Radiator part 2

I fitted the metal braids and things went well. The steel sleeves make a good work hiding the roughly cut ends. The copper wire is now in its final place and I did not even have to make a groove at the top of the bulkhead since the nose cone fits perfectly well.
See also Radiator part 1.

Langton HMS Victory part 1

There is no way I can start building my Heller kit but I can work on a smaller scale for a more immediate use. So thanks to Rod Langton, I can work on a 1/1200 model and even play with it with Close Action (find reviews of this game here). Here is a picture of the parts of the kit. Sails are die-cast ones, they get my preference over photo-etched ones even though they are bulkier. I have ordered four more sailing ships from Mr Langton. It is time to see if I have the nerves to go through the rigging of those beauties!

Rear suspension part 1

Here are the assembled elements of the rear suspension. I do not really like how the kit was designed there: the lower triangle is placed between two cemented parts and I can imagine some stresses going through this assembly, even because of the weight of the car itself... Worse: if things go totally south, repairs will not be an easy task. Time will tell!
The wheel hubs are painted semi-gloss black, and the screw heads Boltgun Metal. The lower part of the damper is painted Boltgun Metal and dry-brushed with Tin Bitz. That gives a weathered look to the part. In fact it gives a rusty look, but that can make for a nice contrast with the rest of the car (even though I tried to weather the engine and transmission too).
The main challenge is to watch for the correct orientation of the various parts. It would be really dull to find myself with inverted arms or whatever...

Radiator part 1

The radiator is kept in place with only two thin plastic parts glued to the front sub frame. So far, no big deal beside the fact that those parts are from the dreaded chromed tree. The assembly is much stiffer than it looks like, but not enough to fight the load created by the tubes connected to the radiator. That is where it gets interesting... Four tubes are expected to be running to and from it: two to the lower section of the body, one from the engine running along the left hand side of the cockpit and one to the oil tank. Dimensions for all four are given in the notice and the user is supposed to play with the soft black tube already used on the engine. I wanted to do something a bit different and a bit more appealing to the eye.
I got a piece of shielded thermocouple cable, which has a diameter perfectly compatible with the model. I cut it a bit longer than required in order to open the braid and allow me to remove the cables inside. Then I cut it to the right length. Without its content, the braid may gain a bit of length, but it is not a really big problem. With rough cut edges, I needed to find something to make the connections to the radiator look good. I used a tiny bit of steel ribbon rolled onto itself (thanks to the round handle of a small brush) and slid over the braid, then squeezed a bit more over the braid in order to make it fit tightly around the end once in the right place. The final view should be available in the next few days.











I spent a lot of time trying to find a way to enhance the look of the tubes and I was really happy when I came across the thermocouple cable. However the material is quite stiff and I was not able to replace every plastic tube by a metallic one unfortunately. I am not saying that it is impossible to do, but I could not find a way to use them and maintain the radiator in its intended place at the same time. I made the choice to use the braid only for the lower tubes and I used the plastic material for the other ones. It will then have a mixed finish despite my efforts. The main difficulty was with the tube which is connected to the side of the car. The braid was too stiff for me to bend it correctly over the oil tank tube and around the oil tank and left front suspension. I could not place the radiator on the miniature tubular frame afterwards. So I replaced them with their plastic equivalent and glued together the front sub-frame, the radiator and the chromed parts. That should give enough strength to the whole thing for me to put the braids in place.

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.

Front sub-frame part 4

I painted the master cylinders in Boltgun Metal and left their covers as from the tree, in the original chromed finish. The only thing to check is to have them in the right position and parallel to one another, especially since they will be clearly visible behind the oil tank.










I then glued the oil tank in position. I put my temperature sensor mock-up into place to get the right feeling about it. I tried to make some plug at the base of the tank to make the connection look more realistic but with no success. The attempt was made made with Milliput but I was not able to make it stick to the surface of the tank.
I made it with a copper wire found in a electronic connector. I will have to shape a groove on the top of the bulkhead in order not to get in the way of the nose cone.

See also Front sub-frame part 3, Front sub-frame part 2 and Front sub-frame part 1.

Front suspension

With the damper rods and upper attachment hooks left in chrome, I chose to paint the body of the dampers in semi-gloss black and the lower attachment hooks in Boltgun Metal. Then came the tricky part... I chose not to cement the front plate to the body so as not to pry on it to put the springs into position, so every mobile part was ready to fall off if my hands got too shaky! I worked with the chassis in a vertical position and snapped the dampers to the lower suspension arms. With the springs in place at both ends of the dampers, the game was to find eventually a way to slide the upper part into the lower part. Once it is done you have to lift the front plate in order to attach the lower arms to the frame. With both sides ok, all that is left is to cement the plate to the sub-frame and make the proper paint repairs.
The only disappointing thing is that he springs were not made with suspension in mind. They should have been flattened at both ends to match the end plates of the dampers. That is why something looks wrong in the pictures: with only so little contact area between the spring and the plastic parts, the spring tends to bend a bit. I am not sure I can do anything about it now since access to the spring is uneasy but I will make sure I modify the rear suspension springs when the time comes to use them.

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

Front sub-frame part 3

It is really not a bad thing to check how parts fit together before making the assembly permanent! There were quite a few modifications to make. The pins of the rocker arms were way too thick, especially those which are to fit into the bulkhead. In that case, it is almost impossible to widen the holes because there is too little material left to hold everything together. Same thing with the pins of the lower arms, but then using a file on the bulkhead is no problem. Fortunately there is no trouble at all with the front plate.
I found something terribly wrong with the instructions. I may use it the wrong way in fact, but I am no fan at all of cementing the front plate of the sub-frame before prying it open to create enough space to slide the lower arm pins when putting the springs and dampers in position. I think I will try a safer method: I will complete the assembly and only then cement the front plate, hoping for everything not to fall apart...
See also Front sub-frame part 2 and Front sub-frame part 1

Front sub-frame part 2

After some cosmetic adjustments on the front bulkhead, it was time to start assembling the front sub-frame. The "C" tree of parts is chromed and always a disaster (whatever the model I made, I have always been disappointed by the chromed plastic parts). The moulding is way below par for a Tamiya product: either there is a lot of flash that cannot be erased (or a matt line would appear in the middle of the part), or the moulding marks are in plain sight... Beside of that, some un-chromed parts must be added at some places to make for new attachment points. I painted those in chrome silver, but it is definitely not the same finish as the main pieces. Anyway, it is better than nothing...
I must remember that chromed plastic is quite vulnerable to acids carried on the fingers (fingerprints become final prints after a few years time), so most of the time I manipulate them with a handkerchief.
See also Front sub-frame part 1