Tamiya Williams FW14b

[Joey21]

Hey guys, I've been wanting to build a 1/12 Tamiya car for quite some time now and I finally got started on the Williams.

Here is the engine block and bellhousing. I used a silver sharpie to add more detail on the belhousing and I used Scale Motorsport's 1/24th scale carbon fiber decal on the valve cover. Really impressed with the quality of the decals. They're thick enough so that they don't tear, but they're thin enough to really conform to the surface of the part you're trying to cover. I highly recommend them.

I also purchased some machined velocity stacks from Thunder Valley F1. They look excellent and are a nice little detail to the engine.

(I've tried shrinking the size of the photos- sorry if they appear large to everybody else as well- not sure whats going on)





Here is the tub with the same carbon fiber decals added to the side pod areas. I didn't like the shade of blue that Tamiya recommended, so I went with TS-15 Blue. The recommended shade seemed too light whereas the actual car is more a traditional royal blue.



More to come soon!

[KC27]

Hi Joey,

Nice start. I built the fw14b last year and it is a great kit.

Just regarding the blue paint colour. On the side pods where the blue part is curved I had to trim the standard decal to use the white and red pinstripe. It's a section not suitable for the straight pinstripe decals included in the kit. The blue of the decal is colour matched to the blue Tamiya recommend (ts44 I think?). So it's going to be tricky to get that part perfect on a different blue.

Looking forward to seeing more.

KC

[brettly]

Yes, looking forward to your progress as well. I have a Tamiya 1/12 Ferrari 312T4 sitting in the box that I purchased some 3-4 months ago. I barely started it and got busy (work etc). Hope to start in on the 1-1-16. I said to myself i'd give the kit a year to build (using all small details) ..who knows. Looking for some inspiration.

[Joey21]

Thanks for the kind words guys. I made some more progress on the tub, roll hoop and shock cover. (click on the images to expand them- now they're so small. Hopefully I figure these images out haha)

The camel yellow on the roll hoop and shock cover looks very nice, but it takes quite a few coats to get it to cover correctly.

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I then hit the shock cover with some more TS-15. I have a hard time masking curved lines like this, but the pin stripe decal does a nice job of hiding any mishaps You can see that the blue of the decal doesn't match up perfectly with the shade of blue that I've chosen, but that doesn't really bother me. I'd rather get the tub right and not worry about matching these stripes perfectly.

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The cockpit assembly started to come together next. The seat called for flat black paint, but I took some artistic liberties here and added some carbon fiber decals and electrical tape instead. Its not entirely accurate for a car from '92, but what the hell, I thought it looked cool haha.

To try to simulate the seude steering wheel I lightly sanded the plastic with a fine grit sandpaper to add some texture and I then painted it with a few coats of flat black. I then went back lightly with a more coarse sandpaper to add some additional texture at the end. I think the end result is pretty convincing.

I really like the way that Tamiya did the seat belts. They're very thing fabric stickers that are easier to work with than I anticipated. The green cable that you see on the right side of the tub is the throttle cable.

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[John18d]

Hey Joey21 - Please keep the pictures BIG

Small pictures make it really difficult to get a good look at what the builder has done.
Myself - I hate it when someone posts tiny thumbnail pictures.
My eyes are bad enough at my age in life.

Great start - I will follow your thread on this build.
Please - lots of pictures and explanations of your work when you post - okay?

Cheers
John

[Joey21]

Here's another shot of inside of the tub. You can see the fire bottle and pedal assembly as well. Unfortunately the seat and shock cover hide a lot of these details.

I added some more Scale Motorsport decals to the sidepod. I really can't say enough good things about these decals. They're way easier to work with than I would have thought and they're a really nice touch in my opinion.

These sidepods are then covered with various electronic boxes and connectors. Tamiya included a lot of detail in this kit.


Here's the top of the tub with decals added. There are a lot of curves here, so its tough to get the decals to lay perfectly, but I'm relatively pleased with it. Plus, this area will be covered by the pushrods and electronic boxes- not to mention the shock cover.

[Archibaldi]

Tamiya TS-15 is too dark for that "Blue", Gunze Mr. Color #5 is closer to the original.

[Joey21]

All depends on the light

[Joey21]

The model is pretty much done, aside for some small details here and there.

Brake lines are braided line from RB motion. The kill switch is simply wire with black shrink tubing around it that I've painted black. I twisted the end of the wire to recreate the tab for the marshall's to pull and cut the engine.





















(the little bit of blue over spray was easily removed with some polish)





I'm a little bit annoyed that the yellow on the roll hoop and the engine cover don't match perfectly, but it's not a huge deal as I'll be displaying the car without the engine cover. The yellow is much more vibrant on the engine cover due to a gloss white basecoat as opposed to gray primer. I'll be using white gloss for now one- live and learn though.