Leyton House CG901B

[jaykay640]

Hi everyone, here’s the start of a new WIP. I have been playing around with several projects since finishing my Jordan 191 and now i finally have something to show.
This is the 1:20 scale Leyton House March CG901B by Tamiya that most of you will know or even have.





For a long time i wasn’t really interested in this kit because the car wasn’t that successful ( well, compared to the Ferraris, McLarens and Williams of the time ) and the kit has been OOP for quite a while and has become a collectible of sorts.
My indifference was changed in 2009 however, when i saw the real thing at Goodwood, freshly after being restored by http://www.dtperformanceltd.co.uk
Compared to other cars of the time this one looks even more delicate and sleek ( and I really like some of those other cars for their looks ) There are various small bits and pieces on the CG901B that look more sophisticated than the competition. It’s a bit like looking at Bugattis or Millers compared to their contemporaries. Granted, that didn’t make the 901B a winner but i think you can almost see it’s a Newey car. You can read more about the real thing in Gurneyflap’s focus here: http://www.gurneyflap.com/leytonhousecg901.html

The kit is a typical Tamiya effort of the time. Not sensational compared to current kits but a good base to start with. In many ways it’s the Jordan all over again. Originally i wanted to build something different after the Jordan but i changed my mind.
I wanted to try out some new techniques and the Leyton House ( and many of it’s afforementioned “sophisticated bits” ) are a very good test bed for it. I will get to that a little later :-)
At Goodwood i managed to get a good bunch of pictures of the beautifully restored car that i will use for reference and show here along with the build pictures. Despite all my picture taking i later found out that i had missed some details ( as always...). But Patrick Morgan, the owner of dtperformance, kindly helped me out with some additional pictures, so my special thanks go to him!

I started the build like i did with the Jordan. I sketch glued most of the parts together to make a jig for the suspension setup and to see which parts would need modifications and what would need to be replaced or scratchbuilt because it was missing entirely.





When the nosecone and top hatch are removed they reveal.....nothing :-) Same thing as with the Jordan. There will be some scratch building necessary.





The engine bay will aslo need a lot of work. Many parts have been simplified or aren’t in the kit at all.





There’s one big oddity with the kit. When the engin cowling is mounted it overlaps the driver’s seat massively. In reality this would literally break his neck. It looks like Tamiya was rather generous with that gap to make sure the cowling would fit on the finished build. I’ll have to change that.





I got started with the monocoque. Before putting the halves together there are some things to do. The molded in fuel filler is a bit of a joke.





The real one is “slightly” more detailed :-)





To replicate that i filed a hole in the monocoque and drilled 0,3mm holes for the surrounding bolts using a template i photoetched.





I also closed various holes for locator pins and the front suspension. Some of these won’t be needed or they should be smaller or shaped differently.





So, these are the first steps. I’m slowly but surely getting into this build. Progress will be slow as always but i’m aiming to make it at least steady :-)
Thanks for watching!

[HuskerF1]

I already posted a comment over at F1M, but I'm still very excited to see your progress, good luck!

[auw12]

When you see the author name you know it's party time again, just sit tight and waiting to be shocked again.

[mike@af]

I cant wait to follow this one Joachim! Your sketch is fantastic!

[Entau]

definitely will be watching this one, superb sketch..i thought it was some artist's sketch, until Mike mention it only i realize your signature is in the sketch

[gulfclk]

Straight into my favorites!!!!!

[Robi J]

Originally Posted by auw12

When you see the author name you know it's party time again, just sit tight and waiting to be shocked again.

Oh yes, welcome back Master...

[mike@af]

I am ready for another update now! Hurry up, Joachim!

[lumpulus]

JK, congrats on your Icon online contest win!

Looking forward to this build, as I don't thinkI've ever seen a detailed 901B out there.

There is a CG901B near me if you need a specific part photographed....let me know.

[da_ashman]

Awesome, Your Jordon Build was jaw dropping, cant wait to see what you do with this one!!

[Helico]

Ah, the start of another master build. I can't wait to see you "new techniques". Very nice sketch too. I'm always curious about what you do professionally. An F1 engineer?

[jaykay640]

Originally Posted by lumpulus

JK, congrats on your Icon online contest win!

Looking forward to this build, as I don't thinkI've ever seen a detailed 901B out there.

There is a CG901B near me if you need a specific part photographed....let me know.

Thanks! For the moment it looks like i'm fine with reference but i'll remember it :-)

Originally Posted by Helico

Ah, the start of another master build. I can't wait to see you "new techniques". Very nice sketch too. I'm always curious about what you do professionally. An F1 engineer?

Nope..designer...road car interiors :-)

Originally Posted by GTmike400

I am ready for another update now! Hurry up, Joachim!

Well..... here we go :-)

Since we’ve had a long weekend in Germany i was able to make some progress and here’s another update already…just don’t get used to it :-)

The next step was, to open the holes for the front pushrods in the monocoque. Tamiya didn’t bother to do the ones in the top surfaces, because that would have made the injection mold too complicated. I etched another template, fixed it with a drop of superglue and then opened the holes one after another.





Here’s a picture of the real car for comparison. Unfortunately one of my holes turned out a bit big. I’ll have to fix that later.





I cleaned the surface areas on the insides of the monocoque halves that will be visible after assembly and added a styrene ring around the big bulge for the shifting hand in the right hand side like on the real car.





Then i finally glued the parts together and started cleaning the seams up. The surfaces needed some thorough filing and sanding to straighten them out. You can see what i mean in the next picture... it’s an old mold :-)





On top of the sidepods i added some body filler to correct the shape.





At this point it’s time to get to one of the “new techniques” i mentioned in the first post. For a long time i’ve been wanting to try out doing parts for models in CAD. The problem was, i had to learn the software first. I’d been meaning to do that for years, because i kinda need it for my job as well :-) Earlier this year i finally sat down and started learning. To motivate myself i built parts for modeling projects to practice. Hence i spent my modeling time at work in the evenings and didn’t have much to show for a WIP thread until now.
A couple of weeks ago i finally got my first batch of parts for the Leyton House and could get started with building ( the other projects i worked on will follow later ).





I got these parts done by shapeways.com in their “frosted ultra detail” material. They introduced it earlier this year and it’s about o.k. for the tiny details i wanna do. From looking at the surface quality i’d say it’s better than what Hiro’s machine can do :-)
The technology could do even finer stuff afaik but that would increase production time and the price. For what you get, the price is reasonable and it means, it’s not necessary to buy your own CNC mill ( unless you want to make metal parts that is :-)
Anyway, i designed a variety of parts to test what’s feasible to produce and pushed the limits in terms of detail and material thicknesses. In some cases the parts look very good, in others i was too ambitious. The technology opens a whole new can of worms though and helps to build really nerdy stuff that would be very difficult or even impossible to do by hand or with manual machines.

The first part to go on the model was the top insert in the front end of the monocoque. I had to shorten the part a bit to make it fit, but overall it came out pretty well. I sanded the surfaces slightly to remove the typical stepping in the surfaces, which worked fine with that material.





In the next picture the part is in its place and you can also see the left hand side holes i made for the front pushrod. The one in the side had to be repositioned because Tamiya put it a bit off its real place due to the material thickness of the injection molded piece.





For the front bulkead i used 1mm styrene sheet and drilled the holes using another etched template. Doing that part in CAD and getting it printed wouldn’t have worked well, because the inner surfaces of the kit parts were asymmetric and it would have been tricky to get the bulkhead sit right.





Finally, here’s a picture of the whole monocoque as it is right now.





There’s more to do on it, but that update will take longer :-)

[gionc]

Mmmm fantastic like ever, one step forward .... 100% Jayjuice... (maybe I spent this gag yet? maybe.. )

first: amazing, the etched template to drill/cut is simply amazing, great idea, genius...
second: great to see others on the "custom modeling" with better result, perhaps...

I recorded your supply service for prototypes, looks like it is much cheaper than mine, but I have to do right calculation... I browsed the price list and looks like they may do metal protypes? I must try them and do a comparo with my usual source....

In one word... Jay: can you use parts without light sand 'em?

ciao super

gio

[jaykay640]

Yes they do metal parts. They look nice but i don't think they are fine enough for parts in this scale.
You could probably use the "frosted ultra detail ( or FUD )" parts without sanding and just prime and paint them but with some sanding the result should be better. I haven't tried yet but it depends on how much paint you put on top. Parts that will be painted with several layers or covered with CF decals won't need sanding i think. Tiny detail parts that will get a metal paint shade are a different story. That's where i need to experiment and see if 3D-printing is the right solution ( yet ).

[Spike2933]

oh boy, here we go again, wheres the popcorn