Yes, I need another project on my workbench.
SMTS kit from the 80’s. Nicely cast white metal. The body needed a little clean-up from worn molds, but overall it is quite nice. This will be the Gold Leaf version with side tanks driven by Reine Wisell in the 1971 British G.P.
The decals are (like many kits from this era) yellowed. Making replacements is not a problem, but if the artwork isn’t bad, even if it is a bit dated, I like to try to build these kits using what comes in the box.
These have been taped to the inside of a window in my shop that gets direct sunlight for most of each day to sun-bleach them for two weeks.
Both the clear and the white benefited from this.
I’ll put them back on the window until they are needed just to get maximum results, but this is possibly as bleached as they will get.
All eight tire decals went on just fine, so clearly there are no ill effects of sun-bleaching there.
The gauge decals went on fine too…
The suspension on these kits is actually engineered pretty well, but due to the nature of the white metal some parts had to be bent into shape. This one took a good amount of fiddling to get the wheelbase equal on both sides with no binding between the body chassis and suspension.
The body is painted and ready for decals… Tamiya lacquers.
The decals were very workable, after applying the ones for the tires and dash I had no worries about them cracking or being overly fragile due to the sun-bleaching. They responded well to solvent and that was needed to get the Gold Leaf logos to conform to the bulge of the fuel tanks and the gold around the nose.
I mixed a gold for the front wings to go with the decal from Tamiya Titanium Gold and Clear Yellow.
Once the clear has cured I’ll do some detail painting and start final assembly.
Minor setback when I shot the clear last week; a gnat landed in a prominent area and flopped around before I could pluck it out and it stained the clear. So once the clear dried I had to spot paint/blend some red in to hide the stain and re-clear that area and blend it as well.
Thanks. This is great inspiration for those of us with more Indy Lotus turbines in the stash than we need to build for Indy. For 1/25, the markings will need some deep thought, but still, this is a great “different” look for those MPC Lotus 56 kits.
Rick
There is also a gold and black version. Note that this one has the larger fuel tanks on the sides that the Indy version did not have.
Finished. Fun little kit.
Very nice Mark. You must have quite a collection!
Thanks John! Yes, several hundred on display from 1/8th to 1/87th.
Great work Mark!
Stay safe.
Jim [cptn]