Gives you wings

Things are wrapping up on this kit fast. Amazing how you spend so much time preparing the parts and so little time actually assembling them. Added front and rear wings, as well as barge boards.









Total: 76 h

catastrophy

A few days ago I glued the top half of the car to the undertray. It didn't go well. It didn't fit, and left a pretty good gap (at least 1mm) between the top and the bottom. I worked on this a lot, as it turns out, it wasn't good enough, but anyway, it's much better, I'm sure, than it would have been had I not done so many modifications


Glued on the lower wishbones


Then the pushrods


Then disaster. Observe how the left front wheel doesn't touch the ground.


Nor does the left rear completely touch the ground. In the process of assembly, the pushrod became detached from the lower left wishbone. If the pushrod were still attached, I'm sure the wheel would be much higher and the look would be much worse


Furthermore, even if I could get the front wheels even, the undertray of the car would still touch in the front as can be seen here.


This rear wing element is a bright spot. Rather than use the white decal, I elected to mask and paint an area blue. I masked well, and it looks brilliant with the bottome of the Petronas decal applied.


Total: 75 h

Now we're getting somewhere

The goal is for the sidepods to come out looking somewhat like this:


So first I took the carbon fibre decals that came with the kit


Then cut them


Then applied them, and used a razor blade to cut the decal using the scribe lines as a guide


And here it is. The undertray with carbon fiber decals and blue spots.


I wanted to put the wheels on the rear axle, but they didn't fit, so I had to just barely drill the wheels out


rear axle and gearbox


I stuck a couple of toothpicks under the undertray to raise it slightly and keep it straight before glueing the gearbox in place


Here is now the undertray with the gearbox and wheels


Also glued in the steering wheel and seat. Applied a carbon decal to the left steering arm.


Total: 73 h

More assembly

Glued the chimneys on top of the sidepods and the clear wind deflector in the monocoque. Also applied carbon fiber decals to the top of the front wishbones



Total: 71 h

assembly

Well it's time to march on to assembly of the kit.

Here is the undertray of the car that has finally been painted


I glued in the engine and the radiators


As well as the exhaust tips




I also spent some time prepping the windscreen

Total: 70 h

Done spray painting

I've still been working on this for the past few days, but I haven't made any posts because I haven't really had anything to show or say. I've been spray painting the
undertray black. I finally ran out of paint today, thankfully while spraying the last coat of paint. Since I'm getting closer and closer to final assembly, I thought I'd start some finishing work today.

Here I'll be putting the carbon fiber decals on the inside of the seat


Seat with decals


I brush painted some areas of the car body as well. These heat shields were incredibly difficult to paint by hand, as they were scribed very shallowly out of the engine cowl. I think if I had to do this again, I might buy a scribing tool and scribe this area deeper to make it easier to paint.




I also painted black inside the monocoque


And inside the airbox


Last but not least, I painted the upper wishbones and steering arms black. I really didn't need to get a nice finish on this, as it will be covered by carbon fibers decals anyway, I just wanted to get a base coat of black for any of the areas the decals won't cover


Total: 68 h