The F1M Forums

Hi folks,

It's been a long while since I've built a 1/20 kit. I've been flirting with NASCAR and sportscars lately, but I'm going back to my first love - F1. My return to F1 modeling is the Tamiya 1/20 Tyrrell P34. A while back I bought a big box of Tamiya spares to cannibalize for other projects. While sorting out the parts, I discovered there are near complete kits of the Ferrari 640, Williams FW07, and Tyrrell P34.

I have decals from Studio27 for the Japanese GP, and I was intending to build Depailler's car from that race. But, I just have slick tires so I'll built the British GP version instead. I've tried to stay close to the real car, but there will naturally be some omissions and inaccuracies.



Here's the engine and rear end mostly finished. It's not my best work, but it'll get the job done. I've added some brake wiring, and once I get the car together I'll add radiator plumbing.



Here are the rear tires with the lettering painted with a slew of toothpicks. I was unable to paint the front tire letting because they've so small and I'm not that great. The wheels are painted in Tamiya acrylic black. I was having trouble with my airbrush and the paint came out splattered, but after a coat of Mr. Color Diamond Cut flat lacquer the paint smoothed out. I love that Mr. Color paint!



Here's the front suspension. It's nothing special aside from brake wiring. I didn't bother with the discs and calipers as they'll be covered by the wheels.

More to come!
Jake

Looks like a good start!

Looks good! I like the extra wiring, adding things that are not in the original kit to make the model more realistic is always a good idea.

About the front tire lettering, I don't consider myself being great painting things by hand but I managed to do it. I won't say it's not tricky though

I think what I did was to thin the paint to the point it was a slightly runny, then I used a small brush (a toothpick might be useful as well) to put a tiny drop in the letter's shape. As the paint was runny and the lettering was molded in, the paint filled the letter's shape. Then, excess paint (outside the letters basically) was removed with a toothpick with thinner. You can see how the result was for me here. If you look at itfrom a small distance it can be seen that it's not great, but from distance the result looks perfectly fine.

Alternatively, you can get Indycals decals for the front tires. Or, like me, you can do both to have lettering in both sides, which is something the real car had, but the people at Tamiya forgot.

Looks great, and such a cool, funky car. Can't wait to see more.

Hi all,

Thanks for the kind words.



Here's some progress, I've done the paintwork using TS-15 Blue from Tamiya. The silver for the monocoque is one of the Tamiya lacquer LP paints. What lovely paint, very easy to work with! I then put the Studio27 decals down and covered with TS-13 clear. Unfortunately, I screwed up somewhere are the blue thinned out at creases and points, and now the primer is showing through. You can see this around the 5 divots in the front wing and where the endplate meets the front wing at the top left of the picture. I don't particularly want to redo everything, so I will race-weather the car to hide the issues.



A close-up of the front suspension. I've added some yellow MFH brake wiring, but otherwise this is all stock. There's a little bit of blue paint running in the wheel well, so I'll repaint that section.



Measure twice - cut once. I sure wish I had followed that adage, so I've discovered I put the elf decal too high and it is partially covered by the cockpit shroud. Well, it looks like this one will not be the stunner I was hoping for! Still fun, at least.

Making progress on the six-wheeler.



I've mated the engine/rear end with the monocoque, and installed most of the cockpit. I was a bit worried about getting everything lined up correctly, but after a quick test fit I can confirm that all six wheels are touching the ground. Phew!



Here's a closer look at the engine bay. I stripped the chrome off of the intake trumpets and repainted them with Vallejo chrome silver. I will add mesh over each trumpet later. I accidentally broke one of the four suspension arms that run from the bulkhead to the rear hubs, so I replaced all of them with brass rod. I know they were black on the real car, but they'll be hidden under some weathering/grime and I quite like the look of the brass anyway. I have noticed one mistake which I will rectify. I have the brake wires running on the wrong side of the engine!



I've plumbed the engine in accordance with a Giorgio Piola diagram he posted on Twitter a while back. There are 8 hoses in total running from the side-mounted radiators, the engine, and the wing-mounted radiator. One deviation I've made is to have the hoses running under the rear anti-roll bar instead of over it. The hoses I used would not hold their shape, so I put them under the bar to keep them under control.



Onto the cockpit windows. I started by putting some tape over the opening and cutting the tape to the shape I needed. I used up the clear plastic in the kit to make a windscreen on a Merit Ferrari D50 kit, so I tore open a Hot Wheels car. The blister packing is perfect, as it is clear, easy to cut, and malleable enough to conform to the slight curve of the cockpit. After glueing the windows in with Formula 5000 and leaving it to dry overnight, we're in business!

Anyone see what's wrong here? I put Scheckter's name on the car instead of Depailler! Sometimes my absent-mindedness baffles me. I need to stop watching football games while modeling... I've already cleared over the decals, so I will mask the area off and paint over the decals.

Focus !

AHHHHHH forgedahboudit!...I think you should enter it in the next model contest in your area, and see if anybody notices! - give the winner some chocolate if they point it out. I'll bet nobody catches your tiny blunder!...besides, there was probably a time when they ran the car like that anyway...being that the canopy and seat section are separate parts...who knows.
Put the wheels and tires on it and enjoy! (The first time I built this kit - I built the front suspension system backwards and got so mad, I shoved the hole model into the wall- almost broke my arm doing so - wow!, seems I've grown up a little, as things like this don't even raise my blood pressure any more...that's what having kids will do to you!) Enjoy!, Querque