Richard,
I wouldn’t sell yourself short. You’ve accomplished what many have failed at, and that’s simply getting this kit across the finish line, yet you’ve made many improvements that kicked up the quality of the finished build.
As for the polished Aluminum wheels in the kit, the process used to chrome parts leaves the surface with a coating that’s iregular and does have humps and bumps. Still your wheels look just fine as it doesn’t take much to dull and dirty the finish in the real world. Just look at the spares lined up along the pit lane walls, no two are the same. BTW, F1 pits certainly have come a very long way.
It’s really fun to see what some folks can do with some of the more challenging and/ or basic of kits as in the case. This build definitely falls into an “uplevel” area for me. Some will wonder why such effort was put forth but the results speak for themselves I say. This most assuredly turned out to be a most impressive build due to your efforts. Way to go Richard.
So Decal kit finally arrived from Indycals this week. so got straight into it.
Went for the basic Dutch GP livery of Jim Clark.
Was hoping the Yellow was going to be a little better shaped, so opted to mask and paint instead as there was no way to get a smooth finish with the decals, but everything else Indycals supplied was up to their usual high standards.
Yellow stripes was done in 2 steps, I used Tamiya LP Insignia white as a base coat over the green to stop any bleed from the dark base green and then painted Tamiya LP Flat Yellow over top.
Indy cals decals over top next day, and then clear coated.
Fortunately with the hot summer conditions here in NZ it makes ideal painting conditions and curing time is fast as well.
Hope to have it ready for a good rub down and wax in the next week or so and then detailing and assembly.
Beautiful work Tony - I wish I had painted the yellow stripes instead of using the decals . I did not put belts in mine because it is my understanding that they ere not in use at the time of the Dutch GP .
Cheers- Richard
Thanks, yeah the lack of belts was triggering my OCD haha. So went for the historic GP look, as in of the Dutch GP car was to race in a historic race meet.
The 49 did have belts, but was later in the season I believe.
Tony,
Excellent paint and decals on the Lotus 49. I have Indy Cal’s decals for the 1/20 Tamiya Lotus 49 and they were offered in two forms: one with the yellow stripes as a decal, and the other one with a series of masks to paint the stripe on. Like you, I’m going with the masked and painted stripe.
the Lotus 49 didn’t have any kind of racing harness at the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, which Clark did win in the car’s 1st race. As for using any sort of racing harness in 1967 I don’t believe they did. I was at the Oct 1967 F1 race at Watkins Glen, and I don’t believe that they had any in that race either. From a few other resources it seems that the Lotus 49 1st had a racing harness installed after Clark’s tragic crash in 1968. Seatbelts weren’t required in all F1 cars till 1972.
This picture is labeled as Clark in the Lotus 49 at Zandvoort 1967
This build needed a lot of work as it was a rebuild for my customer and was a bit of a glue bomb, so needed to fabricate a number of bits and also pin parts back into place that I had to break.
Pretty happy with the outcome, now have to work on how to deliver to customer - who is a good 6 hours drive away.
