mclaren mp4/13 -15

The front suspension is finished!

And the front brakes are also on their place.

I couldn't resist to make a test fit. Some more work is needed but I'm very close to the finish.......

mclaren mp4/13 -14

I glued the engine, the body and the sidepods to the floor plan.

The rear brakes are finished and glued to the engine.

The front and rear wings are glued and started to polish the cowling with 2000 grid sandpaper and polishing tamiya compound.

The badgeboards were also glued to the body.

I started working on the front brakes. I drilled two holes and glued two 0.3mm cooper lines. Then I glued the photoetched plates where the upper suspension arms will be attached.

mclaren mp4/13 -13

There is a circle behind the driver's helmet that it must be painted in black. As it's not easy to do it brushing, I took an old p.e. sheet that had a circular hole with the same size. I put it over the circle and airbrushed two layers of flat black.

it worked! I also airbrushed the black parts of the front and rear wings.
Finally I put the CF and logo decals over them. I will wait some days and will start to airbrush three layers of clearcoat.

mclaren mp4/13 -12

I started decaling de different body parts. I will wait three days to let the decals dry and then I will clear coat and polish them.

The inner parts of the monocoque where decaled with sms CF decals and clear coated with 3 layers of TS-13.

I primed the bargeboards, the front and rear wings with two layers of grey and two layers of white.

Once the paint dried, I sanded the parts with 800 to 2000 grid and airbrushed two layers of orange. I'll wait some days and then I'll polish them again and will paint two more layers of orange.
The front and rear brake ducts were CF decaled. It took about one hour to finish every one. I airbrushed some matt black to tone down the shinning as you can see in the duct on the right in the picture.

I also started working on the wheels. The first thing I did was drill a hole in the center of the rims. Then, I polished them and airbrushed one layers of primer and two layers of semigloss black.

mclaren mp4/13 -11

The engine is 99% finished... some more wires and it will be done.

Both sidepods are finished and I painted and glued the radiator hoses.

The steering wheel is also finished.

mclaren mp4/13 -10

Finally I could finish the rear suspension system and glued it to the gear box.

Some wires were also added and I drilled two holes on the exhausts and glued the electrical connectors.

The electronic box on the left sidepod is also finished. Now I have to glue the radiator pipes and start working on the right sidepod.

A layer of flat black was airbrushed on the rear part of the body. Now I have to decal it with some CF decals.

mclaren mp4/13 -09

I started decalling the sidepods with kevlar and carbon fiber decals. I also airbrushed them with a mixture of tamiya smoke and flat black (you can see the difference before and then on the picture)

I also decalled and airbrushed the air intake.

The floor is also decalled with carbon fiber.

And also airbrushed a mixture of tamiya smoke and flat black to tone down the shining of the decals. I really like the result.

Finally I made a first test fitting before starting to work on the engine. I also decalled all the suspension arms and glued the heat shield on the floor using foil from a tobaco box.

mclaren mp4/13 -08

just a little update.... I finished the four brake discs and glued the calipers. I must admit that the process to build them is tedious but the result is pretty good.

I painted the exhausts, covered them with foil and finally painted the foil with a mixture of clear red and clear yellow (40-60).
I started working on the engine. Added some wiring and started to apply CF decals to suspension arms. I'll try to post more pictures soon...

mclaren mp4/13 -07

The electronic connectors are glued to the front nose plate. I also added some wires.

I followed working on the brake discs. According to the top studio instruccions, I cut some 5mm-long pieces of 0,5mm solder line, glued to the discs and cut them when dried.

After 2 hours of work, I finally finished one of the brake discs. I'm quite happy with the result so, three more to do.....

mclaren mp4/13 -06

I started working on the front nose. I decaled it with CF sms decal and glued the p.e. parts painted with flat black.

The reservoirs were painted and glued and added some wiring. Still need some job to finish it.

I also finished the calipers. I painted them with xf-56, painted the ap logos and put a temperature sensor decal. I also added a little detail using 0.3mm steel wire.

And I started the work on the rear suspension arms. I first cut the tamiya piece to use the parts from the top studio set.
I painted and glued the suspension srpings from top studio and added some connectors. Next step will be decal the suspension arms with CF and attach them to the springs.

I'm working in too many little parts at the same time......I hope to finish them soon and start working on the engine...