In Progress: Tamiya Ferrari F40

[bigfrit]

Oh baby! this is some awesome modelbuilding!

Good to see you take your time and think your moves, I m a big fan of your style and it's always such a pleasure to follow this progress!

Olivier

[godfather23]

Awesome work, great attention to detail. It seems like you are forseeing every single thing that can go wrong on a project. Well, having this ability makes your work perfect. I can´t see anything that will make this F40 less admirable than your very stunning F50.

[MPWR]

Thanks for all the comments, guys. And thanks especially to Fkouch, who came through with an owner's manual for the F40. Cheers, mate!

I'm finally getting around to working on the engine again (meanwhile the body is still being rubbed out). Time for an update.

Here's the engine block/transmission, all painted out.



Ferrari sand casts their engine blocks in their own foundry. I chose Tamiya flat aluminum, as it has an agreeeably grainy apearance- I'll use less grainy paint later to represent the welded intercoolers, so a bit of contrast is a good thing.


And here's a good demonstration of why adding a wash is necissary!



(No, I didn't just photoshop in additional contrast ). I like to use artists oil paints, as I find they give excellent control, and look terrific. If anyone is particularly curious how I go about it, I'm putting together a how-to that I'll post on it soon.

The starter motor and ignition coil packs are also painted black here.




Next the coil pack holders are covered in gold bare metal foil. Also, note the Ferrari emblem atop the intake manifolds. Before painting the engine, I covered this with matte aluminum bare metal foil. After painting, I rubbed the paint off of it with a toothpick soaked in isopropyl alcohol. Then, the whole emblem block was painted with red acrylic ink, and allowed to dry. Then, the ink is carefully scraped off of the raised lettering, again with a toothpick and alcohol. Of course, S27 includes this emblem in their set- but who needs PE when you have BMF?




The cylander heads were sprayed with Model Master Acryl flat red. In order to simulate the crinkle finish Ferrari applies to cylander heads, I sprayed the acryl thinned with straight 99% isopropyl alcohol. Doing this causes the paint to partially dry in the airbrush spray stream, giving the paint a rather grainy apearence. It's subtle (and kinda hard to photograph), but it doesn't take much to simulate it. Just make sure you clean your aibrush thoroughly afterwards, as paint tends to partially dry in the spray nozzle, too. The textured paint is scraped off of any places detail paining is done, like the cam shaft ends here. After that, the heads get a wash applied, too.




The heads were than wired with spark plug wires, made from enameled copper wire painted with red acrylic ink.




The engine frame. Had to do a bit of putty work to fill ejector pin marks. I detailed the wishbone A-frame brackets with thin slices of styrene hex rod, and then center drilled the 'nuts' to add stretched sprue 'bolt ends'.




Same frame, painted up. The A-frame brackets and hinge bolts were pinted, and then given a wash. I've seen Ferrari's with these brackets both in bare metal finish and in the black finish the engine frame is painted in, and I kind of like the look of them in metallic. It cues the eye into seeing that the A-frame is a separate part of the suspension, and not just part of the engine frame.

The rear bodywork support rods were covered with BMF.




Finally the cylander heads are added to the engine block, and wired to the ignition coils. The rubber spark plug boots are simulated with a bit of white glue, then painted black.




The results so far. Good start, but still plenty more to do.

Thanks for looking!

[klutz_100]

Thanks for taking your phots on a cutting mat so that I know it's a model and not the real thing

All those little details make such a difference. Love the hex rod nut idea - can I borrow it?

so many questions but I'll try and wait for the tutorial

[Whumbachumba]

Why must you tease us with the beautiful pictures. I'm still awed at how much detail someone can put into such a small model. Stunning, it is absolutley stunning. And if you don't mind, could you pm me a diagram of the firing order for the F50?

[Captain Mark]

Awesome work!
Looking forward to your wash tutorial also.

[360spider]

Terrific work, really inspiring. Keep it up!

[sportracer02]

Originally Posted by Captain Mark

Awesome work!
Looking forward to your wash tutorial also.

I absolutely agree with both of Captain Mark´s statemants :-))

[A_C]

Looking forward to your "how-to", although I cannot see the pics... Don't know what's wrong with the ImageShack website... all pics cannot be seen.

[Porsche Carrera]

another perfect model on the works! can't wait.

[Merkava]

MPWR, I will be blunt. You are my idol on this forum. Your work always amazes me, and I try to mimic your building style and techniques. Please keep up the incredible work, so that I may continue to learn from you.

[Jeep_Rubicon]

Outstanding build, outstanding work.

[MPWR]

Turbo Surgery, Part 2:

When last we left, the patient was cut into multiple little bits on the operating table. What better way to begin this update than by cutting it up even more?

The turbine and waste gate assemblies are pretty prominent on the F40- they sit right atop the transmission. So, they're worth a bit of attention and detailing.

The connections between the waste gate wishbone and the bypass points on the exhaust manifolds is not an easy fit on the kit parts- without a bit of help, it would be pretty difficult to get them to align. Because a gap here would be pretty noticable, I chose to remove the aft ends of the exhaust manifolds, together with the turbines, so that these seams could be joined and filled properly. So, with a jewler's saw and the thinnest blade I could find, I pre-cut the bypass and turbine sections of the manifolds. This way, I could assemble the waste gate wishbone to the manifolds, and then remove the manifold ends to deal with the seams. I also drilled out and inserted short lengths of brass rod into the joints, so the wishbone and manifold ends would align.




As the waistgate servo itself is one of the most prominent features of the engine bay, I decided to make a replacement for the kit part. The kit part itself is a decent representation, but with the mold line running through the center of it being highly visible and difficult to remove, I thought I could improve it a bit. The lathe easily turned out a new one.



While I was at it, I also did a new oil filter- another prominent feature of the F40 engine.


With the pins installed, the waste gate components were ready for assembly.



They were glued together assembled on the engine to ensure alignment, and then...


...cut apart from the manifolds.



Now the joints could be cleaned up, more brass pins added, and the whole thing painted.

Since doing the exhaust train on the F50, I've gotten alot of requests for a demonstration of my painting techniques. I have another tutorial on exactly that I'm in the process of putting together, but meanwhile I'll do my best to demonstrate it here, too.




Yes, simply wave the bottles of paint over the parts like so....

Well, not really. I've rounded up the usual suspects here, Tamiya acrylic clear blue, red, orange, smoke, and metallic grey. The parts have been primed with MM acryl grey primer, to ensure the joints have been dealt with. Ready to paint!


First, everything gets a base coat of metallic grey. All the other colors will be applied over this.




Next, on to the coloration. I'm using color both to denote 'weathering' of the exhaust train, and to distinguish its different components (and on the F40, like any twin turbo system, there are many).

Most of the exhaust manifolds are covered with a stainless steel shell. The individual exhaust pipes are contained inside it. As it doesn't have hot gasses blown directly onto it, it only recieves heat by radiation from the pipes it covers- so it doesn't get as hot as other exhaust components. Therefore, I painted it to denote only a moderate amount of heat discoloration. I did this by mixing to 3 parts clear orange to one part clear smoke, and applied this to the shells on each manifold.



The turbines themselves get plenty of direct heat from the exhaust gasses, but are made form forged alloy, and will therefore show different heat discoloration form the rest of the stainless steel parts. I painted them orange and smoke also, but this time 2 smoke to 1 orange to make them darker, but to suggest a little color, too.


Next, onto the hotter components. A short length of the individual pipes protrude beyond the end of the shells on the manifolds. These, along with the waste gate wishbone, and the pipe joiners/bypass points (which the turbines are attatched to) recieve more direct heat, and therefore, heat staining.

First, everything else has to be masked.



One of my favorite ways to mask metallics is with wet tissue paper. It won't pull up paint with it when removed, like masking tape may. I used the tape to mask edges, and aluminum foil to hold it in place, (and cover the rest of the parts).


The unmasked areas are resprayed with metallic grey. Then, the darker heat stain colors are applied. For most of these areas, I'm aiming for a deeper, ruddy brown color than on the manifold shells- about 3 red parts, 1 orange, and 1 blue, and maybe 1 or 2 smoke (these are really just estimations- I mixed these colors by drops form an eyedropper, and then test sprayed them until I thought they looked right). Hotter still areas are painted with a darker blue/purple color, 2 parts blue and 1 part red. The red and blue together make a pretty dark purple, so no smoke is required. Make sure enough red is added, though- Tamiya clear blue by itself is much too bright to be used by itself. No matter how hot you get it, steel does not naturally turn this color. This blue/purple is applied to the bends in the wishbone.



I did this with my 'trusty old' Badger 150, with a fine needle/nozzle assembly. If you were really motivated, I suppose you might be able to do this with a single action airbrush, but I wouldn't really care to try.


Here's how it looks assembled up.



It all looks pretty bright and colorful. Fortunately, a good wash will help bring it all together. (If you haven't seen my recent wash tutorial, look here.)






Everything got a wash of raw umber and black. Kinda helps to blend it all, and brings out the detail, such as the seams on the turbines. And here too is the recapitated waste gate servo. The gate itself was painted medium grey, and of course washed. Technically, black or metallic grey would be more correct for the servo on the F40- but it is bright aluminum on the 288, and it does look kind of good- maybe just a dark wash and leave it as is?

We'll see. Watch this space. Turbo Surgery, Part 3 will add the compressors, intercoolers, and resonator/muffler. But sooner or later, I'm going to have to finish polishing the bodywork....

Thanks for looking!

[Veyron]

You are doing an excellent job!

Those Tamiya acrylics look pretty good but next to metalizers there is no contest. Since you are airbrushing, why aren't you using metalizers?

[tturbozx66]

Looks awesome so far!