WIP: Tamiya 1/20 Lotus 99T (Senna & Detroit)

[robrex]

Sean,
This is looking awesome! The idea with the exhaust is excellent!
Keep the updates coming please?

[kanedge]

Great work Sean, this is a beautiful build.

[SeanyG]

thanks as always for the encouragements guys...

update

front brakes, there is a lack of decent reference pictures of the car without its boots on and therefore my interpretation is maybe a little incorrect. However one thing that definately needed doing was to 'vent' the discs around the edge, I also drilled 8 holes on the front side of the disc to add further detail.
As for cabling, I added the brake cable and also the 'u' shaped cable at the bottom and painted them accordingly. I also hand painted the blue temperature stickers and found some old 'Brembo' transfers left over from my 310B build.
As for colours, I chose titanium gold for the calipers, dark alu for the centres and a mid grey for the actual discs, as always I finished the whole thing off with a little dry brush and washing.
Cables were attached to the suspension arms using the same method and the sensors.

enough rabbitting, here's the pics...











I also scratched and added two little 'L' shaped brackets which attach the body sides to the little protruding base plates and detailed them with a couple of washers.



more again soon and thanks for following!

[stevenoble]

The brakes look great.The whole build so far is very good.The 5th picture down sums it up.The carbon,the yellow paintwork,the seat belts,they all sit so well together and look so good.This is definitely your best work to date,really very impressive indeed.

[DerXL]

This is so amazing.
Really inspiring stuff !!!

[jaykay640]

Hi Sean

Nice stuff....although i want to disagree with you about one thing...the brake calipers. The one in the second picture is one massive cast block but usually there's a "hole" at the centre line where you can see the disc and pads. I just checked all my references ( including also 97T and 98T ) and i only have 2 crappy pictures where you can just about see that...but not really. Check the F1modeling Senna Special. There's one with a lot of shadow where the hole should be...
Looks like they hardly ever took the wheels of these things :-)

[SeanyG]

Originally Posted by jaykay640

Hi Sean

Nice stuff....although i want to disagree with you about one thing...the brake calipers. The one in the second picture is one massive cast block but usually there's a "hole" at the centre line where you can see the disc and pads. I just checked all my references ( including also 97T and 98T ) and i only have 2 crappy pictures where you can just about see that...but not really. Check the F1modeling Senna Special. There's one with a lot of shadow where the hole should be...
Looks like they hardly ever took the wheels of these things :-)

Jaykay,

no your absolutely right, there would definately have been a hole of some description - possible two, however the 'too difficult' light came on, I have chopped calipers off in the past but as I didnt have a great reference to make such a task worthwhile in terms of accuracy I decided against it, well that's my excuse and Im sticking to it anyway!!! ... 'lazy old modeler' I know!!!

[willster127]

Sean, this is a beautiful build, I really can't wait to see this one finished.

I have one question, I purchased the TVM kit and think it is great, however, I thought it was a simple add on kit to enhance the basic kit, however, I am sitting looking at it right now and some parts seem to be Monaco/Detroit, the same as the S27 kit and other parts are add ons. What exactly have I bought?!!! I am starting to research it all now but I figure that you already know the answer!! Thanks in advance.

[SeanyG]

Originally Posted by willster127

Sean, this is a beautiful build, I really can't wait to see this one finished.

I have one question, I purchased the TVM kit and think it is great, however, I thought it was a simple add on kit to enhance the basic kit, however, I am sitting looking at it right now and some parts seem to be Monaco/Detroit, the same as the S27 kit and other parts are add ons. What exactly have I bought?!!! I am starting to research it all now but I figure that you already know the answer!! Thanks in advance.

Willster,

the TVM kit is essentially an upgrade set for the kit version of the car, and an excellent one too I might add. The majority of the parts are upgrades like for instance the camera which featured on the Nakajima car and the C/F dashboard cover. It does however contain the templates for the cowling which allow you to use the 'curly' turbo air intakes which appeared on the car at more races than just the Detroit and Monaco ones.
You would need the larger endplates from the S27 set to depict the Monaco/Detroit car though. To build the best kit possible I would go with both the TVM kit and and the S27 etch set.

Hope that helps!

[Shunter]

Looking great..

[SeanyG]

an electrical update...

started first on the area above the driver's head, there is one computer here living under the roll bar. I drilled four holes into the back edge and added two connectors from the Top Studio set, the other two were small enough only to use tubing.
Where the various widths of cable meet and also at each connector they are 'tidied' using a thicker piece of tube melted over a candle which shrinks around the joins - this is called 'shrink tubing' funny that innit!





On the roll bar I added two sections, one at each side. One is where the red cut-out switch is attached, the red lead from this disappears into the monocoque and the other side houses two eletrical connects, these lead down into the cockpit. I used the etched cut-out switch from the P/P set.





There are more cables than this but I think this looks busy enough, if I try to add anymore I think it would start to look untidy.

So onto the next electrical box... fiddly stuff this!

[stevenoble]

Wiring looking great....

[quadzero]

I really like following along when the wiring part comes along. Great work with all the connections too. You sure make it look easy.

[billypee]

very neat.

Bill

[willster127]

Stunning Sean, Simply Stunning.

Thanks also for your response about the TVM kit, I was studying the kit that whole night and figured most of it out but I wasn't sure about the camera parts, thanks for the info. Anyway, I have ordered the S27 set, I will be doing the Monaco car, it was Sennas first win there, well, second win as far as I'm concerned but that's a whole nuther thread!!!!

Keep up the great work, this is certainly an inspiration to me and I'm sure everyone else who is watching.

Lee