Audi R8 2000 - Le Mans Minatures

[klutz_100]

I tried a Speed build over the weekend of a Le Mans car to celebrate the race. I decided on the Le Mans Minatures kit of the 2000 Audi R8

I started at 06.00 on Saturday morning and my goal was to finish by Sunday evening. Unfortunately I was not able to devote 100% of my time to the build so it required juggling act and a plan to build in the right sequence.

The kit played it’s part by being simple with a low parts count and being very well cast with very little flash or mold lines and only two tiiiiiny bubbles. It also has a great fit straight out of the box.





My original plan was to build the Revell R10 but a superficial inspection highlighted enough problems with fit, flash and mold lines to tell me that I would need a whole weekend just to prep this kit!!





06.00 – 10.00 Saturday
Cleaning, fitting, priming and putting down some black coats.
P/E fins added to the front diffuser. Excellent p/e parts in this kit BTW – fantastic fit and easy to remove cleanly from the fret.
The rotor/caliper may be molded as one piece but they look outstanding IMHO and are very detailed. P/E on these would be a waste of time and money.










11.00-14.00 Saturday
Some body work on the only bad fitting part of the kit that I can see. Separate panels to close off the bottom of the rear vents. I splopped some light curing putty on it and 5 minutes later job is done.
Cleaned and prepped the remainder of the brass etched parts.
(had to fit in a trip to the supermarket at this point )












14.00-19.00 Saturday
Base color is on the body and given a light coat of Mr. Topcoat. All the other parts are primed.
At this point I had to take my youngest daughter and dog for a walk in the forest or face a household mutiny








19.00-23.00 Saturday
Put down some metallic colors on the radiator grilles (Alclad Alu), wheels (Alclad Pol. Alu) and calipers (Alclad Pale Gold).
Front brake cooling ducts were partially painted – ducting will be red.
I also discovered something strange about Alclad Pl Gold – it curdles!!! :0 My jar was ruined and I had to throw it away although I managed to get enough through the airbrush to cover the calipers.










23.00-06.00 Saturday
Pit stop zzzzzzzzzzz………………………


06.00-14.00 Sunday
Ouch! I forgot that a Le Mans car will have decals
Luckily the LMM decals are well printed with only some minor issues with color registration on the odd decal. They respond well to MicroSOL.
The black on the nose and around the cockpit fairing are decals but fit well and SOL gets them down nicely.
My only complaint so far about this kit are the instructions – they are simplistic and poorly printed so hard to read but above all, decal placement instructions are next to non-existent.






14.00-22.00 Sunday
Finished the decals and detail painting but things started to go wrong and I started making mistakes.
The Zero Gloss Black I used on the air intake/cockpit went down very badly and scratch-X smudged the paint rather than polish it 
I sprayed Jet Black over it and then coated with clear – much better.
I got some runs in the clear which “fizzed”
I masked off the light buckets for satin black but when I removed the masking tape, it pulled up lumps of some decals  I removed completely the badly damaged decals and polished out the clear where they had been.













22.30 Sunday
Officially classified as DNF
(In other words, this gets posted in the WIP section rather then the completed thread )
.

I called it "game over" at this point so as not to completely FUBAR this nice kit. None the less, I had a blast trying.

It will take a few hours work to get the track and stance correct and to correct my mistakes.
But most of all the clear parts are vacu-formed acetate and I know from my experience with the Aston DBR9 that this should not be hurried.

[Macio4ever]

Impressive!

I would darken panel lines a bit more. The rest looks really good!

[klutz_100]

Dzięki

Originally Posted by Macio4ever

I would darken panel lines a bit more. The rest looks really good!

I agree with you but there is still quite a lot to do before I get to that point.

It only looks good because it is so hard to take photos of silver paint

[Spike2933]

awesome job on the real Audi R8

since Audi won again, I really should finish up my R10

can't wait to see this completed

[ZoomZoomMX-5]

Looks great; I'll be posting ACME's LeMans Palooza shortly with pics from our event. We finished 6 cars during the race

[flhansen]

Hi

I have just finished the 2001 car, and I can see that you have the most 'interesting' parts left...

Take your time with the headlight covers. I ended up riveting the buggers to the body. There is simply no way to glue them on without them looking 'glued on' :-(

Same with the rear light covers, which I omitted. Not too obvious as the car had led lights deep in the rear body.

Next up is the brass bottom plate and side plates. They have to be mounted on the bottom of the car that fits inside the body. No matter how much I shaved off the body inside or the bottom part would the floor of the bottom match up with the sides. I had to modify the brass parts so that they get fixed to the bodyshell rather than the bottom.

The raintires in the kit are too big for the wheel wells, so a lot of resinremoving in those areas as well.

See the model here:

http://www.ipms.dk/Kvart2-2008/09.jpg

It all ended up ok, but I'm amazed how fast you got to that point in the pictures!

Flemming

[voyageur]

Hi Gio,

you tried and DNF'd.... so what. I bet you had tons of fun doing it

[klutz_100]

Originally Posted by voyageur

Hi Gio,

Hi Shirley!
I'm flattered - I think...

Originally Posted by ZoomZoomMX-5

I'll be posting ACME's LeMans Palooza shortly with pics from our event. We finished 6 cars during the race

Thanks Bob. I look forward to seeing that. The annual event that you guys have at ACME was very much my inspiration to try it myself so I am glad to hear that you guys have kept up the tradition.
I always knew that I wasn't in your league and now we have proof! 6 finished to my one DNF

Originally Posted by flhansen

I have just finished the 2001 car, and I can see that you have the most 'interesting' parts left...

Super build, Flemming!
I just finished working on the two headlight covers this evening,
It's interesting to note the design changes between the 2001 and 200 cars. Especially in the pillars behind the front wheels. I wonder if this has impacted on how the model goes together? At least during test fitting, the brass bottom pieces on my kit seemed to be OK but we'll see in a couple of days
Is there anywhere I can see some more photos of your build?

[flhansen]

Originally Posted by klutz_100

Is there anywhere I can see some more photos of your build?

Hi

Not at the moment no. I have suffered a slight setback by breaking my right (modelling!) hand, so everything is at a standstill. I may post something when my hand gets back to operating properly again :-(

And yes there are differences between the 2000 and 2001 car which may contribute to some of the problems I have had. I'd guess that LMM made a new body and kept the old underbody or something like that?

Flemming

[Jamme]

Hello Steve,
Nice work you did on such a short tiem!
congrats!

Jamme

[Duncan1098]

It looks perfect to me, you've done a great job, good idea. I wish I could build my kits that quick, so does the wife!!! they usualy take a few months. at best.

[jaykay640]

Nice work and so quick! I'm impressed!

Isn't it remarkable, that one would choose a resine "garage" kit over a mass production plastic kit because it looks like the better engineered one!? :-)

[sportracer02]

Looks good so far, Steve, so you´ll finish it after the checkered flag, no problem.

I have the "crocodile"-kit on my "to do"-list

[gionc]

Originally Posted by klutz_100

Hi Shirley!
I'm flattered - I think...

ROFL!!!! Looks like Ping&Pong done some bloody mess.

BTW great job gio!

I would like to know the name of the mouse that eat your decals, in place indeed! what's happened? I see them in good form 1 pict before.

Also: I guess this is "those" R8, so "those-the other " rims would be muuuuuch betta! really!

[jano11]

Good job for a week end try!
I think that getting new decals will be the reason for a longer pit stop!
Should have tried the R10, they won again last week end.

PS: Now I see why you asked the wheel nut color question!