Brabham BT45 - Model Factory Hiro - 1/12

[FullArmor]

1 hour ago, belugawhaleman said:

Beautiful work Rob!

+1

[DocRob]

On 6/29/2025 at 4:25 PM, belugawhaleman said:

Beautiful work Rob!

Thank you Paul, it took some elbow grease to get there. The downside with car finishes is, there are always some bad spots, at least with mine. I have one piece of dust on one of the side intakes and on the other, there lifted the decal during sanding with the clear coat on. I can only guess, there was something under the decal not adhering well, but it was invisible before sanding, no bubble no nothing. It´s not bad enough to redo everything and try to get a new decal sheet, but it seems to happen always.

Cheers Rob

[BlrwestSiR]

Just catching up on your build Rob and it looks fantastic. 

I've been running into static issues with my models recently as well. Washing the parts has helped there for me as well. 

[DocRob]

On 7/2/2025 at 1:05 PM, BlrwestSiR said:

Just catching up on your build Rob and it looks fantastic. 

I've been running into static issues with my models recently as well. Washing the parts has helped there for me as well. 

Thank you Carl, a wash with warm water with some drops of detergent in it helps a lot. Usually static is not so much a problem where I live, due to high humidity levels in the air, but the MFH resin reacts strongly.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

After all the body work, now it´s all about subassemblies and not to damage the polished body with scratches or CA fingerprints.

The polished tub went finally onto the floor pan and got screwed there permanently. I further added some details like the pedals.



The rear of the tub received the gas tank with all the needed attachments.



Then I finished the front suspension sans the steering. Most delicate were some turned pins and the intersecting tubes, which hold the nose in place later. There was a need for absolute precision, to prevent gaps from the monocoque to the nose part.



Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Today I achieved some very important and daunting steps, but firs things first.
I finished the front section with all the parts added for the axle, brakes, steering and suspension. Some were a bit fiddly, but in all, the fit was great with that delicate section. It´s also quite robust. The axle screws are loose by design and therefore hanging on the pic.





Next was the daunting part, the closing of the main body. There are so many intersecting parts, that even test fitting is a time and nerve consuming affair. Finally I got it done and everything fitted with a tiny bit of tweaking here and there. The floor pan and body are hold together with eight screws.





Finally, I test fitted the engine section to the body and luckily everything fit as well.



Cheers Rob

[KevinM]

Looking really Nice their Rob I saw one of these scoot'in around town yesterday I went"the nose is to pointed for a corvette".."is that a Magnum Ferrari?" it sure  was.

[crazypoet]

On 5/10/2025 at 12:03 AM, DocRob said:

Cylinder bank number two is ready, again lots of riveting, always hoping that no rivets ping out of the tweezers. The rubber spark plug connectors got glued in and were drilled to accept the wiring. 
This time, I used Tamiya metal primer for the first time, brushed onto the parts and it seems, that the metallic paint adheres well on the white metal. 
BTW: Tamiya should use the MFH method for replicating belts. There are single cast belt wheels, the belt itself is made from self adhesive black tape.
One thing, I learned with MFH kits is the addition of springs. It´s always better to add the spring to the unmounted parts and glue these into place then.
I will bore you with more pictures, showing my progress with the engine, but you know, it´s easy to scroll .



Cheers Rob

This is simply… gorgeous 🙏

and I love your approach to cleaning the metal parts - much *much* easier than my wire brush approach 😂

now I have to see if I can find one of those tumblers in Phnom Penh 🤣🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️

[crazypoet]

It’s been probably 50 years since I did a car kit, but I have the ancient AMT 1/16 ‘57 Chevy Nomad kit waiting patiently in the stash

your build is giving me some great ideas about ways to spruce up my kit

i love watching over your shoulder!

🙏🙏

[DocRob]

34 minutes ago, crazypoet said:

This is simply… gorgeous 🙏

and I love your approach to cleaning the metal parts - much *much* easier than my wire brush approach 😂

now I have to see if I can find one of those tumblers in Phnom Penh 🤣🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Thanks a lot. I got mine through AliExpress, because it was really hard to find a vendor shipping it to my island (a problem which I have very often), so Phnom Penh shouldn´t be too much of a problem. Don´t forget to get the needles with it.
The magnetic tumbler polishing is often only the first step. Many parts like the cockpit tub or roll bar, etc. are polished by hand. I tried different methods and wire brushes, manually or in a Dremel are too coarse mostly. I prefer hand polishing with very fine steel wool or coarse sponge pads first and then followed by Autosol polishing paste applied with a cotton rag.

 

34 minutes ago, crazypoet said:

It’s been probably 50 years since I did a car kit, but I have the ancient AMT 1/16 ‘57 Chevy Nomad kit waiting patiently in the stash

your build is giving me some great ideas about ways to spruce up my kit

i love watching over your shoulder!

 I´d love to see your Chevy build, there are not a lot of car builds here on LSM. The good thing with MFH kits, there is no need for AM. The only after marked item, I used on my Cobra Coupe was some square millimeters of wine cap foil ,if I remember right.
The most difficult part of car building is to achieve a perfect body finish and to keep it through the later phases of the build . I learned a lot through some car builds recently, but it´s still daunting, because you have to do so much prep work beforehand.

Cheers Rob

[Landlubber Mike]

That looks incredible Rob!  That must have been a really satisfying step of screwing the tub into the floor plan.  

It's been interesting following you along on these MFH builds.  The amount of pre-assembly part work and test fitting seems to be a big difference over your standard plastic kit.  Looks like a lot of fun though!

[DocRob]

On 7/5/2025 at 2:50 PM, Landlubber Mike said:

That looks incredible Rob!  That must have been a really satisfying step of screwing the tub into the floor plan.  

It's been interesting following you along on these MFH builds.  The amount of pre-assembly part work and test fitting seems to be a big difference over your standard plastic kit.  Looks like a lot of fun though!

Thank you Mike, test fitting, preparing and understanding how everything goes together is essential for MFH builds. You have to think and browse ahead often. Subassemblies like the engine are easier this way, but when everything has to fit into a body and being closed, it´s always a bit more complicated. The sequence in the manual is not always the best, but that might be personal biased, it´s not really wrong.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

The cockpit tub starts to become busy. I added the seat belts to the seat and then this was glued into the tub. I really like MFH seat belts, as they look good and are relatively easy to assemble. There are white metal buckles and PE parts and two widths of blue ribbon. All got assembled using double sided tape, which has a strong bond and is supplied with the kit. I bought seat belt sets for other kits too, like for my 1/12 Tamiya kits.
The manual placed the headrest/rollbar before the seat, but I chose to do it after, because it was easier to fiddle in the seat belts behind the seat.





Cheers Rob

[Landlubber Mike]

Those belts look really nice!

[DocRob]

One subject out of an earlier phase of the build was still aggravating me, the coil springs, which hold the exhausts in place. There are eight and I couldn´t add a single one, despite trying really hard.
Then I had an idea. What if I insert a copper wire into the coil spring, to bend it easily into the needed curve. I tried and it worked.



Half an hour later, this issue was fixed and I have an open issue less on my schedule.







Cheers Rob

[Count0]

That copper tubing on the front brakes looks great. Is that infact copper line or is it paint?

 

Oh I see now, copper wire. From the exhaust spring photo.

Edited 23 hours ago by Count0
addition

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, Count0 said:

That copper tubing on the front brakes looks great. Is that infact copper line or is it paint?

The copper of the braking lines was supplied with the kit and actually is a tube with a very tiny bore. The copper from the exhaust coil springs was wire from the leftover box.

Cheers Rob

[BlrwestSiR]

Some fantastic progress Rob. Great solution for the exhaust springs. 

I might have to look into the MFH belts as well for some of my other kits. 

Carl

[KevinM]

19 hours ago, DocRob said:

Half an hour later, this issue was fixed and I have an open issue less on my schedule

Nice Rob every now and then you show us your not abbeynormal

[DocRob]

3 hours ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Some fantastic progress Rob. Great solution for the exhaust springs. 

I might have to look into the MFH belts as well for some of my other kits. 

Thanks Carl, I first used the MFH seat belts with my Tamiya 1/12 Renault Turbo build and liked them better than the ones Tamiya supplied and bought them for all my F1 1/12 kits and even some 1/20 kits.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

2 hours ago, KevinM said:

Nice Rob every now and then you show us your not abbeynormal

Who´s normal here, we nuts try to reproduce the reality in scale and I often wonder why .

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Today I finished the steering wheel, which was first airbrushed gloss black for decaling, then received the rivets, followed by a coat of semi matte clear. After drying, I masked the inner part and applied a coat of Tamiya LP flat black and dabbed in some black StreetBlister textile flocks for texture with a brush.
I was not satisfied with the matte look and added a coat of Tamiya LP flat clear, again not flat enough. Finally, I used good old Tamiya XF-1 flat black.
The fibers were finger dabbed into the fresh point and there are still some of them waiting for a shave. It looks a bit coarse in the pic, but this is heavy macroed.

  

The instrument front panel, made from PE was also sprayed gloss black, followed by decaling the switches and dials, followed by a semi matte clear coat as a finish. I then added some brackets to the instruments, before gluing and riveting everything to the front roll bar, which was polished beforehand.
The bezels are supplied as clear acetate circles, which I glued using Future. Last were the white metal switches, with only the fire extinguisher pull ring missing, because it´s to fragile



Cheers Rob