Lotus 79 1979 WIP

Small update. Assembled front suspension and other parts around it. Everything fit nicely. Applied decals and metal transfer ring to dashboard. Struggling to decide if I should try to form lenses over dashboard indicators using Micro Scale Crystal Clear. Never tried that before, so, I'm afraid to screw up quite visible part of car. Have to do seat belts next. Going to use PE and simulated fabric from the kit. Took quick snapshot before I close it all with upper monococque panels.

Lotus 79 1979 WIP

Managed to get all parts, except body panels ready for assembly. From that point build starts to go fast. Tamiya Photo-Etch parts are very nice too. Found PE body fasteners on the small fret with seat belt hardware. I thought they were only simulated by decals. Was I nice surprise. Glued them on. They look great, IMO. Also attached radiator faces, pedal details, brake rotor and hubs details and last bit of heat shielding over gearbox.





Attached water pipes and throttle linkage to engine. And finally mated engine and gearbox. Then put exhausts in place. No issues there. Drive train is basically complete now. Will work on front suspension and monocoque next.

Lotus 79 1979 WIP

Finished application of all the decals. Still need to put body fasteners on. Have not decided yet if I will use decals or PE parts to represent them. SMS Dzus fasteners are about the right size, but a bit thick to my liking. One major issue with decals is the size of decals for front wing end plates. They are just too small. Will have to come up with solution. Another set of decals I guess. I totally didn't see it coming. Should have used stripes from kit decals and cut out text from Tabu decals. Too late now. Will remove and apply new ones, when they arrive. Will not have matching yellow, but it's better then have undersized decals.

Yellow stripes are also not perfect on rear wing end plates and side pods. Had pretty hard time trying to align them properly. Kit decals have a lot of carrier film in between, but they would allow all those stripes to align perfectly. Need to check design of my after market decals for 1978 JPS livery. There were actually even more yellow stripes in that livery.

I don't have good references for that car from particular race. So, there are probably more inaccuracies. Will have to live with those.

Lotus 79 1979 WIP

Quick update - applied most of the decals. Run out of time and wings are still left to do.

Tamiya Lotus 79 1979 WIP

Finished gearbox and rear suspension assembly. Fit was very good, as usual with Tamiya. I just realized after it all was done, that I have done pretty much no test fitting. That's how much confidence I have in Tamiya's design ;) Stark contrast to multimedia kits and to Fujimi kit to some extent too. There is only few things I can to before I get really blocked by missing decals and unfinished body panels.

So far brush painting with Tamiya acrylics hasn't been a good experience. Coverage and color consistency is not good. I'm going to avoid it as much as possible and use brush painting only for small detail items.

Tamiya Lotus 79 1979 WIP

I kept working on Lotus. Finished brush painting of all parts, except main body panels, which are still waiting for decals and clear coat. I've been using airbrush for couple of years now and I have to say - I don't like brush painting. Acrylic paints are thick, don't cover well and don't give me consistent coverage. Beside I guess I need more practice. One trick I've discovered is that when painting small details you need to lock your hands and parts together to fight hands jolting. I just push fingers on hand holding brush against other hand holding part. Rest of the parts are ready for assembly.

First assembly I've finished is DFV engine. That's first DFV I've built. Far from perfect. I used beading lines to create fuel lines simulation. I think I've chosen too thick a line. It's actually thicker then ignition wires included with the kit. I based size on dimensions from injector heads. It looks like Tamiya made them too big. Beading lines are flexible and easy to work with, but not easy to glue. Spent a lot of time trying to glue then properly to injector heads. It looks like CA glue affects line's material and melts it a bit. I plan to do a bit of touch up on line ends.

Next assemblies are rear suspension, brakes and exhausts. I also plan to work on placement of PE bits after that. Hopefully decals will arrive this week and I could finish body panels, so it all will be ready for final assembly.

Tamiya Lotus 79 1979 WIP

It looks nice in Racing Green too. Parts have dried and I dry fitted them together for a quick shot. Painted surfaces are pretty good, but some polishing would be needed in places where there are some small contaminations and some orange peal. Up to this moment not much masking was required. I have to paint parts black on inside next. That will require a lot of masking. But first I have to wait for supplemental TABU decals to arrive, apply them and then put clear coat over. I wait with black until clear coat is on, because clear will protect decals and main color from possible over spray if masking isn't perfect. It's also easier to remove over spray by just light sanding/polishing from clear coat layer without affecting main color and decals underneath.

Tamiya Lotus 79 1979 WIP

After I've put white primer on Lotus 79's body parts, I started to wonder if anyone else ever thought about doing "Black Beauty" in white ? It kind of look original. Of course for this build I'm going to put Racing Green on it. But if there was a fantasy build of F1 car, I would certainly think about doing Lotus 79 in white. It looks quite unusual, that's of course if you exclude some clones from 1979, like Williams FW07.

MP4/22 rescue build

Put layer of etching primer on this kit's body too. Looks a bit better then last time to me. I've put a bit more preparation work into it this time. So, it has to be better :)

Monopost MP4/25 WIP

Could not wait any longer and decided to go ahead with etching primer layers on the body, floor and wing parts. I have not finished preparation work on uprights yet, but I will deal with them and other suspension parts later. I'm a lot happier about build progress now. Body will require quite a bit of sanding to make surface smooth before layer of base gloss black, but overall coverage looks good and I can finally progress further.