Mercedes W08 2017 British GP 1/20 MONOPOST

Models in progress... including non-F1 models.

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SebLeung
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Mercedes W08 2017 British GP 1/20 MONOPOST

Post by SebLeung »

Weather is about to take a bad turn into deep winter so it'll be too cold to paint anything for a while. Might as well take this time to try my hand at MM kits that require a lot of prep-work.

I decided to start this kit spontaneously. I'd always been crazy intimidated by it but I realized how dumb that was. What's the point of buying a kit only to be too afraid to start it?

Has anybody started or even finished this kit? There aren't many examples of it being built on the internet. I'd appreciate it if you sent me any you know of.

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Anybody who knows this kit knows the most ridiculous "feature" of it: the absurdly thick shark fin. I pretty much chose the British GP version just so I wouldn't have to deal with the chimney stack. This would be the first thing to tackle.
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I decided to make it out of sheet styrene since this is the only thing I really have access to. I'd rather have used some kind of metal but I'm not capable of producing that. Hopefully this decision doesn't come back to bite me.
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Out comes the trusty PE saw
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I cut a little channel in the back as a guide for the fin to slip into, and also to hopefully give the epoxy glue something to grab onto without making a mess. You'll also notice in these pictures how lumpy the area behind the air intake looks. Bad mould. It'll need to be smoothed out.
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The side air deflectors were very fragile and this one came broken. Pretty hard to fit back together but epoxy glue managed to fix it.
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First major mockup after first round of putty. Shark fin isn't glued yet. I plan on using 2-part epoxy putty for the first time soon to fix the shape in some areas and to integrate the sharkfin onto the body, but I'll need to experiment a bit with it first to get. a feel for its properties. 2-part epoxy putty intimidates me for some reason.
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Some other issues I've found so far:

Front wing angle is wrong and I haven't gotten to the bottom of what the root cause of this is yet
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Front suspension angles are pretty inaccurate. The two wishbones should be closer to parallel
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I think it's because the front upright horn is positioned too high. I'm not sure if this is something I'll be able to correct though
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I'll probably be working on this one more than my SF71H for now.
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jaykay
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Re: Mercedes W08 2017 British GP 1/20 MONOPOST

Post by jaykay »

Good start!
I wouldn't mind a Mercedes, but so far haven't been weak enough to buy one of these kits, knowing how inaccurately and sub par they'll be made.
Don't worry about messing anything up. Pretty much anything you do with it will be an improvement :-)
I think using styrene instead of plastic for the fin is a good choice. Metal would be less easy to glue and smoothly blend into the resin. There's always a chance, to bend it a bit too much during polishing of the paint and get cracks where it meets the resin. Styrene won't do that ( but will be a bit more fragile, so don't drop the heavy resin blob on its back :-)
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Re: Mercedes W08 2017 British GP 1/20 MONOPOST

Post by Tyrone »

Looks good! There's loads of in progress pictures of the kit on this Instagram account https://instagram.com/elektrobanks?utm_ ... kwzofidohh

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Re: Mercedes W08 2017 British GP 1/20 MONOPOST

Post by SebLeung »

jaykay wrote:Good start!
I wouldn't mind a Mercedes, but so far haven't been weak enough to buy one of these kits, knowing how inaccurately and sub par they'll be made.
Don't worry about messing anything up. Pretty much anything you do with it will be an improvement :-)
I think using styrene instead of plastic for the fin is a good choice. Metal would be less easy to glue and smoothly blend into the resin. There's always a chance, to bend it a bit too much during polishing of the paint and get cracks where it meets the resin. Styrene won't do that ( but will be a bit more fragile, so don't drop the heavy resin blob on its back :-)
Thanks for the encouragement! Hey I saw what you managed to do with that R18, I'd love to see what you could do with a modern F1 car one day.
Tyrone wrote:Looks good! There's loads of in progress pictures of the kit on this Instagram account https://instagram.com/elektrobanks?utm_ ... kwzofidohh
Yes I've been following his build, one of the things that inspired me to start mine actually. He recently finished it and it looks pretty good. He doesn't really talk about challenges faced when building it though unfortunately. I'll try to document my challenges as well I can here for anybody else who tries to tackle this thing.

Since my last update, I tried my hand at shaping and sculpting with Milliput for the first time and I have to say it's actually a lot of fun. I used to think that the aspect of MM kits where you need to do a lot of correcting seemed tedious and repetitive but it's actually extremely satisfying for me. Still doing some learning on how Milliput behaves with water though but so far everything has been going well.

Initially I thought that the only issue with the nose was the front wing angle so I added some styrene to the wing mount to lengthen and shave down at an angle. Doing further research, I discovered that pretty much the whole nose is wrong.

Kit: the nose is much more elongated than the real car.
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Real car: the tip should be closer in shape to the Mercedes logo
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For better comparison, this is what the end result will look like if the nose is left unchanged, courtesy of elektrobanks on instagram
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Kit: the nose also overhangs too far, as a result of it being too long.
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Real car: the wing mount is blended onto the nose much more fluidly
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And probably the most comically, the entire underside of the nose is a complete mess. The kit is even missing the entire S-duct entrance!

Kit: The area underneath the nose forms an indented channel???
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Real car: The area underneath the nose is actually quite bulbous - I guess the modelers as Studio27/Monopost got fooled by the unpainted surface...
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Truthfully, I'm not sure to what extent I can fix the nose but I'll try to the best of my abilities. I started by sanding down the tip of the nose a bit just to round it out more, and focused on the front wing mounts. It actually turned out pretty nicely.

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I'm going to address the underside of the nose after I fix the cape to the body, since that needs to be blended too. I'm not sure if I have the skills to create the S-duct opening though, plus I don't have any pictures of it.
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I also smoothed out a lot of the rest of the body with epoxy putty. The real car is supposed to look extremely "fluid", imo a lot of the curves on this model are too sharp.
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The headrest area for example was very sharp OOB. I need to practice line scribing more though I'm not that good at it.
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Blending the sidepod opening into the rest of the body is a complete pain though. The white metal parts were designed a bit strangely, but luckily this area will be painted black so I can get away with some imperfections more easily.
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Just smoothing out the lumps on the side of the airbox and making the body curves more gradual
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And that's it for now. Next step will be attaching the cape, then fixing the underside of the nose.
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Re: Mercedes W08 2017 British GP 1/20 MONOPOST

Post by stubeck »

Great start! I think this has motivated me to start my EJan STR 3...I've had it for 8 years now and have been scared of starting it. As you said its silly to buy a kit and not start it!

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Re: Mercedes W08 2017 British GP 1/20 MONOPOST

Post by SebLeung »

stubeck wrote:Great start! I think this has motivated me to start my EJan STR 3...I've had it for 8 years now and have been scared of starting it. As you said its silly to buy a kit and not start it!
Go for it! I've got that STR3 in my stash as well so post pictures of your progress so I can follow along when my time comes :D
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Re: Mercedes W08 2017 British GP 1/20 MONOPOST

Post by scaleautofactory »

Some detail shots of the nose underside
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Re: Mercedes W08 2017 British GP 1/20 MONOPOST

Post by SebLeung »

Thanks Torsten, that's really helpful. Would never have known it was a triangular scoop otherwise. Kind of makes it easier to do actually
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Re: Mercedes W08 2017 British GP 1/20 MONOPOST

Post by SebLeung »

Update time:

Worked on the underside of the nose, including cape, lower wishbones, and S-duct. The lower wishbones were attached now because the fit isn't too great so I'd like to blend it into the body. Access to the lower area between the cape and the suspension is pretty tight now as a result.

Going into the deep-end while learning how to use Milliput
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Added mass underneath the nose. It's not perfect by any stretch of imagination but it's just too hard to properly sculpt between the front wing pillars.
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I made the S-duct opening with some styrene and blended it into the cape with putty. Also not perfect, but I'm okay with it just being there instead of missing.
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So I was planning on attaching the shark-fin before priming, but with the realization that etch-primer doesn't stick to plastic at all I'll do it after the first layer or two of primer. In this way I can correct as many imperfections on the body as possible beforehand and this will hopefully lessen the chances of breaking the fin off by accident. Just as well, the grey primer revealed quite a few areas that need more work. Turns out feathering epoxy putty to get a smooth transition is harder than it looks.

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On another note, the area where the nose meets the floor is completely wrong for the British GP spec. This wedge-styled area wasn't until later. It's supposed to meet much further back, behind the barge boards, with a little stick-thing that far forward. I briefly considered changing it but you know what, I've been pretty ambitious with my first MM kit already and I'll let this slide.
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Ride height is interesting because the floor is so freaking thick, I think the front of the floor just has to sit on the ground. I think the front suspension arm angles can be lowered a bit and this might bring the wishbones closer to parallel.
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For my next steps I gotta clean up the body more until I can then attach and blend the shark-fin into the body. I also need to figure out the rear-wing and rear suspension fit. The way the end-plates attach to the floor and interact with the rear suspension is quite complex and doesn't really play well as-is.
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Re: Mercedes W08 2017 British GP 1/20 MONOPOST

Post by lezdep »

You're doing amazing job on this kit ! I think applying etch primer first, then attaching fin and then applying plastic primer, should work.
Again, probably a prior test might be required, but I think plastic primer should go over Zero 2K primer with no issues. That's as before
only based on my own experiences.
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