Tamiya 1/20 McLaren MP 4/13

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Mentioned it in one of DocRob's threads, but now it's official.

Building it curbside, with all the panel lines filled. These would have been tapped for racing and I'm not convinced you would even see them in this scale, tape or not.

This means re-engineering the kit a little to allow it to be assembled that way.

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Cockpit opened up the hole in the seat for the anti-submarine belts.

And widened the sides so they would reach the body, sealing it up visually.

 

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Carbon decals. Scale Motorsport brand. Very high quality decals, thin strong and pretty flexible. But there is a limit, and once you cross that they are destroyed. Unfortunately I can't lay off messing with them so I have had to go back and re-do...

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Cockpit, ready to install. Tamiya seatbelts. The photo etch is great, the belt's, kinda not. But the Finisher's set I got from Japan was bad also. So not much choice. The Tamiya belts were way too shiny so I had to knock them down some with flat. Better now, In the future I will be trying something else.

I snapped off all the switches so the carbon decals would be easier to apply. Then scratch built new ones.

During test fitting I found that you can clearly see into the nose of the car. And that there's nothing there. So I scratchh built a quick peddle box and peddles.

Including the extra "Brake steer" fourth peddle this car was famous for.

 

[DocRob]

Good to see another one building a car kit here. Your CF work looks great and your scratching will pay off in the end.

Cheers Rob

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More carbon work. The brake ducts. A little scratch building here too, boxing in the front ducts.

 

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And the body all glued together. Most of it anyway.