Although I, still, haven't finished any of the other builds I'm
currently working on, I couldn't contain myself and just HAD to start
this build.
The Martini livery is just too appealing to leave it sitting in the box any longer.
However, the deeper I delved into this project, the more "problems" I encountered.
First of all, the decal sheet. It looks nice, but it's not complete. Several sponsors seem to be missing (but it is probable that the sponsors varied between races), but more importantly, the Martini striping is not complete.
When looking at the pictures below, you can notice that the Martini striping is on AND beneath the rear spoiler. But the decal sheet has only one option, obviously on the rear spoiler.
Might seem minor, but I think it's a shame, as it would not have been much trouble to include it on the sheet.
Another thing I noticed was that the set of wheels I intended to use
actually sucks. The rims are quite unrealistic and need a lot of work to
get them mounted on this car. Apart from that, the tires are way too
small.
Luckily I remembered having a BMW 635CSi Racing lying around. And the wheels on that car are exactly what I was looking for, for this Jaguar.
Another pleasant aspect of the BMW wheels and tires is the fact that they're also from a Tamiya kit, so fitting them to the Jag shouldn't be too difficult.
Than there's the fact that this kit is a right hand drive version of the car. And the racecar is a left hand drive... A lot of work needs to be done there. Not impossible, but also not something that I'd anticipated in the beginning.
Work that body
First task I set myself was to get the bodywork ready for primer and paint.
The original kit is a roadgoing version with a transparent roof. But that won't be necessary for this build.
The roof of the car is however attached to the windscreen of the car. So I had to separate the windscreen and roof. Normally not a very exciting job, but as it was a clear part I needed to separate, I had to be extra careful.
But it worked out fine in the end.
Next I removed some parts from the main body which weren't on the race car.
And I had to fix the left windscreen pillar. It was bent a bit, so the windscreen wouldn't fit properly.
So out came my girlfriends hairdryer and with some friendly persuasion I managed to straighten the pillar enough to get the windscreen to fit right.
Below are several other parts I've been working on. However, the part on the right will need some additional work. An ejectorpin mark can be seen clearly. And also the opening for the mechanism to open and close the headlight covers.
But as the moveable covers won't be needed I will have to close the opening. And because the headlights will get a transparent cover, the ejectorpin mark needs to be removed too.
But that last part will be simple as the original headlight cover isappears to be inside the headlight pod, covering that ejectorpin mark.
The Wheels
As I mentioned on the previous page, the wheels that I intended to use for this build are actually quite useless.
On the picture below, the BMW tire is underneath the Scale Productions tire. As you can see is the SP tire quite a bit smaller.
And also the SP tire has only a hole in the middle. Whereas the original wheels of this car have a mounting pin to fit into the suspension assembly.
So I decided to use the wheels from the BMW kit.
When looking at the picture of the car at the top of the previous page, you can see that the dish of the rearwheels lies deeper that of the front wheels.
So, out came the scriber, to cut out the center of 2 of the wheels.
At first I wanted to put the dishes I cut out of the rims deeper into the rims. To that end I glued some styrene strip into the rims.
After I did this, I had to conclude that the dishes would get too far
into the rim and that it would be nearly impossible to mount the wheels
to the car without extensive plastic surgery.
So I had to take a different route.
I milled out the extra styrene I glued into the rims (because otherwise they would interfere with the brake dishes) and mounted the dishes almost flush with the front of the wheel.
And I think it looks quite nice.
One slight problem is that because of the removal of the dishes, I needed to fill the gap between the outer rim and the dish. And that is still visible. I'll try to figure out a way to make it less visible.
To get the dishes to sit right inside the rims I made a jig as can be seen the second picture above.
End of this update.
The Martini livery is just too appealing to leave it sitting in the box any longer.
However, the deeper I delved into this project, the more "problems" I encountered.
First of all, the decal sheet. It looks nice, but it's not complete. Several sponsors seem to be missing (but it is probable that the sponsors varied between races), but more importantly, the Martini striping is not complete.
When looking at the pictures below, you can notice that the Martini striping is on AND beneath the rear spoiler. But the decal sheet has only one option, obviously on the rear spoiler.
Might seem minor, but I think it's a shame, as it would not have been much trouble to include it on the sheet.
Luckily I remembered having a BMW 635CSi Racing lying around. And the wheels on that car are exactly what I was looking for, for this Jaguar.
Another pleasant aspect of the BMW wheels and tires is the fact that they're also from a Tamiya kit, so fitting them to the Jag shouldn't be too difficult.
Than there's the fact that this kit is a right hand drive version of the car. And the racecar is a left hand drive... A lot of work needs to be done there. Not impossible, but also not something that I'd anticipated in the beginning.
Work that body
First task I set myself was to get the bodywork ready for primer and paint.
The original kit is a roadgoing version with a transparent roof. But that won't be necessary for this build.
The roof of the car is however attached to the windscreen of the car. So I had to separate the windscreen and roof. Normally not a very exciting job, but as it was a clear part I needed to separate, I had to be extra careful.
But it worked out fine in the end.
Next I removed some parts from the main body which weren't on the race car.
And I had to fix the left windscreen pillar. It was bent a bit, so the windscreen wouldn't fit properly.
So out came my girlfriends hairdryer and with some friendly persuasion I managed to straighten the pillar enough to get the windscreen to fit right.
Below are several other parts I've been working on. However, the part on the right will need some additional work. An ejectorpin mark can be seen clearly. And also the opening for the mechanism to open and close the headlight covers.
But as the moveable covers won't be needed I will have to close the opening. And because the headlights will get a transparent cover, the ejectorpin mark needs to be removed too.
But that last part will be simple as the original headlight cover isappears to be inside the headlight pod, covering that ejectorpin mark.
As I mentioned on the previous page, the wheels that I intended to use for this build are actually quite useless.
On the picture below, the BMW tire is underneath the Scale Productions tire. As you can see is the SP tire quite a bit smaller.
And also the SP tire has only a hole in the middle. Whereas the original wheels of this car have a mounting pin to fit into the suspension assembly.
So I decided to use the wheels from the BMW kit.
When looking at the picture of the car at the top of the previous page, you can see that the dish of the rearwheels lies deeper that of the front wheels.
So, out came the scriber, to cut out the center of 2 of the wheels.
At first I wanted to put the dishes I cut out of the rims deeper into the rims. To that end I glued some styrene strip into the rims.
So I had to take a different route.
I milled out the extra styrene I glued into the rims (because otherwise they would interfere with the brake dishes) and mounted the dishes almost flush with the front of the wheel.
And I think it looks quite nice.
One slight problem is that because of the removal of the dishes, I needed to fill the gap between the outer rim and the dish. And that is still visible. I'll try to figure out a way to make it less visible.
End of this update.
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