In Progress: Revell BMW 850i

[Exotics_Builder]

On the decals, I’ve never seen the brown stain, but have had a case of yellowing on RoG decals. To solve that, I taped them to a window that gets some sunlight (and doesn’t get any condensation) and leave them there for a day or two. Place in a zip-loc bag for protection. The sun will bleach out the staining. Don’t know if it will cure the brown stain, but worth a try.

After the “bleaching”, I applied Microscale Liquid Decal Film to put a new coat over the decal set and they worked fine.

[MidMazar]

Great stuff, i have mine in the back of the line. I will follow this one with joy. Your going to paint it the same color i want mine to be, im going to try to get some shots of the 1:1 in my town. The aluminum domes looks fantastic. Can't wait to see some paint on that pup.

[MPWR]

Originally Posted by 360spider

I knew you have the kit and I was actually waiting for you to start building it! I also have it in my "to be built one day" stash and I will be following this thread closely.

Aww come on, you know you want to start yours now instead of just watching me struggle alone. Weren't you threatening at one point to buy one of these in full scale? Engine pics are always appreciated!


Wow, thanks for all the interest, everyone!

Yes, this beast is full engine, and it will of course recieve proper attention. Until Tamiya gets around to releasing that McLaren F1, this is the only BMW V12 in my collection- better make it count.

I've always had a bit of a thing for the 850. Can't really say why, other than that it's just a terrific looking car (with a BMW V12!). It's not really a sportscar (I've certainly never seen one autocrossing ), and it's not quite a supercar. It's of course the closest thing to the M850 supercar that BMW should have produced (and then they should have run FIA GT with it! ). As it is, I think it's one of the very last really good looking cars that BMW ever made. Somehow it never proved very popular, and wasn't much of a success for BMW. I'm glad to see though that I'm not the only one here who rather likes it.

I'm planning to do it factory stock (as usual for me), and keep it kinda close to box stock. There are some components (like maybe the brakes) that may see some scratchbuilding, but I'm going try to keep it simple enough to actually finish someday.

My understanding is that the Tamiya kit is merely the RoG kit reboxed, with better tyres and instructions. I've heard it's plagued with the same fit problems.

924_CarreraGTS, it's gonna be this color-



(from my 964 Turbo). The paint is what remains of a bottle of CobraColors Porsche Arena Red Metallic. I have just over half the bottle left, but after doing the bodywork it's pretty clear that the 850 is much larger than a 911. The only other car in my stash that's close to this size is maybe the Ferrari 612. With all the body parts that need paint, I'd guess that it may easily have 50% more surface area than the 964. With a fixed amount of paint (there's no more where it came from!) it's going to be closer than I would like....

Exotics_Builder, the issue with the decals isn't the carrier film yellowing- the film itself looks to be in decent condition. The decal paper on the other hand looks to have been exposed to water (the brown stains look like water staining). It has none of the usual semi-gloss look to it, and the decals themselves look as though they may now be thoroughly adhered to the paper instead of just printed on it. I'll try them out, but I'm not expecting much.

Speaking of that V12, I should have something to show on it soon. But meanwhile, it's been the hottest day of the year so far here. My vigil for painting weather continues....

[zak78]

Man, I can't wait to see the engine. opcorn:

[CifeNet]

A great build! I am keeping my eyes on this one. I always thought 8 series is very hot and this is automatically going to be my favorite WIP.

I like your cool ideas so far, keep up the good work!

[godfather23]

Interesting build and again - your threads are more like a how to and not like a WIP. I really appreciate this. Keep up the interesting work and eye for the detail.

[drunken monkey]

so.... does this kit use the same V12 as found in the Nazca Kit?

[360spider]

Originally Posted by MPWR

Aww come on, you know you want to start yours now instead of just watching me struggle alone. Weren't you threatening at one point to buy one of these in full scale? Engine pics are always appreciated!

Yeah, I'm still threatening, but my wife won't budge to my threats...She tells me that 2 cars is already more than we need...Plus I just can't find a 850 that was not abused...that is for the $$ I want to spend on it!
I wish I could join you with this build, but I'm leaving for longish vacation (4 weeks) - so no models for me for a while. Maybe if you are not too far into the build when I get back?

[gionc]

Originally Posted by 360spider

Maybe if you are not too far into the build when I get back?

Don't worry Alex: this is the only thing we're sure about he: he's slooooooooooooooooooooooooow (ok Andy mouth close, may be someone forgot I unfinished 33% of the TT )

[MPWR]

Oh, wow- I've been called slow by Gio??!! Does this really mean that- it's true, isn't it? I really am slow. Especially when there are other people here (like Alex) to embarass me with consistant quality at an incredible pace. I'm really not sure that four weeks would be enough of a head start for me.

Drunken monkey, I think I've seen it suggested that the V12 in the Nazca kit is a bit better than this one. But I can't really say as I haven't seen it, and don't realisicly expect to find one.

So I'll do the best I can with this one.



I mentioned the similarity that this kit shares with Fujimi's Enthu kits. The above engine block is already eleven separate parts (Tamiya would have done this in five).

Add the transmission and intake plenums,



-and the total is already ninteen. Not that the increased parts count really adds to the detail. In fact as each individual part requires considerable cleanup and fitting, it adds rather alot to the effort to get it all together. But it certainly all has the capacity to be made into a good looking engine.

These are the plenums and intake cover.



They will be the most visible parts of the engine, and each carries a good deal of detail- fins and a logo. Unfortunately the fin details are rather soft. Each plenum took alot of cleanup work- I used the PE saw to scribe consistent grooves between each fin, and sanded the top surfaces even.



Then each got BMF treatment in preparation for painting.



I'm still wondering about these parts. I'm guessing they're supposed to be plug wires , but the 'wires' are all far to thick. They could be clipped off and replaced pretty easily, but unfrtunately Revell designed them to be structural- they hold the plenums in place.



Guess I'll have to see how visible they are in test fitting, and go on from there.

Notice the uneveny molded surfaces? This is everywhere on this engine, and takes alot of work to clean up.

On to painting. Many of the pics I've seen of 850 engines show the plenums with a slightly gold or orangeish color to them. Whether it's from heat staining or the type of alloy they're cast from I don't know, but it does make for an interesting color contrast (and it should look terrific with the body color). So I decided to paint them with Tamiya titanium gold- a decent half silver/half gold color.



The paint was removed from the tops of the fins, and happily even the BMW lettering is legiable. They came out shinier than I had hoped- the metallic grain size in titanium gold is surprisingly small. But an overspray of clear flat should fix this nicely.

The intake cover was painted light black, but as soon as I started removing the paint from the fins I wasn't happy with it.



There's just too much contrast between the black and chromed fins. I used matte aluminum BMF (as I always do for this sort of application), so changing the color of the BMF to tone it down wasn't really an option.

In reality, this part is a molded plastic cover (BMW loves them some plastic engine covers), with the silver stripes painted on- and they always manage to look painted on. So I decided to try it again, and into the stripper it went.

To do the fins this time, I decided to use a method suggested by 360spider in his recent F50 build. He drybrushed metalizer onto engine parts to enhance detail- which I though was brilliant as soon as he mentioned it. I'd never tried it, but as soon as he said it it seemed obvious that metalizer would drybrush beautifully.



And so it does.



Much better- the contrast and appearence are spot on. Even the roundel is clearly visible. No decal needed here.



Drybrushing a little bit of straight black onto the corners and a wash is all that's needed to clean up where I overran the fins a bit.

So here's what I have so far-







As yet, only the plenums and cover have been detailed- the engine block doesn't even have a wash on it yet. There's still obviously lots to be done, but it should end up really looking like a BMW V12.

Meanwhile, a line of heavy thunderstorms is slowly moving through my area. Can cooler weather be far behind?

Thanks for watching!

[gionc]

Fantastic.

And about "I think I've seen it suggested that the V12 in the Nazca kit is a bit better than this one. But I can't really say as I haven't seen it, and don't realisicly expect to find one. " I'm more than happy to share one of mine nazcas with you my friend, 1 is more than enough for me at least we'll do another common stuff

[MPWR]

You're on!! I'll do the machining, you can do the PE, and we'll build them together sloooooowly.

[ZoomZoomMX-5]

This one will be definitely interesting to watch. I've seen the kit (a friend has the custom version convertible that I looked at recently, and I've looked over a stock one as well, I think in Veyron's secret stash), and can tell it's going to be a challenge. I built the 750il way back when, and it was rather "challenging". The body was riddled w/sink marks, I had to buy an expensive diecast promo for proper wheels/tires, and I had a great time getting the opening trunk to close properly in final assembly. Finished it's a great model, but I know what you'll have to go through to get there. One thing I noticed on the kit were the very faint door cut and side trim engravings.

Good luck with it!

[gionc]

Originally Posted by MPWR

You're on!! I'll do the machining, you can do the PE, and we'll build them together sloooooowly.

Agreement done
Tomorrow a nazca will leave Italy with a quiiiick trip for USA (I'll see if I find room for a red needed in the final cheers ) to be mount sloooooooooooow

So you'll start to study those rear sunspension backing that I love so much (in brazzzz , zzlurrrp)

[zak78]

Thanks for letting us know what paint you are using. Is that a manual or an auto box?