McLaren M8B - Accurate Miniatures - 1:24 Scale

[CDW]

Gonna be taking some days off to start and finish chores around the house. It's already spring, here. Lots of leaves and Oak Tree blooms to clean up. Putting up a new swimming pool and disposing of an old one. Getting the patio ready for summer nights to come. Probably just a little painting, too.

 

Went to a great model swap meet yesterday, came home with about 20 kits I didn't have before with a few multiples of some I did have but could not pass up the bargains. All car/truck models, some paints. Passed up several nice steel hull ship models and a couple of live steam farm tractors. Tractors were tempting, the ships not as much. 1:400 scale odd balls. Heller.

 

I'll be back when I get back, Duty calls. 🙂

[CDW]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention. Locked my keys in my car at a shopping mall Saturday. Believe it or not, first time ever I've done that. Called insurance company roadside assistance and 45 minutes later a locksmith arrived. Wondered how they managed getting a new car like mine unlocked. They use a small, approx 8" x 8", airbag to slip between the seal rubber and door window frame. They pump up the airbag to create an opening large enough to slip through a fiberglass specialty rod that flips open the door lock inside the car. Took not more than 5 minutes total. Easy money for a locksmith. Insurance paid it all. 🙂

[Rik Thistle]

An interesting story on an elusive McLaren F1  - 

 

Part 1 ... My hunt for the El Chapo McLaren F1      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn742vmAbEA

and

Part 2 .... An update on the El Chapo McLaren & other lessons learned in 2020    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8orbC7KoWc-

 

Richard

[CDW]

2 hours ago, Rik Thistle said:

An interesting story on an elusive McLaren F1  - 

 

Part 1 ... My hunt for the El Chapo McLaren F1      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn742vmAbEA

and

Part 2 .... An update on the El Chapo McLaren & other lessons learned in 2020    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8orbC7KoWc-

 

Richard

 

Thanks!....great stories. Could not stop watching until they were over.

 

[lmagna]

There is this one as well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pheKy5apk

 

[CDW]

21 hours ago, lmagna said:

There is this one as well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pheKy5apk

 

 

Sigh...dang Lou, that was a wet blanket. 🤔

 

I am tired and sore from the past two days of work. Still more to go so I better shape up. 🙂

 

 

[CDW]

You know, when you can find one, even the 1:24 scale model of the McLaren F1 street version is $100+. The race cars are less, but the street version is hard to find and expensive, like the 1:1 car. 

[Landlubber Mike]

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.

 

 

[Rik Thistle]

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

[lmagna]

4 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

and thank Lou again for his generosity.

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.  

[CDW]

It rained on Saturday and that gave me a little bit of time to spend on the McLaren.

Attention turned to finishing the engine/transaxle, then assembling and painting the chassis tub. It was first given a couple of coats of semi gloss black as a primer, then painted with a dull aluminum finish.

 

 

Will add more detail to the assembly as time allows this week.

 

Looking for scraps of decal to finish this car as the 1969 McLaren M8B of D. Hulme, the #5 car. 

[lmagna]

The full set of decals are available through https://www.indycals.net/decals/canam/70mclarenm8d.html

The 1969 markings are virtually identical. They have a pretty nice set of tire decals as well.

 

 

Edited March 8, 2021 by lmagna

[CDW]

13 minutes ago, lmagna said:

The full set of decals are available through https://www.indycals.net/decals/canam/70mclarenm8d.html

The 1969 markings are virtually identical. They have a pretty nice set of tire decals as well.

 

Thanks Lou! I just ordered both sets (car and tires). Had no idea there was someone out there making these today.

 

[Landlubber Mike]

1 hour ago, lmagna said:

The full set of decals are available through https://www.indycals.net/decals/canam/70mclarenm8d.html

The 1969 markings are virtually identical. They have a pretty nice set of tire decals as well.

 

 

 

Lou, with those decals, does that mean one can essentially use the red car kit and build it as one of the orange ones?  There is an AM kit of the number 4 orange car out there, though I note that the spoiler is raised.  I don't know if the red car kit allows you to raise the spoiler on the model, though maybe the spoilers only were raised when the car hit a certain speed?  

[lmagna]

That is some questions i can only partly answer Mike.

 

Yes you can use the red car to build any of the three 1969 team cars as in fact it IS car #1 with the wing mounted in a lower position in order to make it legal for the 1970 Can Am season. By the same token,  you could in theory by slightly modifying the rear deck and eliminating the wing all together make it into a 1967 M8A team McLaren car. This is possible because the 1968 #1 car was built from the two 1967 cars in 1968 and then sold and had the wing lowered in 1970 but was otherwise the same car driven by team McLaren in 1969. Is that confusing enough?

 

The part I don't know is if the kit that you and Craig have has shortened wing struts to reflect the 1970 car or if as a kit maker they just kept the taller struts of the orange 1969 team cars. My kit has long struts for the orange 1969 cars. If they kept or supplied the taller struts then you can easily build either car by using the taller or shorter struts. If they only supply a tall or a shortened strut then you will have to lengthen or shorten the struts depending on the car and what part was supplied. How is that for confusion?  You can also build the 1970 team McLaren M8D just by adding wing supports on the rear fenders!

 

One of the reasons McLaren was so successful in Can Am was that unlike Jim Hall, he didn't show up each year with a new car design that was so innovative that it needed a full season to get the bugs ironed out. He showed up each year with an improved version of the car that won the year before with just enough modifications to keep it at the top of the completive pile. So with basically two bodies, a M6 and an M8 you can pretty much build any Can Am McLaren from their most winning years.

 

The spoilers on the cars were at a fixed height. Jim Hall had brought the innovation to racing three years earlier with his Chaparral 2E, (Along with a few other innovations that were not as noticeable) and they were adopted by almost everyone both inside and outside Can Am racing. The struts were fixed in height and were mounted to the rear wheel hubs rather than the body like prior wings. McLaren was one of the few who avoided the concept until in order to remain dominant he decided to mount the high wing concept in 1969. The wing angle could be adjusted in the pits but unlike Hall's Chaparral it was not adjustable by the driver while being driven. Because of wings flying off of cars while racing, (Mostly F1 cars) the FIA, ( Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) made both the movable wing AND the raised wing illegal and after 1969 no car would be able to run them. These rules also applied to the Can Am series of races by default. So in short high wing or low wing is a matter of years not an adjustment system.

 

One of the things that still concerns me is the decals supplied for the Accurate Miniatures kits for Team McLaren. I have already discussed this with Craig. All of the pictures I have been able to locate for the 1969 team cars shows the numbers in the roundels a being black. Both the kit and the aftermarket sets of decals use blue numbers. I know that after Bruce died Denny ran most if not all of the team cars with blue numbers but I am not certain this was the case prior to 1970. I have seen a picture that if memory serves, shows all three team cars lined up side by side with blue numbers but I am not certain what year the picture is from or which book I have that I saw it in! Fine researcher I am!

 

Of course, after spending FOREVER typing this up, (I am not all that fast at typing) I at last find the picture I was looking for of the three 1969 team cars in the same photo. Looks like my memory was wrong on the numbers as well. They are clearly black.

Edited March 8, 2021 by lmagna

[Landlubber Mike]

Thanks Lou - really appreciate all that info.  Sorry to give your fingers a workout.  I'll have to take a look at the kit and the instructions to see to what extent things can be modified.  Hopefully AM had sprues that contained parts for both kits, and just swapped out the decals for different versions.

 

*Edit* - forgot to mention that I like the idea of doing an orange car.  Have a few Alfa Romeos in the stash so I'd like to do a different color for this one.

 

 

Edited March 8, 2021 by Landlubber Mike

[CDW]

Testing some custom color mix and here is my first shot at creating McLaren M8B orange.

 

 

This mix is 8 parts Tamiya flat yellow, 6 parts Tamiya flat red, with one drop of Tamiya semi gloss black. Looks pretty close to me. 

[CDW]

Added some more painted pieces to the chassis today.

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Coming along really nicely!

[lmagna]

Starting to look a little busy in there.

[CDW]

15 minutes ago, lmagna said:

Starting to look a little busy in there.

It's going to be much busier. Soon.

Mike's gonna love these vinyl pipes and wiring. They have a consistency similar to artificial fishing worms. The worst part is trimming away the flash. Only a fresh, sharp blade will do the trick. Even that is "iffy".

[Old Collingwood]

Looking really nice  - lots of nice detail in there mate.

 

OC.

[CDW]

Just now, Old Collingwood said:

Looking really nice  - lots of nice detail in there mate.

 

OC.

It's been a pleasant surprise how much detail Accurate Miniatures packed inside these kits. I can understand to a degree why some modelers had trouble assembling the kits. Slow and steady is best. Haste makes waste with something like this, plus it's a kit that would be much better the second time around as the first time gives you lots of ideas of how you would improve it the second time around. Actually, that happens to me every model I build come to think of it.

 

[Old Collingwood]

16 minutes ago, CDW said:

It's been a pleasant surprise how much detail Accurate Miniatures packed inside these kits. I can understand to a degree why some modelers had trouble assembling the kits. Slow and steady is best. Haste makes waste with something like this, plus it's a kit that would be much better the second time around as the first time gives you lots of ideas of how you would improve it the second time around. Actually, that happens to me every model I build come to think of it.

 

Simple answer mate  - buy two of everything  - first one the dry run and second one the keeper.

 

OC.

[CDW]

At this juncture in the assembly process, a decision is to be made whether the doors will be operable or static. If operable doors are chosen, the top of the chassis tub must be notched to receive the hinge. In my build, I will not be installing operable doors, but the procedure is simple enough if you choose to do so. 

 

[CDW]

This photo is included for the benefit of the next builder of this kit (Mike).

 

The piping highlighted by the yellow arrow shows the side of the engine I needed to route the piping in order to make the connection in the rear of the cockpit area. The instructions call for the piping to be located on the opposite side of the engine, but I could not get it to fit the connection point in that configuration. Just so you're aware...

 

  

[lmagna]

16 minutes ago, CDW said:

I will not be installing operable doors,

If I remember correctly the process required looks fairly easy but in practice not so much. It operates fine but to get a tight panel to panel fit is horrible. It is better just to glue them into the open position.

 

Your build is already taking on the aspects of a masterpiece!

[CDW]

Just now, lmagna said:

If I remember correctly the process required looks fairly easy but in practice not so much. It operates fine but to get a tight panel to panel fit is horrible. It is better just to glue them into the open position.

 

Your build is already taking on the aspects of a masterpiece!

 

Thanks for the kind words Lou.

The only times I've had good luck with opening doors and such is when I have cut the doors open myself and custom built the closure hinges and door jambs. I'll be doing that in a future build thread along with the hood and trunk as well. Will use some micro size magnets to make a realistic catch for the doors and bonnets. 

[Old Collingwood]

37 minutes ago, CDW said:

 

Thanks for the kind words Lou.

The only times I've had good luck with opening doors and such is when I have cut the doors open myself and custom built the closure hinges and door jambs. I'll be doing that in a future build thread along with the hood and trunk as well. Will use some micro size magnets to make a realistic catch for the doors and bonnets. 

I think the only medium where doors open ok is in Diecast.

 

OC.

[lmagna]

2 minutes ago, Old Collingwood said:

I think the only medium where doors open ok is in Diecast.

I must have only seen cheap diecast. They always seem to have giant seams around where the doors and opening panels meet. But then I suppose that could be the six inch thick layers of paint they all seem to have.