gsdpic

Very impressive project. I am envious of your CAD skills. A couple questions if I may... - Apologize if this was asked and answered, though I did not see it. Which CAD program are you using for this? I saw a reference to Rhino but it did not seem like that is what you are using for this project. - Maybe I am getting way ahead of things, but there are references to 3D printing. It seems you are making a very detailed virtual copy of the car. But I am curious about the process of how to use that for 3D printing. It seems to me (and I could be completely wrong) that 3D printing would require a very simplified set of subassemblies rather than this perfectly detailed virtual model. So can this very detailed model be used for 3D printing, or will it need to be simplified?

I have finished priming, filling, and sanding the various body panels. A few of the seams or ejector pin marks are still visible if you know where to look but the worst, most obvious ones are pretty well fixed. I'll let these cure a bit more, maybe do some very light wet sanding with some high grit and then paint with the Tamiya LP-1 gloss black lacquer. Meanwhile, I'll start working on the main tub and front suspension. You can see a few of the suspension parts in the upper right.

Thanks. The decals look pretty decent....far fresher looking than the ones with the Lotus 72D I built...though there are a couple little places where the color has flaked off. Fortunately they include decals for two different drivers/cars so there are plenty of extra decals to test out before deciding whether to use these or get third party decals. I've continued to work on filling/priming/sanding the body panels. I think I am very close to being done with that, though once I decide I am done I'll let the primer cure for an extra day or two just to be safe.

As mentioned in the second post, this is the 1977 version of the kit that includes the JPS decals. But according to the instructions, already at that time, tobacco advertising was not allowed in Germany and England, so building it without the JPS sponsorship is not historically inaccurate, you just say you built the one that raced in the German or British GP, as they removed the JPS logos for those two races.

Thanks all for the likes and comments and joining in. I continue to prep the various body parts and panels and wings. Some of these parts, especially on the front cowl area, the fit is surprisingly poor for a tamiya kit. I guess they've come a long way. Some of the parts are just about done, others I am waiting for the putty to dry so I can sand it smooth and others I am waiting for glue to dry before applying putty. Once all are good to go, I'll use the splash paints dark gray surfacer and then probably use Tamiya LP-1 gloss black lacquer. For the first time, I've been using the vallejo acrylic based plastic putty. It is much nicer to work with than the lacquer based tamiya putty though I think you need to let it dry longer before sanding. It is a little hard to see in the picture, but the tube has a built in pointy applicator which is very handy. It is also interesting to contrast this with the Lotus 49. Just about 10 years separate the two cars. The "body" of the lotus 49 was not much more than a simple oval tube, which is quite different from this one. The large increase in complexity in those 10 years is easily evident even in kit form; I estimate this kit has twice as many parts as the Lotus 49 kit.

I guess the likes indicate a yes. I bought this kit a couple years back from ebay. This is the original version of the kit. In hindsight, I overpaid as you can now get the re-issued kit for about 125 bucks, with PE parts. Oops. At least the version I have includes the "John Player Special" decals as it was produced just around the time tobacco advertising was being banned in a few places, but not all over. The current kit is referred to only as the "type 78" on the box and I assume does not have the JPS decals, though they are available from third party suppliers. I've just started a bit on planning the build and started assembling some of the body parts in preparation for painting. As with other older Tamiya kits, I am expecting a few fit issues and there are also some rather nasty ejector pin marks to deal with. I'll likely build it mostly out of the box, with some third party seat belts, braided steel lines instead of the kit supplied rubber hoses, and maybe a few other things. And this will be the third time I build a Tamiya Ford DFV engine, as I have already built the Lotus 49 and Lotus 72D.

Any interest out there in a build log for another Tamiya 1/12th scale F1 car?

Thanks for the additional comments. I meant to make more comments on the kit itself. Overall, it was good, especially considering the age. Generally stuff fit together well and it was well detailed. But as with other Fujimi kits I have built, there are always a few parts that they expect you to glue together without having much mating surface or any sort of locating pins or tabs. So there are always a few parts that are a challenge to figure out exactly where or how they should be positioned, or they are a challenge to figure out where or how to apply glue. There were also several instances where it seemed they made poor choices about how to attach the part to the sprue. This sometimes required extra delicate clean up of the part when removing it from the sprue. But, again, overall a good kit. I think I have 4 more Fujimi kits in my stash and hope they are all similar, but we'll see.

Thanks for the comments and to all the others for the likes and wows. Photography has been another hobby of mine for the last 20+ years, more integral to my life than model building most of that time. The reflections are just from sitting the model on a 8" x 12" piece of white or black glossy acrylic that I bought online specifically for that purpose.

Looks great. You're not afraid to get in close with the camera, and your work holds up to the tight views. Very nice!

Thanks for the comments and the likes. As mentioned, I've taken a bunch more photos and added some of them below. I've joked before that I really only build models to have something else to take pictures of. The final construction did have some hurdles. First, getting the chassis into the body was a bit tricky. At first I was not even sure it was going to be possible but I found the right sequence of actions and twists and turns to get it together. Unfortunately, one of the small pins in the hinge for the rear trunk lid broke in the process. There was not anything in the trunk anyway, so I just glued it shut. Also, the hinge for the engine cover did not work well....I am not sure if I got the part that attaches to the cover too far from the edge or just what happened, but the engine cover only opens about a quarter inch. So, the extra detailing I did on the engine will never be seen. The front bonnet hinge works well though I now realize I forget to take any pictures with it propped open. Finally, the last dicey operation was attaching the wheels. They were attached with screws and it took some effort to screw them in (effectively tapping the hub with the screw as you screwed it in) and the wheels were just barely big enough to fit over the suspension bits. I was quite concerned that I'd break something just screwing the wheels on, but did not. However, you can see in one of the pictures that I have a lot of camber on the right rear wheel, and in fact the right front tire does not touch the ground. Oh well. Overall, I enjoyed this build and thought the kit was decent, especially considering it is nearly 40 years old. The decals were rather thin and fragile but there were very few of them to deal with. I feel like each time I get a little bit better with the finish on the body, though still far from perfect. I tend to get a decent finish and then I am afraid of doing any more sanding or polishing or whatever, concerned that I'll make things worse instead of better, so I say "good enough". Here are more pictures of the finished model. Thanks, as always for following along.

Thanks for doing this build log. I've been curious about the MFH kits but never really looked into them, so will be interesting to see how it goes together. I am tempted by some of their 1/12th scale F1 cars.

I agree with shipman, the seat looks fantastic. The rest of the model ain't bad either

Well I've done all the body detail painting and added all the little bits, and made it through some tricky steps without too much damage. I am calling this one done. I'll take a few more pictures tomorrow and write more about the tricky bits, but here is one of the finished car.

Excellent progress, as always. To me, in the two historical photos, the "push bars" look different. In the first, lower-angle photo they appear attached to the front of the boat like you have modeled but in the second higher-angle photo, there looks to me to be more structure supporting them and they project forward of the front edge more than they appear to in the first photo.

Thanks, CDW, and to the others for the likes. Have not had as much time the last week or so for this build, and I've been doing a lot of small but time consuming things on the build. So I'll just show a couple more pictures of the body which now has some detail paint....chrome trim around windows, flat black around the openings for the bonnet, trunk, engine cover. Oh, and I also fitted those bits on the vents. It went ok with some sanding down and some filler, but I really should have done that before painting the body.

Thanks as always for the likes and comments. I generally agree that there is no unattractive Ferrari, though I do think that the Testarossa has not aged well. There's a guy in my neighborhood who has a Ferrari 360. I've chatted with him a couple times. He works for one of the big tech companies whose stock has done very, very well. He's had quite a menagerie of interesting cars over the last 7 or 8 years, in addition to that Ferrari. I put several coats of Tamiya X-22 clear thinned with mr color leveling thinner over the weekend. Trying to let it sit and cure for another day or two before I handle it, especially since it has been a bit humid and rainy here of late. The finish is not perfect but it is about as good as I have achieved. I have some detail painting to do, such as chrome trim around the windows, panel lines, etc. I'll use the molotow chrome marker for the chrome trim.

Yep, those are the ones. Right now it is tough to tell just how misshapen the little tubes are. I painted the inside of the body with black primer and then taped it up while painting the outside, and still have that tape on so I cannot do a test fit. With luck I'll be able to just file them down a bit and maybe use some filler. I have a variety of strip styrene but nothing that is tube shaped. I'll remove the tape after the gloss coat and can tackle this then.

Thanks as always for the likes. I've finished the details under the front bonnet, shown in the first photo. I did not bother with any attempt to add detail, as most of the stuff is covered up by a plastic cover and the spare tire, as shown in the slightly blurry second photo. I just need to put the interior on the chassis and proceed with the body.

Two more quick shots of the chassis. First, I've added a few more hoses and tubes to the engine area, loosely based on pictures of the real thing. Though I must say that the kit supplied air box appears to be a bit undersized. Next picture is the underside showing the exhaust and mufflers. There are two more pipes to add that go from the front muffler out the back of the car but I will put those on after the body is in place to ensure they are lined up correctly. With that, the chassis is done. Next is the area under the front bonnet while continuing to work on the body paint and finish.

Thanks all for the likes, and for the comment, shipman. I agree the Dino is a sharp looking car. I've managed to get the exhaust and mufflers on, though did not take pictures of that yet. It was a bit of a struggle to get the stuff to all line up and while coercing things into place, one of the header pipes from the engine to the collector came loose. That was quite a pain to get it glued back in. I've also worked on painting the body, as seen below. I did a mist coat then a bit of a heavier coat on everything, then I glued in that piece that surrounds the engine compartment and worked on hiding the very obvious seam using some filler and sanding and priming. It is much better than it was but still partially visible. After that I put another coat of paint on the body but forgot to do the hood, trunk, and engine cover panels. When I placed them on the body for these pictures, there was a noticeable but slight color difference so obviously I need to go back and give those panels another coat as well. There is one issue that I have not figured out yet. There are two little tubular pieces that fit behind that vent just behind the door. Unfortunately on my kit, those pieces appear to be a bit malformed as if there was not quite enough plastic injected into the mold. Once I finish painting the body and remove all the tape from the inside, I will need to address that issue somehow. As mentioned, I am using Splash paints Rosso Corsa, which dries to a sort of satin finish. I'll gloss it all up with some Tamiya X-22.

Thanks to everyone for looking in and laughing at my lame Barbie joke. Hope I at least brought a smile to a few faces. I've now pretty much completed the chassis as supplied by the kit with the addition of the spark plug wires. I hope to add a few more wires and hoses around the engine based on pictures of the real thing, just to make it look a bit more realistic and a bit busier. The one remaining part of what I'll call the chassis is a sort of shelf unit in the back. The mufflers hang off of the underside of that shelf and then there are additional exhaust pipes to connect the headers to the muffler and then pipes out the back of the car. The kit also has a fully detailed compartment under the front bonnet, including spare tire, and that is next.

Wonderful result! All the details and minor weathering look great. But it really is a strange looking bird, or should I say bat. Long wings, stubby fuselage, big engines, short propellers, cartoonish tires. I assume it is an accurate representation of the prototype, but it still looks odd.

Blender is much more for artistic stuff, character animation, etc, in my experience. I did recently learn about a "CAD Sketcher" add on that is supposed to provide more CAD like capabilities to Blender but have no experience with it. I imagine the learning curve for Blender dwarfs the learning curve for something like FreeCAD. At one time I started on a few different online Blender courses from udemy and felt like I was just scratching the surface. One of those courses did specifically address designing things in Blender for 3d printing, so it is possible.

Very nice update. Your joinery, especially considering it is bass wood, is very precise. You are justified to be very satisfied with the nibbling, it looks great. That is something I did not even attempt. And I like the way you have chosen to do the reveal on the deck. For reference, below is a picture I took of the America on display in the Bluejacket store from when I visited back in 2017. They did not reveal quite as much as you have.