Lotus 78, Tamiya, 1/12

Well, it's been a while, but I managed to finish another one, which was tormenting me sometimes...

The mechanical parts were no problem, easy building. The cowling parts however... much puttying was needed at the airbox, but also at the mirrors and the gear knob bulge. After painting the first couple of parts I put on some Indycal decals (I had an old issue of the kit with the yellow decals), which as you know have a black trim arund the yellow lines. I had used them in 1/20 with no problem, but this time, even after applying clear, the decal areas were dark grey, which was very visible. I don't know why, maybe they aged as I ordered them some years ago. So I repainted the parts (only a couple fortunately) and ordered some TABU decals.
Next problem: the decals for the front and rear wing endplates only fit the etched parts of the recent reissue, not the plastic parts of the kit, therefore I had to scratchbuild the endplates from sheet. Then I had to notice, that the TABU decals were silvering a lot. I carefully lifted the worst offenders up again, and put lots of softer underneath, the rest was "fixed" by the clear.
Oh, while mentioning the clear: I used zero 1k and some parts were attacked by it, so on some I had to mask off the yellow stripe decals and repaint the rest of the part black. Also, I did not manage to get the clear shiny everywhere. Even when I polished the part, washed it, put more clear on it, some areas of a part just did not get the nice shine. Polishing improved the situation, but the result was not as good as I usually get (though I have to mention, that the orange peel you may think to see on some photos are reflections of a semi transparent car port roof).

In summary: Tamiya Lotus 78, painted with TS14,29,6, Alclad Alu, Chrome. TABU Decals, some wires, belts from leukosilk with etched parts, everything else from the box. I painted the tire letters with the template from the german forum mentioned in another thread on top of the raised letters.

Hope you like it, but the next one will be a "don't worry" kit, i.e. MFH ;)

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/Lotus78_12_00.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/Lotus78_12_01.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/Lotus78_12_02.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/Lotus78_12_03.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/Lotus78_12_04.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/Lotus78_12_05.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/Lotus78_12_06.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/Lotus78_12_07.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/Lotus78_12_08.jpg

http://www.marcosaupe.de/images/Lotus78_12_09.jpg

Looks the biz!
;)

Superb modell and finish! Thanks to showing us!

Thanks for sharing, I find it somewhat comforting to see other modelers having issues with their models but getting it done with a great result like yours.

Superb result!

Sounds like this one put you through the hoops a few times. The end result is one to be proud of.

Thanks all :)

Amazing details!

Stunning build!! I've been after this kit for a good while now

Very Nice...

wonderful:worshippy

Zim