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Post by Joel_W on Aug 5, 2021 17:06:00 GMT -8
Paul, Yep, that's what I thought too. The sections missing on your car is a front and a rear, which mine are separate as well. I've been working on how to correctly secure those parts when on the model so that they don't look like they're just laying there, but can be removed when I want to display or show the chassis.
Joel
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Post by Joel_W on Aug 13, 2021 8:08:20 GMT -8
Since my last update I’ve focused on getting the body and wings ready for priming. Tamiya made the body counting both the front wing, rear wing and roll bar 7 sections. Surely it was Tamiya’s intent for the modeler to be able to display the aluminum chassis with cockpit, and the engine/transaxle and rear suspension at one time or separately. Seemed like a great idea, but as I’ve once again found out, there’s all sorts of issues and pitfalls that need to be dealt with, or a different plan to formulate. The bottom of the body is all one piece that fits like a glove. Tamiya designed it you have two small tabs on the side for alignment, while a section of what in real life is a one pc bottom to the chassis has a very large notch in it for a cross member attaching both spontoons. The fit is excellent but the seams do show. And since the assembly takes place after painting and decaling, the seams are there to stay. Fortunately for me, the model will be in it’s own plastic display case and never turned over. The top of the body does have the front air intakes and the radiator air intakes as separate pcs. The radiator ones each ended up having a slight step that needed attention. Once dealt with you never guess that they were separate pieces. Same for the front air intakes. Both were most likely caused by my poor alignment. The front wing just needed the side plates glued into place, while the rear wing has a top and bottom which needed putty work to remove the seam. The side plates are huge, and Tamiya’s small lips on the ends of the wing that go into notices in each side plate just didn’t allow me to properly align them. The end result was excess glue on the plates from misalignment issues by yours truly. So I ended up re-sanding and re-polishing the plates two more times. Finally I just gave up and went with the time tested home made pins for proper alignment. I used the molded in wing adjustment for the back holes, then temporally attaching the plates, I drilled the front locating holes. Unfortunately, I totally forgot to take any pictures. All the parts were cleaned with Iso Alcohol, then just prior to priming a wipe with a tack cloth. Priming was with my homemade mix of equal parts Tamiya Gray and White primer, thinned with a 1:1 mix of Mr. Leveling 400 Thinner, and air brushed on. And here’s the complete body dry fitted including the front wing just tucked under the nose section. joel
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Post by pnance26 on Aug 13, 2021 11:57:23 GMT -8
Take a look at this video right at 1:00:00 (one hour) I think you will like it! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb4IkhVNVOQAlso right around 2 hours and 5 minutes, F1 is featured and you see a line of Lotus in black and gold entering the track!
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Post by chrissmith on Aug 13, 2021 15:08:24 GMT -8
Joel your off to a fantastic start, will have to keep an eye on this😁😉 Which ever way you go with it I am sure it will be great! Keep it up sir, big fan!! Chris
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Post by Joel_W on Aug 13, 2021 15:09:13 GMT -8
Patrick, Thanks for the link to the Monteray Historic Races. The 3 Lotuses in the tent were the furthest Lotus Black with Gold Pin stripes is a Lotus 78, the middle one is Martini Green from the looks of it which makes it a Type 79, and the closest one I can't tell as not enough of the car shows.
joel
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Post by Ben_B on Aug 14, 2021 2:55:22 GMT -8
Great link, Patrick! I took a few pics of the #11 car at the Mitty back in 2010. These cars seem to look a lot bigger in photos that they really are. They're tiny!
Ben
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Post by Joel_W on Aug 14, 2021 6:05:24 GMT -8
Chris, Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out my build, it's greatly appreciated. So glad that you like what you've seen so far.
joel
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Post by pnance26 on Aug 16, 2021 8:10:22 GMT -8
There were four days of show and racing at Monterey. To see the F1 cars of that era racing (some were achieving 145 mph which I am not sure I would want to do in a car that I paid millions to have...), was exciting. There was a Tyrrell P004 and a Ferrari 312T2, a McLaren M23, along with a handful of others. It was really fun to see. Check it out on youtube from Saturday.
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Post by Joel_W on Aug 16, 2021 13:12:29 GMT -8
Patrick, Will do. I hope to get to the Lime Rock Park Historic races next year as it's just a ferry ride across LI sound and then a hour or so in the car. A lot depends on my brother's health as he's battling Cancer and is so far winning in a big way, but the Covid vaccine's don't crete antibodies in Chemo Patients so far.
joel
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Post by Joel_W on Aug 18, 2021 6:42:53 GMT -8
Update: Basic Color Coat For this build rather then using Gravity BRG as that’s what I originally thought that the basic Green color was. I doubled checked the Gravity site and sure enough they had the specific Color I needed: GC1177 Lotus Martini Racing Green. It’s definitely a few shades lighter then their British Racing Green. I must have spent a good few hours on Google to try and figure out the correct color, but it was just about impossible. Restorations varied from BRG to some really bright and to light shade of Green, and all but one picture of the car is a restoration. I got lucky and found a few pictures of what is labeled as Mario Andretti driving the actual car with his correct helmet but that doesn’t mean it’s from 1979. The color after all these years is darker then the Gravity paint, but that’s what I went with, as the pictures could have been color enhanced or corrected over the years. And I figured that Gravity would be darn close to dead on. Here’s two pictures with all the sections just quickly dry fitted straight from my drying bin. I used the flash on my camera for these garb shots, and the color looks much brighter then it does in person. Sorry for the few sections that are clearly not correctly aligned. Up next is a lite polishing with Micro Mesh 6,000 & 8,000 so I can start the decaling process. joel
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Post by Joel_W on Aug 19, 2021 11:16:48 GMT -8
I’ve run into a major decal issue. and then paint issue that has stopped me right in my tracks.
I’m using Indy Cal decals as I’ve done for years. I polished out the paint with 6,000 then 8,000 Micro Mesh and it was really pretty darn smooth. I keep all my decals by type/class is Zip Loc bags, so humidity has never been an issue plus the house has central air. Pulled out my Indy Cal 1979 Lotus Type 79 decals, got my decal setup ready on my bench, and since I’m only across the hall from the main bathroom, I use warm tap water to soak my decals in.
Started off decaling the famous Martini body stripes over the spontoons into the radiator intakes using my long time procedure of Microsol under the decal, move the decal into position, then on the decal and let is start to work, When it’s just starting to dry I gently roll the decal with a Qtip to remove air and solution under the decal, remove wrinkles, and set the decal. Then Comes Micro Set. Same procedure, finally a light coat of Solvaset. When it’s dry, the decal is perfect.
The issue that stuck up it’s ugly head is that any decal with clear film quickly wrinkled and stretched as I tried to remove the wrinkles and set it. Took a lot more work as I barely touched the decals with just Sol on them.
Slowly the decals went down one by one. When I got to the large White Martini Racing decals that are on the side of the cockpit, the 1st one ended up with wrinkles that just wouldn’t come out, so I tried to remove it with Set and water but it wouldn’t budge. So being the dump ass that I am, I picked at it to get a corner up, Got it up, but damaged the paint.
Fortunately for me, this was the 1st decal. I regrouped, sanded and polished both spots. Primed earlier today, and color coat tomorrow. I didn’t strip the paint off the rest of the top body section as it’s perfect. I can’t see any reason why additional coats to blend in the patches wouldn’t work. Pics tomorrow as I just plain forgot today.
In the mean time I’m trying to figure out why I’m having so much trouble moving and setting these decals as I’ve never had these issues before.
I also reached out to Michael at Indy Cals, and he looked up when I bought this sheet, it was 3 years ago. He said that more then a year, the sheet can start to dry out. Honestly, I just don’t agree with that. The issue has to be on my end.
Michael is sending me a replacement decal for the one I ruined via his Oops program. In the mean time I went back to the modified way I decaled in the 1970s, just plain room temp tape water, but I added a few drops of Dawn, and about a 20% Microsoft Set. I used this water on the model surface, applied the decals, and they all moved around without any effort. I positioned the decal, then brushed on Micro Set and didn't touch the decal till was nearly dry, then I very lightly using a Qtip rolled the surface to remove the liquid under the decal but didn't work out the wrinkles. Then Micro Sol which I also let do it's thing and when it was almost dry rolled the decal again, but once again not working the few wrinkles remaining. Finally my Big gun: Solvaset. As it dried i worked ever so lightly on the few wrinkles, but mostly getting the decal to snuggle down into any nooks and crannies. 10 min later when I checked the decal, it was perfect. So once again I've learned that less can really be more and a whole lot better.
I still don't understand why after all this time I'm having decaling issues. At least I've come up with a way that once again works for me.
joel
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Post by chrissmith on Aug 19, 2021 18:48:50 GMT -8
That can be some tuff sailing you got going, glad to hear that you kept at it. With all those years of experience sure paid off for sure. I’m sure we all have a brain fart or bad day at the bench, Waiting for more
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Post by Chris K. Hale on Aug 20, 2021 4:47:38 GMT -8
Joel, I have reached out to "Classic Lotus" in Hethel England, in the past for Lotus info, paint, detail etc and Collin Chapmans son? usually answers in really reasonable time, if he doesnt know he asks someone who was around back then. They have a full restoration shop there at Lotus and have almost all info on Lotus cars on file or " Hey Ask the Old Guy" system, next time you have a question on a Lotus just ask.. I will look for the link and forward it to you. So far I have had very good response from almost all racing car builders , when I have a question , they all seem very happy to supply info and they like the fact that You are building a accurate replica of their car.. Chris ps. I would have used a darker primer or base coat on that color to achieve that shade, the paint looks right but the undercoat is reflecting through to make it look lighter.
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Post by Joel_W on Aug 20, 2021 16:13:39 GMT -8
Chris, Thanks for the heads up. I never would have thought to contact Lotus. I'll have to build and Lotus much sooner then later.
the color is a shade or so darker in person but a solid gray primer would have been the safer bet. All the pics so far have been taken with the aid of my camera flash that most likely is causing those reflections.
Joel
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Post by Joel_W on Aug 20, 2021 16:26:37 GMT -8
I've made progress on solving the Indy Cal decal issues as the more I thought about it, I've been having some issues with Michael's decals grabbing the plastic surface when using Micro Set under the decal as both a light setting agent, and a lubricant to position the decal. So I decided to change my decaling procedures and see if that would help. Instead of straight Micro Set, I cut it 4 parts warm tap water, to 1 part Set, and a drop of Dawn dishwashing detergent. In one phrase: Mission accomplished. The rest of the decaling was like old times when water was king back in the 1970s. The rest of my decaling procedures stayed the same. Now I just have to wait for the replacement decal. To bad our 1st Hurricane of the season will be here Monday. So who knows how that will effect the mail or even where it is on it's journey across the country. In the mean time I sanded out both the scratches that I made in the cockpit shell, then feathered out the paint. Primed with my Tamiya White/Gray mix Gave the entire cockpit a light sanding with 8,000 Micro Mesh, then 2 tack coats of Gravity's Martini Lotus Green, followed by 2 semi wet coats. Now I'm back to where I was before my screw up. joel
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