1/12 Tamiya Lola T70-MkIII

[AaronM]

I picked this kit up cheaply as it had no box, and that’s also the reason that the same day it arrived I’ve started on it.

The arrival was also fortunate as I’d literally just clear coated the Lotus 78 JPS body parts and they need a week or so to cure before final assembly can occur.  
 

Always a relief when a kit arrives are the manual/decals are in great condition. 

The size is a bit of a shock to me, having built two 1/12 F1 cars this is going to be just that bit bigger.

Even for an older kit this isn’t quite up to the standard you’d expect from Tamiya.  Lots of deep/badly placed ejector marks, flash and some sinkholes.

luckily Tamiya also sell filler.

Engine assembly starts, but thanks to the filling requirements and somewhat poor directions on paint colours progress will be quite slow.  
 

The ejector pin marks on the intake runners are a great example, on the outside of the part, so instead of just sanding a bit and knowing they’re going to be obscured upon assembly it’s out with the filler and a lot more effort.

Once glued in place the issue becomes clearer.

a coat of flat aluminium brings it all together!

Meanwhile filing and sanding later the tub is getting close to “ready”.  I’ve got to finish tidying the rear (gearbox) subframe section  before I can fix it into the rear of the tub.  Where feasible I’m trying to get the structure glued into the tub before painting - even if that means some rethinks of the assembly process. 

Other things like the front bulkhead structure benefit from a different approach.

Out with the drill to make the speed holes (aka weight reduction) real.  Obviously mounding the part punched through like this would be far more difficult and it’s only a couple of minutes effort for me to get a far more “real” build.  
 

[jaymcminn]

Sweet. Good job getting this kit for a reasonable price... they're hard to come by. Looking forward to your build!

[AaronM]

I remembered I have a 3D printer last night.

Cue 5 hours of effort to change some things about.  

On the front bulkhead the suspension arms and shock mount using pins moulded on the arms located in holes on both pieces of the bulkhead.  This means the bulkhead halves have to painted before the suspension arms can be assembled into the and the two halves glued together, then the entire lot glued into the chassis.  

I want to build up the bulkhead as a solid piece, and then glue that into the chassis, paint the chassis and finally assemble the suspension onto the completed chassis.  

The first step in the process is shown in the above pic.  I had to notch the tub where the lower arm mounts.  To do the final assembly I will need to insert a pin through there.

I will also have to cut the pins off the suspension arms, then drill a 1.3mm hole through the arm for the pin to go through.

Initially I was just going to heat and draw some scrap sprue to make the pins.  I need 4 for the front suspension and a couple slightly larger for the rear.  
Then I remembered the 3D printers sitting in the other side of the house.  So out with Fusion360 and I taught myself how to make bolts.

An hour later and I have a stack of hex-head pins.  

I will set a hex head on one side, leave the hole in the flange, and then insert the pin from the other.   I made the hex heads taller than scale to let me file/sand them to the right height.

At the rear it’s a little different.  The pin is part of the bulkhead moulding.  And there’s a moulded hex in both sides.  

First step was to cut the pin off and the fake hex head.  On the female side there’s a hole for the pin backed by another fake hex (left side of the pic above).

With some extreme zoom you can see the printed hex head.  I used the Flashforge FDM printer instead of the Resin printer largely because I have yet to set the resin printer up (cats and resin printing!)

With the head given a quick file and sand it’s slightly “oversized” but not out of the realm of scale.  They’re representing a bolt with a ~20mm shank, and in metric land that means a ~30mm head.  I set the head size closer to 32mm.

And that’s how I spent 5 hours on a Sunday night.  Today it’s buy more paint and finish these bulkheads (including doing the suspension arm mods)

[AaronM]

One down!

This is the front lower arm.  Circled is the moulded pin that is used to locate it for the regular build plan.  You can barely see there’s a shoulder to the pin as well.

First I cut off the pin ends leaving the shoulder that gives the total width needed to fit between the bulkhead sections.  Then drill a small pilot hole down the middle.  (0.9mm left hand drill)

Then using a couple of steps up in drill size I end up at 1.4mm where my circa 1.3mm “bolt” is a snug fit.  Shoulder is a bit clearer now.

Test fit in the bulkhead.

With a bit of zoom action you can see how important keeping that shoulder is.  Otherwise I’d have to shim the arm.

Slip bulkhead into the chassis, put arm in position, slid in the bolt.  
Winning.

Now to do the upper arms, the other lower arm, smooth out the notches in the tub, then final sand the bulkhead, glue that in place.  Also have to make the bolt head detail and glue on the “inside” of the bulkhead.

That’s going to be huge if I get that done today.

[AaronM]

I may have mentioned cats a few times.  Mostly when I’m down in the study I have a co-worker (also work from home a fair bit thanks to the pandemic).  But he also participates in builds.

it’s does make the build process interesting.

 

The there’s the time when I’m obviously making poor choices

[Timonator]

Cool kit ! Looking forward to the build progress.

[AaronM]

Yesterday I finally got to do some painting.    The instructions call for the engine and Gearbag to be Falt Black.  I settled on Zurc Obsidian Black which is similar to a gun metal finish.  The metallic is very fine so it just as a light sheen to it, this sprayed over a car body with a nice gloss would be awesome.

The detail is great, although the sink under some bits sucks.

The inside of the tub got a coat of Zurc Black Primer, this has minimal filling capability but gives a great uniform finish to see imperfections.  

Drilled out bulkhead was very much “the right move”.  

I have to touch up the filling on the side pods.  Not a huge amount though, the ejector marks in their filled start and the old file scratch will give the surface some detail.  

With the upper section of the front bulkhead held in place you can see I need to drill out top section as well, the upper piece is drilled through, just the upper surface of the vertical portion needs drilling.

At least from this point I can start assembling the engine.

In true Canberra fashion I’ve had to order some paints because nil-stock.  This may pause elements of the build.

[AaronM]

I like making things hard for myself.

The grey piece started life as a solid wedge of plastic with circular depressions to represent the speed holes.  After making the effort to drill out all the other ones on the bulkhead I guess I had no choice but to do these.

The problem as such, was drilling them out wouldn’t really give the effect of anything except a deeper depression as the piece was solid.

So a grabbed a file.  Ultimately I filed it down to a flat 1mm with two legs remaining at the back to set the angle.

In progress. 

Now set in place it gives a critical sense of depth and “nooks and crannies” in that area.  Most of which will be completely hidden when the radiators get installed on their bulkhead!
 

Also.  The Engine fits.

[AaronM]

Engine looks Ok

[jaymcminn]

Looking good! Your cat's awesome too. Mine just jumps up on my work bench and starts knocking stuff off like Godzilla decimating Tokyo. 

[AaronM]

Been flat out the past few days so only touched this today for a couple of hours.

Sprayed the base AC12 Bare Metal Silver on the chassis and significant chassis components.   I’ll next paint the steel elements in a grey/white mix to give very light grey.  At the same time I’ll do some washing over some of the panel sections to give that differentiation of materials.  

It won’t be perfect but it will be interesting.

On the arms, I suppose I could do a metal finish on them, but for now I think the black will actually look better as all the various metal finishes don’t visually seperate well enough when scaled down.  

Added the fuel lines to the carbs and started the exhaust build. 

In a few hours I’ll set the second pipe on each side, adding pipes over the next day when the previous pipe is set in position.  

Then pop them off the engine, final sanding and paint.

[AaronM]

Being Christmas Day I’ve been doing a little bit here and there between eating and drinking.  

Ended up trialling a few grey ideas and decided to stick with a basic “Grey” gloss.  It’s on the darker side but I was able to find a couple of period correct cars and they were a few different shades of grey.  This would be right on the fringe of too dark, but not unbelievable. 

I used a bit of panel accent to highlight some of the separation. 

The headers have been added to through the day.  

Both sides are unique. 

Although they follow the same basic shape there’s a few different kinks.  Each piece takes about 10 minutes to do rough prep on, test fit and then glue.

Tomorrow they can come off, get a finishing sanding and I’ll start painting.  That will near finish the engine and gearbox under the rear suspension comes together.
 

In parallel I’ve been working on the fit/finish of the major body sections.  In particular the rear and front clamshells to their respective central body sections.  Out of the box the fit is not great.  But with clearancing it’s actually really good for a 1970 scale down of a hand laid 1960’s fibreglass body.   At the moment my biggest concern is making room between the elements in their closed state to have a layer of paint.

Lots of filing.

My intention is to get the fit set right on the bench.  Then when eventually the fixed elements are mounted to finesse the fitment on the moving parts before finally painting them and finishing the model.  
 

[AaronM]

Headers the next day were done and ready for paint.

Primed prior to being painted flat white with a transition to flat black at the collector.  
 

doing rough fits of the body sections

sanding some of the bits that should be flat to work out what isn’t flat.

Fitment between the fixed and opening sections needed a lot of fine tuning. 

finally baking on some primer.

Royal Blue time - I’m using SMS Advance Royal blue rather than the Tamiya.  They appear to be identical colours but the SMS is more readily available local to me.

In the sun it’s a very nice blue.

another tray ready to bake!

Also been working on some of the smaller pieces for the interior. 

[AaronM]

Progress has been slow while giving paint and decals curing time.

I built the functional Jack

body sections being taped in place for Decal application.

Built the wheels

Body fit for me seems pretty good.  Decals were a struggle but have come up mostly OK.

I will start clear coating the bodywork so it can cure.  Then paint inside of the body and finally get back to work on assembly.

[MrObsessive]

I've had this very kit for many years, but have never attempted to start it. I'll definitely be following this thread! I really like what I see, and all of it looks great!

You mentioned about a 3D printer, I'm looking to get one in the not too distant future, and I can believe there's a bit of a learning curve to get halfway decent results out of 'em. Your parts came out very good, and I'm going to try small parts such you did before I even attempt the more complex things.

BTW, I've got three cats and none of them bother anything in my model room. One of them came upon the table once (knocked over the paint jar), but the sound of the jar hitting the wood floor probably startled him and he's not attempted it since! ?

[Bugatti Fan]

That old Lola kit makes up into a really impressive model. This one is looking really good.

[AaronM]

The clear coated body sections.  Decal application has some issues but I’ll wear it.

overall fit and finish is pretty good and in a couple of weeks (after a few more hours in the dehydrator curing the clear) I think I’ll be proud of it.  (And it’ll have been a 4 week ish build)

[Old Nasty]

Any progress on this build?

[AaronM]

On 4/3/2022 at 9:29 AM, Old Nasty said:

Any progress on this build?

I’ve done a huge portion of the final assembly…. But…

 

Assembly went pretty well for the core body components, and then when I started trying to tie together things like the doors, bonnet and so on it went south like most discover with this kit.

Ive had to push it aside for a while as I need to approach the problems with a clear mind and deal with them progressively.

For example the bonding of the inner and out door skins distorts the doors so the outer skins which aligned fine now don’t.  
The inner radiator grille and undertray on the bonnet foul on the font chassis structure.  
I won’t mention the bad luck of a few minor bits of damage trying to get some things lined up too.