Renault RE20 Turbo by DocRob - FINISHED - Tamiya - 1/12

[DocRob]

...and now to something completely different. While choosing my actual summer build, I opened a lot of stashed boxes lately and got stuck with the large colorful ones. I have three of the old Tamiya 1/12 car kits and the Renault was picked over the Porsche 935 and the Brabham BT44, because I liked it less than the others. Large scale car modeling is new to me, so if I disappoint myself, the damage is easier to cope with.

I wanted to have this kit, even if I disliked these turbo testosteroned mini engines, as the Renault looks like a gentle Frankenstein in formula one standards. The yellow and white paintjob does enough of a job, to conceal that a bit.

 

 

The kit dates back to 1981 and this is clearly visible, while inspecting the parts. There is flash, parting lines, burr and crude looking parts. This kit for sure is not up to standards of modern Tamiya kits and needs some extra attention. 
Don't get me wrong, it doesn't look like a bad kit, but I guess, there will be some unwanted surprises hidden on the sprues. The ancient kit received PE for grills and brake disks and decals printed by Cartograph.

 

First, I cleaned the main body parts and this was not done in a blast. It took some hours with the blade, chisel and sanding sticks to get rid off the multiple burrs all around. I want to paint the body parts early, that in case of failure, the expense in time and effort wouldn't be too great.

 

 

The rear wing base construction is a four part U-shaped affair, which I guess should be flush all over. To reach that goal, there will be needed a lot of filler, as you can see on the picture. Another decision to make soon, is about the chromed parts for the wings and rims. The provided chrome doesn't look too bad, but I will compare it with photos of the real thing and decide then, if I strip and repaint these parts.

 

 

Cheers Rob

[yvesvidal]

Oh Yeah. I have been thinking about getting that kit. I will be watching your "great" progress with a lot of interest.

 

Yves

[CDW]

Excellent. Looking forward to this build. Will you be using any aftermarket upgrades or scratch built upgrades?

I have a small collection of 1:12 Tamiya F-1 kits and like Yves, particularly interested in this one because it's one I have considered adding to my collection.

 

PS: The new release of this kit includes photo etch. Does your version have photo etch included?

Edited July 12, 2023 by CDW

[yvesvidal]

Rob,

 

Don't forget to tell us what you are using exactly, for paints. Acrylic, Lacquer, brushed, sprayed, brand and references. Thanks

 

Yves

[DocRob]

5 hours ago, yvesvidal said:

Oh Yeah. I have been thinking about getting that kit. I will be watching your "great" progress with a lot of interest.

 

 

1 hour ago, yvesvidal said:

Don't forget to tell us what you are using exactly, for paints. Acrylic, Lacquer, brushed, sprayed, brand and references. Thanks

 

For me it's a new venture in 1/12 land. I built a motorbike and a 1/24 car, but nothing this size. There are not so many dedicated extras out there for this kit, which surprised me a bit. I will add or change some hoses, maybe some rivets, will use Hiro seat belts but nothing mayor, only a bit refinement.
I plan to use Tamiya Lacquer paints for the body colors. Their gloss yellow should fit and gloss white sprays like a charm. Metals will be AK Extreme metals and possibly some Tamiya lacquers as well.

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

3 hours ago, CDW said:

Excellent. Looking forward to this build. Will you be using any aftermarket upgrades or scratch built upgrades?

I have a small collection of 1:12 Tamiya F-1 kits and like Yves, particularly interested in this one because it's one I have considered adding to my collection.

 

PS: The new release of this kit includes photo etch. Does your version have photo etch included?

Good to have you on board. It may not be the fastest build, due to summer related distractions, but I'm eager to make this experience. I only own two more Tamiya 1/12 kits, as my modeling interests are wide spread and I like to jump between subjects. The other F1 kit is the Brabham BT44, which I like a lot better, with it's aggressive styled body, it's 'honest' eight cylinder engine and the Martini looks. I have some 1/20 kits, which  don't consider a bad alternative and finally there is the big Porsche 935, also in Martini livery. As I love preparing classic cocktails, another time consuming hobby, I have an affection for the Martini livery, although, I use different brands of vermouth and rarely Martini.

The kit is the new edition one with PE-sheet and Cartograph decals, like I wrote above .

Cheers Rob

[Landlubber Mike]

Looking forward to watching this one come along Rob.  Nice looking kit and subject - and cool larger scale!

[DocRob]

Thank you Mike, this kit definitely needs another approach than planes or armor. I built one 1/12 Ducati Panigale lately and I think the building and painting process is very close to this one. I guess, I have to learn a lot again with this build.

 

Cheers Rob

[Egilman]

37 minutes ago, DocRob said:

I guess, I have to learn a lot again with this build.

You used the wrong word brother... "teach" is the correct word...

I'm sure you meant to say teach a lot again with this build...

Edited July 12, 2023 by Egilman

[DocRob]

14 hours ago, Egilman said:

You used the wrong word brother... "teach" is the correct word...

I'm sure you meant to say teach a lot again with this build...

Thank you Egilman, but I meant what I said. The word failure quite took a place in my brain with this one. I will continue, when I finished blushing .

 

Cheers Rob

[CDW]

Top Studio offers a variety of hose, hose joints, connections and clamps to enhance the appearance of the various hoses found on race cars. These come to mind when considering additional detail added to these 1:12 scale Tamiya F-1 cars. All these fittings and hoses are generic and will work with any of the cars.

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, CDW said:

Top Studio offers a variety of hose, hose joints, connections and clamps to enhance the appearance of the various hoses found on race cars. These come to mind when considering additional detail added to these 1:12 scale Tamiya F-1 cars. All these fittings and hoses are generic and will work with any of the cars.

I already have an assortment of vinyl tubes of different diameter and color and I ordered some braided ones, connectors, hydraulic and electric, beside some metal rivets and clamps.

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

We had a heat wave here, combined with a heavy storm and a humidity under 15%, definitely no weather for airbrushing, but as my cave is relatively cool, I managed to prepare a zillion parts for the engine and suspension, which is a really time consuming task with this dinosaur. Lots of flash and burr, every part had to be inspected closely.
I filled all the gaps and ejection marks on the wing with Perfect Putty, as best as I could, which is hopefully sufficient. I really suck at filling.

 

 

The engine parts, of which there are many, got a coat of Tamiya LP flat aluminum as a base color. The next step, I pondered in my small brain. The cylinder covers as well as some other parts of the engine block, where in a blue paint, originally. I tried to mask the demarcation line with tape, but was unable to get a perfect masking with the difficult shape of the part. Tamiya could have parted the cylinder covers for easier painting. 
During my siesta, I had an idea. I once bought a big bottle of semi viscous masking fluid from Moiotow for a special paintjob, which never worked out. Here it came to rescue. I spilled an amount of masking fluid onto some plastic and moved the part in the fluid, et voila, it worked. Siestas are no wasted time it seems.

 

 

Cheers Rob

[Egilman]

12 minutes ago, DocRob said:

I spilled an amount of masking fluid onto some plastic and moved the part in the fluid, et voila, it worked.

Necessity is the mother of invention, or, in this case, innovation...

[CDW]

2 hours ago, DocRob said:

We had a heat wave here, combined with a heavy storm and a humidity under 15%, definitely no weather for airbrushing, but as my cave is relatively cool, I managed to prepare a zillion parts for the engine and suspension, which is a really time consuming task with this dinosaur. Lots of flash and burr, every part had to be inspected closely.
I filled all the gaps and ejection marks on the wing with Perfect Putty, as best as I could, which is hopefully sufficient. I really suck at filling.

 

 

The engine parts, of which there are many, got a coat of Tamiya LP flat aluminum as a base color. The next step, I pondered in my small brain. The cylinder covers as well as some other parts of the engine block, where in a blue paint, originally. I tried to mask the demarcation line with tape, but was unable to get a perfect masking with the difficult shape of the part. Tamiya could have parted the cylinder covers for easier painting. 
During my siesta, I had an idea. I once bought a big bottle of semi viscous masking fluid from Moiotow for a special paintjob, which never worked out. Here it came to rescue. I spilled an amount of masking fluid onto some plastic and moved the part in the fluid, et voila, it worked. Siestas are no wasted time it seems.

 

 

Cheers Rob

Brilliant!

[DocRob]

Continuing with the engine, all parts were sprayed with Tamiya LP matte aluminum per manual. After masking, I applied Tamiya X-3 Royal blue, which I left a bit translucent, to have a nice anodized appearance. 

Next, I picked of the ribs and branding with a soft lead pencil. The AK weathering pencil silver was not found suitable after testing. After some detail painting, I assembled the engine so far and decided to give it a coat of Tamiya LP semi matte clear, as the matte aluminum was too matte for my liking. I plan to use a very thin oil wash next, where the clear coat will be a good base for.
 

Another test of patience were the numerous belts, which were sprayed in matte aluminum entirely and then the belts were painted with Tamiya LP Nato black. Various parts, which will be added to the engine block soon, were painted with AK's Extreme Metals dark aluminum, polished aluminum and duraluminum.
 

 

Cheers Rob

[yvesvidal]

Rob, thank you for listing all the colors and types of paint you are using. This will be very helpful for future builders of this model.

 

Yves

[gsdpic]

Nice, off to a great start.  Just earlier today I was distracting myself looking at both the Tamiya and Italeri versions of this car on ebay and elsewhere.   I have two of the Tamiya 1/12th scale F1 cars in my stash....the Lotus 49 and the Lotus John Player Special.

 

[DocRob]

15 hours ago, yvesvidal said:

Rob, thank you for listing all the colors and types of paint you are using. This will be very helpful for future builders of this model.

I have a wide array of interest modeling wise and a great interest to replicate the used materials correct. Therefore, I like to read in others build threads, how they achieved their great work and let me inspire by the materials they used. 
Knowledge of other users about colors and weathering products is very important to me and that's why I normally document what I use.
The flat aluminum called for in the Renault's manual Tamiya LP-38 is dead flat and doesn't look right to me. I would have chosen another color, but found, with a bit of semi matte clear coating, everything came together.

Cheers Rob 

[DocRob]

6 hours ago, gsdpic said:

Nice, off to a great start.  Just earlier today I was distracting myself looking at both the Tamiya and Italeri versions of this car on ebay and elsewhere.   I have two of the Tamiya 1/12th scale F1 cars in my stash....the Lotus 49 and the Lotus John Player Special.

Thank you Gary, the good thing with the RE 20 is, due to the reboxing, it's still widely available and has Cartograph decals along with a PE-fret, when you chose the new edition.
The kits have aged relatively well, but quality wise, they are far away from Tamiya's todays standards. Lot's of cleanup is necessary, but I believe, you can build a very nice representation from the kits.
I only have the Brabham BT44 in large scale in my stash, along the huge Martini Porsche 935. Kits of the same age more or less, but I look forward to build them someday.

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

There was a lot of work involved for it replicating only a 1,5 liter engine. The turbo chargers which will push the engine to about 500 PS are not even included. 
Cables and wires are not finally attached, as I may add some resin connectors later, if my parcel ever arrives.

I added a thin black oil color/white spirit wash, to enhance the details a bit. Before, I tried Tamiya and AK panel liner, but didn't like, how difficult they were to remove and found the oil color mix much mor controllable and noted for the future, to mix my own washes preferably.

Fit of the parts was not brilliant, but in most cases sufficient. I had to cut some connector lugs for the belts and few other smaller parts, but no major complaints.
 

 

 

 

 

Cheers Rob

[CDW]

She's looking real neat and tidy, Rob. Nice work.

One of the things I'm not satisfied with are the rather thick and out of scale clear tubing supplied in Tamiya and other kits to replicate fuel lines. I am wondering if I can find some clear monofilament fishing line that might look closer to scale. Next time I make a trip to a store with fishing tackle, I'm going to have a look to see what I can find. 

[DocRob]

5 minutes ago, CDW said:

She's looking real neat and tidy, Rob. Nice work.

One of the things I'm not satisfied with are the rather thick and out of scale clear tubing supplied in Tamiya and other kits to replicate fuel lines. I am wondering if I can find some clear monofilament fishing line that might look closer to scale. Next time I make a trip to a store with fishing tackle, I'm going to have a look to see what I can find. 

I thought the same Craig, and I may substitute them with clear yellow tubing from Hiro. I will wait for my supplies of connectors to arrive, until I decide. The clear yellow tube has a outer diameter of 0,8 mm and should look better.

Cheers Rob

[CDW]

2 minutes ago, DocRob said:

I thought the same Craig, and I may substitute them with clear yellow tubing from Hiro. I will wait for my supplies of connectors to arrive, until I decide. The clear yellow tube has a outer diameter of 0,8 mm and should look better.

Cheers Rob

I didn't know about the yellow Hiro tubing. I'll have a look for that as well while I'm at it. The tubing supplied with every plastic car and motorcycle kit I have owned all leave something to be desired, so I've been searching for alternatives though the ones I've found are on the expensive and not so easy to acquire side of things. 

[DocRob]

3 hours ago, CDW said:

I didn't know about the yellow Hiro tubing. I'll have a look for that as well while I'm at it. The tubing supplied with every plastic car and motorcycle kit I have owned all leave something to be desired, so I've been searching for alternatives though the ones I've found are on the expensive and not so easy to acquire side of things. 

 

I took a photo for comparison and product numbers. These are the tubes I have. The unpacked one on the bottom is the Tamiya supplied one. It has an outer diameter of 1,2 mm.
I think, I will exchange the tubes, but as I have to wait for the connectors, I leave the Tamiya tube on for the moment, until I know, which preparation is needed.

 

Cheers Rob

 

[CDW]

The MFH tubes look very nice and convincing. I like the clear brown. MFH products are sometimes difficult to find here.

[Egilman]

Thank you for the info on the fittings and tubes...

 

I'll need some when I start my '66-'67 GT 40 MkII...

 

Thank you very much...

Edited July 19, 2023 by Egilman

[DocRob]

19 hours ago, CDW said:

The MFH tubes look very nice and convincing. I like the clear brown. MFH products are sometimes difficult to find here.

Me too, I think, I will use them, which means to cut off all the plastic tube holder parts and drill some tiny holes and add short pieces of wire, to accept the tube.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

17 hours ago, Egilman said:

Thank you for the info on the fittings and tubes...

 

I'll need some when I start my '66-'67 GT 40 MkII...

 

Thank you very much...

I'm looking forward to your GT 40 build, is it 1/12 as well? No matter which kit you own, I guess the supplied tubing is always lacking some detail and can be refined.

 

Cheers Rob

[Egilman]

1 hour ago, DocRob said:

I'm looking forward to your GT 40 build, is it 1/12 as well? No matter which kit you own, I guess the supplied tubing is always lacking some detail and can be refined.

That's what I'm hoping.... (it's the Trumpy 1/12th scale version)

I did the Revell Monogram version when I was a kid and fell in love with it, it will be a nice fit with the Tyrrell P-34 in the same scale, fell in love with that blue and yellow paint job when I built it as a kid as well...