Revell Mercedes 300SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe

[mattbacon]

An oldie but a goody...


The bodyshell painted in Tamiya Gloss Aluminium and awaiting a polish.


The outstanding tubular chassis, which is easy to build, but certainly looks the part. This one is "clipped together" in parts for the painting, and it fits very precisely. There's more detail painting to do on the brakes...


Engine in progress. The ignition wires are from little-cars, and some more painting and shading are needed around the block. There's some lead wires that are about to become hoses wrapped over the middle of the block. I guess there'll be a bit more detailing when the engine is in place, and I can compare it more directly with the photos I have...

bestest,
M.

[mattbacon]

...it's been a while since I've been able to get to the bench, but slow progress is being made!



Engine with Little-Cars detailing wires... it's not great, but it makes it look a lot more realistically busy.



The chassis coming together. The assembly sequence for the front suspension is bonkers, and an invitation to drop bits on the floor. It's all nicely detailed, though...



A serious chunk of car, without doubt. It's not up to the very best of Tamiya, but for its age, this is a well-detailed and nicely fitting kit.

bestest,
M.

[potsie]

Very nice kit. I bought one of these recently, and I just hope it is a better kit the the Revell Germany Jaguar XK-SS - that kit broke me!

[firun]

Nice start!
If you need some reference photos - I can send you my archive with photos and data on 300SLR Uhlenhaut.

[mattbacon]

Thanks, guys...

Myself... I liked the XKSS. It needed work, but it came out great in the end. Thanks for the offer on the references, but I think I'm OK for the level of work I want to do - I have a nice Mercedes Sport picture book which covers the Uhlenhaut pretty well...

More progress on the chassis, which fits together really very well. If you want to build the whole frame in advance, as I did, be advised that the completed fuel tank assembly doesn't fit behind the rear framework. However, it will slip in if you don't add the rear drive assembly (the ribbed box on the bottom of the tank), which you could fiddle in later. Alternatively, clip that tail frame piece in place on the rest while painting, and fix it permanently after adding the tank et al...






The wheels are just slipped into place:


...I don't think they look at all bad. The hubs are three pieces, and the lacing is not inside-to-outside enough, but it looks pretty convincing at a glance... IMHO, anyway.

I'm making good progress with the cockpit, but it's mostly masking and spraying at the moment!

bestest,
M.

[mattbacon]

Another enthusiast spotted that I'd failed to paint the flexible hoses on the intake manifold, and that drew a couple of missed colour call-outs to my attention... I'd been working from photos, none of which have quite the right angle to show the bottom end, and I'd failed to notice the colours called out in the instructions.

Anyway, a little bit of remedial work later...





The "jubilee clips" are made from fine silver wire, folded into a U shape, the ends held in a pin vice, and then hooked over the intake tube and twirled so that it tightens up. It's the same technique I use for DIY turnbuckles. A dab of superglue fixes it in place, and then I trimmed off the long twisted tail.

I also painted the "steel" bits on the intake.

The seats are the kit decal, with lots of Micro Sol, and then a coat or two of Windsor and Newton Galleria matt varnish. Lots to do in the cockpit still, but it looks pretty striking!

bestest,
M.

[mattbacon]

Here we are tonight, after a bit of a disaster...



First up, in unforgiving close-up, the dash. The raised detail in the dials is very finely engraved, so I gave up on trying to get the decals to settle down, and did them by painting Citadel Chaos Black over the Humbrol Chrome Silver sprayed dashboard. Once the black had dried, I lightly scraped over with a cocktail stick, and it came easily off the raised detail. Finally, several coats of Klear for glass. I added pull switches in the main binnacle, raising the moulded detail higher, turned the left hand "button" in the centre console into a twist-switch, and made an ignition key from flattened solder to fit into the right hand position,




...and now, if you're going to build one of these, pay close attention! I had a bit of a disaster, and what you see above is the rebuilt version...

There is an upper frame piece, made up of the firewall, which sits on the cockpit tub in front of the dash, and three rods. Two go diagonally from the left to the crossbar just in front of the engine, and the third goes downward from the right side to the lower frame ahead of the exhausts, just behind the wishbones. If you want to get this piece to fit, you need to be very careful.

There is a cut-out in the front corner of the engine which allows the middle rod to reach the central attachment. If you wire the engine as I did to start with, the rod won't fit. I had to move the two thicker black leads out of the way - one backwards, one much closer to the top of the engine. I'd suggest doing any wiring round here with either soft vinyl or solder, so you can move it easily!

The second issue is the exhaust manifolds. For the right hand side rod to be able to attach the frame, they need to sit as low as possible - but how low is fixed by the lower chassis frame. Since the instructions would have you attach the manifolds very early, which building the block, and they don't have a very precise location, it's easy to end up with them too high - especially if you fit them as "square" to the mounting surface as you can. I'd suggest here that you either just press them into position, or tack them with a couple of small dabs of glue - no more. When the engine block is fitted in place (it's held well-aligned with a tab), flex the exhausts down as far as they will go onto the bottom frame, and fix them more firmly.

If you try to flex them when they are more firmly fixed, the engine springs out, the front frame breaks, the brake drum falls off and one of your wheel bearings comes apart... I warn you!

It wasn't irredeemable, but it was a horrible moment, and an unnecessary one...

Normal service will be resumed tomorrow!

bestest,
M.

[MidMazar]

Give the engine a wash and some weathering to give it more depth. the interior is really setting your build off.

[chaos]

Fantastic build up! Looking forward to more updates.

[DominiqueBeerts]

I must subscribe to this thread. This kit is somewhere in my todo-pile, and the info you provide will proove very handy when I will build mine.
Thanks for the useful tips!

[mattbacon]

Thank you all... here's the state of the workbench tonight. The main assemblies are coming together:




The cabin looks very bright and shiny, doesn't it..? It must have been eye-watering to cruise long distances in!

I thought I'd experiment with the fit, and I'm impressed:


It looks as though the three frame rods will need a minimum of fettling to get them into their sockets - this is just pressed together, with the floor of the tub clipped onto the locating studs on the chassis frame.



The eagle-eyed will notice that I've given the engine a wash to pop the detail a bit more... thanks to MidMazar for the suggestion.

With luck, I'll have the rolling chassis complete tomorrow, and can move on to finalising the bodywork -- there are some doors to build, and working hinges to, err... make work.

bestest,
M.

[drunken monkey]

This is one I've got on my in progress shelf.
I got stuck at thinking of how to actually flock/texturise that interior and getting that tartan pattern on the seats.

[BVC500]

Seats look great!

[mattbacon]

Thanks, gents... I don't think you need much flocking in there, mind. Plastikote Velvet for texturing the black floormats, maybe, but it's mostly red leather and silver painted metal.

The chassis is finished, now, except for that fragile and easy to knock off mirror!




Irritatingly, a managed to crack an A-pillar when I lost my grip on the thing while polishing, so that's setting. The air intake screen is the kit part, washed and drybrushed. I wasn't sanguine about getting the decal to settle down over it, and it's a very fine mesh - definitely not a hole with some coffee filter in it. If you wanted to scratch one, it'd be a #-shaped frame with some tights stretched over it and painted silver...

Doors next...

bestest,
M.

[mattbacon]

Slow progress, but progress nevertheless... a milestone today, anyway:


Body and chassis ready to bring together. The glass is surrounded by a multilayered rubber and chrome seal, so I painted the edges black, then used a silver Gundam marker, and finally blackened the rim on the bodyshell. I was surprised by how well the glass fitted, generally, including the light fairings. Shame I couldn't say the same for the lights themselves.


Added a few more tubes/cables to the engine to busy it up a little

And finally...


It looks a bit like a mummy - I wanted to leave the tape on until the chassis was set, to avoid popping things out as I flexed the body. It actually fits remarkably well!

It'll be interesting to see if the bonnet and doors open properly now - they did when I test fitted, but only after a lot of paring down of the bonnet hinge...

bestest,
M.