Endurance Race GB 2008

SeaBee wrote:

.....Bob, detail is what you want and make of it, not somebody else... I've been much happier with some builds where I have not even cared about too much detail and not bugger up something through trying to get one small piece of detail right, spoiling the end-result. But that's just my feeling!

SeaBee-Thanks and I couldn't agree more.  The C6R will be 'out of the box'.  The '60 Cunningham Corvette will require some kit bashing and minor 'enhancements' to make a road racer out of it.  Only real difficult issue will be making louvers for the hood....still thinking about that one.  Probably won't start on that kit until early '09.  And I'm actually looking forward to the challenge.  Hopefully I can find the correct paint color for the C6R this weekend @ my LHS.

Glad to hear that you are making progress and got a bike ride in.

Whoo-hoo! I got around to test-fitting the cage with the seat and "big box" in place. Those two seems to be the ones causing issues. My box was perfect and the seat just had to move slightly forward. So Dustin, just check yours beforehand, some other guys had issues with left-right allignment of seat and box as well. Admittedly, it was done quite quickly and I'll test it again tonight, but it looked much better than I thought it would end up.

Mark, still wanted to say, that's an awesome-looking car!

Bob, detail is what you want and make of it, not somebody else... I've been much happier with some builds where I have not even cared about too much detail and not bugger up something through trying to get one small piece of detail right, spoiling the end-result. But that's just my feeling!

Into our seconf week of rain. Only stopped for a while over the weekend (can you believe it?!) and I snuck out to get onto the bike!

The weather was too windy, cold and wet for spraying the bodies outdoors but I did get some other minor stuff done. The chassis/cockpit of one LC2 is complete and the 2nd ready for more detail painting to finish off. The wheels on one also complete. If the weather cooperates next weekend then the bodies of both can be painted and he wings then its just a case of decalling. I was going to just do straight from the box but because it was wet today found myself adding a splitter to one as it raced on occassions so they don't look identical.

Thanks Mark.  I'll check it out.

There's a wealth of info & pics on the web for a lot of the racing Corvettes...which makes it hard to 'fudge' on a detail..bad case of AMS I guess....

SeaBee wrote:

And good luck with your boys for tomorrow - don't think anybody but the Crusaders deserve the trophy this season.

Whose the best then - go the red and blacks, another trophy in the cabinet! Let them think they are championship material by allowing them a slender half time lead then put them away in the 2nd half

Bobbailey I think I remember being told the latest Tamiya Model Magazine has a multi-page build feature on the CR-6 so might b worth looking out for.

Steve-come on in....the water's fine.  Will be nice to get cars from different eras in this build.

SeaBee-hope the weather breaks for you & Mark.  I mostly shoot acrylic indoors, however, I'm finding that for auto builds, spray (Tamiya) gives a much better (smoother) finish.  I just need to remember to move the wife's car out of the garage first.....

Thanks for the input on the Corvette-looks like a fun kit OOB.  However, my goal is to gather parts (in process) to build the 1960 Cunningham Corvette that ran at LeMans (placed 7th overall, 1st in class, I believe).  Will require some scratch building & such, but hopefully I can work on that late 2008/early 2009.

If things get settled down on the homefront, and if I can get some work in on a diorama for a client, I am certainly interested in Joining this build!

I have the 1970 Porsche 917K, raced at Daytona,  just sitting on my shelf, Taunting me!

 

Oh, and if anyone knows where I caould find a model of the McLaren-Elva M3B (known as the M1C in europe), I would be forever indebted!

 

Steve 

Hey Bob, good to see you've made your choice! I've had a look at those Corvettes as well - and then thought of my to-do pile and thought better of it. Would like to see one built!

Mark, we're obviously in the same boat - winter is upon us (very late this year over here). Been raining non-stop since Wednesday. And good luck with your boys for tomorrow - don't thing anybody but the Crusaders deserve the trophy this sseason. Mind you, that's what we all said about the Sharks last year - as somebody said, they were the best Super 14 team till injury time of the final! Yeah, I know your guys were rested selectively...

Onto my build progress. Not too much... At least the guys over at AF said my problem aren't as bad and I got some pointers, will look into it on the weekend, time permitting. Pre-fitted the dash and all looks okay. Primered and will start doing the grey and the CF on the "base" of the dash. Saw some other stuff to be added this morning before I can sensibly start CF'ing. Some other parts will be CF'ed and added later, such as the steering column and displays. Will also try to add the other body colour parts onto the body and start getting it ready for painting... whenever! Maybe also do the dry-fitting of the rest of the parts inside the cockpit with the cage - threatened to do that since the cage was done! Allready heard the seat may pose a proble, so the sooner I confirm that, the better. I may seem optimistic, but it seems there won't be any cycling this weekend...

Happy building for all over the weekend.

Mark-I hope the weather holds out for you.  Looking forward to seeing some pics.

I picked up the Revell C6R Corvette-will be building it as the 2005 LeMans entry.  I have a couple of potential Corvette builds in the stash-may try to do more than one, schedule/patience permitting.

The weather last weekend was wet so no good for painting the body shells but after peeling the sprouts for a stir fry and then the apples for the apple crumble I was "free" to carry on with detail painting the dash and cockpit areas. All a bit superfluous really as the side windows should be a smoke colour so really none of it will be seen. I have left out the pedals and fire extinquisher as both are well under the dash and definately can't be seen. The long range weather forecast for this weekend is good so fingers crossed the top coats can go on.

Had to take some more photos but here are the instructions and the kit parts (except vacform windows and the decals). You can see where I've started undercoating etc.

 

Also spent some time in our storage unit and my reference library and found some good photos of the Mirabella car in Grand Prix International. That must be still one of the best international racing/rallying magazines, shame it was so short lived. Fortunately as they're colour I now have a good idea of the "red' I have to match.

So this is the Mirabella Racing LC2

Grand Prix Models has some books on sale that some here may be interested in:

Le Mans Annual 2000  10 pounds

Le Mans Annual 2007   29 pounds

Automodelisme Le Mans 2006 and 2007 around 5 pounds each

 www.grandprixmodels.com

 

Well it was a good weekend on the LC2 front. I thought I had taken a picture of the kit and instructions but I can't find it. However the kits I'm doing are the Grand Prix Models kits of the Mirabella Raing LC2 from 1983 and the Jolly Club's Totip car from 1984 in 1/43rd. These kits were produced in those years as well so they have some age. GPM were known for quality and even 20 yrs later they are still very good. P/E would certainly improve certain aspects but the castings are clean and smooth with plenty of good detail. The rims are nicely turned aluminimum and the spokes cast white metal with no flash, the air valve is also cast in. The tyres are however horrible being just shapeless rounds of soft plastic

I've got both bodies primed and ready for top coats (but one is in Ford Sunset Red and I have no idea what that is - perhaps an orangy red??), the chassises, seats and dash panels on both painted, but only one cockpit completed as I ran out of aluminium paint. The wheels are made and ready for painting. Maybe next weekend if the weather is good I can at least get the Totip body painted.  

Good to see some activity here.  I've got three Corvettes in the stash and I'm going to start with the Revell Penske '66 L88 Corvette, winner at the 24 Hours of Dayton & 12 Hours of Sebring.  Kit only has a few major short comings-#1-no disc brakes.  I've got some thoughts on scratch building some but does anyone else have a technique (or supplier of aftermarket parts)?

Second area of concern is a lack of seat belts.  Easier fix, but does anyone know if 4 point harnesses were common in 1966 or was it lap belts only?

Thanks

I've started on a Lancia LC2, the Gp C car Lancia manufactured in 1983 -1985. The LC2 was powdered by a Ferrari 2.6 litre V8 with twin turbos producing some 620hp. It was designed to take on the dominant Porsche 962 but really wasn't very successful taking only a couple of race wins over that time. The works cars were sponsored by Martini and the 2 other semi-works teams were Jolly Club with Totip sponsorship and Mirabella Racing.

 Protar produced a nice 1/24th kit many years ago and there have been several 1/43rd examples as well. If I recall correctly Tamiya did a r/c version but never a "proper" model. 

  Hello all. I`m gona try this one more time. I have a 90`s release of a NICHIMO#MB1202 1/12 LOTUS EUROPA SPECIAL I want to trade for 1/32 aircraft or sell out right. Pics are posted in another auto forum. My brother started to build it, He died 5 yrs. ago and I`ll never finish it for personal reasons. The only part assembled is the engine. All other parts and decals in original sealed bags. Thanks for listening............Harv

No, if I push down on mine it's all level (nothing but body shell and chassis).

Here's two pics (excuse the quality) of my problem... does yours fit better or is this the way ot should be?

Solder the cage............Um......... thats not going to happen.  The thought of melting no way.  As far as the other problem I havent got that far. Mine is when you put the body on the chassis the body is riding to high so you can see the bottom of the chassis at this point.  Im still working on the cage at this point finding time to do any modeling is proving tough. 

Ken, the cage is white metal. The chassis and body and a couple of other parts are resin.

Dustin, still on the cage - I've read some guys prefer/advise to solder the cage. Won't help me much, but maybe you're handy with it! Onto fit probs of the body. I've found that I have some too. If I turn over the body, the chassis seems to narrow at the backend, leaving spaces basically from where the rear wheel arch  starts till where the bottom fins go over (as seen from below) the rear end. Is yours the same? I don't yet know whether that's a feature or an error. But then, that is just laying the raw pieces down - but I very much doubt whether there's anything still to be inserted in eg the wheel arches...

  Sea,

   Ill take a look at that today.  Thanks for the pictures I would think that its the same roll cage that comes in my kit becuse Im having the same problems.  Ive run into another problem ....the body doesnt sit all the way dont on the lower part of the car. Makes me scratch my head a little

Nice work on that cage. Is that resin? It looks , well, extensive!

Dustin, at last the images of the rollcage, one from the top and one from the side. You can see where I had to get inventive with the gap-filling properties of the epoxy. Once again, it should be under the roof-line and not actually visible, but will still be smoothed out a bit more before painting!

Bob, not paying $20 for slick tyres is not "cheap" - jeez, I just call that common sence!

Dustin, been busy myself and have not touched a model since. Will try to upload a pic tonight, not promising anything. But there's nothing spectacular to see. I've don a bit of "filling in" with the epoxy glue on one spot and there's another which is juuust short, but it is right down on the low end where the rear of the cage enters the body. Overall I may have compromised a little too much on time&patience vs getting a 100% perfect fit. My opinion - once the kit is done, who's going to notice a slight gap on the rollcage way below any eyeline, behind a seat and right in a corner?

Oh yeah - one quick thing. I see nothing about it in my instructions. But note the small hole in die z-bar at the top of the cage. I suspect that's where the rear-view mirror should go in, so I alligned that at the bottom front for the mirror to be attached. If I find that to be wrong, I'll let you know. Or if you have instructions on your version that's a bit clearer... 

SeaBee & Nuc-thanks.  I can find them, but they are a bit pricy.  Or maybe I'm just cheap.  I'll either go with the kit supplied treaded tires or pick a different kit/project.

Thanks

Sorry Bob, with my limited resources, I can't help you out. I'll keep trying on the web to see if I can find anything.

Sea,

 

   I know what your talking about with the cage.  Its not the most fun I would have to say but Im going to give it another shot in a few days.  Part of me is dieing to get going on it just havent had the time.  Post some pics if you can of the cage so I see whats going on. that is if you can

Bob, sorry but I can't help there. Not ignoring your question!

This rollcage was a bit of a mission! (Dustin take note!) The build is done and it looks okay. But it took quite a while and a bit of fitting and refitting and trial and error - quite a couple of those! Anyways, I even switched from superglue (CA glue) to epoxy in the process, finding the latter to be much more helpfull. The gap-filling properties also helped a bit, as you can imagine with a white-metal roll-cage.

What I did in the end was to put M18 in and to prepare the body for the side cages, made sure they dry-fitted properly.  Found that trying to fully add one of the pieces just caused grief, so what I did in the end was to attach all three other parts to the one side, then later (today only!) to the other side. A slight bend here and there was helpfull... So now all seems to be okay and onto the next issue - the fit of the body on the chassis. Mine also not perfect, but saw and easy remedy - looks like mine's supports on the front are just a bit too long, slightly lfting the body of the floor.

Dustin-sorry to hear about your situation.  Will keep you in my prayers.  Hope you get settled back in soon.

Question for the group.  I'm thinking about converting the 'Stars & Stipes' Corvette to the NART Corvette, LeMans 1972.  However, the kit comes with treaded tires.  Were treaded tires still used in 1972 or were slicks standard at that point?  And if so, does anyone know of a aftermarket source for racing slicks (1/24 or 1/25th...I forget), front & rears (different size) at a 'reasonable' price.  I add this because I found a set,

 http://www.reliableresin.com/rrpt007.html

 but I just don't want to pay $20.00.

 

SeaBee wrote:

Mike, we're not an exclusive club! We're here to relax, hang out and enjoy the hobby and ee learn from each other as we go along. So feel free at any stage to join in, the more the merrier! Well, that's my feelings, anyway. Looks like you're off to a good start there! Hey Dustin, sorry to hear. Best of luck - hope you get things sorted. And best wishes esp. with the kids.

Just wanted to make sure, some of these things have rules about "must be unstarted" or whatever.....I'll get some work done sooner or later, I'm in three GB's right now and I still have a Bradley to finish.