Tamiya 1/20 McLaren MP 4/13

[Count0]

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.

[Count0]

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.

 

[Count0]

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...

[Count0]

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

[Count0]

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

 

[Count0]

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

[Count0]

The body, all the seams filled as I feel in this scale a race prepped car, with taped panels would appear seamless. So now it's on to sanding it all smooth and a coat of primer.

The upper rear suspension arms tuck into the body, as seen here. Tamiya intended this rear cover to be removable to show off the detail they included. Building it as I am, it would be impossible to get the body to sit down over the suspension. So I reengineered it.

First I glued a piece of Evergreen rod into the lower part of the transmission case. This was inserted into a predrilled hole, that lined up with the one seen in the photo above.

I cut roughly half of the transmission cover off, as the tightest fitting, and least accessible attachments were on that side. I Then relived the remaining contacts to allow the part to line up using the Evergreen peg.

Now the upper suspension can be installed with the body. No fuss.

None of this will be visible. This generation of F1 car had very tightly packaged body panels. Nothing like the current cars, of course, but enough that seeing inside is pretty difficult.

[Count0]

It's painted! After a long delay it has color. And is now in the process of getting decaled.

The dark grey is custom mix to match the printed grey on the Tabu decals. Oddly when photographed the real car reads as black. But Tamiya and Tabu agree on the metallic grey. 

 

[Count0]

12 hours, give or take. The Tabu decals are well printed, colorful, but also very thick. That thickness saved me once or twice, but it also cause decal to break at weird moments and bunch up around the nose. In general I'm not impressed with them. Also the instruction, such as they are, are nearly worthless. The tobacco marking come with no guidance whatsoever. Mostly that was solved with photos of the actual car.

However I have yet to do the rear wing main planes because my sleep deprived brain can't make heads or tails of where those decals go.

In the end, still a striking livery.

[FullArmor]

Looking sweet!😎

[belugawhaleman]

Looks Great😀 

[BlrwestSiR]

Nice work!