Brabham BT52b - The Guided Missile - Model Factory Hiro - 1/12

[DocRob]

Starting to get into a kind of building flow, big decisions block my progress, but nonetheless, some steps were finished. I added the first front part of the suspension housing, seat and seatbelts. The latter are a joy to assemble, compared to lets say HGW belts. MFH supplies double sided adhesive type for assembly and placing the belts, easily done. The seat parts are made from black rubber and there is no need for painting. 
I also added some PE frames for the sideskirts, which can hardly be seen on the picture.
The next step would be adding the prepared front suspension, but wait, one of the arms needs to be fiddled through the sideskirts, which needs to be painted in bodycolor. I want to prepare and airbrush all body parts together, to prevent color variations and I´m not up to do that now, which means, I will start with the 1500 horsepower heart of the missile soon, plan changed.



Cheers Rob
 

[DocRob]

With the recent flood of car builds here, I have to swim with, showing a little progress. In fact, I´ve been working hard to clean up, drill, prime and paint or decal all engine parts. There are a lot of parts and the assembly will be delicate. There are some drawbacks though, e.G. the black tube for the ignition harness should be fixed to the BMW MPower part with what MFH calls UV band. These are like 3D-decals, extremely brittle and nearly impossible to get them around the part and riveted into place with super tiny rivets. I will fake this later with some wine cap foil, as I broke the bands.
Second obstacle id drilling numerous tiny wire connectors to accept 0,8 mm wire. They are so small and sometimes not so well cast, that it is nearly impossible to drill them without causing damage.
But now, all this is done for the engine, I start to assemble it
Colors are AK Extreme Metals aluminum for the silver parts, Tamiya LP titanium gold and Tamiya LP-5 semi gloss black. The lettered parts were scraped with a tiny sharp chisel, to remove the black paint on top. Tamiya black panel liner was used for accentuation and nuts and bolts were painted with a silver marker. 



Cheers Rob

[BlrwestSiR]

Your work is on another level to what I'm doing. So a little progress on your build is the equivalent of me finishing a model. 

Great work by the way. 

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Your work is on another level to what I'm doing. So a little progress on your build is the equivalent of me finishing a model. 

Great work by the way.

Thank you Carl, you should try to build a MFH kit yourself and you´ll notice it´s all there. You need to put in some effort and it needs some skill adjustments from plastic modeling, but it´s not that hard to get these results with fantastic kits like this.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

The engine is nearly done, missing only some details and some wires and tubes, which I will add later. Speaking of wiring, the manual is terrible, showing, where a wire starts, but often not, where it leads. This means permanent page turning in the manual, and often, I can´t find the receiving end. Another complain is the 0,8 mm wire which is very rigid and therefore difficult to fit. Some other aspects of the kit are a bit annoying as well, like the suggestion to butt glue 0,6 mm ignition wiring onto the 0,6 mm end of the spark plugs, impossible. I made tiny connectors from vinyl tube from my spare box.
With a rest of the supplied carbon fiber decal, I applied the CF onto the airbox (?), because my reference shows it belongs there instead of being painted black.
In this state, the engine is very fragile and I permanently broke some parts or wires loose.

 







A mock up pic with the monocoque laid in front:



Cheers Rob

[Martinnfb]

That looks like the real deal Rob.

 

[DocRob]

17 hours ago, Martinnfb said:

That looks like the real deal Rob

Thanks Martin, it´s the same amount of work to get it together like with the real one, I guess . 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Only to show, why it takes some time for the next bigger update. These are the parts for the gearbox and rear suspension cleaned up, drilled (the most time consuming part) and ready for primer and paint.



Cheers Rob

[Nick70]

Wow, stunning work!

can I ask what glue you used for the seat? Being rubber I’m not sure what would be best. Thanks

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, Nick70 said:

Wow, stunning work!

can I ask what glue you used for the seat? Being rubber I’m not sure what would be best. Thanks

Thank you Nick, I used just a tiny bit of CA glue. If you don´t feel comfortable with CA on rubber you can always use double sided adhesive tape, which works perfect as well. Where the seat belts attach to the rubber, it´s always double sided adhesive tape, to fix them in place.

Cheers Rob

[Nick70]

Excellent, thanks! 
last question, if you don’t mind - I can’t see anywhere in the instructions that state how long the belts need to be, I’m not missing anything am I? 

[DocRob]

5 minutes ago, Nick70 said:

Excellent, thanks! 
last question, if you don’t mind - I can’t see anywhere in the instructions that state how long the belts need to be, I’m not missing anything am I? 

De nada Nick, there are no length measurements given, but a photo of the real car shows where the buckles belong and where the fasteners are. With the MFH method to glue the seat belt parts together with double sided adhesive tape, you can adjust until the last moment. 
Getting the belts through the top seat belt fasteners (the white metal parts) is a bit tricky, as you have to fiddle them through the holes in the seat first and then through the top fasteners. Good tweezers are helpful here.
The four lower belts are glued to the underside of the rubber seat pan, using the supplied double sided adhesive tape. You can estimate the length, when you think about fastening them around a not too heavy driver.

Cheers Rob 

[Nick70]

Thanks Rob, you’ve been very helpful 

[DocRob]

Again it is cash in time, my favorite part of MFH builds, when all the necessary parts for a section are prepared, drilled and painted and ready to assemble.
The gearbox received lots of the suspension parts, absolutely trouble free and relatively sturdy and good to handle. The aluminum foil on the suspension arms and axle on one side is provided with the kit as self adhesive foil. 
Here you can also see, how I work with semi transparent black color over metal or silver priming, to let the parts look more interesting and scale wise more correct than deep black, which to the eye nearly never exists.



A mock up shot with the engine:



For the first time, I used Zero Paints carbon ceramic grey paint for the brake discs and I really like the effect:



Cheers Rob

[BlrwestSiR]

The gearbox looks great Rob. 

What brand do you use for the transparent black? I was actually looking at that colour made by Gaianotes (they call it Clear Black) and was trying to figure out how to use it. They do a white as well. 

Carl 

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, BlrwestSiR said:

What brand do you use for the transparent black? I was actually looking at that colour made by Gaianotes (they call it Clear Black) and was trying to figure out how to use it. They do a white as well. 

It is Tamiya LP-5 semi gloss black thinned with about 50% of leveling thinner.

Cheers Rob

[Count0]

4 hours ago, DocRob said:

carbon ceramic grey paint for the brake discs

Are they Carbon this early? I guess I could ask the internet, but I'm lazy.

 

[PanzerWomble]

Depressingly excellent ......😀.

 

 

..well it depresses me I can't do what you do Rob ! 

[DocRob]

8 hours ago, Count0 said:

Are they Carbon this early? I guess I could ask the internet, but I'm lazy.

Can´t tell for sure, which type of brake discs were used, the race, I plan to build the BT52b for. They were using carbon disc brakes for testing, maybe for races as well and I was eager to test the carbon paint. Both types of brake discs are included in the kit.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

7 hours ago, PanzerWomble said:

..well it depresses me I can't do what you do Rob ! 

No need for depression Pw, you would be amazed what you can do with that kind of kit. It needs some adapting and it is a challenge, but other than many near unbuildable kits, MFH kits are rarely frustrating. They turn out the best in the builder, due to motivation and satisfaction.

Cheers Rob 

[DocRob]

I got some more steps completed. I finished the brakes and suspension, added a radiator, the tailwing post and some engine framing, along wiring and tubing.
If you ever build this kit, be aware, that the nickel silver wires are pushed deep enough into the holes and don´t end flush, because a peg from part M74 and M75 in a later step will be fitted into the hole. I´ve overseen it and had to do some surgery.

 

Finally the gearbox was glued and screwed to the engine block and now the rear section lacks only the turbo, the exhausts, some electronics and lastly the huge coolers. A spell of really ugly weather with storm and flooding rain acts as a building booster, always hoping, nothing flies away or goes submarine.

 










 

Some mock up pictures with the monocoque loosely added:







Cheers Rob

 

[belugawhaleman]

Looking Great Rob😀

[GusMac]

I saw Storm Therese was looking pretty wild for you Rob. Hope all stay safe

[Nick70]

Wow you build fast!!! You’ve achieved in days what has taken me weeks. Admittedly I don’t get too much time to build but it seems to take me an age to make any progress with mine. 

[DocRob]

10 hours ago, GusMac said:

I saw Storm Therese was looking pretty wild for you Rob. Hope all stay safe

Thank you Gus, Therese is described as the biggest storm and rainfront since 2013. Not the strongest fortunately, but it passes for over a week, but I hope from Monday on, it will be better. There are strong winds and downpours of 100 l in one hour and in between sunny stretches, weird. It´s about time for some calm and sunny weather, as winter was cold, ugly and long this year. I start getting fat, sitting inside building models, when there are no reparations to do outside. No sports, no swimming since over a week .

Cheers Rob