MB 300 SL completed!

I resisted the temptation to build a 300 SL Tourer, as illustrated here, because the fabrication would be complex. Not only does the existing roofline slope steeply towards the deck, but it also curves inward over the trunk lid immediately to the rear of the doors. An entire new kit would probably be needed to provide a donor roof to the Tourer. I did some fooling around with digital photography to see what it might look like, and decided it is a neat idea but for another day.





So after much dithering, I went for the silver paint (Tamiya Gloss Aluminum). Black would have been pretty mean-looking but non-standard; as it is I am leaving off the bumpers and have put on black Rudge knock-offs from Historic Racing Miniatures.



The metal transfers went on well, as did the decals, and I decided to paint the black door and hood surrounds rather than struggle with Bare Metal Foil. Some days the BMF goes on nice and easy, other times it turns into a series of little wadded up balls of frustration. This time getting the right amount of paint on the tip of a small brush and flowing it into the groove worked really well.



The rest of the window surrounds are meant to be chrome silver, but with a Gloss Aluminum paint, I decided not to bother. The only exception was the quarter windows where the silver window surround needs to be put on the glass. Tamiya helpfully provides a mask, which is a relatively poor fit, but given the portion needing paint is raised, I held my breath and free-handed it. The trick as always is getting the right amount of paint on the brush, and letting it find its own way due to the conflict between viscosity and surface tension. I use Testor's bottles and I have gotten used to the way different colours work in this respect.



Speaking of Testor's paint, a major panic was averted when my thumb full of Testor's paint got on the driver's door ... the solvent for Testor's is paint thinner while the silver paint is Tamiya, for which the solvent is alcohol. So crisis averted. However, I do need to stop putting my thumb full of paint on recently completed bodies.





All in all a very enjoyable kit that will reward a talented builder without frustrating a beginner.

1964 Prince (Nissan) Skyline 2000 GT

While waiting for the paint to dry on the 300 SL, I dug out the Fujimi curb-side kit of the original Skyline, designed and put into production by Prince just as Prince was being acquired by Nissan. This unassuming 4-door is completely nondescript except for the twin-cam six which is unfortunately not modeled.



At some future date I will get around to the later 2-door GT-R, also by Fujimi, which has a well modeled six but a molded-in hood! I am not sure what they were thinking. And the plastic is very thick, so cutting out the hood will be a major challenge.



Anyway progress on the 2000 GT was quick since there isn't much to do underneath. A solid rear axle on leaf springs and front discs complement the six. The off-white paint (Tamiya TS-7 Racing White) is on; once dry I'll tape it and paint the roof burgundy. Interestingly I had no problems with this, unlike my repeated challenges with Tamiya yellow.



Unlike the chassis and interior, final assembly will take time as there are four chrome strips and two chrome door handles per side, as well as lots of lights, mirrors, etc. It even has a chrome windshield washer nozzle smack in the middle of the hood. First, however, will be the awesome (I do not use that word lightly) 300 SL.

MB 300 SL chassis, drivetrain and interior

What a lovely kit! Tamiya at its best: Parts are very detailed but not excessively fragile, and fit is perfect even for very detailed items, such as the chassis strut that joins the firewall to the right front suspension mounting, passing below the intake manifold and through the exhaust manifold. (This is not visible in the picture below as the motor needs to go in first). Parts are well formed with minimal sinkholes or part lines, and the connection from the part to the sprue is often through a mounting point, which you will normally be filing smooth anyway, rather than a visible area of the part where you'll have to touch it up once you cut it off the sprue.



The Gullwing doors, of course, were dictated by the wide sills, which were in turn dictated by the classic three-dimensional space frame made up of lots of little tubes. At its most complex, this type of chassis design led to extremes like the Maserati Birdcages from the late '50s and early '60s. At its simplest, it offered an entire generation of British back-yard builders, like Lotus, TVR or Ginetta. the opportunity to build a decent chassis in reasonable quantities using 4130 chrome-moly tubing and a home welding setup. The Tamiya kit provides a very detailed replica of the chassis and it will be a shame to hide this under the body work.



I spent about 18 months working for the local Mercedes-Benz dealership as an apprentice mechanic back in the mid-70s and recall these lovely cars still turning up occasionally, including a blue-grey roadster belonging to one P.E. Trudeau. The stock hubcaps, painted to match the body, were very classy and understated, but I ordered the Rudge wheels, made by Historic Racing Miniatures, from Strada Sports. Painted black, these will provide a nice contrast to a classic silver body. An alternative is to paint the body a non-standard black; there is a very nice picture online of a 300SL roadster, in black with black Rudge wheels, that is very striking. Decisions, decisions. Either way the dark red interior will be a nice contrast.





The 300 SL was a study in contrasts. The engine is an overhead cam straight 6 with fuel injection and an aluminum head; on the other hand the Tamiya model implies the exhaust ports in the middle cylinders (2 and 3; 4 and 5) are siamesed, something I don't recall from the 300 sedans of the same period. Rear suspension is by swing-arms, and does not incorporate all the camber compensation bits that appeared on the subsequent 230/250/280 SL, as well as the mighty and legendary 6.3. Brakes are drums all around. So a mix of state of the art for the late '50s, and some legacy bits that really should have been ditched a lot sooner. My time as an apprentice corresponded with the introduction of the 450 SL and SE/SEL, the first with fully independent rear suspension, and the 280 sedan, with IRS and a proper twin-cam six; MB at the time was never one to leap out in front of a 'fad'.



In any case, this is a superb kit, and while very rewarding for a skilled builder, will probably not be as tricky as the Revell BRE 510 for a beginner.

Push to completion: 787B, OT 1300, BRE 510

I am just back from a few weeks away, and the Audi S1 is moving slowly. Meanwhile I have completed a few items over the last few months, where the roadblock has been mental more than anything else, and haven't really posted the results. Case in point: the Mazda 787B.



This ground to a halt when I screwed up the paint required on the windows. Recent experience with the S800 tells me Bare Metal Foil would probably be a better choice, but too late for that now. So I trimmed the excess paint as best I could, glued the right side upper ball joint back together, and finished it off. Again not a winner in the area of quality of finish, but it adds an essential item to the Le Mans collection and highlights the oddball power plant, the 4-chamber rotary motor.



The Abarth OT 1300 required some paint where I put a thumb full of glue into the right side door during a prior attempt at final assembly. Lots of taping was needed to keep fresh paint off the windows and chrome. Meanwhile I gritted my teeth and cut the headlight covers out of the vacuum formed sheet. This worked out quite well, surprisingly, given the fragility of clear material made with this technique.






The long 'stinger' exhaust is a bit silly and prevents the rear engine cover being posed open; it has to be removed to exhibit the engine compartment. This is probably an important part of the claimed 145 hp from 1300 cc, probably all arising at something like 7000 RPM.

Getting the body to stick to the chassis took some doing. This was necessary in order to position the hinges for the front compartment. The major challenge was figuring out where the body and chassis meet up, and thus where the glue belongs.






What an oddball little car! Carlo Abarth was another character, like Colin Chapman or Ettore Bugatti, who was completely uncompromising about doing things his own way. The lime green Lancia Stratos lurking in the background of the photos, while radical for its time in terms of styling, is a paragon of modernity by comparison, with a transverse, mid-engine V6. And the Model Factory Hiro kit was a challenge even if it isn't one of their super-detailed kits. As my first successfully-completed multi-media kit, I am pleased, although as usual there are details I could have done better.

Finally I tackled final assembly of the BRE Datsun 510. This is a very detailed and challenging kit that will reward an experienced modeler, but will frustrate a beginner. Lots of fiddly little work was required to get the front and rear body panels to fit properly. The oddball approach to joining chassis to body, via the inner shock towers under the hood, required some fiddling and filing, and the opening hood, which gets trapped between the chassis and body, doesn't open very far, and doesn't quite close fully. A final gripe is the Minilites which are poorly done. Still it's a good looking little sedan. I am moderately pleased with the effort which is a bit sloppy in the details, the photos being carefully chosen to minimise the flaws ;-).







The matching 240Z, which is only at the paint and decal stage, will likely sit for a while until I can knock off a few more that are further ahead, such as the 300 SL. At first glance, however, the level of detail here is substantially less than the 510. Meanwhile the Japanese contingent is growing.



So this takes the completion ratio to a whopping 33%. And all of this coincided with the arrival in the mail of EBBRO's Citroen H van, a real ugly duckling commercial vehicle. A curbside model, it lacks detail of the FWD Traction Avant chassis which allowed for a very low load floor. It was a utilitarian vehicle which you could get in any colour you wanted as long as it was grey, and which served French commerce quite well in the post-war years. The addition of the Citroen brings the completion ratio back to 32.8%... time to get going.

Audi S1: on to the body

So the combination of Dupli-Color Automotive Primer/Sealer with Testor's white in a rattle can appears to work just fine, given the constraints of rattle cans around things like droplet size. (Now that I am retired, there may be an airbrush in my future). I have no idea why I have had such problems with Tamiya paints in pale colours in the past, but there you go. Any ideas would be most welcome.

The chassis is painted and the engine installed. The intercooler is now level but too low and doesn't line up with the grille; fixing it would require shifting the compressor side of the turbo so that the air outlet from the compressor to the intercooler runs above the exhaust pipe from #1 cylinder, not under; I think I'll leave it alone if only because this will play havoc with the exhaust from the turbo and wastegate. These so-called multi-media kits, with resin and spun cast bits, aren't 'paint-by-numbers' like a styrene kit from AMT or Tamiya; lots of trial fitting and fiddling with bits is a good idea and I have probably been treating this a little too much like a styrene kit. The S1 and the Abarth (which still needs a few finishing touches) are providing useful information and experience before I get back to more demanding stuff like the Aston Martin DBR1 from Profil 24 or the monstrous little 908/03 from Model Factory Hiro. (Look through older posts for details on these.)



So with the chassis painted, the body now has a couple of coats in white, plus the yellow has been put on after taping it all up. I foolishly forgot to spray on a coat of clear over the tape before going to the yellow, so there are a few spots where yellow seeped under the tape and which will need to be fixed, but nothing major. One nice aspect of using Testor's rattle cans is being able to do touch ups with a brush. I took advantage of this benefit in several places and will continue to do so going forward.





The decal on the hood proved a challenge. The decals are fairly thick; normally I like this but the hood has a couple of blisters for clearing the shock towers, and no amount of Micro-Sol setting solution could get the decals to settle down over this compound curve without cracking. I will tidy this up with a very fine brush and some enamel, meanwhile the rest of the car is largely flat surfaces so there should be no repeats of this particular problem.



The air scoops all have photo-etched grilles (6 in the hood alone) that look quite nice. This is a step up from having to paint, then wash in some flat black, although the grilles are fragile and it is possible to lay on way too much CA glue. As with polystyrene glue, toothpicks are helpful in limiting the amount of glue on any given part.

I will be busy with other things for the next day or two, then away from the bench until November, so updates will be sparse for the next while. Please feel free to comment on anything you see here.

Lancia Stratos: completed!

I came across a Tamiya lime green rattle can in the stash, which provided the perfect shade, see here: http://silodrome.com/lancia-stratos/. For some reason the can doesn't have a number, it just says TS Lime Green on it. A one off?



Separately it would have been nice to put Webers on the motor but I didn't seem to have anything in the parts bin that has the barrels as close together as the manifold requires. I do have a set of Webers for various Ford motors, 260 through 350 cubic inches, from Historic Racing Miniatures, but it seems to me that it would be a shame to put such a nice set of carbs on this slightly ratty kit; I was saved from this dilemma by the fact that they won't fit. So the standard air cleaner, which hides the carbs, was the way to go. All in flat red, of course; isn't there a rule that Italian twin-cam cylinder heads, especially when there are two of them, need to be topped by red valve covers?

Moving on to the body, the pop up headlights are mounted on a clever little lever-operated hinge that allows you to move them up and down once assembled. I glued them shut as they look dinky when up. Sort of like a TR 7, but I digress.

Similarly I skipped the aero bits and rally headlamps, a well as the Alitalia decals which are probably unusable after 40 years in the box.

All went well until final assembly. The chassis needs to mate with the body under the front valance just so, and a good bit of filing was needed to make that happen. Then the fit around the rear just under the doors was also tight and needed lots of attention.



The result looks good with the engine lid open but the fit when closed is very poor. I thought maybe I had put the hinge on backwards, but apparently not. I am guessing a large part of this is the hinge, which is quite sloppy; the engine lid can be pushed forward to meet up with the roof but the fenders are too wide, a result of the body shifting in 40 years on the shelf.



Other minor issues are the front track, which looks too narrow, and the knobby rally tires that don't really suit a road car. Nonetheless it is a fine looking model of the original wedge design, penned by Bertone in his prime and still a wicked little bomb today. The wedge is gone, killed off by bad knockoffs like the TR 7 (no, I don't like TR 7s), but this one shows what can be done with the concept especially when the machinery is all in back.

So anyway, another one done, in record time (under two days), and a good fit with the other mid or rear engined exotica on the shelf. As this was a new start, there are still a baker's dozen in various states of completion on the bench, including the little Abarth in the centre of the photo which just needs a few items such as the front hood hinges sorted out. Another day.

Lancia Stratos: Revell OOP kit

While waiting for the Testor's white enamel to harden properly on the Audi S1, I tackled the out-of-production Lancia Stratos from Revell USA. This kit came from Model Roundup's OOP page, and on opening it I discovered an official invitation to join the Revell Modelers Club, dated 1977. Two dollars got you a bunch of (probably cheap) swag, Please Allow 6 weeks For Delivery. How times have changed.



The kit suffers from major flash and sinkholes. While the 2.4 litre Ferrari V6 is present, detail is limited. The two main body components (body and rear engine cover) are poor fits and will require lots of fiddling. The Hasegawa kit that I have described previously has no engine detail but at least the body fits. So the ultimate outcome will be limited by kit quality.



I decided to target the lovely first generation cars, without spoilers, flares or rally lights, as shown in the photo below taken from the internet. What a lovely muscular little shape, the beginning of the wedge era which reached its nadir with the Triumph TR7. All the aero bits distract from this.



The first step, after lots of trimming of flash and sinkholes, was to cut off the spoiler and trim the rear flares. The tires will still be fat but the square flares can be trimmed back for aesthetic if not legal purposes.



Next was Tamiya primer followed by a coat of Tamiya Pearl Green (TS 60) which turns out to be a poor replica of the violent lime green I recall seeing on early road cars. I'll sand it out and decide whether to look for something more representative of the 1970's.



So another kit started ... trust me, other kits are being completed and will be reported in due course. Yes, really!