Lotus 72D by DocRob - Tamiya - 1/12 - Plastic/Metal - The Legend

[DocRob]

Some progress at last. I finished the cockpit tub with the seat, fire extinguisher, and paddings and installed it into the body. The front suspension is only temporary installed and proved to be very fiddly to assemble. If it would be movable remains to be seen, but I doubt it, seeing the design. I also installed the radiators with their PE grills into their fairings.
I have a lots of mishaps with this build lately, which are no fault of the kit, but mine. I airbrushed the three color front rims for the third time now, always finding some inacceptable flaws. Same with some of the firewalls and inner traverses, where the AK polished aluminum color showed some flaws, possibly a reaction with the plastic, despite being primed with gloss black. Overspraying, this time with Alclad led to the same result and I finally used Tamiya´s LP gloss aluminum, which worked.
I´m not used to these kind of issues, I usually plan my approach thoroughly and do it once. Everything there´s something new, even with what looks like routine.



Cheers Rob

[gsdpic]

Looking good, glad you are overcoming your mishaps.   And yea, the suspensions and exhausts on these F1 cars always seem to be fiddly to assemble, three or four hands would be useful to have.

[DocRob]

4 hours ago, gsdpic said:

Looking good, glad you are overcoming your mishaps.   And yea, the suspensions and exhausts on these F1 cars always seem to be fiddly to assemble, three or four hands would be useful to have.

Thank you Gary, poco a poco, little by little is the way to go. Today, I finished painting the rims with the black hubs in front and the chrome rings. You are absolutely right, F1 cars are stuffed with lots of aggregates and structure in minimal space, always a bit delicate to get together.
Was your front suspension and steering really working in the end? From the design of the parts, it seems almost impossible.

Cheers Rob

[gsdpic]

45 minutes ago, DocRob said:

Was your front suspension and steering really working in the end? 

 

My steering works fine.  The suspension, not really.  The front wheels move up and down a bit but I think that is mostly (or maybe entirely) due to the looseness of the connections that snap together.  Fortunately the kit has small, clear disks that sit under the car to support most of the weight of the model and provide an appropriate ride height.
 

[DocRob]

13 hours ago, gsdpic said:

My steering works fine.  The suspension, not really.  The front wheels move up and down a bit but I think that is mostly (or maybe entirely) due to the looseness of the connections that snap together.  Fortunately the kit has small, clear disks that sit under the car to support most of the weight of the model and provide an appropriate ride height.

Thank you Gary, that was, what I thought, the steering may work, but the suspension, hmm, there were some too loose fitting arms and these tiny cups holding the wheel, ...
The under body supports will help for sure.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

The nose section got finished. The assembly was fiddly, but in the end, I got it together. For a bit more rigidity, I glued all the parts in place, so I have no working suspension (I doubt, that this would be possible without modification) and no steering function. 
I added some braided lines, for which I drilled out the plastic fittings with a 0,5mm drill bit and inserted a tiny brass rod, to accept the braided hose.



Mr. Fittipaldi will receive his arms later, when the upper cowling will be finally placed, along with the steering wheel.



...and the best, the front body fits over everything, without problems, it´s Tamiya, even, if it´s 50years old kit.



Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

I started to prepare the engine and transmission for painting. Assembly is straight forward, albeit there´s a lot of clean up necessary. The exhausts are always a bit complicated to assemble, therefore, I decided to finish this task before painting. I glued the exhaust pipes with a tiny bit of glue into the silver four in one piece and then fiddled the other ends of the pipes into their holes in the engine block, before the glue cured. Fixed with a strip of adhesive tape, I added more glue to the four in one piece and let dry.



Cheers Rob

 

[DocRob]

Engine and gearbox are halfway done. I used the MFH air funnel and distributor set, which is a big advantage against the kit plastic parts, specially the aluminum funnels. I also used black tubing from the spare box, the Tamiya material is too thick. I now own a silver pencil, but pictures show, that the Ford branding wasn´t silver with the 72d. All paints are from the Tamiya LP range and the screwheads were picked out with markers.
The gearbox was painted with Zero Paints texturized color for Hewland gearboxes.







Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Today, I finished the engine and connected all the tubing. The yellow clear fuel lines were part of the MFH set, the black ignition cables were from the spare box, because the Tamiya supplied ones looked way too thick and out of scale. The MFH set fits the Tamiya plastic without the need for tweaking, great.





Cheers Rob

[king derelict]

The engine looks fantastic Rob. Great job.

alan

[DocRob]

Thank you Alan, with the good fitting additional parts from MFH, it was relatively easy to assemble the engine. The most delicate parts were the clear tubes, which needed some 0,5 mm drilling and adding tiny brass rods for accepting the tube, but nothing too demanding in the end.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

During the Christmas days, I prepared the parts for the rear suspension and framework. The moulds are really old and there was a lot of clean up to do. Everything was painted according to the manual with Tamiya LP colors and then assembled. This, like the front suspension assembly was a daring task and some supposed snap fit parts broke during the process. Now, everything is fixed, but not working anymore. To be honest, the working suspension is a unnecessary gimmick and I have no idea, how you should assemble it to a working state.
Finally, I glued the exhausts and some tubing to the engine and let everything dry over night.





Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Finally, I married the engine to the gearbox and then to the body. Sounds easy, but isn´t. There are so many fragile parts intersecting, that you have to work out a good sequence. To make the rear suspension workable, it needs a higher skilled builder than me. I early skipped the idea of function and glued everything in place, specially after some of the snap fit connectors broke (old brittle plastic?).
I added some braided lines from Top Studio instead of using the thick rubber hoses, Tamiya provides. I also added coil springs as air intake fasteners, which I found in the spare box.
Please don´t mind the dust and fingerprints, these are work in progress shots.







Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

After a lot of detailwork, I can see the finish line slowly. I added many fittings to the engine, added the rollbar, tank filler and other bits and pieces. I installed the roll bar, which hasn´t even the height of the drivers helmet, so far for security.
The cockpit fairing was finished, with PE-fasteners, rear view mirrors and the yellow tinted clear part. The rear wing is prepared, but needs some curing time before mounting.







Cheers Rob

[gsdpic]

Looking good!  The rear wing is tricky as I recall.  Mine is actually a little bit askew, though I don't remember enough to give any good hints.

[DocRob]

2 hours ago, gsdpic said:

Looking good!  The rear wing is tricky as I recall.  Mine is actually a little bit askew, though I don't remember enough to give any good hints.

Thank you Gary, the rear wing gave me no problems, but I had others, see below. Unfortunately the Lotus doesn´t look good anymore.

Cheers Rob 

[DocRob]

Some vanity shots, before disaster struck. I finished the cockpit with the driver, the instrument panel with added wiring and the steering wheel. Would I have known, how prominent the clumsy hands of the driver figure where, I may have given a first shot of sculpting a try.
I added the rear wing without difficulties and installed some braided lines instead of Tamiya vinyl tubes. Therefore, I pinned all the fittings with 0,5 mm brass rod.

















Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Disaster happened slowly with the last steps of the build, the wheels. I sanded the tires a bit, glued together the rim´s halves and inserted them into the tyres. So far so good. The Lotus 72d to my knowledge was the last F1 car to have Firestone tyres equipped. 
There are decals in the kit for the Firestone branding with golden sidewall rings. While trying to apply them, I noticed, it would be impossible to get the rings right, they simply broke everywhere. The Firestone lettering was tedious too, but finally I got it one.
When I added the wheels to the suspension, there was a tiny cracking sound, and I saw, that one bar of the suspension snapped loose. While trying to fix it, there was another crack, bigger this time and the Lotus broke in halves, the firewall behind the cockpit broke out.
After not throwing the Lotus immediately into the wall (it was close and still is an option), I decided to let it rest for now or maybe forever



Cheers Rob

[Diver]

2 hours ago, DocRob said:

Disaster happened slowly with the last steps of the build, the wheels. I sanded the tires a bit, glued together the rim´s halves and inserted them into the tyres. So far so good. The Lotus 72d to my knowledge was the last F1 car to have Firestone tyres equipped. 
There are decals in the kit for the Firestone branding with golden sidewall rings. While trying to apply them, I noticed, it would be impossible to get the rings right, they simply broke everywhere. The Firestone lettering was tedious too, but finally I got it one.
When I added the wheels to the suspension, there was a tiny cracking sound, and I saw, that one bar of the suspension snapped loose. While trying to fix it, there was another crack, bigger this time and the Lotus broke in halves, the firewall behind the cockpit broke out.
After not throwing the Lotus immediately into the wall (it was close and still is an option), I decided to let it rest for now or maybe forever



Cheers Rob

Sorry to see this happen to you.  My question to you is, were the joints glued with CA or plastic cement?  Your answer will effect how I proceed with mu Alfa Romeo.

[gsdpic]

2 hours ago, DocRob said:

 While trying to fix it, there was another crack, bigger this time and the Lotus broke in halves
 

Oh no!  Hate to see that happen to this fine looking build.  I hope you are able to salvage it!

 

[DocRob]

12 hours ago, Diver said:

Sorry to see this happen to you.  My question to you is, were the joints glued with CA or plastic cement?  Your answer will effect how I proceed with mu Alfa Romeo.

The joints, which broke (the firewall to the body) were glued with Tamiya plastic glue (white cap). I haven´t looked closer, but my guess is, the contacting surfaces were too small, because of a subpar fit.
I use CA often with plastic models, specially for painted parts. With the Lotus it´s about 50 percent plastic cement and the other half CA. I like the (normally) strong bond of melted plastic with plastic cement, but sometimes the quick setting and solid bond of CA is welcomed, although a bit on the brittle side, when flex comes into play.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

11 hours ago, gsdpic said:

Oh no!  Hate to see that happen to this fine looking build.  I hope you are able to salvage it!

Thank you Gary, I´m not sure, if I want to continue with the Lotus, but will let it pause a bit to decide. It will be possible to repair, but I´m a bit touchy, when it comes to bigger fails. 
When I start a project, there is always a positive tension developing, which helps me to ship around obstacles in a build. I do a lot of pre thinking, planning and testing before and during my projects and a game changing fail takes all the air out of my sails. I just doesn´t expect it.
I hate redoing and redundance. You might call it a bit loco, but I build for myself, for the challenge and I build for fun and the latter evaporates during these kind of mishaps.

Cheers Rob

[Canute]

Rob, that's a bummer. Park it for a while. This will let you decide on a path of repairs. It's too distinctive a livery to consign it to the Shelf of Mis-fit Toys.

[ccoyle]

2 hours ago, DocRob said:

I hate redoing and redundance. You might call it a bit loco, but I build for myself, for the challenge and I build for fun and the latter evaporates during these kind of mishaps.

 

Same here!

[yvesvidal]

Maybe a small diorama depicting some maintenance may be a solution....

Just take a break and get back to it in a few weeks. It will be easier.

 

Yves

[DocRob]

3 hours ago, Canute said:

Rob, that's a bummer. Park it for a while. This will let you decide on a path of repairs. It's too distinctive a livery to consign it to the Shelf of Mis-fit Toys.

 

 

2 hours ago, yvesvidal said:

Maybe a small diorama depicting some maintenance may be a solution....

Just take a break and get back to it in a few weeks. It will be easier.

I will take my time to  decide, it was a lot of work to get to the last step of the build, only to fail with that. The maintenance dio is no option, I never saw halved F1 cars except in accidents .

Cheers Rob

[GrandpaPhil]

Have you thought about mounting it to a nice base board after gluing it back together for strength and permanence?  It would also make it look like an intentional display piece.  I’ve done that before with extremely fragile models (I won’t tell you which ones, lol).

[Danstream]

As others said, leave it alone for a while, then come back to it with a fresh mind. 

Cheers,

Dan