Tamiya Mercedes Benz SLR McLaren

Well, I just started this kit within the past week. Here's the box art:


Here's the engine shot from the 1:1 car for comparison. It's the only good reference shot I can find.


Here's shots of the model. I spent the past couple of days putting on the CF decals. I do have a CF and PE set for the model, but that's just for the large parts since that's how the templates are printed on them. I used scraps for these small pieces under the hood.



I'm using that Zing embossing powder to make the carpeting, it's better than flocking. It's hard to get good interior shots too to see all the places so I'm doing my best.


Anyway, it doesn't seem to be a hard kit to build. The engine block is molded into the engine compartment. The intake system is all molded into one piece that goes on top. Oh, there's a supercharger that goes on first which you really can't see anyway. I haven't glued on the air intake system yet. So that's it so far.

Looks amazing. Keep up the great work. Looks super realistic. Can't wait to see more on this build.

Nice reference. Plenty of potential for 'extras', all those pipes and stuff.

Mr Hirakawa wrote:Nice reference. Plenty of potential for 'extras', all those pipes and stuff.

I would like to be able to add some more of that hose detailing but I can't see the ends of most of those hoses to know where to connect them too.

Nice work on the engine Mike.

Mike C wrote:

Mr Hirakawa wrote:Nice reference. Plenty of potential for 'extras', all those pipes and stuff.

I would like to be able to add some more of that hose detailing but I can't see the ends of most of those hoses to know where to connect them too.

Just add them to the connection points you can see on the 1:1 and route them down as per photo. They don't need to be connected to the other end if they won't be seen.

What Al says. The designers of the Star Trek sets often put DNGN on a lot of their pipes on set, apparently it stood for "Does nothing goes nowhere". I think the same would apply here, I know a lot of my builds do.

Hi Mike,

Great start Sir, I always remember first seeing and hearing one of these beasties and fell in love with them...

Andy...

Well, all I have here is the dashboard. The instrument decals just disintegrated when I tried to install them. But I found a head on photo of a 1/1 instrument panel to save me. I printed it out in scale and cut them out to install them.

Here's a few more shots. The dashboard is not glued in just yet as I need to put the seats in place with the seat belts.

Coming along nicely. I hate it when decals go all crumbly. Nice save by using your head.

It's looking good Mike and as Dave said, nice save on the instrument decals. Must remember that on for future ref.

Hi Mike,

This is looking very nice indeed, did you print the new ones on decal paper...

Andy...

Johnag wrote:Hi Mike,

This is looking very nice indeed, did you print the new ones on decal paper...

Andy...

I printed them on regular printer paper. But I used the printer at work. It prints out some kind of waxy substance so I didn't have to worry about getting them wet because I put Future over them to make that "glass" look.

Hi Mike,

Mike C wrote:I printed them on regular printer paper. But I used the printer at work. It prints out some kind of waxy substance so I didn't have to worry about getting them wet because I put Future over them to make that "glass" look.

They certainly look the part Sir, they'll probably last longer than the standard decals too, to marks for ingenuity...

Andy...

This is the image I found to make the instruments from. I printed out 10 of them on a sheet so I had a little trial and error. The two little end instruments are triangular with curves and it's hard to see when cutting.

Looking great!

Here' further progress. I put the seats in along with the seat belts. Unfortunately the seat belt material isn't as pliable as 1/1 seatbelts so they don't just hang down from gravity.

Looking good Mike.

Why not 'lay' the seatbelts down in a natural position by attaching them to theseats with tiny drops of CA.

Coming along great.

Just out of the paint booth. So it has to dry thoroughly so it can be polished.

Black is not the easiest colour to get right Mike but this is looking good.

I agree with the big eared little green frog thing. Black is a major pain to get right so I admire what you've done.

The pictures really don't show the imperfections too much that have to be polished out. I still haven't got to that yet. What you see right now is the last thing I did.

Mr Hirakawa wrote:I agree with the big eared little green frog thing. Black is a major pain to get right so I admire what you've done.

I had to respray the hood. It came out almost perfect. There's couple of tiny imperfections that need to be polished out. But otherwise the paint cam out so smooth it wouldn't need polishing at all. I took these shots with a light reflecting in it so you can see how glass smooth the paint came out.