1:12 1978 Lotus JPS Mk III -- FINISHED!!!

[erik]

WOW! Not sure what else to say!

[zbuckster]

The detail is looking good. Nice work.

[z24dude]

Lookin good, love the detail pics you are posting.

[Nacho Z]

Let's take a peek at what I've been up to on the Lotus. This is currently what I am working on. I am constantly amazed at the engineering of this 30+ year old kit. The parts fit is exact! I hope you guys are enjoying the build.

Sorry guys, forgot to add one picture. It is the first one - the rotors.

[zbuckster]

Very nice detail. Yes I am enjoying this very much. This OTB is well written and the photo's are top shelf.

[Nacho Z]

Jan 27, 2012 12:19:26 GMT -5 zbuckster said:

Very nice detail. Yes I am enjoying this very much. This OTB is well written and the photo's are top shelf.

Thanks Buck! For me personally, most times, I find the journey more interesting than the final model, so that is how I tend to post my builds. I also realize there is an "in-progress" section here but I like to be able to see everything in one place.

[zbuckster]

Great detailing. It just gets better with each update.

[racerx1964]

Fantastic work. I'll be looking forward to future updates. My hats off to ya.

[The Mad Modeller]

Awesome work John. What detail in this build,

[Nacho Z]

Just a little something to post in between major sub-assemblies. Here is something I have learned from this build. When adding detail that is not in the kit, not only do you have to plan how to add the detail, (i.e. braided lines, PE, turned aluminum, etc), you also have to plan on where it goes, will it fit, will it interfere with other parts, etc.

Case in point. I wanted to add some simple wiring and plumbing to the instrument cluster. That was fairly easy. But now, where do they go and how do they get there? I had to add the body cowling to the interior tub. Then I had to add the body panel on top of the cowling. But before I could do that I had to temporarily assemble the body panel pieces. When it was all put together, I could finally see where I needed to drill a hole in the cowling to drop the wires and plumbing through.

Hope that made sense. I apologize for the quality of some of the pictures. Some of them are old, paper prints that were scanned.

[plasticcrafter]

wow i'm not familiar with this kit but it does look to be a very nice one, the detail that is included within the kit is impressive....................what you are adding to it is making it all come together very well. it's refreshing to see someone add details to a kit and make them flow with the base kit. very nice job on this one so far.

[ferrarichip]

Lookin' good John, can't wait to see more.

[Nacho Z]

Thought I would give you a quick update. I have been working on a lot of smaller sub-assemblies. This is very time consuming . Lots of seam cleaning, sanding and filing. I have also been doing work on body pieces. I am surprised at the poor fit of the body panel pieces. I am having to use a lot of filler.

One good thing about working on multiple sub-assemblies is that all of the sudden, (or so it seems), things just come together and you've got a nice, big piece of the model completed ;D.

For example:





The engine and gearbox are not complete. I still have a fair bit of plumbing to add. There is a lot of plumbing to do once the engine and gearbox are added to the main tub.

[zbuckster]

That is a sweet looking powertrain. Nice workmanship.

[68chevy]

John how did I miss this one till now this is awesome the detail work is in Incredible I love it. It's nice clean work Great job man.

[Gary Kulchock]

Sweet john. Can you bring it with you Sunday? Thanks!

[ronr]

Cool!

[Nacho Z]

FAIR WARNING!! The Lotus is back on the bench! ;D

So here it is, another year gone by. If you have read the previous posts you know I will go like gang busters for a couple of months and then just kind of fade away. I have every intention of finishing this one this year. I am much further along then I thought I was. Over the next few days I will try my best to post some more WIP pictures. Looking over the last three pages I see I have been kind of random in my picture posting. We'll see if I can do better.

[Nacho Z]

I'll call this post "fun with Radio Shack wire". I have used two different sized wire for two different parts. As with the front, the kit supplied rear springs looked too small to me. I used the kit spring to select the correct sized drill bit and made my own springs. The new springs are also the correct color.



Next up was ducting. Tamiya gives you two spring like pieces that are flexible. The problem I encountered is they were undersized, diameter wise, and they were very unruly. Think of a Slinky. I thought I would try to make my own. Once again I selected the appropriate sized drill bit that would allow the duct to fit over the fitting. I made them long enough so that I could make smooth curves and keep the coils fairly close together.



After I got the duct work in place I made a mixture of white glue and water. Now here is the part I just don't remember. I know I tried to "tint" the mixture with the shade of gray I wanted. What I don't remember is how it worked out. I am pretty sure the color took and mixed in evenly. (Your results may vary). I brushed the mixture on the duct work. Some of the wider spaces took several applications.

This is how both items turned out.

[Gary Kulchock]

You do great work John. Nice attention to detail.

[halfpint33]

Outstanding work John.

[Nacho Z]

I'll call today's post "Tanks a lot" ;D Looking at pictures of the real car I kept on seeing this tank located just behind and underneath the roll hoop. There are two very large, clear hoses that run to the engine. These hoses can be seen in most engine photos. Oddly enough Tamiya did not include this tank so I thought I would try to scratch-build one.

I got all of the basic pieces ready. I made the tank, punched out of couple of discs and used various metal and plastic tubing.


I assembled the parts and painted it.




I needed a small diameter, clear tube for my new tank. I had some old pipettes laying around. You can stretch the pipettes if needed. This gave me exactly what I needed.



The second tank, like the first, has some very prominent lines running out of it. I used the molded in fittings as a template to add Detail Master items and aluminum tubing.

[Gary Kulchock]

Nice John. Good to see you doing scratch-building.

[Nacho Z]

Things don't always go as planned and I am sure we have all ran into problems with our builds. This build has had plenty of these moments. The latest one for me is a broken exhaust pipe. It is a bear to try to hold and line up the four individual exhaust pipes in the collector and then in the block. It is definitely a test of patience. I always test fit everything before committing to glue. I thought I had the exhaust figured out. I glued the four pipes into the collector and then tried to line them up into the block. Guess what?? I could not get them to line up to save my life. The glue was starting to set so I decided to bail on this attempt. I ended up breaking off a locator pin in the collector as I was trying to remove the individual pipes. I decided to leave the broken piece in the collector and pin the exhaust in place.









The good news is after walking away from the model for a day I was able to come back and assemble both exhausts and install them. I'll post some pics of the completed exhausts soon.

[fireguy14]

Nice work John! Really like this car, can't wait to see this one finished. Going back to your duct work, I do like how you pulled that together. Have you ever tried using heat shrink tubing over the coils?

[Nacho Z]

Thanks Sully! I have read about using heat shrink tubing but have never tried it. I didn't have any tubing. Using the glue method, I was able to get the color I wanted and I won't have to worry about it, (the paint), flaking off.

[Nacho Z]

Time for an update! Today I will show you some of the body work I've been doing. This work was done a long time ago. I have said it before and I'll say it again. The body parts just do not fit together very well. I am surprised at how bad they fit. This may be due in part to the fact that the model sat for many years. There seemed to be a more than normal number of warped parts. And these parts are big and were at the bottom of the box. There were a lot of sprues on top of them. This may have been a factor. As of today I still do not have primer or paint on most pieces. The parts I did paint came out horrible and I sanded them back to plastic.

First up is the rear wing.





The air scoops and engine cover consist of 3 parts. Again, big parts equals big seams.

[Nacho Z]

A little update for this Friday. These are the wing uprights. As you can see they have some pretty wicked ejector pin marks. I use a trick that Gary Kulchock showed me. I use super glue and accelerator for filling these. It works great! The super glue puddles up in the ejector pin mark and fills it pefectly. I put on the accelerator and give it just a minute to set and sand the super glue.



After a little elbow grease they came out like this.

[Gary Kulchock]

Beautiful job John. I want to see this one finished,

[Nacho Z]

It is time for another update. I have been making steady progress on this one. As of today I have the drive train (engine and tranny / gear box) just about wrapped up. As I have mentioned before, I have more work done than the pictures show.

First up is a tip for you. Many of you may already do this. I have found that using a Sharpie works very well to add color to A/N fittings. IMHO, the color is just right and it takes just a few seconds to do. I am happy with the red but have not found a blue that I am happy with. On the plus side it is fast and does not build up and flake off like paint does. On the negative side is it does wear off easily. But again, a few swipes with the marker and you are back in business.



As I said in my last post here are pictures of the installed exhaust. I am not happy with the fit of the pipes into the collector. I tried multiple times but could never get all four pipes to fit perfectly. Interestingly both sides fit the same way. I have noticed that I have worn off the "FORD" paint on the valve covers from all of the handling. It will be touched up.