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Many thanks again to Kev and Roy! I was pretty pleased overall with the way the fuel lines turned out, some of the photos to come show them as a little 'yellower' than they actually are to the naked eye but the close ups do look similar to the way my old Tomos moped fuel line used to look after a few months (that single one was only about four inches long from the fuel tap to the engine!) I must admit though that the effect is even better on the transparent tubing I first tried it on - the yellow is more transparent (and fuel like) too as opposed to the translucent tubing supplied on the kit. Quite pleased though and simple to apply in the end!  So, Photo 11 shows the first of the four fuel distributor rings with the four fuel lines attached. Most of the rings have three lines but the shortest one on here goes to the fuel/oil filter later on. As shown in Photo 12, the ring slides down over the ‘chimney’, which is an integral part of the distributor base. The little tab protruding inwards prevents the ring going in backwards and it is pushed right down to the base as shown here. The three fuel lines are then taken to the first three fuel injectors under the air intakes following the excellent diagrams from the build instructions which clearly demonstrates each set of three lines in a separate picture! Each set of three fuel lines is shown in white against the blue ‘cgi’ picture of the entire engine block and their route from the fuel distributor to the injector is shown. This is not as straightforward as it might appear – the fuel lines have to thread their way through the HT cables which went on first, going under some and over others! The first three are shown attached in Photo 13. After that the second ring with its tubes attached was then slid down over the first as seen in Photo 14. Again, the inner tab means the ring will only fit in one way and as you can see, this means that the fuel outlets are staggered with the second layer being off set so the fuel lines have room to come out from the stack. The second group of three tubes then go to the other three injectors on the same side as illustrated in Photo 15. The third ring then follows in the same way ( Photo 16). These tubes are routed off to the first three injectors on the opposite side, followed by the final fourth ring shown in Photo 17. At this point I decided to clean up the tubing and the HT wires by equipping them with clips as seen in Photo 18, (the actual instructions to do this come in the next pack along with the final part of the fuel system: the throttle, but having already read ahead to that I plonked them in now!) (Plonked is model speak for ‘carefully installed’!) The instructions tell you which set of cables/tubes to clip together using thin wire. I did mine in two different ways, the HT leads were done using the metal staples removed from the pack cardboard labels, straightened out and bent round a large needle before snipping off the excess. I also used the staples to initially hold the fuel lines together as shown in Photo 19 and whilst they were held in place I then used the Decra Led lead strip to cut a thin piece out and wrap it around the tubes with a small drop of superglue to secure it in place. The metal staple was then removed leaving the neater lead clip in position as shown in Photo 20. Photo 21 shows the three parts of the throttle mechanism, and out of their poly bags in Photo 22. Strangely, there seems to have been an oversight in the instructions at this point – the throttle mechanism as mentioned is composed of three parts: the main valve body, the actuating arm and a little piece called the Valve Elbow. The instructions begin (after adding the last two fuel rings and tubes which I jumped to ahead of schedule) with the actuator arm being added to the valve body, there is no mention of the elbow being added on at all! You can make out where and how it fits in, from the photos in the instructions and fortunately I also had the image from the Haynes book shown in Photo 23. The upper arrow shows the elbow. That photo also showed two other things – first there’s a fuel tube coming out of the bottom of the valve body which doesn’t appear in the kit (though its possible the valve design altered during the ‘70’s and this is a later model) and secondly, the depression modelled in the upper part of the arm is actually a hole right through it! (shown by the lower arrow) Well, missing tubes are one thing, holes I can do! Photo 24 shows the arm on a piece of scrap wood. I first drilled a couple of small holes in to the wood, one is under the round depression at the end of the arm where the locating pin for the valve body is situated and the other is under the protruding nut and bolt. The holes are a tight fit and kept the arm fixed in place whilst I carefully drilled out the moulded depression, the result of which is shown in Photo 25. The three parts are shown ready to fit on after their blue-grey wash in Photo 26. The instructions have the arm fitted on first before the valve is slid into the top of the fuel distributor stack, but I found it easier (and safer) to push fit the valve down first and then move those ruddy fuel lines out of the way before pushing the arm in place as shown in Photos 27 and 28. By joining the arm on first there is a danger of accidentally snapping it off again as the valve is pushed down as that was another ‘tight fit’. The final task is to fit the lower end of the arm onto the ‘axle’ coming out of the distributor base but as the photo page is full I’ll show that at the beginning of the next installment which features my newest favourite part of the engine so far – the Oil Filter (which is because it looks pretty and I managed to improve a part of it with a really easy scratch item!!) I like easy!  Until then, stay safe and Happy Modelling to you All! Robin. Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Looking very nice Robin. Those fuel lines really look the part.  Mark
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Many thanks for that Mark - they turned out fairly well in the end (but actually look better in the real close up photos!) As promised last time, Photo 1 illustrates the completion of the throttle control arm. The ring on the end of the arm fits over the lug moulded onto the axle shaft. That great bunch of fuel lines I’m having to pull out of the way actually end up being safely tucked away under the shaft later on when its all tidied up! Its then on to Pack 18 as shown in Photo 2 which contains the lovely miniature Oil Filter (or Fuel, its got a lot of fuel lines going through it as well as a great big oil pipe) . The three main parts are shown in Photo 3, these are from left to right, the Oil Filter Base, the chromed Fuel Line Connector and the blue Oil Filter Cartridge. As well as these we also get two long fuel line tubes (one about ten inches long and the other a whole foot), a short length of oil tube and a much longer Engine Oil Line tube. Photo 4 shows one of the connectors on the Oil Filter base much enlarged – I’ll be returning to this a little later on (unfortunately)  ! Note that silver ring around the oil filter cartridge, there’s a little moulded cylinder on the opposite side of it to represent what it really is on the real car – a large Jubilee clip as seen in Photo 5. This one is about the same size in fact, left over from a set when I repaired our Saniflo macerator toilet (don’t ask!)  I wanted to try and simulate the mechanism these clips use to tighten up and found just the thing in the good old DecraLed strip and a miniature drill chuck I use in the Dremel type tool. By rolling the chuck along the lead strip the finger grip indentations create a nice approximation of the square cut outs in the steel band and as you can see in Photo 6, by carefully cutting out a thin strip containing the embossing we end up with the bit of the band which protrudes from the screw. You might just be able to make out there are three indents in the silver band on the other side of the screw mechanism (on the right in Photo 7). These were simply ground out of the moulded band with the rotary tool and a sharp pointed conical diamond dust, engraving bit. This was done at a very shallow angle so that the tip created a square-ish looking depression (and it worked really well!) Photos 8 and 9 show my latest helpful gadget – an ultrasonic cleaner! I’ve always fancied one of these and Mum’s latest catalogue order fell just short of the free postage amount so I thought ‘why not’! As it happened, the cleaner turned out to be on a half price offer itself so it STILL didn’t get to the required amount! As you can see from the shape, it’s mainly designed for spectacles but its great for cleaning off the smaller parts with an automatic 5, 10 or 15 minute running cycle. After a clean (with a drop or two of washing up liquid) and rinse, and then a drying off, the parts are ready for the blue-grey enamel wash, after which, they appeared as in Photo 10. The blue cartridge is a simple push fit onto the brass connector, again, nice and tight so no glue required ( Photo 11). You can safely ignore Photos 12 and 13, I completely forgot I’d already written up the bunching of the fuel lines earlier! The next step is to fit on the longest of the black hoses to the oil filter as shown in Photo 14. This goes on fairly easy after the tube is slightly enlarged at the end like the HT leads were. Then the chromed connector has the little baby hose attached before being push fitted into the brass part of the filter as seen in Photo 15 – be warned – once this is pushed in it isn’t coming off again! I found this out to my cost as you’ll see after the next task, which is to fit on the shorter black hose with the chromed end connector as seen in Photo 16. Now came the problem! It was now the time to fit on the two really long fuel lines – the second one attaches to one of the points on the chrome cross piece which was fine, but the first is supposed to go on the brass connector on the oil filter cartridge. It was obvious from the start that the tubing was not going to fit the spigot on that brass part! I tried dunking the tube in hot water and enlarging the tip but nothing worked. In the end I decided I’d have to try and file down the spigot until it was small enough to fit the tube. That was when I discovered that the chromed part wouldn’t come off again. Trying to pull it free was causing the locating pin to stretch risking it snapping off so I had to try and carefully file away with diamond dust rat tail files, with the rest of the pipes still in place. Eventually I managed to get the spigot down to a size where I could get the tube on with a little help from superglue as shown in Photo 17. This was when I realized my mistake – it wasn’t that the spigot was oversized – it was that the locating spigot for the fuel line wasn’t actually there! Referring back to the close up shot of the part in Photo 4, that black spot in the centre was the underlying black plastic showing through because the smaller locating rod was snapped off! There was nothing in the poly bag the part came in so it must have been damaged before bagging up at the factory. If I’d only realized that at the start, instead of all that filing down I could simply have drilled out the spigot and glued in a brass rod to fit the tubing! A pity, but the ‘adapted’ outlet doesn’t look too bad or different from the other attachments so I’m not too worried. But to those coming after and building this kit, check that locating lug first and do the drill and plug repair if required before attaching the chrome cross piece – it’ll be much easier (and neater!) Photo 18 shows all the pipes and tubes attached, and with the two long ones on, it is time to fit the oil filter on to the engine. This is again a simple push fit with a round hole in the underside of the brass part and a rectangular one in the blue cartridge, which fit over two corresponding lugs in the engine top casing. If you remember, on the first of the fuel distributor rings there was a short fuel line which wasn’t connected to anything. This connects now, arching over from the ring to the chrome connector on the brass piece, shown arrowed in Photo 19. The thick black pipe with the metal end connector is then fed under the distributor base shaft, back to engage in the pipe at the front of the engine block as shown in Photos 20 and 21. I found this hole to be just too small to allow the connector to stick in so I had to gently enlarge the hole with a round file. This was then slightly too slack so I fixed the pipe in place with superglue, holding it in place for a few seconds until set. The final connection from the oil filter (for now) as shown in Photo 22 was the (arrowed) little short black tube which runs from the chrome cross piece to a lug on the third fuel ring. Getting the end to engage over the lug was really difficult and so I eventually removed the tube from the filter, pushed the end onto the fuel ring lug and then re-attached the other end back on the filter – much easier to get at that way around! UPGRADE INFO!
See Photo 17 - that moulded on nut under the brass outlet nozzle has a thin copper pipe coming off it. I used 0.5mm copper wire so the nut needs a small hole drilled into it to take the wire. See Post #209 on Page 11The next installment concerns another beautiful moulding – the big cooling system which sits on the extreme front of the engine – some more re-painting to follow! Until then stay safe as usual and Happy Modelling to you All! Robin. Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Very nice work Robin.  Mark
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Many thanks again Mark! Photo 1 shows the contents of Pack 19 which contains the main section of the huge cooling system which sits on the extreme front end of the engine. Part a) is the base for yet another filter, Parts b) are the pair of brackets which will eventually clip onto the cooling system on the shaft/rod from the Distributor base and Part c) is the massive cooling system with part of the engine chassis or frame. Now although the entire part c) is moulded in the chrome effect, many of my reference photos and also a smaller scale Tamiya model of the same engine, show the framework on either side of this collection of pipes to be that anodised gold colour. Since this adds a little more colour to the otherwise shiny monochrome effect I decided some time ago to go down this route. The other good point in doing this is that I would be free to sand off the noticeable mould lines from the framework as shown in Photo 2 (the black areas along the edges). I couldn’t do the same for the chrome pipes of course but the lines on them are not so pronounced. The big single pipe, which joins the two sides of the cooling system together, is moulded as a single piece. However, the reference photos fortunately show a joiner on the left side – fortunately as that is the demarcation line between the chrome and gold colours!  Photo 3 shows the added joiner rings, made up from two thin strips of the DecraLed, wrapped around the pipe, slit with a craft knife to fit and then super glued in place. What’s really strange in this photo is the apparently black undercoated section on the left – it’s purely a lighting effect, as you can see in Photo 4, which shows what the cooling system would have looked like if not repainted, everything is still chromed! With the new connector rings glued on, the chrome parts of the pipes were masked off with green frogtape as seen in Photo 5. The two side frames were then airbrushed with Vallejo Black Primer, followed by a couple of coats of airbrushed Vallejo Metal Colour Gold to end up looking as they do in Photo 6. The gold was then airbrushed with the Vallejo Metal Varnish, giving it a protective coat which would then allow me to use the Citadel Shadow Black Ink wash, applied slightly thinned with a fine brush to pick out the edges of the framework’s raised ribs. In Photo 7, the left hand frame is picked out with the wash whilst the right hand is still plain gold. Once the right hand side was brought up to the same stage, the frogtape was removed and the chrome pipes given the Humbrol Blue Grey Enamel wash treatment as shown in Photo 8 with the assembly temporarily pushed into place on the engine block. The other parts that came with the cooling system are shown in Photo 9. These are the base for that filter shown on the left and the two support brackets. These have to be trimmed down before fitting as they include an ID tag to differentiate between the left and right brackets. If you look carefully at the tag on the one on the left you can just make out an ‘L’ moulded on. The thing is, (for the uninitiated car builder) which is the ‘left’ of an engine – from the front or the back? Fortunately as you’ll see, the brackets themselves do have a way to identify them when they go on, even without the tabs! The two prongs sticking out of the filter base fit into a pair of holes in the rear face of the cooling system so the large cylindrical bit actually faces out to the side of the engine block, (some versions of the same engine have this filter arranged in line with the engine block instead). this is shown fitted on in Photo 10. Now came those support brackets. After sawing off the ID tags, the first one is shown being slid down the Distributor base shaft in Photo 11. If you look back to Photo 9 you can see that each bracket has a raised disk on one side of the hole and a flat face on the other. This is what helps to determine the correct one – when they are fitted onto the shaft, the raised disk points inwards as shown here. According to the instructions, the cooling system is first pushed home onto its locating pins and holes on the engine front face and then the support brackets are rotated down so their pins engage into the top of the framework – except that they won’t! With the cooling system on flush, the only way to get those pins into the holes is to really flex and bend the plastic shaft backwards – so far in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if it broke off! Not willing to try that possibility out, I found it much safer to use a flat screwdriver to gently lever the cooling system top end out from the engine, it only has to come out about 1 – 2mm and then the brackets will easily rotate on the shaft and engage into the hole as shown in Photo 12. The other bracket followed in Photo 13 and then the cooling system was pushed back in flush again with both brackets sitting on properly. With the pipes and frames in place Pack 20 supplied – yes, another filter! As shown in Photo 14, we have a chromed box or ‘Oil Intake’ with its ‘L’ bend outlet pipe and black vinyl tube and a big black plastic cylinder which is the top half of the filter base which went on the frame of the cooling system earlier. In the next installment, the Oil Intake and its associated filter go together and the final pipes and tubes are connected in to complete the cooling system. Until then stay safe and Happy Modelling to you All! Robin. Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Photos 15 and 16 show the oil intake having the outlet (or inlet) pipe pushed on followed by the short black tubing. The box is then push fitted onto the two rods protruding from the centre edge of the frame as in Photo 17 and the short tube is passed up underneath the air intake platform where it engages onto the shaft of – another filter! This is the In-Line Separator Filter shown in Photo 18, which doesn’t attach to anything except the tubes and is literally free floating. I also forgot to show Pack 21 which supplied this piece but that will appear in a little while! Also in that pack, were a pair of black tubes: a Separator Filter Pipe which will eventually go on the other side of the floating filter and a longer one which is the Return Water Pipe. This one goes on now, pushing on to the nozzle sticking out from the centre of the cooling system shown in Photo 19. This tube is fed up underneath the cooling system pipe, around the base of the Distributor and then under the Distributor shaft (both arrowed) in Photo 20 and then around the corner to finally engage with the end of the chrome cross bar on the big blue Oil Filter as illustrated in Photo 21. At long last, the Oil Pump Flange which should have been pushed on temporarily some time ago but which has been safely stored in the parts box instead goes on the engine block! This is shown in Photo 22 and comes equipped with two locating rods for yet more tubing shown as a) and b). Going back to the blue oil filter, the longest of the black tubes (shown again in Photo 23), is first fitted up with the chromed connector, which also came in Pack 21. This is seen attached in Photo 24 and is intended to be pushed on to the forward facing location a). After fitting that one on, the free end of the floating In Line Separator Filter is connected up to the other black tube from Pack 21, (see the insert photo), which comes around the other side of the Distributor and down to position b) on the oil pump. Problem is however, once the chrome connector goes on, the locating rod for the second tube, is effectively hidden by the first one! It is easier therefore, to attach the In Line tube to b) first, and then push on the connector onto a) as shown in Photo 25. Finally, here’s Pack 21, the contents of which are already going on! The parts are shown in Photo 26, and consist of the in-line separator filter, which comes in two parts as shown in Photos 27 and 28, two black oil pipes and the chrome end connector which went on the front of the oil pump flange. Also shown here at the bottom is the Cylinder Banks Compensation Pipe. Although it looks much like the vinyl oil pipes, it is in fact a solid hard plastic moulding. It is push fitted into the raised pipe-work at the corners of the engine block – another very tight non-removable fit and as soon at it was in position I discovered that the connectors on each end were actually brass! Photo 29 shows the end connector after a careful in-situ painting with Vallejo Brass and Photo 30 depicts the entire compensation pipe in position right across the end of the engine. And finally in Photo 31 we have the entire cooling system fixed across the front end of the engine. Now, strictly following the kit assembly procedure, the next step is the addition of a fuel valve and oil tank to the firewall bulkhead, but I’ve skipped ahead to the section after that in order to complete the top deck of the engine block with another piece of scratch build up-grading – namely the big electrical system battery (that is now completed and I’m back on the firewall which actually has a whole lot of scratch building that I wasn’t expecting to do!) Until then stay safe, and Happy Modelling to you All! Robin. Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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 Rank: Super-Elite        Groups: Registered
Joined: 31/05/2010 Posts: 5,679 Points: 17,011 Location: Wiltshire
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Very impressive work Robin. Happy Modelling
BUILDING: Hachette Spitfire Mk 1A, Constructo Mayflower
SUBSCRIPTION COMPLETE (Awaiting building): USS Constitution, Sovereign of the Seas, 1:200 Bismarck (Hachette)
COMPLETED: Porsche 911, E-Type Jaguar, Lam Countach
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Very nice work Robin. Mark
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 Rank: Master  Groups: Registered
Joined: 21/04/2011 Posts: 1,072 Points: 3,245 Location: Buckinghamshire
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Great work Robin,
Some of that pipework looks like spaghetti junction but extremely impressive job.
Chris
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Rank: Master  Groups: Registered
Joined: 25/11/2018 Posts: 1,284 Points: 3,878 Location: Southeast UK
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This is turning into a very impressive build Robin, though I never doubted it given what I know of your skill and experience as a modeller. What I find most impressive is that you've never built an F1 car before and certainly not in this scale, but you are doing brilliantly with it and in particular the use of varied shades of metallics along with some subtle washes to help give it a very realistic look?
Very nice work Robin, looking forward to the next update already!!
I'd like to build this kit myself but not able to afford it just yet, so I'll just have to content myself with watching your fabulous build! Maybe I'll be lucky enough to build one in the future though?! 
Kev
Per Ardua Ad Astra
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Grateful thanks as always to Birdaj2, Mark, Chris and Kev! I'd have to say that I'm really enjoying this kit and lets face it, if it wasn't for the competition, there's no way I would ever have been able to afford it either! My biggest handicap in attempting a brand new genre of modelling is that I have absolutely no idea once I've built or up-graded something as to where on earth it connects up to if it is not included in the kit! I'm getting quite a good selection of reference photos of the engine but more often than not they'll show me the piece I'm working on but any wires or tubes just disappear into the general writhing mass of cables and pipes! (You'll see what I mean in a couple of installments when we reach the firewall bulkhead!) Anyway, here's a part I do know 'what its for' The Battery! I had some good fun with the battery. As supplied in the kit, the battery comes in three pieces, unfortunately I was so eager to get on with this one I neglected to take a photo of its ‘out of the bag’ appearance! Basically, the largest part, the battery shell and its supporting cradle is produced as an all over chrome or silver piece, the top of the battery is coloured black with white acid cell covers and silver contacts and the lockdown bracket is overall black. All the parts are plastic. After searching through the internet I’d come up with several pictures of the battery in position on top of the engine, some of them are obviously more modern day versions being used on these now ‘vintage’ racing cars but the best example of a correct era battery was a white shell with the black top made by a company called “ Varley”. This was backed up by the fact that various other kit manufacturers of the 312 in smaller scales had also used this design, with the Varley logo even being supplied on third party decal sheets! You would think that searching for a 1970’s racing car battery to copy the design would be easy on today’s internet – is it hell! No matter what search terms I tried, 99% of what came up was just modern racing batteries – although it proved that Varley is still going strong in F1, now producing the Varley Red Top. The only thing that came close was an advert from even earlier which stated “ No matter what you drive, whatever the need, don’t be a charley, fit a Varley”! So I did! Photos 1 and 2 show the combined battery shell and metal cradle after a first and then second spray coat of matt white car primer. After allowing that a good twenty four hours to dry I then masked off the white parts of the battery and airbrushed the cradle with a coat of Vallejo Black Primer followed by a coat of Vallejo Metal Colour (I can’t remember if it was Duraluminium or Dull Aluminium now), either way, it then appeared as in Photo 3. The matt white car primer was then given a coat of gloss enamel varnish , this served three purposes, first, as well as imparting a shinier finish like the original battery’s plastic shell had, it also allows me to add some Citadel Shadow Black Ink wash to accentuate the aluminium/white join lines, and thirdly, it provided a better surface on which to add my DIY Varley logo decal. I found the design on one of the smaller scale decal sheets as shown in Photo 4, this one made by Tabu Design with the battery part shown enlarged on the right. I put together a fairly close approximation of the design on my Corel PrintHouse program (which my computer on start up informed me was 24 years old today!) I took a couple of plain paper prints to get it to the right scale before printing it off onto clear inkjet decal paper. This was only achieved after an ‘interesting’ adventure via youtube tutorials in how to strip down my Epson XP-345 All in One to remove the printhead, clean it out completely, put it back in, find out why the printer gave error reports, trace it to a tiny burred edge on the ribbon cable I'd had to remove, causing a short, fix that and finally get the thing to ignore the non original ink cartridge warning and print! So there Epson!  Anyway, Photo 6 illustrates the kit battery top with its white cell plugs. These were given a pale yellow re-paint following some of the reference pics together with a Duraluminium top coat to the two electrical contacts with the blue grey enamel wash on top. This is shown up against the battery box now sporting its home made decal in Photo 7 with the two halves finally pushed together in Photo 8. I couldn’t risk a ‘before and after’ shot with the original and new paint schemes as many of the ‘push fit’ joinings on this kit are so darned good they won’t come apart again! Photo 9 illustrates the fixing points for the battery on the top of the engine. The two locating pins on the rear of the battery push down firmly into the raised cylinders with a pair of flat ‘shelves’ to the side, which the moulded metal cradle rests on (white arrows). The yellow arrows indicate the pair of smaller holes, which take the ends of the lockdown bracket, securing the battery in place. However, there’s some work to do on that one! Finally, in Photo 10, the battery is fixed down into the pillars awaiting that bracket. Until then, stay safe and Happy Modelling to you All! Robin. Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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So carrying on, Photo 11 shows the kit supplied lockdown bracket for the battery. This is a softish black plastic moulding which is just fitted over the top of the battery and the two rods then pushed into the small holes on the engine block. I decided to try and up-grade this basic piece but to avoid making a right mess of it and ending up with no bracket at all, I decided to cast a resin copy and work on that one instead! Photo 12 is of the original piece and its two part silicone mould. This was made by the old Lego brick wall with a layer of plasticene on the base into which the bracket was pushed to half its depth. The first load of liquid silicone was then poured on (or in) and allowed to cure, then the plasticene was removed and the silicone given a few coats of liquid Vaseline mould release before adding in the other half of the rubber to form the full mould as shown here. The kit part is seen in position (lightly pushed on) in Photo 13 and the cast resin copy in Photo 14. This is shown on its scrap wood grinding jig as I now needed to remove the original moulded in ‘rivet’ detail, (just visible as a dull silver ‘dot’ in Photo 13) together with some unwanted resin bubbles. The jig is simply a block of wood with a pair of holes right through matching the size and spacing of the bracket legs with a loose scrap of plasticard to support the raised body of the bracket and prevent it from cracking. The rivet and bubbles were first removed by craft knife blade as shown in Photo 15 and compared with a second unaltered casting in Photo 16. Then, with the bracket still held firmly in the jig I could then clean up the recess on each end with a diamond dust cone grinder seen in Photo 17. Then came the sneaky bit! Photo 18 shows one of my two ‘Green Stuff’ silicone moulds for producing rivets! I bought these for another project, hopefully coming down the line, and although the set says rivets, its actually rivets and nuts and bolts in lots of different sizes. The photo shows my first attempt with resin poured over the mould and the excess scraped away. This looked good, but once cured it became apparent that most of the things had an air bubble trapped at the base. My second try with (now aging) Milliput putty (which didn’t set completely hard) was even worse (try cleaning soft putty out of all those moulds!) The third go worked ok though, I used the slow cure resin which gave me enough time to drip a little drop of resin into each mould in turn and poke the bottom with the cocktail stick to remove any air bubbles. The result is shown in Photo 19, (the slow cure resin is white not beige!) Again, hedging my bets, I devised two different methods – the one shown here involved gluing a pair of the nuts and bolts into the ends of the bracket, if the preferred method didn’t work I would then just glue the threaded rod under the nuts and bolts giving the impression that it went right through the bracket. The preferred method was to actually go right through that bracket. Photo 20 illustrates the full ‘kit’. On the left, under the ruler is the kit part, to the right is the cast bracket with the nuts and bolts and below that is the other casting with a 1.2mm hole drilled through each end. Below and to the right are the threaded stud bars with an identical nut and bolt super glued on the end. The 1.2mm brass threaded rod is shown in close up against the ruler in the inset at the bottom (those are one millimetre markings above! ) The DIY bolts and cast bracket were given a coat of Vallejo Grey Primer. The bracket was then sprayed black with car primer and the bolts brush painted with Vallejo Metal Colour Duraluminium followed by the blue grey wash. I also touched up the kit part with the Metal Colour too. Finally, I re-drilled the two holes in the engine block to 1.2mm, passed the bolts down through the bracket and super glued them into the engine to give the final effect as shown in Photo 21. A definite improvement overall and I never realized until the resin cast nuts and bolts were painted and washed that even in that tiny size, they actually have the thread moulded in the protruding bolt above the nut as well! In the next installment, it’s back to the firewall and some more up-grading to do on the pair of components which are fastened on to it! Until then, stay safe as always and Happy Modelling to you All! Robin. Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Rank: Master Groups: Registered
Joined: 21/04/2011 Posts: 1,072 Points: 3,245 Location: Buckinghamshire
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Hi Plymouth,
A very ingenious way to upgrade a small detail on the battery retainer which, when added to all the other upgrades etc, makes for a fantastic model.
Brilliant stuff.
Chris
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Wow, what an improvement. There is no comparison to the stock part. Excellent work. Mark
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Rank: Master Groups: Registered
Joined: 25/11/2018 Posts: 1,284 Points: 3,878 Location: Southeast UK
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Excellent work as always Robin, some ingenious and innovative methods used to upgrade that battery retaining clamp and it all looks so much better for it! I always enjoy reading your updates, always interesting and very often quite educational even for an experienced modeller like myself. That's what I like about building models, there's always new techniques coming to light that I'd never have thought of myself and I never stop learning. All of those little things come together to make yourself an improved and ever more skilled modeller with every new discovery and it's down to scratch-builders like yourself that we can all improve our own skill sets!
Very well done Robin, keep doing what you do and thanks for sharing. Ta very much!
Kev
Per Ardua Ad Astra
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Many thanks again to Chris, Mark and Kev for their great comments! I know exactly what you mean Kev, I am the same and love reading build diaries that not only show wonderful work but almost more importantly, how that finished item was put together! There are times where we can spend a great deal of time and thought on scratch building a part which makes the model look better, and other times where the same amount of time and effort goes on a seemingly small and insignificant bit like the battery clamp and it makes the whole thing look so much better! Hopefully, this next part will have the same effect (well, it will be using something YOU suggested, so it had better!) Photo 1 shows the contents of Pack 22 which consists of a fireproof bulkhead or firewall which sits between the engine and the drivers compartment, together with two parts of the engine system – a brass looking fuel valve and something that looks like a pressure cooker bolted to the wall which the instructions call an oil tank but which other sources have identified as an Oil Tank Expansion Vessel (but it still looks like a pressure cooker to me! ) Of all the superbly detailed components so far, this is the first one, which is actually not as detailed as it should be in reality! But more of that later. The first thing I attempted was to add a little more depth to the firewall with a re-spray. The dull silver kit finish was first given a coat of Vallejo Black Primer followed by Vallejo Metal Colour Dull Aluminium. Unfortunately, this turned out slightly more shiny than the kit silver, so I attempted a second coat of Metal Colour Semi Matt Aluminium. I should have probably given the piece a second coat of Black Primer first because the Semi Matt Aluminium came out even glossier again! Finally I gave the whole thing a spray with Mig Ultra Matt Lucky Varnish which took the gloss off it nicely. Once that was dry I then masked off the depression that the alternator fits back into, together with the sunken rectangular bottom section and diluted a small quantity of the Semi Matt Aluminium, adding a few drops of the Black Primer to create a darker version of the base coat. This was then airbrushed on in thin layers until the effect was as seen in Photo 2. This looked good so you can imagine the feeling when I realised that once the firewall is fitted on to the engine, not only is all of the lower shadowing covered up but the firewall itself completely conceals all of the beautiful pipe work and detail on the cooling system too! Anyway, on to the first of the items which are fixed onto the upper part of the bulkhead. Photo 3 shows the two parts of what the instructions call an Oil Tank. Whatever its actual designation, this is the first component on this kit that is noticeably ‘under detailed’ compared to the full sized original. The two piece kit part when joined together looks like a kitchen pressure cooker as seen in Photo 4. As you can see in Photos 5 and 6, in actual fact this thing has a total of five input/output connectors, each equipped with an oil-carrying tube or pipe. Of those five, so far I’ve only been able to determine where one of them goes (actually, not where it goes but where it disappears into the bodywork!) In Photo 5, the tube which exits from the filler cap neck loops up and over the body of the ‘tank’ before vanishing down that blue conduit pipe, from there it may well pass back to the oil cooling radiators which sit just in front of the rear wheels in the side body panels. The first thing to do was to mark the position of the five connectors as illustrated in Photo 7. I made a slight mistake here and marked them holding the tank in my hand. After I’d drilled out the holes at each point to take the 1mm aluminium tubing I was using for the outlet base, I discovered on fixing the tank temporarily to the bulkhead and the bulkhead to the engine that position 1 was right in line with the densest cluster of fuel lines coming off the distributor. I would advise any doing this upgrade to stick the tank on the bulkhead and the bulkhead on the engine before marking the positions on, just to be safe! In the meantime, I’d sent off for a pack of Maquett 2mm Styrene Hexagonal rods one of which is seen in Photo 8. This was the first trial attempt at rounding off the end – on the ‘production run’ I wasn’t so extreme as that! With the end gently rounded off, I sliced a nice little nut off the rod using the guillotine as seen in Photo 9. Two of these once slid over the aluminium tube produced the hose outlet as shown in Photo 10. Before carrying on with the rest of the connectors, I first had to make up another jubilee clip which some of the ref photos show around the body of the tank. Photo 11 shows my new and improved jubilee maker – a steampunk jewellery cog screwed onto a block of scrap wood to make the indented ‘belt’ with a smaller aluminium tube and a smaller hexagonal styrene rod to make the tightening screw on the side. Most of the reference pics seem to show the connectors on the vessel as being an anodised red colour so that was what I went for, first painting the nuts in Duraluminium and then a wash of Vallejo Transparent Red. The first one can be seen painted with the new jubilee clip around the middle of the vessel in Photo 12. All of the outlets are straight apart from the one on the right which is a right angle pointing downwards. If you try to bend the aluminium tubing through ninety degrees it will simply kink at the bend, to get a more natural curve it was necessary to first insert a length of brass rod inside the tube and then bend it over a block of wood. Once bent to shape, the aluminium tube was cut to size by rolling a safety razor blade along the mark with the tube spinning around over the wooden block until the metal tube came away at the score-line as seen in Photo 13. UPGRADE INFO:
There are some holes to be drilled into the firewall if fitting the extra fire supression nozzles and the pipework from the brake cylinders. See Post #152 on Page 8 for the fire extinguishers and Post #182 on Page 10 for the pipework hole.In the following installment, the expansion vessel gets all its connections and before fitting in some of the pipe work I can start working on the smaller fuel valve which sits on the opposite side of the firewall. (Haven't got to Kev's bits yet!) Until then, stay safe and Happy Modelling to you All! Robin. Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Rank: Master Groups: Registered
Joined: 25/11/2018 Posts: 1,284 Points: 3,878 Location: Southeast UK
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Excellent work yet again Robin and a very interesting treatise on how you're doing it. Would my 'Kev's bit' have anything to do with inserting tubing inside a braided hose per chance?
That oil tank is called an 'expansion tank' because those F1 engines were what's called 'dry sump' and worked by not having a sump full of oil as most road cars do, but instead having a set amount of oil in the system constantly flowing throughout the sump, radiators, pipes, etc., which when cold is enough for what the engine and systems need. As the oil heats up and gets hot, it expands like anything else and thus the volume increases, so it needs an expansion tank or reservoir to allow it to cope with the bigger volume, pretty much the same as a water 'header' tank in a car's cooling system? Just an 'overflow' tank really?
Keep those updates coming Robin, good stuff!
Kev
Per Ardua Ad Astra
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Many thanks indeed for that explanation Kev! It makes so much more sense when modelling or improving a part when you have some idea what that part actually is and does! The one thing I could really do with finding is a flow chart or similar which shows what is connected to what within the Type 015 Ferrari engine. There is so little available on the web for those who know little (or nothing)about engines with more than one spark plug! I've just about exhausted all the photos that come up, the vast majority show some useful bits but the oil and electrical lines just vanish into the general melee of leads and lines without surfacing at their 'destination'! (I have actually just discovered where a second oil line from that expansion tank vanishes into the bodywork though, which is a great help!) Your guess of tubing into braided hose was actually very close - I've been experimenting with just that item lately! Your advice does involve tubing though as you'll see below! So carrying on again, Photo 14 shows that bent aluminium tube in the process of gluing on the pair of hexagonal nuts. After both were firmly stuck the excess tubing on the other end was trimmed off and the nuts painted by brush with the normally airbrushed Vallejo Metal Colour Duraluminium which was then ‘tinted’ with the transparent red. The full set of outlet/inlet connections is shown in Photo 15. Note the little nut and bolt on the side of the top half – there shouldn’t actually be one there but I made the mistake of marking the locations for the pipes whilst holding the tank ‘freehand’! I should have pushed it onto the firewall and the firewall onto the engine block in order to mark those positions. I put in a pipe where that nut and bolt is now and it was pointing straight into the most congested part of the fuel lines ‘spaghetti’ junction. It should have been further round to the rear (where it is now sticking out of), which left me with a hole in the tank. There was no easy way to plug it without damaging the kit chrome finish – so I stuck the nut and bolt on as camouflage! Photo 16 shows the expansion tank in place on the firewall which is how it should have gone before marking the pipes (see where that bolt is pointing). Anyway, I’ll return to the tank before the end of this section to show the result of following Kev’s excellent advice. Before then however, it’s on to the other piece of equipment on the firewall which the kit instructions describe as a ‘ Fuel Valve’. I’m not sure how this fuel valve works since it doesn’t appear to have any fuel lines associated with it – Photos 17 and 18 show the real thing which as far as I can see has only three wires coming out of it – one at the top via a nut and bolt connector and a pair of smaller ones at the bottom which are either another nut and bolt or else come straight out from the body. There is also some form of cradle attaching it to the bulkhead, which I’m still thinking about. The top cable vanishes into a large wiring bundle seen running below it so I’m just hoping that lot comes with the kit later on! The kit part itself has nothing attached so I’ll start with the top connection. Using some small spade connectors as a guide I tried (and tried) to come up with something I could cast in resin but in the end gave up, partly because it was really difficult to get a small enough version that looked convincing but mostly because I’d come to the conclusion that if I was going to be attaching wires or cables, an ultra thin resin part was almost certainly going to break under the slightest pressure. I finally settled on making an individual connector that was easy enough to construct that I could make many more if necessary further down the line. The base of the spade connector is a length of micro copper tubing of 1mm diameter. Using my mini anvil and the squared end of a metal punch I carefully hammered the end of the tube flat as shown in Photo 19. Then came my next purchase – a complete set of multi-coloured heat shrink tubing shown in Photo 20. There’s about 360+ pieces in there, ranging from tiny ones of about 1mm diameter (the ones I need here) up to flat sleeves of about 2cm. Not only have I got enough modelling sizes for decades to come but also loads of sleeves for full size electrical work (and all for less than £5!) I first sliced off about 5mm of the smallest yellow sleeving, slid it up the tube and over part of the flattened section and then went over it with the mini gas jet, shrinking the sleeve down as seen in Photo 21. The next job was to carefully cut off the rest of the copper tube just behind the heatshrink using the same razor blade and rotating tube technique. If you look closely at the tubing in Photo 21 you can just make out where I started to mark the copper with the blade. Once the tube was cut, I tidied up the cut tube and the flattened part with a diamond file and inserted a length of brass wire into the end of the ‘connector’. The wire shown in Photo 22 was 0.5mm diameter – a mistake on my part as I forgot the next bit to go on wasn’t a 1mm tube but a 0.6mm tube instead! I removed that wire and replaced it with a 0.3mm wire instead (the 1mm and 0.6mm diameters are the external dimensions of the tubing – you need a wire of a couple tenths of a mm smaller to fit inside the tube!) One of the smaller of the resin cast nut and bolts was painted up with Vallejo Duraluminium and the Blue Grey wash as shown in Photo 23 (alongside a penny) and after putting a slight bend in the ‘spade connector’ blade, it was super glued in place. Then came one of Kev’s bits of advice! A few posts back he suggested a form of yellow tinted clear tubing from an angling supplies firm called Veniard. They supply various colours of this ‘ Ultra Lace Tubing’ in two sizes – 1mm and 0.6mm. I sent off for the 1mm yellow tube to see what it was like. It’s a brilliant product for producing oil and fuel lines on model cars – except in the case of this 1/8th scale monster! The fuel lines on the engine are about 1.2 – 1.5mm in diameter with a 1mm or so inner hollow so the 1mm yellow was too thin to fit. BUT, it was just about right for the oil lines to go on to the expansion tank (with a little help, more on that later). But having tried the transparent yellow I realized that the smaller 0.6mm black tubing was perfect for adding any missing electrical cables as in the case of the fuel valve I’m up-grading here! That black tubing is shown in Photo 24. It is attached to the spade connector by pushing the end over the 0.3mm wire previously glued to the copper tube and adding a tiny drop of thin superglue to bond it all together. Note also the nut and bolt on the connector blade by the tweezers. When the time comes, the copper blade will be super glued to the top of the valve, the nut etc, giving the impression of it being bolted in place. Going back to a previous photo repeated in Photo 25, this takes care of the top connection shown at a), the two smaller wires in the base will have a couple of tiny holes drilled into the base and just be glued in place. That just leaves the supporting cradle/bracket shown at b), which is coming next. Until then, stay safe and Happy Modelling to you All! Robin. Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Very nice update Robin. The detailing is superb. Mark
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Rank: Master Groups: Registered
Joined: 21/04/2011 Posts: 1,072 Points: 3,245 Location: Buckinghamshire
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Awesome stuff.
Nothing else to say apart from fantastic.
Chris
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