1/20 Tamiya F2001

[ejsmith]

Well it's not quite finished but it's now display ready!! The wheels have gone on and all that's left is to clear coat the rear wing, add a couple more decals (some white sponsor logos below the Bridgestone sign) and the yellow strip on the camera as per the Japanese GP. Also I have to put the windscreen in place. Otherwise the only job left is a bit more tinkering with the engine but I'm going to leave that for a rainy day I think. I really should just finish it now while I'm still doing the Ferrari but I'm very tired of this model and my patience has run out :-/

When I came to do the wheels I had a dilemma. In the kit you're given a poly cap which goes inside the brake disc which allows the wheels to rotate. But the photoetched brake set meant I had to shorten this cap which presented all sorts of problems. Where the knife had cut the cap it wasn't quite short enough and also deformed the cap slightly which meant it wasn't rotating and was difficult to get into the brake disc. This meant I wasn't going to be able to have the wheels rotate. Only a minor issue though, if not a positive one, as it's going to be on display and I don't want it rolling about.
But then I had another issue. In the photoetched kit they gave me nice new wheel nuts which were on a shaft which goes through the brake disc into the hub. The tamiya kit has shafts and wheel nuts moulded onto the wheel rim already. So I tried modifying this but it ended badly. I realised I'd have no way of telling if the new hole I was drilling was square or not but luckily managed to save the first one and then abandoned the plan. Also it turned out the new wheel nut was too short and didn't give a good fit on the hub. Luckily this is on the side that won't be displayed though. But it annoyed me anyway, part of the reason I just want to start with a clean new model.
Definitely learnt a lot during this build, not least paint finish and the use of microsol. Also learnt a lot about preparation for painting parts and now I'm no longer getting dust spoiling the finishes etc. I wouldn't recommend this kit though. Tamiyas are generally very very good but this one was a struggle with the fit all the way (one of the jobs still left to do is sort out the fit between the airbox and air filter). Hope you all enjoyed the build and thanks for everyone for giving helpful comments/encouragement (almost gave up after that first brake disc!)
Pictures to follow in the next post...

And billypee, don't usually have them so close to the edge but I had to bring it a bit closer for the photo. Also I store the model in a box on a shelf when I'm not working on it (as long as I can get all the pieces to fit without touching each other) so there's no risk I'll accidentally knock it off when I'm just passing through And also in this case it's partly down to my desk being rather messy at the moment!

[ejsmith]

Not going to make a completed thread for the reasons above but I'm going to start something else now and work on this whenever I have the spare time. It's pretty much ready for display though....

Well here's how the brakes looked in the end, just before putting the wheels on


And now the finished article...

[ferrari2k]

Originally Posted by ejsmith

Steering wheel took me a while

May I ask where you did get this Suzuka decal? I have several of these in my pile and want to create different versions (Australia 02, Belgium, France, Italy). Would be very nice if I have the correct decals on the steering wheel.

[ejsmith]

It came with the TABU decal sheet which came from modelworks.co.uk. I don't think it came with any other tracks though, only for the Japanese GP

[ferrari2k]

Originally Posted by ejsmith

It came with the TABU decal sheet which came from modelworks.co.uk. I don't think it came with any other tracks though, only for the Japanese GP

Thanks, I just found it and it comes with every track layout.