Valentine's Day in London

Alone in London on Valentine's Day, what should a 1/43 F1 modeling fan do? Pay a visit to the McLaren dealership to check out the MP4/23! May be I should build MP4/23 after the Williams and the Lotus... Probably in 2016...

When they are gone, they are gone

Z model, one of the few shops that sells detail up parts for 1/43 cars, is closing their doors. I did not know about that until I saw 67GT-san's post. It's been difficult for me in US to get Z model products. Their web shop only cater to domestic Japan customers. Then late last year, I figured out that 2 large model car shops (Raccoon and Romu) take international orders, and they both carry Z model products. I thought my problem was solved, I can order through Raccoon or Romu. Who knows Z model decided to close down their business. Sigh... When this stash are used, there will be no replacement. Now, where can I get the seat belt kits?

Winter Break Continues

My vacation has ended and I am back to work. However my break from the workbench will not end for at least 1 more month. I lost last weekend to company meeting in Florida. I am not complaining about it especially when the temperature in Chicago last week did not go above 10°F. And because of work, I probably will not have any chance to sit in front of my workbench in the next 5 weeks. :(

Anyway, got these from the postman last week, which gave me a little bit of warmth in this brutal winter.

One for Lewis and the other Nico!

Looking back, looking forward

2015 is here already. So, it is time to do a review and start planning.

I only managed to finish 2 builds in 2014: Leyton House CG901 (1/43), and the Porsche 911 GT1 (1/87). And I started both of them back in 2013. Currently there are 5 work in progress. The 2 still active are the 2007 Williams FW29 and the freshly started 1992 Lotus 107. The 3 packed away are the McLaren M8, and two Nissan Skyline GT-R LM. Given all the things happened in 2014, I can only be glad that I still managed to finish those 2.

This year my first priority is to finish the Williams FW29 and the Lotus 107 that I have started. Then what? I am not too sure. There are just too many kits that I want to build. With my attention deficit disorder, whatever I decide now would probably get changed later. On top of that, I don't even have a clue whether I will be able to finish the 2 on hand.

Wish everyone a prosperous 2015!

Hey Studio27, where are my stuff?

Preordered the 1/43 AMG Mercedes W05 back in November, paid for my order a couple weeks ago, still haven't received the shipping confirmation nor tracking number yet. And they'll be shut down for the year starting tomorrow. I guess I won't see anything before 2015.

Attention Deficit Disorder

It happened again, I thought I am not going to start the Lotus 107 before I am done with the Williams FW29. I just cannot resist getting my hands on the playing with the Lotus. Attention Deficit Disorder?

I cleaned off flashings from the castings and with the low temperature solder on hand, filled up some voids on the body and under tray instead of using putty. Overall, the castings are decent and do not need a lot of cleaning and fixing, which is good. Tyres are the old style blank rubber ones without markings printed found in the recent Tameo releases. Since I have the Goodyear template, I'll just paint the markings on using the template instead of the decal.

By the way, I did not forget about the FW29. I did a little bit of work on the front and rear suspension and brake.

This is the last weekend of the year that I can spend on the workbench. Thank you everyone who follow this blog in 2014. I know you all have better things to do than reading my crap. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Let's build Lotus

I had a lot of fun participating in Ws43-san's "Let' building Racing 43". I was going to participate in the "Let's build Mazda", but unfortunately, a lot of shit happened early this year and I was not able to participate. Now that things got settled down a bit, I can participate in the latest "Let's build Lotus".

Instead of the well known Lotus machines with Gold Leaf, JPS or Camel livery, I opt to build the 107, which was raced by Mika Häkkinen back in 1992, 2 years before the original team founded by Colin Chapman went belly up.

With the FW29 still on going and my slower than glacial build speed, I am not really sure whether I will be able to finish before the deadline which is the end of November in 2015.

Aerodynamists are enemies of modelers

To be honest, I do not like the F1 front wings of this era. It is a pain in the butt to get the upper wing element look right.

Counting down to the end of 2014, I practically will only have 1 more weekend at the workbench. Still have a whole bunch of things to test fit before spraying on the surfacer.

Last weekend, I went home for Thanksgiving. And one of the Thanksgiving tradition of mine is to go to the San Francisco Auto Show to look at cars. There is nothing really special about the road cars, as the San Francisco show is not really major ones like New York, Detroit or LA. But they always have a section where they show some race cars. Here's Jimmy Vasser's 2006 PKV Racing Champ Car.

Another interesting car is this "up-side-down" Camero that is built to look like the car is flipped up-side-down

Rediscover my "Childhood Dream"

No 1/43 work this past weekend. It was Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. and I went back home in California to spend the weekend with family.

Whenever I go back home, I usually spend some time digging through my boxes of stuff. This is what I re-discover this time: my treasured old copy of Dou-mu (loosely translate to a child's dream) from the author of Akira, Otomo Katsuhiro. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domu:_A_Child%27s_Dream 

Just like building models and watching TV, my parents considered reading comic books a waste of time. So me and my brother had to figure out ways to smuggle comic books back home and read them in secret. Once in a while we got busted and the comic books would end up heading to the landfill or incinerator on a garbage truck. This is one of the few survivors.

Twenty Two Two Twenty Two

Result of Abu Dhabi GP: Alex Wurz won

Alex Wurz retired from F1 several years ago. What am I talking about? I was debating whether the FW29 should be built into the Wurz version (that placed 3rd in Canada) or the Rosberg version. And I have decided if Rosberg won this year's driver's championship, I'll build the car into the Rosberg version. If not, the Wurz version. As a result of the race earlier, Alex Wurz won.

This weekend, I added the fin to the back of the car.

Further adjusted the front wing.

Kind of put together the rear wing.

 Found the lower support just a tad narrower that the wing. So I put epoxy putty on, will work on it when the putty is cured.

The Chill is here

Winter is here in the Midwest, even though according to the calendar we are still a month away from winter. Last week temperature dropped to below freezing. And it is snowing in Chicago today. Since the clock is changed from daylight savings time back to standard time, and the fact that day is getting shorter and shorter, it is getting dark at 4:30pm in the afternoon. Lack of daylight is lowering my already low motivation to spend time at the workbench. It could be the beginning of a long cold winter.

This is what I did this Sunday evening. The center part of the front wing being lower that the bottom of the end-plates, I have to make a fixture to get it to sit level. The upper front wing element is a pain to fit. Took me a while to "negotiate" with them to get them settle in. That's it for this week.

Next weekend is the last F1 race of the season, driver's championship is still not decided. I cannot wait to see Hamilton and Rosberg duking it out.

Losing more weight

Attached the front wing pylons to the nose along with some putty.

The front wing end plates were a bit too thick. In the picture the right end (left side in the picture) was untouched, and the left end plate got shaven down a bit.

Done with trimming the front wing. Added those canards to the end plate.

Losing Weight

Spent last night and a little part of this morning shaving metals off from the turning vanes castings. As usual, right out of the castings, the vanes were too thick and need to trim down a bit. If I still have the motivation, I will test fit the front wing.

Mirror, mirror

Not sure how I did it, but I managed to hurt my right upper back 2 weeks ago. It hurts when I tried to move my right arm. So, I tried not to do anything until today when the pain is gone. So, this is all I managed to do - one mirror.

Epilogue:

Couldn't help but did some more work after dinner. Another mirror and then cut 2 pieces of thin aluminum as mirror.