Brabham BT45 by DocRob - Model Factory Hiro - 1/12 - multimedia

[DocRob]

My next project after the sweet Honda RC166 build will be a bit more demanding and time consuming. I picked the red Brabham BT45 "Press Version 1975" out of the stash and started to get a bit familiar with it´s content.



Press Version meant, it was the car, how it was presented to the press before the 1975 season started, the car in this configuration actually never raced. The press version has a white paintjob with Martini branding, where the BT45´s used during the 1976 season was painted red and had some alterations, mostly around the nose section. The #7 car was piloted by Carlos Reutemann, the #8 car by Carlos Pace. Bothe Carlos´s didn´t had any success with the car, but I found the design absolutely cool.
In the seasons before, Brabham had their very successful BT44 (b) on the track, but decided to switch from the 8 cylinder Cosworth DFV engines to the Alfa Romeo flat 12 cylinder engine for economical reasons. The design from the BT44 to the BT45 changed a lot and the latter was ultra flat with the Alfa engine. Unfortunately the engines were not very reliable.



Some pictures to show the car a bit better were borrowed from the net.





MFH kits are not easy to build and you need to be organized. Starting a build requires some preparations, the first being cleaning the white metal parts in a magnetic tumbler filled with soapy water and 0,3 mm stainless steel needles.



Drying time



This is followed by a very eye straining task, checking if every part is there with printouts from the part list and then, all whit metal parts are sorted into boxes, according to the steps in the manual.





I generally like MFH kits for design, engineering, lots of labor and love, which went into issuing their kits, but there are some points of critique as well and I think, I will communicate them to MFH, because, these issues are easy to solve.

- The parts list are only shown on the MFH web page as pictures, you have to print out, in my case in relatively bad quality. These part lists are immensely important throughout the whole build. I would appreciate, MFH including these into the manuals.
- As we speak about manuals. You get a printed version, but it helps to have a second set for notes. For some of the MFH kits, there are PDF versions available, but not for all. I would like MFH to issue the manuals on their web site in PDF, which is not the case.
- Tamiya always shows the wire or tube length, which needed to be cut in their manuals. MFH only mentions in which step of the manual the other end of the tube / wire leads. This causes endless page turning.

Cheers Rob

[gsdpic]

That's an interesting looking car.  I am sure you'll turn it into a stunning model.   Looking forward to following along and learning more of the quirks of building MFH models while I work up the nerve to start on one of my two MFH kits.

 

[DocRob]

2 hours ago, gsdpic said:

That's an interesting looking car.  I am sure you'll turn it into a stunning model.   Looking forward to following along and learning more of the quirks of building MFH models while I work up the nerve to start on one of my two MFH kits.

Thank you Gary, I hope it´s a bit less demanding than the Cobra Coupe, where I put a bit too much onto my inexperienced shoulders. I got it done, but I hope the BT45 will be easier to build, without doors, bonnets and tons of clear parts.
I had the same preoccupations like you, when I started my first MFH kit, the Crocker motorcycle, but dearly loved the build experience, except for the chain. It´s a learning curve and good tools are needed, especially pin wises and tons of drill bits. Thorough preparation and understanding, how everything builds up are also important. 
I like a challenge with my projects and another option would have been to start the Tamiya 1/12 Brabham BT44b, the predecessor of the BT45, but when I saw the parting lines of the old kit, I thought no, lets build the real deal.

Cheers Rob