DocRob

What a nice start to inaugurate the new cave, Hubert. The Columbia looks absolutely fantastic and from the small pictures, it is not visible, that it is not a real scale model. The place to display the beauty is also wonderful and I like the rigged sails. Cheers Rob

Thank you Chris and Peter, it´s not only the kits fault, that I´m now so aggravated with this project. Many aspects of the kit are finely reproduced, but with the GAP, I can´t see any errors, I made. Everything aligns well and is in the right position. F1 cars are always a bit tricky, when it comes to closing the body, as due to their nature, they have so many internal details, crammed in the tinies possible space. For now, I have shelved the McLaren and maybe, I´m willing to finish it later with a compromise, something I´m not good at . I thought about these options as well, Kirk and Carl, but when I start a project, I have a relatively clear image in my mind, about how the subject should look in the end. With the McLaren, one of the main goals was to finish it with a detachable body, to show the interior. I´m not good with making concessions to my initial plan. Normally I try to dig my way through the obstacles, but the McLaren stomped me on the wrong foot right from the start. Cheers Rob

Excellent progress, Peter. The front office looks fantastic. Makes me want to start a Spitfire as well. I have a Kotare one and two Eduard XIV´s in 48 scale. Cheers Rob

After some bits of progress, the MP4/6 project stalls again. It seems to fight me on all cylinders, but maybe it´s just me. Over the last days, I prepared body parts, front and rear wings for painting and in the process, I test fitted the body over the engine and monocoque. There was a huge gap to the lower floor pan. In the progress, some parts from the engine and monocoque cracked loose and the described gap can only be closed with sheer force. It would be possible to glue the body in place, but that was not what I had in mind, with all the detailing and decaling of the innards of the car. I hate to admit it, but the McLaren is getting on my nerves, which is rare with my projects. Normally, I pull through obstacles, but the constant struggle with this kit let my patience vanish. My whole bench is cluttered with the detail sets and all the partly badly and small printed manual sheets, which should be merged during the project. The kit´s manual isn´t to good either. But the neck breaker was the GAP, which you can see on the pics. I absolutely wanted a removable body and that´s not possible at all, so back on the shelf. Cheers Rob

I may found pictures from the engine you mentioned, it seems to be on display in a Honda museum and may doesn´t show the status used in the actual racing cars. The gearbox color seems to be a very dark metallic brown on the pictures in my reference book. Mine looks metallic black indeed, but I may pause or bin the MP4/6 project due to reasons, I will explain in the next post. Cheers Rob

Interesting aspects, Kirk, thanks for that. I have the MFH picture book as a reference, which seems to show only one car in one configuration, but in every detail. I´ve never seen the configuration of the Fujimi plastic with the cooling grilles on pictures. Cheers Rob

It´s the same paint, Peter, only under different lighting conditions. The first pic is taken under artificial light with 5200K, the second with natural light .

Thank you Peter and yes, it´s a very beautiful car. With the Williams FW16 blue from Zero Paints, I made some matching tests, with the color sprayed un thinned onto a spare part. It comes close, but it´s not perfectly matching and also depends a bit on the lighting. I may have to do some mixing, albeit Zero claims, the blue is mixed according to the kits decals. Cheers Rob

Thank you Chris, using a hairdryer needs to be tested on spares, but I found with some decals, like the Studio 27 carbon decals or Aviattic decals for WWI planes, it works really good. The gold for the brake calipers is Tamiya´s lacquer LP-62 titanium gold, which is a good fit. My last motorbike a KTM 950 SM had Brembos mounted and I remember the color clearly and they have been bitten like hell. Cheers Rob

I stenciled a Corsair and an Arado 234 with masks. The Arado was the worst, having some stencils in three different colors. Some years ago, I completely stenciled a 1/48 Kai Phantom and boy, this was exhausting. Some of the fuselage stencils were grouped though and the quality of the decals was so good, no silvering or carrier film showed. Cheers Rob

I don´t know how you do it, but your project is looking bright and clean and used and worn at the same time, simply amazing. It´s not that often, that a modeler has a signature style of his own to show, congratulations. Cheers Rob

A truly painful process with the stenciling Chris, but wait until 1ManArmy comes out with stencil masks for the big F4, applying these is true tormenting fun . Cheers Rob

Muchas gracias amigos, the carbon decals are really nice to work with. At first application, you think, they will never snuggle around the curved shapes, but with a dose of heat and softener, they miraculously do. @BlrwestSiR: I just saw, that you even cleaned your bench, what better time to start . Cheers Rob

Found this today and was wondering . Cheers Rob

I added the front suspension and the carbon side air intakes with some electronic device detail, but decided against wiring them. The engine and car bottom are not finally attached to the monocoque. For the next steps, I prepared the air intakes for the brakes, which needed to be decaled with carbon pattern decals. When you apply the decals to the sides of the intakes, they are slightly oversized, but with some doses of Mr. Mark softer and hot air from the hairdryer, the start to contour around the edges and the mid section can be applied the same way. Time consuming, but it works and the carbon decals behave good and are not to brittle. The carbon thread pattern looks absolutely beautiful in black and anthracite. I also finished the brake calipers with Titanium gold, some black panel line wash and finally the tiny Brembo markings. Cheers Rob

Thank you both, I hope to have it off the bench soon, but it´s somehow hard to establish a good workflow with the kit. Carl, I remember you telling about the MP 4/6. It was 1/12 scale, right. Should be a nice project. Cheers Rob

I can´t tell you Carl, but I saw some nice builds out of the Fujimi kit. It seems to be one of the better Fujimi kits and relatively accurate. Cheers Rob

Quality stuff as always Peter, The cockpit and interior looks fantastic with all the eye pleasing detail. I hope this will be a fun and motivating project for you. Cheers Rob

Today a true classic landed on my doorstep. Fujimi´s Ferrari 250 GTO. It´s the limited edition with turned aluminum rims and PE spokes and a set of PE and metal parts for further detailing. I also got a huge array of colors for different car projects from Zero Paint and Number Five paints. These are for my different Ferraris and as well for my Williams FW 16. I hope the blue fits the Cartograph decals. As I primed some McLaren parts, I used the chance and sprayed some dummy parts in Williams blue, to show if it matches. Lastly, I got a Tamiya painting stand, which will be helpful with car bodies. Cheers Rob

Thank you Maru, I have lots of photos from different museums and like to share them, when questions arise, like with the 262. I cannot tell you about the meaning of the red circle on the nacelles. It´s present on my Revell decal sheet as well and also the HGW replacements. I found it on some historic pics of -B types too. Cheers Rob

Some builds are like this and it´s not only a kits fault, but some projects lack the groove from the beginning. Cheers Rob

After a long pause and the Crocker motorcycle near finished, I thought, I could finish a started build and continue with the McLaren. This project fought me from the beginning and in deep contrast with the Crocker, it continues to do so, but I want to have the kit off the bench or bin it. I finished the cockpit, using many parts from a Studio 27 detail set. The switchbox and it´s steering mechanism came out good enough, but was extremely fiddly. The steering wheel was even worse and I used the kit part, which was not too shabby. The seat belts are completely wrong and should be black, but the Studio 27 belts tested my patience too much and I used a Tamiya set. These look a bit toyish and were so shiny, that I flat coated the seat assembly. Well if you don´t look to close, it might work . Cheers Rob

Great progress on a truly demanding build. Scott, I can only marvel about your patience. Cheers Rob

Good to see the Furies back at the bench. Landing gear looks good and will be strong enough for the beast. Cheers Rob

Nice car, PW. I owned one myself some years ago. Like others said, these are indestructible. Best, if the sunroof is still working. You know, there is a decent kit of the Benz, made by Diopark out there. I built one, many moons ago. Cheers Rob