DocRob

It doesn´t look spectacular, but is a real gamechanger for me. I got 24 bottles of Leveling Thinner. Why is it special? since the first of January, there are new customs regulations on my island enforced. There is no more the 150€ freebee, which means all goods go through customs, which makes everything more expensive, not so much because of the taxes, but for the working fees you have to pay. Goods like thinner are usually forbidden to transport and I´m sure, the custom agents would have sorted them out. Luckily I have a guerilla shop on the Spanish mainland, who ships them anyway. this might be the last parcel of flammable liquids to pass through. Another little gem arrived from Japan after almost two month. Again I had lots of trouble with customs, but finally it went through. It´s the long oop Tamiya 1/20 kit of the Jordan 191, one of the most beautiful F1 racers to my eye. The decals yellowed a bit, but I have substitutes ordered, along with carbon fiber decals, paints and some PE. It was my first purchase from Plastic Model Republic and everything went well. They have a large portfolio from hard to get oop kits, which are called "used", but in fact are new, with some signs of aging, like with the decals. Cheers Rob

Wow, you are in paradise Carl. My next LHS is about 2000 kilometers away and in a different customs zone . Cheers Rob

Nice Schmutz Martin, hope you will getting better soon with your flu. Cheers Rob

Great to hear, that your daughter is happy with the Samba bus, mission accomplished, Mike. You are right about those late build incidents, these things just happen to all of us. The irony was, the Lotus was practically finished, millimeters before the chequered flag was waved. Your experiences with the Samba bus seem to be similar though. I hate the sound of popping plastic during final assembly. The Lotus 72 kit is very old and it shows. Front suspension and especially the rear suspension are really fragile and the plastic is very brittle, which doesn´t help, when it comes to snap fit connections, which are numerous with the Lotus. There is a reason, why later Tamiya 1/12 F1 kits were equipped with metal suspension parts. I generally prefer the rigidity of the MFH metal constructions for F1 cars, which are delicate vehicles by design. BTW, yesterday night, I saw, MFH plans a re pop of the 1995 Ferrari 412T2 in 1/12, which I originally missed. I pre ordered immediately, as I like the mid 90´s F1 cars of the post turbo era best. Cheers Rob

These incidents are pure mojo killers, Kevin. With me all the drive, I enjoy during a build is gone at once, when it happens. The Taifun is a beauty, unfortunately with a huge glass house with perfect view onto the seats. It happened to me once with a near ready 1/32 Tamiya F4-U, but I was able to pry away the canopy veeerrryyy carefully and was able to do the repairs. Good luck with yours. Cheers Rob

I didn´t know, the Romans invented Tamiya plastic cement . I think, it wasn´t the glue alone, it might be a factor that the not so perfect fitting 50 year old parts didn´t have enough contact surface. Cheers Rob

Not only close to completion Carl, it was exactly while I made the final adjustments after mounting the wheels, the final step. I will see, if I continue, my wife suggested a crash dio . Cheers Rob

For every situation in live, there is a fitting Monty Python sketch. I wonder, why they didn´t became a world religion . It´s possibly fixable PW, the question is, if I want to fix it. I hate redundance and redo´s. Usually, I prepare properly, test a lot and don´t fail often miserably with my processing. When I do, I loose interest, the positive tension, which carries me through the harder parts of a build is wiped out and the urge to finish the project vanishes. I will sleep it over, at least, it will be easier to repair the suspension first with the halved Lotus, a scratch it is. Cheers Rob

Disaster happened slowly with the last steps of the build, the wheels. I sanded the tires a bit, glued together the rim´s halves and inserted them into the tyres. So far so good. The Lotus 72d to my knowledge was the last F1 car to have Firestone tyres equipped. There are decals in the kit for the Firestone branding with golden sidewall rings. While trying to apply them, I noticed, it would be impossible to get the rings right, they simply broke everywhere. The Firestone lettering was tedious too, but finally I got it one. When I added the wheels to the suspension, there was a tiny cracking sound, and I saw, that one bar of the suspension snapped loose. While trying to fix it, there was another crack, bigger this time and the Lotus broke in halves, the firewall behind the cockpit broke out. After not throwing the Lotus immediately into the wall (it was close and still is an option), I decided to let it rest for now or maybe forever. Cheers Rob

Some vanity shots, before disaster struck. I finished the cockpit with the driver, the instrument panel with added wiring and the steering wheel. Would I have known, how prominent the clumsy hands of the driver figure where, I may have given a first shot of sculpting a try. I added the rear wing without difficulties and installed some braided lines instead of Tamiya vinyl tubes. Therefore, I pinned all the fittings with 0,5 mm brass rod. Cheers Rob

The air intake is hold in place with four coil springs and will add only to the risk, when crashing frontal onto something. These cars were really dangerous to drive it seems. Cheers Rob

Your cockpit looks fantastic. Are you sure, the seat pan was made of wood? I´m no 109 expert, but would think aluminum. Cheers Rob

after a lot of detailwork, I can see the finish line slowly. I added many fittings to the engine, added the rollbar, tank filler and other bits and pieces. I installed the roll bar, which hasn´t even the height of the drivers helmet, so far for security. The cockpit fairing was finished, with PE-fasteners, rear view mirrors and the yellow tinted clear part. The rear wing is prepared, but needs some curing time before mounting. Cheers Rob

Finally, I married the engine to the gearbox and then to the body. Sounds easy, but isn´t. There are so many fragile parts intersecting, that you have to work out a good sequence. To make the rear suspension workable, it needs a higher skilled builder than me. I early skipped the idea of function and glued everything in place, specially after some of the snap fit connectors broke (old brittle plastic?). I added some braided lines from Top Studio instead of using the thick rubber hoses, Tamiya provides. I also added coil springs as air intake fasteners, which I found in the spare box. Please don´t mind the dust and fingerprints, these are work in progress shots. Cheers Rob

Here you are. The kit is 1/24 unfortunately, I prefer 1/20 and naturally 1/12 for these delicate racers. There is not that much AM out there for this kit, so no carbon fiber this time, but I sourced some Camel branding decals, which are not included in the kit. The metal detail kits are expensive in Europe, but I bought mine from Plaza Japan for a good price. Black and white sprues, no chrome luckily Extras and decals. The decals include also the Goodyear branding and seat belt logos A closer look onto the metal parts. A pic from the multi material content, taken from the box. Cheers Rob

Thank you Kirk, the hole is already closed and I will post some pictures of further progress soon. Cheers Rob

During the Christmas days, I prepared the parts for the rear suspension and framework. The moulds are really old and there was a lot of clean up to do. Everything was painted according to the manual with Tamiya LP colors and then assembled. This, like the front suspension assembly was a daring task and some supposed snap fit parts broke during the process. Now, everything is fixed, but not working anymore. To be honest, the working suspension is a unnecessary gimmick and I have no idea, how you should assemble it to a working state. Finally, I glued the exhausts and some tubing to the engine and let everything dry over night. Cheers Rob

Got this little beauty along with some tools from Japan. It´s the "all metal" version of the Williams FW14 from Hasegawa in 1/24. All metal means, that the engine, exhausts, rims and other accesories are made from cast metal, the outer rims are turned aluminum and there is some PE included and some material for fabric seat belts. Cheers Rob

So sad to hear it, Hubert. Strength and all the best to you and your family. I hope you did make it in time. Rob

I wish you and your family strength, Hubert. My thoughts are with you. Cheers Rob

The HGW belts are easiest assembled with the PE-buckles still on the fret. It´s easier to fiddle the paper parts through then. Cheers Rob

Thank you Martin, no turbo chargers on work here, just pure 450 air breathing horses. The turbo era came later in F1. I have a MFH kit of the most powerful F1 car ever, the Brabham BT52. It had only four cylinders and 1,5 liter displacement, but could generate up to 1400 horses in qualifying setup. Not easy to ride, as you can imagine with the enormous turbo boost hitting, when revving up. But this was later in the 80´s, when the turbo boom was rolling. Cheers Rob

Today, I finished the engine and connected all the tubing. The yellow clear fuel lines were part of the MFH set, the black ignition cables were from the spare box, because the Tamiya supplied ones looked way too thick and out of scale. The MFH set fits the Tamiya plastic without the need for tweaking, great. Cheers Rob

Thanks Kevin, I used the texturized color only for the gearbox, for the engine housing, I found it too coarse. Cheers Rob

Thank you Carl, it´s sad to hear, there is no way to get Zero paints to Canada. I really like the texturized paint. Sprayed with a 0,4 mm nozzle and a bit higher air pressure, it gives a convincing finish, at least for 1/12 parts. I didn´t use it for my 1/20 builds lately, it would have looked out of scale. Cheers Rob