Lazy

Got lazy again. All I did with this project was gluing 2 door handles. That's it. My progress is slower that glacial speed.

Australian GP will be held this weekend to kick off the 2013 season. In US, the broadcast right this season is switched to a cable channel that I have. So, I am getting ready to stay up late this weekend.

2013 Quota minus 1

©Reuters

I promised myself to limit my 1/43 kit purchasing to 5 this year. By dividing 365 by 5, the answer is 73. On the average, I can only make one purchase every 73 days. Today is March 5, which is day 64 of year 2013. And I broke down and bought my first kit in 2013 (considering shipping, I probably won't get it before March 14, i.e. day 73). Last year, I had this idea of gathering the all the cars that won the driver's championship since 2000. For a long time, the only missing piece was 2006's Renault R26 driven by Fernando Alonso. There is one on the bay for a long time, but the seller's selling price and shipping charge is just too high. Then another one show up with free shipping and is the British GP version with the very cool looking tiger livery. So, I simply do not have any excuse not to buy it.

Disruption

CPVC pipe strikes back! No, my apartment was not flooded. According to the building engineer, lab test result forced them to replace all the remaining plastic sprinkler pipes ASAP. So last week the crew came into my apartment, cut dry walls and started pulling pipes out. That put my building on pause and that's why there wasn't any update last week.

99%

Cut the axles and mounted the wheels. Car mounted to the old BBR case. I thought I used up all my old BBR cases. The same day I received the newly ordered BBR cases, the box of 3 old ones showed up. I'll save the new ones for later.

All that left are the tiny little things like hood pins, door handles, front license plate... etc.

Interior

Finally got all the belts done. That's all for the interior. Not shown in the pictures is the mounting nut. For F1 cars, ground clearance is small, so a tiny nylon washer is enough to mount them. But this time for a rally car, I need a standoff that is 0.25" tall which I don't have. So, I made one out of the wood dowel. Next up will be cutting the shafts to mount the wheels. But that will be for tomorrow. It's time to hit the sack.

80/20

 

 80/20 rule states that 80% of the outcome can be attributed to 20% of the causes. On the flip side, the last 20% of the outcome are from 80% of all the causes. Therefore, the last tiny bit to complete a project is always the most time consuming part. That's what I am facing now.

I am now discovering all this small details that I have to pay attention to. Last night, I found that there is the tow hook, all these hood pins, door handles, brackets... All tiny tiny pieces. Not to mention that I still have to finish the seat belts - out of the 8 shoulder belts and lap belts, I finished 3.

Even though I will still need a couple more days or weeks to finish this, I think I can start thinking about the next project. The 1/87 Porsche 911 GT1?

When masking tape is stronger than decal

Ran into some trouble last night. After a coat of clear over the decals, I was going to paint the window trim. So I put masking tape over. The problem is the bond between the decal and the white paint below failed at several spots. When I peel the tape off, there goes the decal.

Sigh... I was speechless.

Just checking

Spent Sunday working mostly on the interior. Put the wheels on just to see how the thing looks.

 

Back in 2011, I bought 5 cases with white base. The Ferrari 641/2 used up the last of that batch. So, recently I have been trying to find decent looking cases on eBay. I like the white ones, but no one is selling them anymore. I cannot leave the models not mounted, so last week I ordered a bunch of cases from BBR. I had BBR cases before. In fact, my first 1/43 F1 kit, the Ferrari F399 is in a BBR case. Took them a short while to process the order and just got a notice that they have shipped it. This time I ordered 6, hopefully they will last for a while.

Talking about display case. The model needs to be mounted to the base. I used to double sided tape and shims to hold the car to the base. It is not ideal. Then I started following blogs of other modelers and found that they drill and solder a nut to the base of the car and mount the car rigidly with screws. I started doing that since the BAR 006. For F1 cars, since only the cockpit is open, there are plenty of space that is not visible that I can mount the nut. Now, I am building this Audi road car, the center of the car is the cockpit, and it is not really a good place to put the mounting nut in. The only places left are the front and the back. I am still trying to decide where I should put that in.

Oil Cooler

When I first saw the rear wing, I was wondering why there is a vertical thing right under it. I've seen the road version of Ur-Quattro, there isn't such a thing there. Thank goodness I did not cut that off. In the 1981 rally car, Audi put the oil cooler right under the rear spoiler. The kit came with a piece of photo etched for the rear face of the oil cooler. But for the front that is facing the rear window, nothing but a piece of decal. That is not very realistic. The solution? Fabricate!

A couple pieces of brass rods, 2 pieces of brass; solder, file and drill; painted black and dry brush gun metal over...

Steering Wheel

Unbelievable efficiency! No wonder that giant online retailer is what it is. Book ordered yesterday, book delivered today. It has quite a number of historic rally photographs, mostly external shots, not many pictures of the inside of the car. That's a bit of a disappointment.

Back to the car. All I did was just fabricating the replacement steering wheel using copper wire and brass sheet soldered together. It does not look too bad. Should look ok once painted and is inside the car.

Pause

Finally found a reference book on the Audi Ur-Quattro rally car from that giant online bookseller. It will arrive on Friday. So, I'll stop working on the car and resume when the book is here.

Oh Crap!

I thought I won't be fabricating any more pieces for the Audi. I was wrong.

I forgot to turn down the soldering iron temperature and melted the steering wheel. So I will have to make a new one.

The windshield wipers were modified. They're drilled and pinned now instead of just gluing it.

And then the seats, the chassis, the dash, the mirrors and the wipers all got a coat of primer.

I suppose I should also plan this build using MS Project. At the minimum, the exercise forces me to think through what needs to be done.

Tomorrow I will have to take a trip to the art supply store to get the right size wire to make the steering wheel.

New Year, New Cars

Today is New Year's Day of the lunar calendar. What's better than visiting the Chicago Auto Show?

The new Porsche Cayman

Lexus LFA Nürburgring

Chevrolet Corvette Stingray

SRT Viper

Jaguar F Type

Nissan GT-R Track

Aston Martin DBRS

McLaren MP4-12C

A nice old Chevrolet Camaro

Ferrari 641/2 1990 French GP Alain Prost

Ferrari 100th GP Victory Complete!

Finally, this project that was started back in July last year came to a conclusion. I think this is my best 1/43 work so far, and I can still think of a number of things that I could have done better. I manage to finish it before Chinese New Year. I'll be cleaning the house and the work bench and resume work on the Audi after Chinese New Year.