Ferrari F40 "Blackstar" WIP #6

 One benefit of being off work, is that I get to spend more time in my workshop. Got another week and a half before I go back to work, so more time can be spent in here. Not allowed to do anything strenuous, model buildings the ideal recovery therapy. 

So, progress over the last few days. Firstly, all of the body parts have been primered and sprayed in black. These have been sitting to harden over the last few days before I give them all the clear coats either tomorrow or Monday. Next, I detailed up the bucket seats a little by adding the ridge where the seats padding and upholstery is secured to the seat body. This was done using some half round plastic rod and gradually glue it around the outside edge of the seat. This was finished off with a little filler and sanding. The F40 has 4 point harness belts fitted to them, but the seats are made for a 5 point harness system. So I had to drill out three extra holes in the seats to accommodate the harness belts.
  

Next, covering the seat backs with carbon fibre decal. My original plan was to try and do this with a single piece. So I made a template up then drew up and cut out a piece of decal. But when I went to lay it onto the seat, it would not behave and sit properly on the seat. So that idea was scrapped along with a large piece of decal. So a new reversible template was made of the side of the seat and four pieces were cut out and added to the seats. A final template was made for the back panel of the seats to complete the carbon fibre off on these. Once it was all dry, I trimmed off any excess and the openings for the seat belts to go through. I painted the seat to finish them off. The instructions for some reason, say to paint them matt white! I did not think this was right and all of the photos I have seen of the prototypes, the seat upholstery is all red. So the seats received a few coats of Revell's Carmine Red which I think looks a lot better then they would in white.

A quick dry fit of the seats and body to see how it all looks now that the interior is finished and the body is painted. The carbon fibre decal was well worth the time and effort of making the templates, cutting out each section and applying them all. Painting these areas on the model would have not looked right, especially in this scale. The seats I think are just perfect in red, white was definitely a no no. All that is left to do with the interior is assemble the two sets of racing harnesses and secure them in place, then the chassis and interior will be completed. The body is looking okay even without being cleared, but once that is done, we will be heading towards the finish line on the F40.

Now just to finish this post off, mounting the racing harnesses! The F40 has anchor loops to clip the harness belts to. Now, the harness sets that I had got for the model does not supply any parts for mounting them. So I have made some loops out of some wire and glued them into some drilled holes. I am also making the clips which hook onto these from plasticard. So below are two of the loops in place on the model and I will post about the clips and harnesses in my next installment.

Ferrari F40 "Blackstar" WIP #5

Welcome back for the next installment on the F40 build.

I thought I had initially finished the chassis last week, until I noticed that I had left a few pieces off on Monday. These were the two air filters and the rear screen, so these were quickly fitted and the chassis is finally finished along with the wheels fitted on as well. So here are a few photos of the finished chassis before all of the interior gets fitted in place.

Onto the interior now. On the instructions, everything is painted on the interior using two colours that need to be mixed up first. Now around 1996/7, I was lucky enough to go for a spin in a F40 and I can vaguely remember seeing bare carbon fibre panels on the interior of the car. Research on the internet confirmed this, but I managed to find some photos of the interior from one of the prototypes and noticed something slightly different. The production cars had the same size carbon fibre weave on the interior construction as on the seats. But the prototype had a larger weave on the body from the seats. So I had to source two different sizes of CF decal for this effect on the model. 

Carbon fibre decal sheets in 1/16th scale is hard to come by, but what I did was to buy some of Scale Motorsport's 1/12th scale for the body and 1/20th scale for the seat backs. Whilst i was waiting for the decal sheets to be delivered, I made up some templates for the main panels on the interior tub for covering out of masking tape. Five templates in total were made, one for the centre counsel and four templates for the side sections. Before adding the CF, I airbrushed the floor and rear panel with the required colours I had mixed.

First the counsel was covered and left to dry, then the lower front corner sections. Plenty of Micro Sol and the hairdrier were used to get the decals to stretch into place. The two front kick panels were next followed by the inner side panels finishing with the outer panels. The front inner panel was measured up and transferred onto the rear of the decal sheet, cut out and then applied to the front inner wall. The last bits to be done was the handbrake opening/tray of the counsel. I cut two strips to run around the sides then two more panels for the bottom. This completed the CF decals for the car interior tub and now just needs the paint to be touched up after it was stained by the Micro Sol.

The dashboard was painted almost to the instructions. Another difference I noticed was the panel in front of the passenger seat was in a gloss black finish, not the same colour as the dashboard. Luckily, I had left this off to make it easier to paint anyhow, so this was brush painted with gloss black before all of the panels/lights, or what they were got painted.All of the dial decals were added after painting and given a couple of coats of Johnsons Klear to seal them. Not I just need to paint the accelerator pedal, gearstick and handbrake lever before gluing them in position. The seats are not done yet because I am doing some modifications to them for the 5 point harnesses and adding some extra detail around their edges. I will update on these later.

Workshop Model Displaying

Over the years, friends have ask how do I display my models once they are built. When we were in our old house, I had the glass wall unit mounted above the stairs. The rest of my models were in the loft/workshop on various shelves or packed away in boxes.

Now we are in the new house, things are very different. My sweet wife let me have one of the spare bedrooms for my workshop (man cave), but as long as I kept all of my stuff in there. So here I am with half of the floor space compared to the old house and less storage (hiding holes) for my un-built kits. For this, I use our grandsons old wardrobe to store the smaller size kit boxes in along with some ongoing projects on hold and bits 'n' pieces. The rest of the kits are in packing boxes in the loft.

Now onto my model on display in my room. Not all of my built models are on display in here. My armour dioramas are kept in storage boxes to protect them and some of my cars are still packed away in the loft. Decisions will have to be made at some point on what to do with some of my older models. A few will definitely be kept, others will have to go, but how to do this is undecided. So onto the ones on display to which I will add a caption to each photo listing what is in each one.

Plastic racking shelf unit, top shelf
1/32nd Gloster Meteor, 1/144th Antonov An-124, 1/72nd Westland Wessex "Humphrey" 

Racking second shelf
3 X 1/72nd Canberra PR9's, 1/72nd Lightning F.6
1/732nd Lightning F.2A, 1/48th Spitfire FR Mk.XIV

Racking third shelf
1/72nd Intruder Tanker, 1/48th F-86 Sabre, 1/48th Bf.109E (RAF)
1/72nd F-4N Phantom II, 1/72nd F4F-4 Wildcat, 1/144th F-14A Tomcat

Small bookshelf
F-86D Sabredog, F6F-3 Hellcat

Large bookshelf top shelf
1/35th Diamond T, 1/35th Gama Goat, Minions
1/125th U Boat U-99, 1/24th Infiniti Q45

Bookshelf second shelf
1/35th Tiger I, 1/35th Walker Bulldog, 1/72nd Challenger II
1/48th Sherman, 1/35th Bradley

Bookshelf third shelf
1/72nd SdKfz9 Famo with Morser 18, 1/48th Mirage IIIC, 1/72nd F-86 Sabre 

Glass Wall Unit (top to bottom)
Countach LP400, R32 Skyline GT-R, Chevrolet Blazer, Jagouar Mk2 Coombes
R34 Skyline GT-R, Lotus Europa, Morris Mini Copper, R35 GT-R, VW Beetle
Ferrari Enzo, Corvette C6, 1/9th Harley Davidson Heritage Soft-tail Classic
Opel Admiral, Lancia Stratos, Mercedes Benz G4,
1/32nd Monty's Humber Snipe, Sprint Car

Mounted On Wall
1/32nd P-47M Thunderbold, 1/24th P-51D Mustang

Hanging Aircraft (L to R)
1/72nd SR71 Blackbird, 1/72nd MiG-31 Foxhound,
1/72nd A-10 Thunderbolt II, 1/72nd F-84G Thunderjet

Hanging Aircraft (L to R)
1/72nd Hawk T.1, 1/72nd SB2C Helldiver, 1/72nd F-15E Strike Eagle
1/72nd Spitfire Mk.22, 1/72nd Gannet AS Mk.1/4
1/72nd F-15C Eagle, 1/72nd Arado Ar240

Ferrari F40 "Blackstar" WIP #4

I was planning to make some more regular update post on here over the last couple of weeks. But you know how it goes, you get carried away with sitting at the workbench, then time wise it is too late to post that evening, and then it repeats the next day, etc, etc.  So I will bring you up to date with photos taken over the last couple of weeks.

These first five photos were taken just after the engine was finished and I was test fitting it in the chassis to see how it looked. You will see some filler on the bonnet to smooth out some blemishes from the moulding process. It was annoying to keep finding some sink marks in various places on the bodyshell.

The next selection of photos show the chassis all painted and the engine glued in place. The instructions said to paint the chassis in matt black, but I decided to go with Tamiya's semi-gloss black instead. I think this will look better and the real car would most likely be sprayed with satin black, not matt black. There are still a few pieces left to go onto the chassis at this stage, including the damaged rear anti-roll bar which I am currently repairing at the minute scratch-building a replacement part for it.

When I first fitted the front brake calipers on the car, they stuck out way too far from the wheels. So a little modification has been carried out and the have been re-positioned further in closer to the disc's. The lower edges between the front and rear wheels need to be sprayed gloss black to match the body when it is done. I will just mask off the areas and spray them the same time as I do the body parts. 

More progress has been made on the bodyshell. Bits of filling and smoothing where there were sink marks especially on the doors and lower rear valance. I also noticed in photos of the real car, there was no joint line between the rear spoiler and bonnet. So this has been filled and sanded, but very carefully on one side due to the "F40" embossed into the spoiler surface. I noticed tonight that there was still a slight dip on this side, so some more filler has been added to correct this. I am hoping to get this all primed up this weekend and have it ready for spraying black next week. I will also need to decant plenty of the Halfords gloss black paint from the aerosol ready for airbrushing the car. I do not want to risk laying down too heavy coat by spraying directly from the tin.

And now onto the last bit for tonight's update. Whilst I was at the club on Wednesday, I started to assembly up the interior. It is fairly straight forwards on this model, not much detail in it. But that is what the F40 is like inside, two seats, a dashboard, gear lever, handbrake and full harness seatbelts. Not stereo or electric windows, etc. The roar of the engine behind you is all the music you need in one of these and I have experienced a spin in one of these cars to know it. 

There is one thing that is a bit annoying with this kit. For a model of this scale, Fujimi did not supply any seatbelts with the kit, not even decal versions. Now, there is not many aftermarket parts out there for 1/16th scale cars. Plenty for 1/12th, 1/20th and 1/24th-25th scale car. But I did manage to find a set of 5 point full harness belts in this scale which are produced by Pro Tech in the USA. So two sets were ordered and they arrived yesterday. I will post photos of these when I assemble them for the car. So that is all for this post on the F40.