2023 Formula One Group Build

Had some trouble with orange peel painting this Mr Color Black Lacquer. My first time so its probably just my lack of experience and bad technique.

I was at 19 psi so I went up to 23 and a bit slower passes seemed to produce a good amount of improvement. Still some peel, but a semi glassy finish. Hopefully a few coats of clear will fill in a bit and smooth it out.

Looking good James!

Thanks John, its getting there!

Great to see color on, James! Did you use their leveling thinner?

I do use the leveling thinner with the Mr. Color paints. I am pretty sure its technique. I jsut nee dmore practice. I wet sanded the black at 4,6,8 and 12k and laid down my first coat of clear. Fingers crossed the 2nd coat lays smooth. We shall see in about 20 minutes!

Patience, some mishaps, some polishing. Clear. Then more polishing and whaddya know..

Wow James!!!That is absolutely beautiful! Wish I could get a finish like that.

What clear coat did you use? Just curious as it wasn't the clear that gave that finish, it was your skill. Great job, looking forward to seeing more.

Beautiful!

Seven

Wow James!!!That is absolutely beautiful! Wish I could get a finish like that.

What clear coat did you use? Just curious as it wasn't the clear that gave that finish, it was your skill. Great job, looking forward to seeing more.

This was the process

2 Coats of Mr. finishing surfacer 1500 (2nd coat wet sanded at 3k)

4 coats Mr. Color 02 Black (4, 6, 8 and 12k sanding cloth after 4th coat)

1 coat Tamiya TS13 Lacquer clear - Let cure 24 hours

Allplied decals let dry 24 hours

1 coat Tamiya TS13 

I still have to polish clear, which I will do with Tamiyas 3 step polish i think its course fine and finish? 

THanks everyone. THis was my first black paint job and I read a lot, watched some videos. ANd dove in. It has some orange peel which you cant see in the photo as the clear was fresh. Polishing should take care of it.

OMG decal setting is so hard! I guess this car will be my learning experience haha. Guess I should have started with somehting less insane than this one but oh well. 

Looking great James.  I imagine those gold trim bits are tough.

Looks great from here James!

I'm sure you will be pleased with the finished F1 beauty, cause its looking really good right now.

Wow, hard to believe I've been working on this kit since August! Seems like not very much done in that time, the kit is excellent for the most part, and challenging for me. I spent a lot of time on areas that ended up being completely hidden, but hey, that's how it goes and it was good practice!

Here's what we started with, the box top shows some great detail that isn't shown in the instructions such as drilling the shift knob, so good reference:

I've read in some builds of this kit that the front wheels sometimes don't line up correctly so I omitted the workable steering rack and used telescoping tubing. I never really liked the workable steering on these Tamiya kits anyway. Added fine screen to the pedals which can't be seen when assembled and made some templates for carbon fiber for cockpit.

Joined the tub together before painting to get rid of the seam, then masked everything up. Lightly sanded the rivets to let the silver show through.

The rear wing took a LOT of work to get smooth, and masking the body was stressful since you can only be about 1mm off. Tamiya does have raised lines to assist with this but they were pretty much gone after prepping the body.

Added a little detail to the front, not accurate by any means, but I'm not an accurate guy!

Decals on!!! One of the pinstripe curved decals blew off with the hair dryer so I had to dig into the spares and get creative.

Added some wiring, again not accurate

Front and rear wings completed

And as she sits now

I'll try and get this complete before the end of the group build!! Having issues with one of my camera lenses (new one ordered) so not too many in progress pics.

Looking good Jim!  I'm stuck getting ready for paint.  We have a bit more time though

Around 45 days left.  

And check this out  - Meng 1/24 McLaren MP4/4

https://www.themodellingnews.com/2024/01/half-size-with-all-detail-mengs-24th.html#more

Detail looks great on that kit! I would rather have 1/20th scale although I know some prefer 1/24. I'll probably pick one up anyway, if the price isn't out of scale!

Ya, I would have preferred 1/20th.  But there are a bunch of 1/24-25 Indy cars.

 And speaking of Indy... I have this on order from Salvinos Jr

Maybe we expand the group build to open wheel next time ???

Lol, I have 2 on preorder!! Once I found out they were doing 1/20 Indy cars I couldn't help myself. Ordered McLaughlin and Newgarden back in Nov, and I can't wait to see how they are.

I'm all in on an open wheel GB, maybe more traffic with that!

Progress still going on, working on the engine. Most of this will be hidden when it's all put together.

Wow that looks great.

Duplicate...

Two weeks left.  I'm starting to doubt I'll finish - I only did 4 kits last year due to moving/new house mostly.

I doubt I'll finish the Renault in time, too, even though its the only kit I've worked on for the past 6 months! Which means I only finished 2 builds in 2023.

Hopefully we can continue these in another GB, hint,hint.

Great looking models very impressive. will post my Jordan soon. First have to sort my computer out.

here i make my first error and prime in black when i plan to paint a yellow body

 i'm using vallejo paints and a badger 105 airbrush I started this once finished on a Titanic I needed to finish. 

I only had a black primer and when i started to spray the yellow onto the body realised there would be more than a few layers needed.

wasted a whole day sorting a way to post my photos so tomorrow being a bank holiday for St Patrick's day plan to get on with the rest of the decals

Yellow is tough to begin with.  Great progress though.

Thanks John,

Almost there decals a bit fiddly more use to flat surfaces so I'm taking it nice and easy.

Wonderful looking builds everyone. 

My apologies, but obviously I'm not going to participate in this F1 GB build.

I am looking forward to the next one though, and perhaps we can open it up to all open wheel, or even all competition vehicles kind of build (just thinking)?

Jarrod and I will be there for sure....

Well I'm finished missed the completion date but pleased to be in the right month at least, considering my record with group builds. Really pleased with the result. Took time with the decals the trickiest in a long time; a bit brittle and hard to slide off.