So carrying on with the next part of the left front wheel we have the first section of the disk brake – this is the calliper part, the actual disk come a little later. Photo 1 shows the four parts of the mechanism, which came in the same package as the wheel hubs. At the top are the two chrome plated sections, the larger one is metal and the ‘clip on’ bit is plastic, at the bottom are the pair of black plastic air intake halves. There is no gluing in this section (although I may well glue the clip on part later for safety – you need to keep checking ahead in the instructions though as the clip-on is placed in position now, but then has to be removed again to fit the disk in place later. Glue it on now and you’re in trouble down the line!
I decided a while ago that there was no need to completely re-paint these parts as I did with the wheel hubs as the metal colour was pretty good already. Photo 2 shows the metal part in close up in its ‘natural state’ – note the captive nut in the centre which is pre-fixed in, and is used to join the brake to the wheel later on. Photos 3 and 4 illustrate the same metal and plastic parts after a simple weathering exercise using the Humbrol Enamel based Blue Grey Wash which I further diluted with white spirit in the lid of the Humbrol bottle. This was just applied to all the details and sharp angles with a small brush and allowed to find its own level, spreading along the angles and lines. Most of this will be completely hidden after construction but what the heck – I know it’s in there!
Photo 5 shows the little plastic calliper pushed into place but as I mentioned, it has to come off again to fit the disk over the central axle later. That Blue Grey wash gives a lovely ‘enginey’ (grimy used look) to the bright chrome of the original finish, I’m going to enjoy sloshing that all over the engine block!
Finally, in Photos 6 and 7, we have the two-part plastic air intake in place. I did deviate a little from the instructions here. The official method is to place the lower half into the well of the metal part and push that home fully before then placing the upper half on top, locating the two pegs and columns in alignment and pressing the two halves together. I chose to fit the two halves together first and then push the entire intake down into place, which it did with a very satisfying click! Either way is perfectly good of course, I just wanted to reduce any handling of the enamel washed parts which might have rubbed at the paint finish!
In the next part, a much larger piece (though even simpler with only two parts) – the base of the driver’s seat.
Until then, stay safe and Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Making great progress mate, and looking good.

Many thanks to Ken and Chris for those kind words! Glad to see your F1 coming along so well Ken - and you're dead right about the control cables, I've been looking through my instructions and blimey, the things are every where!


With the completion of the seat base section, things have changed! That was the last of the components to be supplied in clear acetate trays, from now on everything with the exception of a few larger pieces which come in their own cardboard boxes, the rest of this huge kit comes in individual polythene bags which Mark (bless him) has very helpfully marked with the pack number on the cardboard labels. This makes it a heck of a lot easier for me to locate the up and coming components. (I had a quick peek into the two cardboard boxes – one contains the main metal hull? fuselage? Onto which everything else fits and the bigger one contains the entire top ‘skin’ of the car er, bodywork?) So now, instead of going back to the great shipping box and retrieving the next acetate tray I have acquired “Baby Box” as shown in Photo 8 and into that one I now have packets 5 to 20 ready and waiting. When they are done, 21 to 40 will be next (if they’ll fit).
Packet number 5 is shown alone in Photo 9 with its contents laid out in Photo 10. Going clockwise from top left these are the Steering Tie Rod, the Upper Arm, a pack of Type C screws, the Internal and External Brake Disks and finally the Lower Arm.
Everything in this pack is metal except the two halves of the disk, which are plastic. The disk parts are shown close up in Photo 11 made with the same chrome effect finish as the earlier brake parts. The Enamel Wash procedure is seen under way in Photo 12, you can see how just a simple wash over the disk surface brings out so much more of the detail than you can see with the plain chrome! The two halves are seen with the finished wash effect in Photo 13, the disk on the left is the right way up to fit onto the segmented one on the right. I didn’t need to glue these two together, the pair of pins and holes was a really tight fit! The two halves are fitted together in Photo 14 and the last un-washed face shown there is completed in Photo 15. Then it was time to remove the calliper block and fit the disk over the shaft, the larger inset seen in Photos 14 and 15 fitting over the ‘hub’ of the calliper before re-fitting (and this time gluing) the block back in place – Photos 16 to 18. To those coming after, I would add a word of advice – there is a small brass coloured centre piece which fits into the two small holes in the inner ring of the disk in the next section – it would be far easier to fit that on BEFORE fitting the disk into the calliper, that’s another very tight fitting bit!
The final tasks in this pack are to attach the main frame-sections of the suspension to the disk brake body. The first part to go on is the Upper Arm as shown in Photo 19. This is fixed on with the first of the little Type C screws. I screwed this in as far as it would go but the Upper Arm is still very loose and swings around quite a bit, unlike the other two parts which attach with the same type of screw and do tighten right up. From what I can see of the attachments further down in the instructions, this shouldn’t matter too much as with the other parts screwed into the chassis its all held together firmly. If not, I’ll have to add a drop of glue somewhere down the line! On the opposite side of the body the ‘A Frame’ like Lower Arm is attached in the same way. This one went on tight, loosened off a little later but re-tightened up with no problems. This one is shown in Photo 20. Just to the right of that one in Photo 21 is the final piece: the Steering Tie Rod, this one went in the tightest of the lot! And with that, as proudly displayed in Photo 22, my Martian War Machine is complete!
The final pack of parts in this section is Pack 6, which, as shown in Photo 23 contains a final pair of metal struts for the suspension, a working metal shock absorber, a temporary plastic hub cap and the central disk brake connector mentioned earlier along with a series of screws and bolts to connect it all together. That comes next, but Photos 24 and 25 show the hub cap and shock absorber in their natural state before getting to work on them with the Humbrol Blue Grey Enamel Wash.
More on that coming soon!
Until then stay safe and Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Kinda crazy, seeing my handwriting on the other side of the world!!

And it wasn’t even on a “released under own recognizance” form!!!

Nice start! Looks like it’s going to be a great build

Nice work Robin.
Well done sir.
Chris

Many and grateful thanks to Malc, Mark, Ken, bfam4t6, Mark (again), Chris and Roy, greatly appreciated as always!
Hadn't thought of that Mark, it must look weird from your side!
That Humbrol Blue-Grey enamel wash is certainly doing the job Mark II, I'm just doing the first half of the main engine block at the moment and it looks so much more like metal and so easy to apply!

The last piece shown before the washing is the brass coloured centre locator of the disk brake body seen in Photo 26. This is a fairly close match to the Vallejo brass that I airbrushed the wheel hub with. I could have gone on to repaint this piece as well but once it is fitted into the wheel hub it’s pretty much invisible so there’s not really much point! I made do with a thinned down Blue-Grey enamel wash applied around the edge of the ring and around the four bolts on the square base. The chrome plastic wheel hub cap also received the same treatment to pick out the moulded details as shown in Photo 27 with the bare metal finish seen in the insert. Finally, the metal shock absorber was also given a wash to bring out the ridges around the shaft and the protruding round thingy up by the locating tab as seen in Photo 28. Regarding the colour of the shock absorber, they do seem to come in a variety of finishes – the reference pics I’ve collected show them looking like this one with a black spring, others with a chrome spring, and some with an anodised gold finish. This one will do for me (and less paint to possibly flake off down the line!)
The first job shown in Photo 29 is to push fit the brass centre piece into the rotating disk. This is such a tight fit I again didn’t bother adding any glue but as I mentioned last time, this would have been a little easier if I’d pushed it home before fixing the disk in place by gluing on the calliper block! With the centre piece on, the entire disk brake assembly together with its support struts was pushed into the wheel hub as seen in Photo 30, the metal shaft on the wheel fitting over the chrome shaft on the disk brake and inside the brass centre piece. With the assembly slotted in place it looked as seen in Photo 31. Now comes the really fiddly bit – you have to keep the disk brake pushed up against the wheel hub with one hand and at the same time turn the whole thing over to insert the threaded bolt down into the hub from the outside and then screw it in until it engages with that captive nut in the disk brake body. The instructions tell you to tighten the bolt right up and then loosen by half a turn to allow the wheel to turn freely. However, I tightened it up as far as it would go and found that the wheel was still turning perfectly free. I tried it again using the spare bolt that came with this pack with the same result so hopefully it’s fine! The bolt is seen in place in Photo 32. Note those two holes in the inner ring, the last job for the hub is to push the plastic enamel washed hub cap into place, the two pins on the back fitting tightly into those holes as shown in Photo 33. At the end of the entire build these plastic hub caps are removed again and replaced with a set of magnetic metal ones which just spring into position on their own. The last two pieces to come together are the Front and Rear Links shown in Photo 34 which will form part of the suspension system along with the shock absorber. Before coming on to them however, first we have to fix on the sprung metal shock absorber. This is fitted under the Upper Arm using one of the Type D screws. There is a cut out on the dome shaped head of the shock with a corresponding lug on the underside of the Arm so the shock absorber can only fit in one way (which is really helpful), it is shown attached alongside my faithful old electrical screwdriver which was used to screw it in with (Photo 35). After the shock is in place the threaded hex bolt is slid through the head of the Front link as seen in Photo 36. The shaft of the bolt is then fed through the cylinder, which forms part of the Upper Arm as shown in Photo 37 (before the shock was screwed on) and then on into the (I assume) threaded end of the Rear Link and tightened up, securing all three sections of the framework together as illustrated in Photos 38 and 39. The one addition to this kit, which would have been of great help, would have been an actual miniature hex driver to screw that bolt up with! I’ve looked everywhere on line but the only things I can find are solid hex things designed to push into a hollow hex (like an allen key), nowhere does there seem to be a hollow hex to fit over a solid one like a wrench! I was forced to tighten the thing up with a pair of miniature pliers which is a work of art seeing as you have to hold the front link, the upper arm and the rear link all at the same time as trying to turn the head of the bolt to screw it into the end of the link! Anyway, I got there in the end and the final completed left front wheel is shown in Photo 40. In actual fact, those front and rear links are actually supposed to be set ninety degrees to the right, pointing directly away from the wheel and towards the chassis – but I’m using them as convenient legs to support the wheel for these photos! As far as the finish on the black frame is concerned, the only thing that I’ll be doing later on is to give them a little shine with some car polish applied with, and buffed up with cotton buds. I’ll wait until all the wheels are ready to be fitted onto the chassis before that however to avoid getting finger marks all over them!
And that brings me to the end of the first set of instructions for Pack 01! I’ve been having a look through the next phase of construction which is all on the engine in all its highly detailed glory and all I can say is I hope it won’t seem so complicated when I’ve got the parts in front of me! Boy, are there a lot of bits to go into that thing!
Anyway, in the next installment I’ll be starting with the first bank of air intakes as shown in Photo 41 with a little bit of re-painting thrown in for good measure.
Until then, stay safe and Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Many thanks for that Ken! Loving your own F1 build too, I'd hate to have to follow a wiring diagram for all those cables!
Many thanks too to all the wonderful comments on this diary getting the place of honour for July - I couldn't believe it!

With this installment we come to the first part of the engine, starting with the set of air injectors, Photo 1 illustrates how these parts come in the kit – these are plastic components with that same quite pleasing chromed effect finish. The only improvement they needed was the good old Humbrol Blue Grey Enamel Wash treatment applied to pick out the grooves and nuts. Photo 2 shows the pair of side injectors, which differ from the other four central ones by their method of attaching to the intake manifold. The top one has been washed which brings out the details in the nuts on the intakes themselves. Photo 3 shows the full set after a light wash. What I didn’t realise was that the part I thought was a locating stud was actually sticking out in full view when fitted so I added wash onto those parts after they were fitted to the manifold! Speaking of the manifold, this, together with it’s bottom bracket, were destined for a repaint. There were two reasons for this, firstly, I wasn’t too keen on the supplied ‘gold effect’. The reference photos showed this section to be a sort of anodised gold, which as I previously mentioned in the wheel hubs installments was a close match to the Vallejo Gold in the Metal Colour airbrush range so I was thinking of airbrushing it anyway. The clincher was that the manifold actually had a slight defect with a small bit of rough flash along one side. Once this was sanded smooth the gold finish was marred with the black plastic showing through so I went for a re-spray. The bottom bracket, although with exactly the same chrome finish as the injectors somehow looked a little too ‘plastic’ so I decided to airbrush that one with the Vallejo Duraluminium. These two parts are seen after their black primer coat in Photo 4 and with the gold and metallic finishes in Photo 5. The two end injectors were the first to be fitted on, these have a collar unlike the central injectors and fit over the two end pillars with a cut out and tab ensuring they can only fit in the right way as shown in Photo 6. The remaining injectors fit inside their pillars not around them with another cut out to prevent them going in back to front as illustrated in Photo 7. All of them fitted nice and tight with no glue being required.
Photo 8 shows all six of the injectors in place and as you can now see, those ‘locating lugs’ I hadn’t bothered to pick out with the enamel wash are in fact prominently displayed and needed to be given their own wash for effect, (already done in this shot). The next task is to push fit the re-sprayed base plate (called a flange in the instructions) down onto the underside of the gold manifold encasing the injectors from below as shown in Photo 9. The important part here as seen in Photo 10, is to ensure that the flange is pushed fully down and up against the collar of the end injectors, any slight gap and the flange doesn’t sit flat or level. The finished side view is shown in Photo 11. The pre-formed air intakes or ‘trumpets’ are seen in Photo 12. These only required the enamel wash to pick out the raised rims around the base and also some ‘shadow’ under the top rim with the metal mesh domes. I chose to leave the domes as they were, they look really good anyway in the stainless steel finish but if you want to have a different look, they also come in a gold metal mesh or a white/cream plastic mesh (the white is brand new and the cream is the effect of the heat from the engine after a few laps on the white plastic!) Photo 13 was a retrograde step I made earlier. I decided to try and add some shadow to the gold manifold which went wrong! I used a thinned down Citadel Skaven Brown acrylic wash which instead of adding subtle shadows and weathering just made the whole thing look grotty! Actually, some of the reference photos do show the manifold looking just that – grotty from the heat of the engine but I just didn’t like the effect and so I re-airbrushed the manifold top surface (this was before adding the injectors). I think the reason it didn’t work so well was that I didn’t airbrush the gold with the Vallejo Metal Varnish first and the ink just spread out over the metal particles in the paint. The second time around I did varnish the gold and instead purchased a bottle of Vallejo Sepia acrylic wash as seen in Photo 14. This gave a better result which is actually a lot more subtle than the photo suggests – the lighting makes it look like rust but it’s more shadowy in real life! The air intake trumpets go on from the smallest (number 1) upwards, the first is shown in Photo 15. I was expecting to have to file out the holes in their bases to get them to fit, and possibly have to glue them afterwards as a result but each one was nice and tight but still easy to push down flat (taking great care to protect the mesh from getting crushed in the process) . The trumpets had a mould line on each side and instead of sanding it flat which would have ruined the chrome I used them, allowing the wash to flow down the line as seen in this shot. This meant that as the trumpets went in place I carefully aligned them on the manifold so the lines were all ‘in line’ (pardon the pun)!
The finished manifold is shown in Photos 16 and 17 all ready to be screwed onto the main engine block. But first I have to give the engine block a good going over with the wash and that comes next!
Until then stay safe and Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Amazing what you are doing. A really great update again. Keep it coming.

Many thanks again to Mark, Roy and Chris for their kind words!
Fortunately I did this coming section before the current heatwave began - I've proceeded a little further than this but it's been hard work - it's like a sauna up here even with a fan and the open skylight, around the 100 degree mark at times (big thunderstorm forecast for tonight, really looking forward to that, I love watching lightning after dark - not so keen when I'm on the cycle though! )
So this is the top part of the engine block! This is the largest or definitely most detailed plastic component so far and as shown in Photo 1, comes with a silvery chrome finish and a little bag with three Type J screws, only two of which are required and they are to permanently attach the air intake manifold to the block later. This is also the first of the chromed components which the written instructions go into regarding ‘weathering’ or adding the shadows etc as I have already been doing on the disk brake mechanism seen earlier. The ‘shiny chrome’ effect is shown properly in Photo 2 and to be honest, one of the pictures in the Haynes Manual on the 312 shows the engine block looking just like this – not a speck of dirt or oil anywhere on it! Can’t be having that though so it was out with the Humbrol Blue-Grey Enamel Wash again, this time with a much larger soft brush and a slightly thinner mix of the wash and white spirit. Photo 3 illustrates the difference with a before and after shot (actually, more of a before and during to be accurate!) The upper half of the engine is still in its shiny finish whilst the bottom half is drenched in the thinned down wash. A close example is shown in Photos 4 and 5. This is only the first stage however. Unlike the disk brake parts, which only required the wash applied with a smaller brush, this component is so large that we end up with ‘tide marks’ as the wash dries out (not visible whilst it is still wet). This is shown in Photo 6. Because the wash is so thin over the chrome effect, the defects, (unless you actually want a really oily engine of course) are very easy to rectify with the use of a clean cotton bud which is first dipped in white spirit and the excess squeezed out onto a paper towel (toilet roll). With the dampened cotton bud I just had to lightly rub over the tide marks and the raised details, reducing the wash effect whilst leaving the blue-grey pigment in the recesses as illustrated in Photo 7. That black spot near the centre up against a rib isn’t a missed bit of wash – it’s a locating hole in the block! I also paid special attention to the double tubes which join onto the air intakes, removing any heavy wash marks from their top surface as shown in the final appearance seen in Photo 8.
And that’s it for this piece, in the next installment the first Intake Manifold is fixed in position at which point I couldn’t help myself and went back to add some missing details on the Manifold which, I'm relieved to say will be added to the second one BEFORE it gets attached. Although I didn’t use any glue on those trumpets, they weren’t coming off again without a fight so the ‘improvements’ had to go on in-situ!
Until then, stay safe and Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.