Tamiya 1/12 Williams FW14B with Top Studio Upgrades

[IanH]

So this to me is a bigger project than I have ever attempted, I picked up this kit over 4 years ago, and over time collected the various Top Studio upgrade sets. 

It's the first time I'll be working with photo etch (and there's a ton of it!) and carbon fibre decals. 

Although there's not much to show at this stage, I've recorded 10.5 hours just cleaning up the engine, drilling holes, cutting off bolts which are to be replaced by photo etch, etc. 

I painfully at first started adding the little PE nuts to the PE exhaust manifolds, got into a nice rhythm and have that done now. 

Trying my best to not leave any glue residue exposed on such small parts, difficult at first, but getting the hang of it! 

In all updates, I'm going to end of with my current time spent on the build so that I can have a reference of how much time I have spent up to what point. I'm using Clockify to record my time, it's a cool and easy way to keep track, and I think may provide some shocking numbers! 

10.5 hours

Edited May 20, 2024 by IanH
Typo

[IanH]

So I have been quite busy on this in the past while, and am quite happy with the progress so far... It doesn't look like much, but there's a whole bunch of little fiddly bits and pe which has been worked on, and a lot of smaller components on the side waiting to be fitted. 

Have almost finished with all the engine components, and am now starting to wire it up. Have just fitted this evening my first electronic connector and wire to the gearbox side panel.

Electronic connector :

Side view of the engine and gearbox with most connectors and per installed, including the drive shaft upgrade kit, which is a huge improvement over the original kit part:

Close up of the gearbox side panel with the electronic connector and first wire connected:

68.5 hours to date! 

[IanH]

I am enjoying this build so much, with the amount of wires and cables I am constantly thinking and planning what should go first, and then one leads to the next, and with such tight margins and space to work don't want to fit something and then struggle to connect the other end of the hose... 

Really enjoying all this planning and the details... 

So I have been working on the hydraulic pump, got that hosed up and fitted with a really lovely turned aluminum pully, in my opinion it looks so sweet! 

Also did some work on the right hand side gearbox cover, and got that fitted 

It's starting to look like something! 

[Bugatti Fan]

Nice to follow a really complex build/upgrade being done. The devil is in the detail of is said, and one can quickly run up many hours working on many of the smaller details. What Ian has done so far is an indication of what lies ahead.

Never thought of clocking the number of hours in any of my builds like Ian though!  Most of us lose track !

 

Edited September 20, 2024 by Bugatti Fan

[IanH]

Did some work on the hydraulic controller, this little item is made up of 9 individual pieces, excluding the wiring harness which I still need to connect up. 

In the kit there is 4 of these little terminals, you need 3, so have 1 spare... I lost this one twice, and somehow found it by accident twice...!

Really didn't want to use the spare in case I really lost one! 

Here's the harness, almost ready to be fitted. 

Sitting on 84 hours so far. 

[Bugatti Fan]

Ian, you might be interested in another top modeller like yourself who has built the Williams with the Studio 27 upgrades.

If you don't know of him already, his name is Tomasz Zamira. He has featured his Williams build (plus other models of his) either on this forum or Britmodeller.  Could be worth a look as further reference.

From what I have seen you doing so far, your Williams is going to be something to behold when finished !

[IanH]

9 hours ago, Bugatti Fan said:

Ian, you might be interested in another top modeller like yourself who has built the Williams with the Studio 27 upgrades.

If you don't know of him already, his name is Tomasz Zamira. He has featured his Williams build (plus other models of his) either on this forum or Britmodeller.  Could be worth a look as further reference.

From what I have seen you doing so far, your Williams is going to be something to behold when finished !

Thank you for the kind words Noel. 

Yes I have seen some of Tomasz's work, and am continuously relooking at the various completed builds on the web to learn. 

I am really trying to take care to do my best on each part, and not rush through it. So I do hope the results will be worthwhile and  representative of the effort. 

[IanH]

So I've added the rear wishbones, so that I can tie up the brake hoses, which feed under a bunch of wires between the engine and gearbox. 

I am not ready to install the rear hubs, so made up a styrene t-bar to support the upper wishbones. 

Finished all the connectors on the hydraulic reservoir, quite happy how this came out, all in all there's 20 parts making up this little piece (finger tip in the top of the photo for scale) 

Will try get this fitted along with the hydraulic controller tomorrow! 

96h40m

[IanH]

I was way over confident thinking I would be able to fit the hydraulic controller and reservoir the following day... All was going to plan, except the parts on both were so delicate, that they kept coming loose, the little 0.3mm legs, and tiny wiring terminals just weren't in the mood to go together as planned. 

So over the next few days I redid these parts countless times until finally they came together, 

Here's the hydraulic controller with the wiring harness. 

And here's a pic as we ended today with some extra hoses fitted. 

Sitting now on 112 hours! 

[Nacho Z]

Ian, I just now had the opportunity to check out this entire build thread.  I think that I may have seen it before, but never went through all of your posts.  You are doing a fantastic job on this!  I have all of the Top Studio items as well as the Thunder Valley items.  I will be following your build with great interest.  I wish you all the best on this project!

[Gfer Gman]

Hey all. This is my first post. 

Loving this build. It looks great so far. I love the detail that the top studio kits give. This is one of my favourite f1 cars too, so iconic.

I recently did the 1/12 McLaren mp 4/6 with top studio detail, if you're enjoying what you've done so far, just wait till you get into the main wiring loom..... it will test you!

[IanH]

Other than a few little things here and there I am basically at the end of the engine building phase. 

Some key parts like the fuel injection, etc I plan to do later as the part under that is such a nice place to get a grip on the engine, I don't want to cover that all up now! 

I will prepare those parts and a few other bits, but I will soon be getting stuck into the rear suspension and brakes! 

So turbos, intercoolers and their hoses have been fitted, my wife helped me mix up a custom colour to represent the pinkish purple hose clamps! 

The engine is starting to get quite full of wires and hoses now! 

Here is the hose clamp on the 1:1

And my attempt to replicate it:

Some shots of the turbos, intercoolers and various cables and hoses:

Time sure flies when you're having fun! Sitting on 134 hours! 

Do I build that slow, or is the 100s of parts, new techniques and skills I'm needing to acquire!? 

[Pierre Rivard]

You are a brave man... and skilled. This is not easy stuff.

[IanH]

As I think something fiddly is finished the next fiddly part appears! 

Trying to finish up the rear suspension, so built up the dampers, these electronic connectors, wiring and the little pe brackets were a bit more challenging than I thought. 

The hydraulic tanks were fun to build, but fitting the pe strap turned out to be quite challenging to get it to sit down correctly. 

And finally installed and ticked off the long to do list! 

Tried my hand at carbon fibre decals on the valve covers, first time working with this, and with a bit of patience I am quite happy with the results. 

In progress :

Complete, except for some pe bolt heads and a clear coat which I still need to do :

Progressing on to the brake assemblies now... 

169 hours! 

Edited January 5 by IanH

[OldNYJim]

Great work so far - and well worth the hours spent!  

[IanH]

It seems like such a long time since I posted an update, but although tons of work has been done, there really hasn't been much to show... Until now... 

I started working on the brakes, it's time for the rears to be installed, but I wanted to do the fronts at the same time, then they're done, and no risk of major colour differences if done months apart from the rears. 

Doing the brakes meant I have to get the brake cooling ducts done, and they're supposed to be carbon fibre, so a big chunk of time went into creating templates and trying to get the carbon fibre decals to conform to the shape of the ducts. 

The fronts were a lot of work, all in all 14 separate decals cut and applied to each of the front air ducts! 

Here is an in progress shot of the front and rear ducts busy creating templates for the decals. 

And after applying clear and leaving to cure for over a week.. 

Quite happy with the results! 

Been building the brakes and what a rewarding step as the brakes just look miles better than the kit parts

In progress :

Complete and ready for fitment :

Reached a big milestone now over the weekend with the rear brakes fitted! 

Total build time to date 247 hours 34 minutes. 

Edited March 16 by IanH