Leyton House CG 901B

[wadny]

I primed and airbrushed Zero Semigloss Black on the two sidepod ducts, then masked and painted them using the suggestions in the kit instructions except for the two small tanks on the side of one duct which looked better in Alclad aluminum. They then both got the S27 CF decal treatment, which worked pretty well although they didn't fit perfectly. They look OK. I haven't decided whether I want to bother with adding wiring or not.

[Shunter]

Great job so far, enjoying following along..

[wadny]

I started working on the body parts. The headrest area of the rear cover required some tricky putty work to get the shape looking reasonable. The side ducts worked a lot better. I also thinned the plastic around the rear NACA duct to a more scale thickness. I painted and masked the front suspension piece that gets trapped in the tub before assembly, but later found out from another build log that the part can be trimmed so it can be inserted later. I trimmed it in place and removed it, which will make the priming, sanding and painting of the tub much easier.

[wadny]

I also started working on the seat. I've always hated dealing with molded-in seatbelts. With the shape of the seat, it's really difficult to remove the molded-in stuff and get it sanded smooth. It occurred to me that I could cut out the bottom of the seat, which would make the access for grinding and sanding much easier, and then glue the seat back together. This also made it easier to open up slots for all of the belts. I used a razor saw to cut the seat apart, and glued in some thin styrene sheet to restore the plastic removed by the saw.

[Denbo]

Brilliant work so far. Love this car and livery

[wadny]

Thanks for the kind comments, gents - it keeps me motivated. I did some more work on the seat. After a little filling and priming, I masked off the areas that would receive the S27 CF decals, and sprayed the rest of the seat with Scale Motorsports Faux Fabrix Black. This is pretty neat stuff - it gives a rough, fabric-like finish with no work, and even fills in minor flaws. I've had this can for many years, and had to really shake it up for a long time before it started spraying properly, but it worked. After it dried, I pulled the masking and applied the CF decals. There were a few small areas that the decal set didn't cover, so I filled those in with Scale Motorsports 1/20 CF decals. I brush-painted over the decals with a couple of coats of trusty old Tamiya X-22 clear, which worked pretty well.

Then I started constructing the seat belts. I had a set of KA Models 1/20 photo etch, but couldn't find any belt material with the set. I had some ribbon material, and a set of similar material from Model Factory Hiro, but discovered that they wouldn't fit through the photo etch bits. I tried dipping the ribbon in white glue, wiping it off and letting it dry, and then trimming down the width. That worked OK, but the ribbon was too thick to run through the photo etch twice, so I looked for an alternative. I've seen other people use surgical tape, and we had some around, so I gave that a try. After using calipers to measure the openings in the photo-etch, I cut the tape into appropriate size strips and colored them with a magic marker. That actually worked quite well, and the adhesive backing was actually helpful in keeping everything together.

Assembling the photo etch bits with the belts was very fiddly, but worked out OK. I applied the decals for the belts and used the nuclear option, Tameo's Extra Strong Decal Softener. Unfortunately, the softener leached a little blue from the belts onto the decals, but I'll live with it.

Finally, I glued on the shift linkage. The bulkhead and dashboard / steering wheel will be added, and this sub-assembly will be done.

[daveyman]

Belts and seat look real nice, like the textured effect. Nice one.

[gp-models]

Belts and seat look real nice, like the textured effect. Nice one.

+1
Nice work on the seat!

[CelicaGT]

The seat looks great. Nice effect with the surgical tape too. I'll file that tip away!

[wadny]

I finished assembling the seat with the bulkhead, dashboard and steering wheel. It's ready to install in the cockpit later.