind the dials of the dashboard as I have some good reference pictures. However my attempts were complete and epic failures, cyano glue is apparently not what it used to be. What is seen on the picture are a few coloured wires bundled together with a thicker wire. The bundle is just resting on the right of the seat with nothing to make a permanent assembly anywhere. The larger red wire is bent behind the dashboard and masks the back of the dials. It was picked from a 14 gauge household electric cable. The thin wires were picked from a telephone cable.
Had I to make the operation again, I think I would have used painted metallic wires with no plastic sleeve in place of the thin wires. I would have then been able to bend them into the proper shapes and put them into place like the oil thermocouple seen here.

See also Cockpit part 2 and Cockpit part 1.

Cockpit part 2

I did not really like the side panels of the cockpit at first. They look bogus and need some detailing. I should say they need some re-modeling but I do not have the skills here and now. I chose instead to create some rivets by putting tiny drops of glue on the parts. I then painted the dried drops in a metallic shade to create more appeal. To be honest, I would not do that again if I had to. I found the idea to be good at first but the glue spreads a bit before drying and now my rivets look like big screw heads. Small bits of two part epoxy (like Milliput) would be much better. One has to learn some time!



The gear stick is off scale. I am comfortable with it being a wooden sphere on a metal stick, but the latter is way too large. Later versions of the knob were a wooden thinner ovoid one or a black plastic ball. I painted the shaft in Tamiya chrome silver, with borders and highlights in Citadel boltgun metal. The knob itself was first painted in Citadel scorched brown and highlighted with Citadel snakebite leather. I then painted a yellow spot on its top to mark the Lotus logo (no decal provided for it).







The steering wheel is painted flat red with chrome silver spokes and hub. I had forgotten how thick the red paint was, and how many coats would be needed to cover a simple circular shape... Anyway, the result is there, with the brush marks... As the moulding gives thick spokes, I painted their dashboard-side halves flat black in order to make only thin spokes clearly visible. A black wash followed by chrome silver was all it took to give depth to the ribs at the center of the wheel. The decal for the Lotus logo is really disappointing: it is black! Even the early Gold Leaf cars had a coloured one. A Citadel varnish coat helped for the enamel look.

See also Cockpit part 1

Dashboard part 2

I put the decals in the dials. There was no problem at all during the process, and the decals tolerated the bath of Micro Set afterwards. I wanted them to get the exact shape of the part and to avoid disgraceful trapped air bubbles. I then coated them with clear Citadel varnish to give a glossy look and allow light to reflect as if they were dials under glass.
Some would put some colour onto the switches but I found early pictures where there is none. By the way, the dashboard layout looks like it is the early version, so no warning light and no extra switches.
My only complaint would be that the decals do not reflect reality at all (where is the amp meter?????)... Replacements would have been great as long as they are conform to what period dials looked like.
See also Dashboard part 1

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.

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.