Topless Trio: 360 Spyder

[KTem]

Yay! Another superdetailed Ferrari from MWPR! Looks great, your eye for detail is very good. I really like the work you did on the plenum.

[DJ_Merle]

awesome work!!! I love how you got the txture on the intake manifold

[MPWR]

Finally, some progress to post!

I've been trying to keep this one as simple and out of the box as possible (I still want to finish this year!)- but I haven't been able to leave it alone entirely. Fortunately, the kit doesn't need much in the way of additions.

I thought the interior needed a cargo pocket net between the seats, so I cut out a piece from scrap window screen (I recently rescreened a door, so I had lots of scraps).



I just glued it in place, and added a cord across the top with a length of heat streatched sprue.



The interior was all going to be quick and simple until Stevenski posted his idea on how to do interior flocking a few weeks back. I'm still convinced he did this to sabotage my progress. So, I made shaped carpeting sections for the whole interior. Took me at least a week of tedious work- it's almost as bad as CF decals! But it does look pretty good....



The other thing I couldn't resist doing was converting the 360 to a manual. Tamiya made both of their 360 kits with F1 style shifters. It's a cool feature, but I thought a manual would therefore be kinda unique- and nicely in the spirit of a Spyder. All it would really need would be a new shifter and brake and clutch pedals- the kit includes only a wide brake pedal. So, to the mill!



The new shifter and pedals, machined out of aluminum.



Here's the shifter in place. The shift knob is a straight pin, dipped in Alclad.. I put one of Crazy Modeler's tiny self adhesive Cavalino's on the corner of the shift gate plate, and it looks terrific- but it's almost impossible to photograph because of the lack of contrast with the aluminum.



The pedals, ready to be installed. Turns out that the drilled holes on the 360's pedals don't go all the way through- they're just deep enough for traction. So, I covered them with aluminum foil and pressed it into the holes. This was also an easy way to match them to the kit accelerator pedal, which was happily the right shape for F1 or manual.



Here's the cockpit tub finished up. The floor mats are done in addition to the full carpeting. The rubber pad under the pedals is just scribed sheet styrene painted black.

I wanted something a bit different than the usual black or tan interiors usually seen in Ferrari's. Turns out that Ferrari will sew your interior in whatever colors of leather you specify- so I thought, "why not green?" (OK, if you've read my review for Crazy Modeler's Ferrari logo's, you've seen the body color for this build. ) I wasn't sure how it would come out, but I rather like the look of it. Different, yet still factory.





After I painted the leather colors in flat, I rubbed them with a bit of mineral oil to give them some sheene. Here's before and after:



I think it looks more like freshly oiled leather than paint alone can.

And here it is all done up. The sheene on the leather parts is a bit overstated here because of the lighting I used. It's hard to photograph a mostly black interior!









Enjoy!

Next, I believe my excellent accomplices and I are moving on to chassis detailing- brakes and suspension!

[willimo]

Looking killer!

[klutz_100]

Not much you can say about work at this kind of level that doesn't sound banal.

You already know what I think

[gionc]

Originally Posted by klutz_100

Not much you can say about work at this kind of level that doesn't sound banal.

You already know what I think

+

[DasWiesel]

Stunning work on your air-intake. Interior looks very clean, too.

[Zlaja_]

My oh my!

[drunken monkey]

you being able to make your own shift gates is going to make me have to hate you from now on....

ever thought of selling them in small numbers?

other than that, fantastic stuff.
keep it up!

[deltableh]

Looks incredible. I can't wait to see the exterior!

[quadzero]

everything is so amazing here, modelling at the next level for sure. I followed mostly on the interior aspects thou. really innovative ideas and great craftsmanship too. I like that you used green for this.

[MPWR]

Thanks everyone!

Originally Posted by drunken monkey

ever thought of selling them in small numbers?

Nah, they're too hard to make in any number- the end mill needed to cut them is just too fragile. But sometimes I can be convinced to trade for machined parts....

[nugundam93]

*drooling*

[white97ex]

superb work!

[MPWR]

So it's been a while since we've had an update. We've been trying, but it's been pretty difficult to keep all of us building to a schedule. Gio has been superdetailing his 348, and is currently working to get the remote locks to work in his model. I've gotten a bit bogged down having too many projects going at once. And Stevenski has blown both of us away. I suspect it's because his build is a V12, and our modest little V8's can't hope to keep up. Next time perhaps we'll attempt it with more order and discipline, like those excellent Chinese gentlemen building the 612's.

But meanwhile, in an attempt to get the project moving again, here's an update one the 360!

We've been working on chassis detailing, specifically brakes and suspension. Luckily for me, the brakes included with Tamiya's 360 are excellent.



See? Nothing wrong with the kit parts at all. Give it a good paint job and a wash and it will look terrific, even in the wide open five spoke wheels in the kit. Unfortunately, I often have a bit of trouble leaving good enough alone.



Yeah, the rotors are going to get replaced. But the calipers are still rather good, and will work very well on replacement rotors too.

I've done this kind of surgery before (see my Mythos build)- and carving out calipers can be tedious and difficult work. This time I decided to be lazy about it, and use the mill.



Styrene is very fragile for use with machine tools so I don't atempt this often. But fortunately I have a perfect miniature end mill for cutting the slots open.



The back got cut out with an even smaller end mill.



Then the calipers recieved some detailing with some bits of styrene strips.



And here's what it looks like on a new rotor. This rotor is a prototype for another project, and was my first ever attempt to do cross drilling.





So far, so good.

Even with the mill, cutting up and detailing the calipers like this is alot of work. So now that I have one decent one, time to cast some copies.

The silicone I'm using lately is pretty stiff, so the calipers will require a two part mold.



Sulphur free pattern making clay and Legos- the only way to go in mold making!



Now pour the first half and let it set. Then take the mold apart, scrape off the clay, and set the first half in the mold box to pour the second half.





And a new set of calipers to show for it. The parking brake calipers for the rear will be done the same way.



Here finally are the newly machined rotors. Each is done in two parts, the disc and the hub. Each disc has 70 (!) individually drilled holes. Yeah, it took a while to make them all.



And here are the results-



The rotors were each sprayed with grey primer, which was polished off of the friction surfaces. The hubs were then weathered slightly to give the impression of the superficial surface rust that tends to appear on braking systems. The calipers still need some detail painting and decals.

I think they're easily the best I've done yet. I love the look of braking systems, so I figure they're worth a bit of extra effort. Fortunately the 360 should show them off well.

Next, onto the suspension.