lotus 79 rebaque -08

and the lotus 79 "rebaque" is finished too!

I would like to thank Edgar Miró for his invaluable help (I'm still wanting to see your absolutely fantastic F-2007 finished...) and everyone who encouraged me during the building of this nice car!

thanks to all!

and next will be the fujimi's sauber C30! (I wanted to start the mp4/27 or the RB6 but I'm still thinking wich kind of paints I will use, so the sauber won the pole!)

best regards to all!

lotus 79 rebaque -07

after all painting problems and the building of the porsche 911, finally I could work on the lotus again. I hope I will finish it this week!

lotus 79 rebaque -06

Finally a new update......

First of all I'd like to thank to everyone who sent me a email asking about the state of the cars....

As I told in a previous post, this time was the first time using the 2K clear coat and I had a really bad experience.......

Since the 2K asks to be careful with percentages, I used clinical syringes to mix them. But I didn't consider that the plungers of the syringes are built of silicone.... So the silicone reacted with 2K and when I started airbrushing, began appearing "craters" on the surface! (you can see it on the three first pictures)

I really thought that I destroyed all my previous work on the two lotus!

Then I sanded all the parts with 1000 grade sandpaper -trying to don't reach the decals surface- and I mixed the 2K components using plastic pipettes and airbrushed a wet coat. The result was quite acceptable but when I sanded the parts (1000 to 4000 plus compound) the "craters" were visible again.

So, I decided to sand all parts again with 1000 and airbrush a new wet coat of 2K. This time I won't sand it so it will stay as it is now. 

I learned two very important things of using 2K. First of all is testing it before in any piece of plastic.... and beware of silicone products to mix the components!

The parts are now clear coated and will following the work on assembling the parts! 

I promise it will be faster as this time!

lotus 79 rebaque / martini -05

It's time to post a new update....
I worked on the detailing of the rebaque version. I painted the battery that's placed on the nose and added a piece of a spare decal, two rivets and some wiring. Some more wiring were glued to the oil cilinders and behind the velocity stacks.
I also worked on the martini version. I wasn't happy with the paint (some orange peel was visible) and sanded all body parts and painted them again. The seatbelts were glued on both cars too.
And finally I couldn't resist to make a little test fitting.....

Yesterday I started the work on decaling the body parts, so I hope I'll post a new update soon!

rebaque version

martini version

lotus 79 rebaque / martini -04

the work on both lotus is going slowly....
I've been working on the details over the fuel cell. As you can see in the picture, the original tamiya part is all made in plastic and I cut it in two parts and added two brailed lines.
I also used an old guitar string to simulate the little springs attaching the exhaust pipes.
Now I have the engine glued to the fuel cell, a little more work is needed before I will start working on the front of the car.

lotus 79 rebaque / martini -03

Another little update!

I've been working on the engines of both cars. Finally I decided to give more detail to one of them as I will display one of the cars with the cowling off but I still haven't decided which will be....

The hose joints are from Hobby design and I painted them with clear red and clear blue and the braid line is from Tuner model Factory. I will try to build the exhausts this week and glue the engines to the cars soon!

I also masked the black circles over the copckit and painted them with matt black. So now I can work this parts!

I hope next update will be faster than this one....

lotus 79 rebaque / martini -02

a little update... I painted the rims of both cars and masked them before painting the tire logos. Finally I airbrushed the logos using a stencil I had from the ferrari 126C2. It was quite difficult because the sides of the tires are rounded. Anyway, the result is not perfect but acceptable.
I also built the seat belts. I always use an old tamiya's driver figure to measure the length of the cloth. The harness are from the fantastic set of KA models and the cloth material is from an old perfect parts seat belt set.
Finally I could start the work on the engines. The first part I built is the gearbox and rear suspension. I hand-painted the springs instead replacing them with metal spring because they will be not very visible once the cars will be finished. I ordered some hobby design's metal hose joints at spotmodel so I hope I will be able to finish the engines next week.

More updates  soon.... thanks to all!

lotus79 rebaque -01

I also started the lotus 79 rebaque's version! As I did with the lotus 79 martini, I started cutting all the pieces from the sprue and prepared them to prime and paint.

 I painted the body pieces with rebaque's brown form zero paints. I like this color! Nest step will be sand the pieces and airbrush a first clear coat before apply the decals to prevent the silvering.

 I also started the work on the wheels. The first step was to sand the surface to delete the shine and to give to them a "used" look.