Teeny, tiny, Lotus 7 (Danger! Lots of photos)

[RabRobertson]

Hi, long time lurker, first time poster.

Quick introduction, I've been building for a few years now, originally 1/24th, then I switched to the dark side (43rd).
Like most folks here, the hobby now sucks money from my bank account and time from my life faster than a demanding spouse with a penchant for diamonds.

I know most of you build in 24th and bigger, but I thought some of you might like to see this lovely little kit from the French company MEA 43.



Loads of photo-etch, the entire chassis has to be build from this, as well as all of the side panels and rear.



Resin covers the upper panels, seats, nosecone etc, as well as the engine block.



The base of the chassis, a whopping 75mm long (less than 3" for old folks and americans )

Rather than try a glue such thin parts together, I decided to solder them, it would be much stronger.



Handy, clampy thing holding the base and one of the sides, now if I can just keep my hand steady and not burn myself...







Et voila, a tiny reproduction of the Lotus 7 chassis.

Next installment, the side panels (assuming I dont accidentally crush the thing).

Cheers - Rab.

Edited: 'cause I'm a total noob and made a mess of the pictures.

[MPWR]

Yay!

I'm always happy to see that there's someone here crazier than I am. It looks utterly adorable. I'm of course a big 7 fan, so I will definately watch this with interest. I can hardly imagine how small it must be to work with. Good luck and please keep us posted on your progress.

Welcome to AF!

[klutz_100]

This is just tooooo cooool! Super!

What a great way to say "Hello"

Hope you don't keep us waiting too long for updates and make sure they are as detailed as NASA blueprints!

Welcome to AF and don't be a stranger

EDIT: I was so glad I was going to be the first to reply but Andy, you sneaked in front of me

[Mr. Me.]

great. I like it.

[DSM-Mark]

Looks great!! If you have a 1/24 anything, (preferably Lotus 7) take some pictures with both chassis and 1/24 in frame - put it into perspective for us!

Anyway, I can imagine just how small that thing is. Good luck with it, and hoping you get some P-man shine on it.
Cheers.

[robrex]

Whoa! that thing must be tiny! I'm keen to see more progress!

[cabarbe]

Cool, cool, cool. I have been thinking about building that kit for months. Maybe your thread makes me deciding to do it.
I'll be watching you, man.

[gionc]

Fantastic kit. I just love those spaceframe.

[RabRobertson]

Thanks for the welcome folks and for all of the comments.

@ MPWR: I'm nowhere near as crazy as you, at no point will I be attempting to machine working hubs and rotating brake discs for this thing

@ DSM-Mark: I don't have a 1/24th Seven, but I'll find one of my old 24th and photograph them alongside each other.

@ cabarbe: I hope this encourages you to get started, I'll try and point out any assembly problems along the way.

And now the reason we're all here; photos.



The rear axle and propshaft painted, drybrushed, smoked and washed, measuring in at a whopping 1.25" wide it should be easily up to the task of handling the torque



Rear axle installed, along with rear struts, the struts are white metal with a separate spring, all provided in the kit. However, the tops of the struts are too narrow and just fall through the hole in the chassis, so I made small top mounts out of plasticard.


The chassis also had all the excess solder filed down and was sprayed in aluminium.



The floor panel in place, the rivet marks are already etched on the part, all I did was glue it in.



The panels were sprayed on the fret in Tamiya X-5 then glued to the frame. The panels have bending lines etched into the metal, so no guess work required.



Handy tool for bending photo-etch.



The rear panel's a bit trickier, getting the bends to follow the chassis and keeping them symmetrical took a bit of marking up and careful bending around the handle of a file, but it all went together fairly well.

Stay tuned for part 3, front suspension and brakes.

Cheers - Rab.

[Martsmodels]

Hi - fabulous job on what looks like a very difficult kit - is this the same as the Feeling 43 kit by any chance?

Keep it coming.

Martin

[RabRobertson]

Originally Posted by Martsmodels

Hi - fabulous job on what looks like a very difficult kit - is this the same as the Feeling 43 kit by any chance?

Hi Martin, thanks for the compliment, the kit's not that difficult, it's very well engineered, it's going together surprisingly easily.

The kit manufacturer is MEA 43, a French company, I wasn't aware that Feeling 43 did a Lotus 7 kit and at 80 GBP, it was a lot cheaper than most Feeling 43 kits.

I do have one of their "Basic 43" kits to build, the '53 Le Mans C-Type, that's fairly high on my to-do list.

Cheers - Rab.

[Martsmodels]

It seems I was mistaken there - I could swear I'd read a write up on a detailed Feeling 43 '7 but as I can't find one anywhere either it must have been the MEA kit. Sorry for any confusion

Martin

[mike@af]

Astounding work! This is a pleasure to watch. The PE chassis is a work of art.

[RabRobertson]

Thanks for all the comments so far folks.
I must say, posting progress on here provides real encouragement to keep moving on the build, if only so I've got some new photos to post, speaking of which:



Front suspension under way, the uprights are photoetched and the lower wishbones are white metal. The upper arm is fixed (photo-etch) so the lower arms seem to sit at a rather steep angle, still the hub seems to be level with the rear axle so it should be OK.



Anti-roll bar and steering rack in place. In hindsight, it would have been easier to put the steering rack in before all the other suspension components. It took a bit of fiddling and bending to feed it past the shocks, good job it's white metal.
Front discs in place too and the whole thing's been given a lick of paint.



Rear drums and propshaft fitted.

A couple of photos for scale:



I didn't have a 1/24 Lotus 7, but this old GT40 was the smallest of the models I had handy.



The paint jar is a standard 10ml Tamiya pot.

Next step engine and a bit of wiring.

Cheers - Rab.

[Martin S]

very nice build !
I don't think I have good enough eyes to build anything smaller than the 1/24 super 7.
An 1/43 seven must be modeling at molecular level almost
And you are talking about wiring this thing...
I'll definatley be watching !