Mini Cooper S

So, I've been lurking around the forum and occasionally posting comments for a few years now, and thought I should take a shot at a WIP. I'm building a Mini Cooper S from the Airfix 1/32 kit that came out recently. My son has a 2009 Mini Cooper S, so I decided to try to duplicate his car.

The Airfix kit is very nice, with clean molding and good detail, but there were two problems for me. The first was that the wheels in the kit were a different style than the ones on my son's car, and the second was that the kit is right-hand drive, and I needed left-hand drive. Here's a picture of the desired wheel style.

There were a couple of other problems. The wheels are molded in two pieces - a wheel and tire with a hollow back, and an inner tire sidewall. Because of the molding process, there is no tread detail on the tires. Also, the inner tire sidewall dropped too far into the tire. I fixed that problem by cutting a duplicate of the inner tire sidewall in 0.020" plastic sheet and gluing it to the back of the inner tire sidewall to space it out to the tire edge.http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0299.jpghttp://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0300.jpg

Then I glued strips of 0.010" thick by 0.020" wide plastic to the tire tread area to give a simple tread.
http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0304.jpg

Great ideas on improving a simple kit!
KUTGW!

For the next step, I used a sprue cutter to remove the spokes from the wheel and cleaned up the inside of the wheel rim. I salvaged the wheel hub, since the inside of the hub where it mounts to the brake disc is a bit complex.

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I then took a piece of 0.040" plastic sheet and laid out a circle and radial spokes. Then I rough cut the circle and drilled a hole to mount the disk in my Dremel. I used a file to round off the disk and apply a bevel to match the inside of the wheel rim.
http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0305.jpg
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Then I drilled out the center of the disk and beveled it to fit over the wheel hub.
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Finally, I used a razor saw to cut out the spokes, and glued the hub and spoke assembly into the wheel rim.
http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0316.jpg
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After filing, sanding, puttying and priming, the wheel and tire looked pretty good, so I had a friend make a mold and cast some copies in resin. If anyone is interested in this wheel, you can get resin copies from Section 8 Hobbies in Buffalo, NY.

http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0366.jpg

I cleaned up four resin wheels, primed them, and painted the wheel with Alclad gloss black base. Then I masked the wheel and painted the tire with Model Master Black Chrome mixed with a little flat white. I buffed the sidewalls with a Q-tip to give them a hint of sheen, and they're done.

http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0321.jpg
http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0368.jpg

Next I started working on the conversion to left hand drive. Fortunately, the Mini dashboard is symmetrical, so it only needed to have the steering column moved from the right side to the left.

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After lots of filing and sanding, the dashboard looked OK so my friend made another mold and copied it in resin.
http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0328.jpg

Great work on the wheels! Especially with this scale.

Too bad you did not increase the rim diameter and reduce the tire profile to match the actual wheels.

Interesting WIP.

Thanks for the comments! To be honest, the tire profile never even occurred to me. I think my son's car has 17" rims, and I just assumed the wheels in the kit were the same. I'll have to take some measurements just to satisfy my curiosity now.

I would say that your son's car has 17" an that the ones on the model are 16". Again, great work so far.

Thanks for the comments. Christophe - I believe you are correct about the wheels. For what it's worth, the difference between 16" and 17" wheels in 1/32 scale is about 0.030", which ain't much! The profile of the tires could be a little lower, though.

The other part of the interior that needed modification was the pedal area. I decided it would be easier to just cut off the front of the floorboard, and make a new one from plastic sheet. I made a new footrest for the left foot and a new gas pedal, and attached them to the floorboard front panel, and made notches for the brake and clutch pedals. The new piece was then duplicated in resin and superglued to the front edge of the floorboard.

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Meanwhile, I also worked on the floorpan. This was just built up following the kit directions, with a little detail painting around the engine compartment - masking was a pain. The exhaust system was painted with Alclad steel for the pipes, aluminum for the muffler and heat shield, and chrome for the exhaust tips.

http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0322.jpg

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Back to the interior, I masked off and painted the trim rings around the cupholders with Alclad semi-matt aluminum.

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Considering how visible it will be in the final model, I probably got a little silly here with the gear shift. I sprayed it with Alclad black gloss base, masked it and painted the base with semi-matt aluminum, masked it again and painted the top rim of the knob with chrome, and finally hand-brushed flat clear over the black boot.

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I painted the hand brake Tamiya semi-gloss black, and installed it and the gear shift. I hand-painted some white primer on the seat belt receptacles, and then painted them with Tamiya red.

http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0369.jpg

I assembled the seats, primed them with Alclad grey primer (my current favorite), and airbrushed them with Model Master black chrome, which is also what I used on the door panels and the floorboard. It gives a nice matt black, but not dead flat.

http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0345.jpg

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I applied some black flocking to the floorboard using white glue, installed the resin brake and clutch pedals, and applied some flat aluminum bare metal foil to the pedals. Here's a couple pictures with the front seats installed.

http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0372.jpg

http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0373.jpg

The door panels were primed and painted with Model Master black chrome, then masked and the trim was painted with Alclad semi-matt aluminum. The centers of the speakers were hand painted with semi-gloss black, and the door handles were detailed with chrome bare metal foil.

http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0371.jpg

Looking pretty good so far especially at such a small scale.

Christophe, thanks for the encouraging comments.
I finished masking and painting the dashboard, using Alclad semi-matte aluminum and Tamiya semi-gloss black, and added the tachometer and steering wheel. Finally, I assembled the remaining parts of the interior.

http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0374.jpg

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It doesn't show up in the photos, but I coated the tach and speedometer decals with MicroScale crystal clear. There's also a nice little Mini decal on the steering wheel.

This is looking really good for such a small scale!

If anyone is interested, a resin set for converting from right to left hand drive is available from Section 8 Hobbies: http://section8hobbies.com/store/catalog/index.php?cPath=26&osCsid=0a19ccb4eec306062702f88798d7861f

The next step was to start getting some paint on the body. I used some red lacquer I had lying around from MCW, and used Alclad gloss black. The masking was done with Tamiya masking tape. After deepening the panel lines with a scriber, the masking really wasn't too difficult.

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The taillight lenses are clear plastic, so I masked them for the turn signal and backup light sections, and painted them with Alclad clear red. I drilled a small indentation in the center of the turn signal area and filled it with Testors turn signal amber.

http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0336.jpg

The headlight assemblies are solid grey plastic from the kit, so they needed some work. I drilled out the headlight and turn signal lenses, and made new ones by turning some pieces of clear sprue on my lathe. The headlight assemblies were then primed, painted gloss black, and finished with Alclad chrome.

http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0343.jpg

The gas cap also got the Alclad chrome treatment.

http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0341.jpg

The main radiator grill received primer followed by gloss black. The center area was then masked, and the surround was painted with Alclad chrome. The masking was removed, and the center area was brush painted with Alclad semi-matt clear, followed by a flat black wash.

http://www.ipmsniagarafrontier.com/images/MiniCooperS/0348.jpg