Sunday, May 31, 2015

Worked on front suspension

Continued working on FW16B. Worked on lower arms of front suspension. Tried to fix well know Fujimi's mistake. They designed front mounting points of lower arms to be attached to the bottom of nose. On real car they are attached to monocoque instead. Cut one kit piece into 4 components and re-glued them in new configuration. To preserve geometry, I've shortened front pieces. Also done a bit of reinforcement with plastic triangles on the bottom. I had to make new connection points at the bottom of Studio27's body. It took me over 2 hours to complete. And was pretty much it for whole past week.
I keep looking at all the references I have and it looks like if I don't want to go for very late season car, but want full tobacco livery, Portuguese GP is pretty much my only option. So, that's going to be version I will try to replicate.



Monday, May 25, 2015

FW16B conversion started

This build was actually started last year, but I spent very little time working on it. Picked it back up and worked on it past Saturday night. So far got all parts from Fujimi donor kit cut off and cleaned up. Cleaned metal parts from Studio27 trans-kit. And then started temporary test fit assembly. Kit exhausts seem to be too long. I will have to shorten them. But first I need to find reference showing their configuration. Also have to come up with solution on how to fix front lower wishbone's location point. Need to bring it from nose bottom to the front bottom of monocoque.


Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Started decals on STR5 conv

Body and wing parts where clear coated in the mean time. I've used automotive urethane 2K clear. Worked pretty much as well as Zero 2K clear. Past weekend was a long one here and I've started application of decals. Not complete yet, but many major ones are on. Decals worked fine for me. However there were couple of issues. First, I misplaced Bull decals and had them cracked. Now there are gaps I will have to patch somehow. I've also placed nose decals a bit too up front and got couple of small gaps to patch as well. Over all, I think it looks fine. All together conversion will not be very accurate. But for me it's fine just looking STR5 alike.




Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Another mini review of Thunder Valley F1 products

I have recently acquired more 1/12 scale parts from TVF1. In the package arrived FW14B dumpers, newly released 641/2 suspension parts, connector sets and very nice wheels for 312T4. All sets are amazing. Very well done machined parts and many items per set. I think photos would do most of the talking, though

Link to on-line album with all photos

FW14B dumpers' parts and 641/2 suspension elements are very well machined. Many parts included with even tiny bolts in there.

Here is photo of FW14B dumpers' parts


Here are photos of 641/2 suspension elements




Most impressive is the set of wheels for 312T4. Each wheel is comprised of two machines halves with holes for bolts pre-drilled. Set includes wheels nuts, bolts, valves and multiple other items to make amazing wheels









Saturday, May 2, 2015

Blue is on for STR5 conversion

After some lengthy hiatus (was busy with some music projects) I've returned to my STR5 build. Managed to get semi-gloss black and Red Bull blue on. Not that much of a visual update, but another important milestone in the build. Painting of main colour, means that I'm out of time consuming and repetitive preparations stage and from there build could progress faster. Next will be clear coat, then decals and second clear coat, little bit of masking and detail painting and then straight to assembly. Sounds simple, but still takes months for me.