Mercedes W08 2017 British GP 1/20 MONOPOST
Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2019 10:34 pm
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.
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.
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.
Out comes the trusty PE saw
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.
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.
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.
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
Front suspension angles are pretty inaccurate. The two wishbones should be closer to parallel
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
I'll probably be working on this one more than my SF71H for now.
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.
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.
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.
Out comes the trusty PE saw
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.
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.
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.
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
Front suspension angles are pretty inaccurate. The two wishbones should be closer to parallel
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
I'll probably be working on this one more than my SF71H for now.