lmagna

Very cool - that's a lot of wheels!

Smal update
 
Since I only continue on this build occasionally, progress is slow.
As expected, the front float tank is not an easy thing to make.
So there is a lot of fitting and measuring to do. And for now, nothing has been done wrong that needs to be removed again 😉

Meanwhile : wheels, wheels, wheels for a russian tank trailer.

The ChMZAP-5208 under construction and a heavy truck from the shelf

Thanks for following, comments and likes.

What an awesome build - very nice job!  

This is going to be stunning (already is).  Really nice work!

Evening all, today I started on some of the fiddly bits on the turret  - first I made the counter measures table and associated aerials,  then after this was painted underneath and legs - its was glued inplace, it will have the rest of it painted when the glue fully hardens,     next I have started making the 7.62 Goalkeeper RCMG  - this is made up from many parts and includes some quite difficult stages, its about a third finished.
 
OC.

Thank you Dan, really appreciate the kind words.  Thanks to everyone for all the support!

I am not much in car modelling, but your build turned out so nice and realistic!
Well done,
Regards,
Dan

Just pure selfishness's on my part.
 
#1, I had way too many of this car in my stash. #2, I knew that the chances of me getting to it anytime in the future were slim but i was still interested in it. Well the Team McLaren version anyway, (That by-the-way, I still have). #3 I had, and still have my doubts about my personal ability to make a good representation of this kit, I knew that it is a very  hard kit to build, and unless left open has some fit challenges with the body. 
 
So it was only logical to come up with the idea of supplying my excess stock to a few modelers that would possibly supply me with my 1960s McLaren fix by letting me look over their shoulder as it comes together!
 
My biggest hope is that you and Craig, along with the other followers here on the forum get as much enjoyment from the builds as I am in finally watching it happen.  

Lou:  Can you send me the tags the Providence models and the two museums.  I can't find the models on either web site.
Thanks.

Just pure selfishness's on my part.
 
#1, I had way too many of this car in my stash. #2, I knew that the chances of me getting to it anytime in the future were slim but i was still interested in it. Well the Team McLaren version anyway, (That by-the-way, I still have). #3 I had, and still have my doubts about my personal ability to make a good representation of this kit, I knew that it is a very  hard kit to build, and unless left open has some fit challenges with the body. 
 
So it was only logical to come up with the idea of supplying my excess stock to a few modelers that would possibly supply me with my 1960s McLaren fix by letting me look over their shoulder as it comes together!
 
My biggest hope is that you and Craig, along with the other followers here on the forum get as much enjoyment from the builds as I am in finally watching it happen.  

Just pure selfishness's on my part.
 
#1, I had way too many of this car in my stash. #2, I knew that the chances of me getting to it anytime in the future were slim but i was still interested in it. Well the Team McLaren version anyway, (That by-the-way, I still have). #3 I had, and still have my doubts about my personal ability to make a good representation of this kit, I knew that it is a very  hard kit to build, and unless left open has some fit challenges with the body. 
 
So it was only logical to come up with the idea of supplying my excess stock to a few modelers that would possibly supply me with my 1960s McLaren fix by letting me look over their shoulder as it comes together!
 
My biggest hope is that you and Craig, along with the other followers here on the forum get as much enjoyment from the builds as I am in finally watching it happen.  

Depends on the museum! Some of them are stuck up and you might have some problems but any museum that can recognize quality and skill would grab this build up in a heartbeat. Look up the pictures of the Providence Model in the Boston Museum Of Fine Arts made by Charles Davis and then compare it to the Providence made from the same plans by Alfred Brownell in Mystic Seaport museum.

 
 
Your build is just as nice as either of them and much better than Davis's version. Possibly Brownell's as well.
  

Just pure selfishness's on my part.
 
#1, I had way too many of this car in my stash. #2, I knew that the chances of me getting to it anytime in the future were slim but i was still interested in it. Well the Team McLaren version anyway, (That by-the-way, I still have). #3 I had, and still have my doubts about my personal ability to make a good representation of this kit, I knew that it is a very  hard kit to build, and unless left open has some fit challenges with the body. 
 
So it was only logical to come up with the idea of supplying my excess stock to a few modelers that would possibly supply me with my 1960s McLaren fix by letting me look over their shoulder as it comes together!
 
My biggest hope is that you and Craig, along with the other followers here on the forum get as much enjoyment from the builds as I am in finally watching it happen.  

Just pure selfishness's on my part.
 
#1, I had way too many of this car in my stash. #2, I knew that the chances of me getting to it anytime in the future were slim but i was still interested in it. Well the Team McLaren version anyway, (That by-the-way, I still have). #3 I had, and still have my doubts about my personal ability to make a good representation of this kit, I knew that it is a very  hard kit to build, and unless left open has some fit challenges with the body. 
 
So it was only logical to come up with the idea of supplying my excess stock to a few modelers that would possibly supply me with my 1960s McLaren fix by letting me look over their shoulder as it comes together!
 
My biggest hope is that you and Craig, along with the other followers here on the forum get as much enjoyment from the builds as I am in finally watching it happen.  

Hello EFFIE
 
It has been quite some time since I have been active in RC power boats but what Nirvana is very true. It would be much more helpful if you were a little more specific in just what you  were looking for. "RC" capable boats or ships come in as many forms as you can possibly imagine and probably a few that you can't.
 
You can take a number of plastic kits on the market and equip them with the required RC gear and run them. There are a number of wooden kits available that are either designed or adaptable to RC, but your aversion to resin and the smells involved would kind of preclude that. Caldercraft and a few other companies put out a number of very nice scale models in sizes and design that are very suitable for RC. Some are just hulls that you need to scratch build everything else and some are full kits that pretty much include everything you need to build the ship. In both cases you can expect a pretty hefty price tag, for what you get.
Then there are kits like the tug Southampton that is very popular that is available in many forms all of the way up to fully ready to run with all you need except batteries. Nice looking modern harbor tug and a forgiving design.
 
You mention your grandson. I have no idea what his age or interests are but having had a few children over the years I know that they are almost never interested in scale but are more inclined to want speed and in some cases warships, again, depending on their age. In most cases these two features in RC boats are not compatible with novice youngsters who seem to have only two movements on the transmitter, full speed forward/reverse and full left/right on the rudder. I started my kids with a pool noodle bent into a horseshoe shape around a tupperware container. they could run into almost anything without hurting it!
 
I could go on endlessly with suggestions but like Per says without more specific information it is really too broad of a question.

There is this one as well
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pheKy5apk
 
Ah, missed that one 😉   I don't think I'd spend $2.5m (even if I had it) on that particular car.  I suspect that it would require more than the bearings being heavily greased to ever get that car out of it's current location.
 
Richard

Hello EFFIE
 
It has been quite some time since I have been active in RC power boats but what Nirvana is very true. It would be much more helpful if you were a little more specific in just what you  were looking for. "RC" capable boats or ships come in as many forms as you can possibly imagine and probably a few that you can't.
 
You can take a number of plastic kits on the market and equip them with the required RC gear and run them. There are a number of wooden kits available that are either designed or adaptable to RC, but your aversion to resin and the smells involved would kind of preclude that. Caldercraft and a few other companies put out a number of very nice scale models in sizes and design that are very suitable for RC. Some are just hulls that you need to scratch build everything else and some are full kits that pretty much include everything you need to build the ship. In both cases you can expect a pretty hefty price tag, for what you get.
Then there are kits like the tug Southampton that is very popular that is available in many forms all of the way up to fully ready to run with all you need except batteries. Nice looking modern harbor tug and a forgiving design.
 
You mention your grandson. I have no idea what his age or interests are but having had a few children over the years I know that they are almost never interested in scale but are more inclined to want speed and in some cases warships, again, depending on their age. In most cases these two features in RC boats are not compatible with novice youngsters who seem to have only two movements on the transmitter, full speed forward/reverse and full left/right on the rudder. I started my kids with a pool noodle bent into a horseshoe shape around a tupperware container. they could run into almost anything without hurting it!
 
I could go on endlessly with suggestions but like Per says without more specific information it is really too broad of a question.

Well shoot, I've spent the last few weeks dealing with home stuff and trying to clear the work bench, and see Craig has made a masterful start on this one. As he mentioned, Lou/lmagna was incredibly kind and generous in gifting me one of these beautiful kits as well.  I've built a few Accurate Miniatures kits thus far and they have been very nice kits with great deal - but this McLaren kit is something else.  The plane kits had maybe 9 or 10 steps, the McLaren has close to 30 if I remember correctly.  And the details are amazing, much more than the typical car kit that is out there.
 
I picked up this PE detail set for the kit from Model Car Garage.  Apparently on some of the car boards people thought it nicely enhanced what is already a great kit:
 
 

 
 
 
Maybe I'll start mine sooner rather than later.  I have a few Gunze Triumphs that I started work on, but as I mentioned to Craig and Lou, I had some plastic crazing issue when I tried using Zero paints for the first time.  I probably applied the paint too heavily, but it could also be a compatibility issue with the primer I used or the plastic that Gunze used.  My guess it was my error, and I'm now wondering whether I mixed the paint enough.  On my Citroen build, I sprayed a Mr. Hobby gloss clear from the rattle can and it stripped some of the paint.  I don't think I shook the can enough so all I ended up shooting was the thinner.  The next time I shook the can a full minute plus and had no issues.  After that experience, I'm thinking that I had a similar problem with the Zero paints in not mixing them sufficiently (compounded by the fact that I poured the paint from the jar into the airbrush cup, rather than use a pipette which I'm going to start doing so I am not only pulling from the very top of the jar).
 
Sorry for the interruption - just wanted to say good job and thanks for all the extra info to Craig, and thank Lou again for his generosity.
 
 

Hello EFFIE
 
It has been quite some time since I have been active in RC power boats but what Nirvana is very true. It would be much more helpful if you were a little more specific in just what you  were looking for. "RC" capable boats or ships come in as many forms as you can possibly imagine and probably a few that you can't.
 
You can take a number of plastic kits on the market and equip them with the required RC gear and run them. There are a number of wooden kits available that are either designed or adaptable to RC, but your aversion to resin and the smells involved would kind of preclude that. Caldercraft and a few other companies put out a number of very nice scale models in sizes and design that are very suitable for RC. Some are just hulls that you need to scratch build everything else and some are full kits that pretty much include everything you need to build the ship. In both cases you can expect a pretty hefty price tag, for what you get.
Then there are kits like the tug Southampton that is very popular that is available in many forms all of the way up to fully ready to run with all you need except batteries. Nice looking modern harbor tug and a forgiving design.
 
You mention your grandson. I have no idea what his age or interests are but having had a few children over the years I know that they are almost never interested in scale but are more inclined to want speed and in some cases warships, again, depending on their age. In most cases these two features in RC boats are not compatible with novice youngsters who seem to have only two movements on the transmitter, full speed forward/reverse and full left/right on the rudder. I started my kids with a pool noodle bent into a horseshoe shape around a tupperware container. they could run into almost anything without hurting it!
 
I could go on endlessly with suggestions but like Per says without more specific information it is really too broad of a question.

Depends on the museum! Some of them are stuck up and you might have some problems but any museum that can recognize quality and skill would grab this build up in a heartbeat. Look up the pictures of the Providence Model in the Boston Museum Of Fine Arts made by Charles Davis and then compare it to the Providence made from the same plans by Alfred Brownell in Mystic Seaport museum.

 
 
Your build is just as nice as either of them and much better than Davis's version. Possibly Brownell's as well.
  

The only problem with that is almost all we have to go with today is pictures like you posted of the RESTORED surviving cars. A lot has been done to most of them to return them to racing condition for running in a number of historical events each year but in many ways they have also been restored as show cars with a little extra attention to the bling factor here and there. They are also limited to the look of the parts still available. This is most often seen in the tires they have to run.
 
Here is another modern picture of a M8D

Yes, the J car was pretty much his last attempt at ground effects. It had a separate 45HP snowmobile engine to run the fans. That was it's Achilles heel. They never got the small engine or extra mechanics to last a full race. With the vacuum running the system developed a little over 2200 pounds of down force. The car weighed about 1800 pounds. Jim Hall offered to stick it on a wall for a commercial but it was never made. when ever the fan engines were started the car would visibly suck down two inches. Jim Hall was still recovering from his injuries in the Chaparral 2G in 1968 and was not driving  competitively but was test driving the car during it's development. He said that the car could do corners at over 1.5 Gs without the tires braking loose and the he personally was never able to properly judge just how fast the car could brake coming into a turn. In his opinion Vic Elford was the only driver who ever even came close to running the J car properly. It was probably never pushed to it's limits. Jackie Stewart came to America to drive the 2J at Watkins Glen. Normally Hall couldn't afford Stewart but Jackie wanted to drive the car so badly he made Hall a special one-race deal. He qualified third. "The car's traction, its ability to brake and go deeply into the corners, is something I've never experienced before in a car this size or bulk," he wrote in his book Faster!. "Its adhesion is such that it seems to be able to take unorthodox lines through turns, and this, of course, is intriguing."
Hall said that if anything ever happened to the main engine, the suction system was powerful enough to move the car at almost 30 miles an hour back to the pits.
 
I believe the J car was the only car that beat the McLarens to the pole position in 1970 season and by the end of the year it was clear  that it was the fastest Can Am car on the track........... When working! If it had been allowed to come back in 1971 racing history could have possibly been broken again by Jim Hall. The car was called a number of things depending on who was talking, but the most common was "The ground effect car" "Vacuum car" "Kirby car' and "Sucker car" to name just a few. There were also comments to the effect that it was the only car on the track that raced in the box it was shipped in.
 
Many people, including the people who protested many of Jim Halls innovations, considered this the beginning of the end of the Can Am series. One of the concepts of the series was to encourage just what Jim Hall, Dan Gurney, and Bruce McLaren were doing. Exploring ways to make racing cars go faster, and new restrictive rules continued to come faster and faster each year until there seemed to be almost no avenues of innovation left open anymore. 

At last I get to see what a master can do with this model/car. It is far from being the easiest kit on the market.
 
The McLaren M8B is the 1969 variant of the previous M8A and a direct descendent of the M6 cars of the years before. Driven by Denny Hulme and Bruce McLaren with the third orange factory car sometimes being driven by Dan Gurney or Chris Amon. There were 11 Can Am races that year and the M8B won every one of them. Bruce and Denny traded off who was going to win with Denny winning 5 races and Bruce the other six. Most times the factory cars won both one and two and I believe 1,2,and 3 a few times. The Can Am series of races had already  became known as "The Bruce and Denny Show", but the M8B virtually made it fact. Out of 24 starts McLaren only had 4 DNFs, the rest were wins. An enviable record in anyone's book.
 
In addition to the factory cars built by McLaren, they contracted out and also produced almost identical chassis for other drivers as well as selling "Last years model" to the competition. This model comes with decals for the car driven by German Immigrant and avid McLaren fan, Lothar Motschenbacher in 1970. The kit is identical to the 1969 bright orange factory cars driven by McLaren and Hulme with the high wing. But in late 1969 most of motor racing, including Can Am, that at that time had relatively few rules, outlawed the high wing as well as the adjustable wing both innovated by Jim Hall on his Chaparral 2E and 2F cars in 1966 and 67 and  pretty much copied by everyone until outlawed. Bruce McLaren avidly avoided the wing concept until the advent of the M8B in 1969.
 
The only problem with doing the Motschenbacher livery with a M8B is that I can find no evidence that he ever drove a McLaren configured like the kit. In 1968 he drove a McLaren M6B and in 1969 a McLaren M12, both without wings. In 1970 he did switch to the M8B, but it appears that the car he bought was a converted M8B that was the #2 1969 McLaren factory car that had been converted from one of the 1968 factory M8A cars! So in fact was an updated 1968 M8A. In addition, when raced by factory McLaren in 1969 it had the high wing just as in the kit. But in 1970, when owned by Motschenbacher these wings were outlawed so he lowered his wing down to where the lead edge almost touched the rear fenders. It appears that unlike the M8D Factory cars of 1970, he kept the strut mountings, just shortened. The M8Ds of 1970 had a fins added to the rear fenders to hold the wing, also low to the body.

 
As a side note the testing of the M8D was what killed Bruce McLaren in an accident that was almost as unnecessary as the crash in 1966 that killed Ken Miles while testing the piece of junk Ford J car. But that is another story.
 
I sent this #11 car to both Mike and Craig, as I had WAY TO MANY in my stash and I truly wanted to see what talented builders could do with them. They are highly detailed kits but a struggle to build if done out of the box. I kept my factory decaled M8B as well as another kit that is in a plastic zip lock bag that may or may not be complete. I always thought it would make a good M8A or D or possibly even an F from that kit. But at the rate I am doing any building at all mixed with everything seeming to either break or fall apart on my body in the last couple of years I am beginning to wonder if this is the only way I will ever get to see some of my favorite models built.
 
For those who don't know much about the Can Am series of the sixties and early seventies it was pretty much a no holds bared cowboy kind of racing that as a side note was VERY lucrative for the racers. Winning a Can Am race could bring $60 to $80.000 to the winner, PER RACE! Placing second place in a Can Am race usually paid better than winning in many of the longer European sports car races. Eventually Most of the drivers and teams went over to NASCAR racing when Can Am finally somewhat regulated itself out of existence. Here is a bit of footage to give some of the feel a Can Am race produced:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXjZYIzKGCM
 
I'm REALLY looking forward to this build.

Are you certain Mike? Sanity may be a little like beauty, it's all in the eyes of the beholder. 
 
All kidding aside, this really came out nicely and it is truly one to be proud of. Looking forward the the next in the series.

Depends on the museum! Some of them are stuck up and you might have some problems but any museum that can recognize quality and skill would grab this build up in a heartbeat. Look up the pictures of the Providence Model in the Boston Museum Of Fine Arts made by Charles Davis and then compare it to the Providence made from the same plans by Alfred Brownell in Mystic Seaport museum.

 
 
Your build is just as nice as either of them and much better than Davis's version. Possibly Brownell's as well.