LeMans Porsche 911GT1 '98 BBR 1:43

Hi everybody

I have been absent from the forum for a good while. That was for a very simple reason. My company in all their wisdom decided to block photobucket and the likes. Because of that I couldn’t access any forum threads that had pictures linked from such sources. So finally I arrived in 21st century and got internet at home and have full access again :-)

I’m in the process of catching up with all the builds that have been going on in the mean time. There’s some great new stuff around!
I have also done some modelling (…but not really on my McLaren ) that I now wanna show you.
It’s a BBR 1:43 scale kit of the 1998 Le Mans Porsche 911 GT1.
In the beginning it was supposed to be a little side project to my long time F1 project and I thought it would be nice to actually finish something in a reasonable time frame…but boy was I wrong :-)
I originally bought the kit when I saw it in a LHS and couldn’t resist even though I also have a 1:24 version sitting in my stash . I thought a BBR kit should be a good teaser for the big one that I wanna fully detail….one day :-) Well it turned out the kit needed more help than I anticipated! Let’s start….

First here’s a picture of the real thing in the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart that I took a while back. I’ll add a couple more throughout the build report.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/01realGT1front.jpg


This is not the 1998 Le Mans winning car but the sister car that came in second just one lap adrift. 1998 was the last year the Porsche factory ran the 24h and won overall. It would be time to come back…..!
This car differs from the winning car with fluo yellow markings instead of fluo red ones ( plus driver names and numbers of course :-)

Next up a picture of the kit contents. Nothing spectacular but a good starting point. Obviously there was room for improvements ( more than I thought in the beginning ). My goal was to get a result that was at least better detailed than a good die-cast model.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/02kitcontents.jpg


I started by cleaning up the body. I quite like the grey resin BBR used. It’s harder than the yellow stuff you get from many other manufacturers, which makes it quite good to model small details with clean edges and thin walls. Also the grey colour is much better for reading the surfaces than the yellow resin.
The first major problem were the headlights. They were too small, wrong positioned and the shape was only a rough interpretation of the real ones.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/03kitbodyfrontview.jpg


Funny enough…or not…the 1:24 kit by Modeler’s/Scale Production has the same problem….just worse:-)
I enlarged the lights and moved them out and up and improved the shape ( on the real car the headlight glasses are taken from the production 996 ). The small extra lights also moved to the outside.
Here you can see the new shape compared to the kit shape:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/04headlightchange1.jpg


…and from another perspective:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/05headlightchange2.jpg


…and the real one for comparison:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/06realheadlight.jpg


I may not have hit it 100% but I think it’s an improvement. It was a lot of work for sure.

The next area that needed some attention were the body sides behind the front wheel arches. They were too edgy. On the real car these areas are smoother for aerodynamic purposes.
Here’s a closer picture of the original kit shape:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/07kitbody.jpg


…and again the real car for comparison:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/08realsidepodshape.jpg


The NACA-ducts in the sides were also more like wedges and the air outlet ducts in front of the front wheels needed attention. ( You’ll see that later :-)


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/09kitsideview.jpg


First another area that I wasn’t happy about…the rear end. That’s about the only area to show a few tech details and I wanted to improve that.
That’s the box stock look ( sorry…blurry picture….):



http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/10kitdiffusor.jpg



The real one for comparison:



http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/11realdiffusor.jpg



The diffusor in particular needed changing. That’s the first part that had to go! The remaining body panels were cleaned and thinned ( time consuming and tricky to get in the corners…but that was necessary :-)


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/12kitdiffusormodified.jpg


The white edges are added with styrene sheet.

On top of the body I deepened and thinned the top surfaces of the brake ducts.



http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/13rearbrakeductsmodified.jpg



They will later be half blanked, for in LeMans the cars need less brake cooling than on short twisty circuits. See again a real one:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/14realrearbrakeducts.jpg


That’s it for the moment. More progress will follow soon :-)

Cheers

Jaykay

I am really glad you have internet now! :)

Super work and extremely interesting to read :thumbsup:

I am REALLY looking forward to the next episode :)

nice to see another 1/43 car being built, can't wait to see what the BBR kits are made of

I though your improovments were great, than I remind the stuff is 1/43... amazing jobs...

yeah! Another great 1/43 build ... certainly one to follow!

Great work love the mods your doing it's really going to make a big different in the end.

Saint,

excellent your back... I will look forward to this one progressing. Mind blowing to think this is 1/43rd though. Brilliant prep work and as thorough as always. Rivetting Stuff!

I'm hooked!

The place has gone Porsche mad! I'm going to camp out here.:grinyes:

I'm hooked!

Me to :grinyes:

More updates please!

O.k. guys here comes another update already! Thanks for your comments!

First up….Sean….i’m not Saint:-) That’s the other german dude with an eternal McLaren project…

Cinqster….did you ever get the PM I sent you about your Porsche project? Not that I need a reply….just wondering:-)

On to the GT1! I carried on with body modifications/corrections.
In the next picture you can see the reworked air outlet from the front cooler, front splitter/bumper and the brass tube for the axle that I installed with body filler.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/15frontduct.jpg


Then I realized though that I had made a mistake with this white wedge you can see in front of the wheel arch. That thing was on the kit but not really nice. So I replaced it with styrene and made the shutline….only to find out a little later that these were only used for added downforce on short FIA races but not at Le Mans….so they had to go again!
I also started cleaning and deepening the shut lines and the air ducts in front of the cockpit and on the roof. Then I went on to the windows.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/16reworkedwindowframes1.jpg


These kits usually come with a glass piece that you’re supposed to glue in from the inside
But that’s not right because the glass ( or Perspex ) windows are usually put on from the outside. So I wanted to change that!
I started by thinning out the material thickness around all the windows which led to the A-posts becoming a lot thinner. In the process I also reworked the window graphics because they were a bit flat especially at the top. Then I glued in from the inside strips of 0,2mm sheet styrene. These were then filed to follow the window graphics to create a constant flange to put the glass pieces on.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/17reworkedwindowframes2.jpg


So far so good….but not good enough! ( Homer voice on ) Dohh! ( Homer voice off )
Only when I was done with that I checked my reference a bit closer and realized the side windows were in fact wrong.
On the model I still had window frames but the real car didn’t! No roll down windows, so they were just fixed on the frame from the outside like at the front. See the real one:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/18realwindows.jpg


So I went on and took the frames away. I could have saved all the work adding the styrene strips from the inside if only I had looked a bit closer at the pictures to begin with!


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/19sidewindowsremodified.jpg


Next up you have a picture of the resin body’s underside. I cleaned it up, straightening edges and lines and filling up dents and holes with body filler.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/20bodyinside.jpg


That’s an area that will mostly be invisible once the model is finished but I would always think about that mess when looking at it later :-)

Next I made a new floor for the model. This kit ( as most of that type do ) came with a white metal plate. I don’t like these. They are usually at least a bit warped and you have to make them straight and fit the body. Also I don’t like the makers emblems and stuff that are usually cast into these….that’s so die-cast :-)
Here’s a picture of mine made from renshape ( styrene would do the job as well ) together with a replacement diffusor.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/21newbaseplatewithdiffusor.jpg



I decided to make that from 0,2mm brass instead of styrene because of the round shape at the edges. Styrene would be quite difficult to convince to stay in that shape :-)
The vertical fins in the middle were soldered on. In the end the whole assembly is much stronger than plastic! Here you see it in place:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/22baseplatedryfitted.jpg


That was it for the major body modifications and it was time to prime the pieces and see what I had done in lovely uniform grey :-)


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/23bodyprimed.jpg


I used 2K-automotive primer for that again.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/24rearendprimed.jpg


Sometimes I think a kit should come ready to be primed like that from the manufacturer …well they’re not all Hiros…and I have worse :-)


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/25bodyprimeddetail.jpg


That’s it for now. More to come!

Excellent read and work :thumbsup:

Bummer on the window surrounds but you made up for it with that fantastic diffuser.

You are sure that you didn't make a mistake in the thread title? Shouldn't that be 1:24? ;)

Looks great...the diffuser's especially good


Did anybody ever make this car in 1:24? I thought I had seen one at a show...

Saint,
excellent your back...

First up….Sean….i’m not Saint:-) That’s the other german dude with an eternal McLaren project…

Seany...Seany... how on earth could you mix us two up? Jay's McLaren is way smaller :iceslolan :p :iceslolan



Ohh and by the way I think I already saw that build somehow, magic power maybe mhhh :licka:?

But just to warn all of you guys, buckle your seat belts... the finished thing will blow you away... and I'm not kidding...:evillol:

Jaykay, looking really good so far - does the body filler take well to the resin? That detailing would be far too small for my tired old eyes!

Sorry, I didn't get your PM as I can't seem to recieve or send PM's here, even though I've fiddled with all the settings - I'll have another tweak.:banghead:

Excellent work really like what you did with the diffusor also I see you epoxied in the shafts for the wheels very cool idea.

Hi everybody. Here we go with some more progress.
After finishing the major body stuff I focused on the details. First up were the windows.
Here’s a picture of the vac-form piece that comes in the kit.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/26BBRwindowpiece.jpg


After my modifications to the window frames on the car’s greenhouse they weren’t gonna fit anymore because they now were too small.
For the headlight covers it was the same thing. BBR came up with an even wilder solution. They added a flat sheet of clear plastic with the glass pieces pre-stamped. I have no idea in which parallel universe that was supposed to work. On the real car the headlights follow a complex shape that can’t be replicated with a flat sheet.
So I had to make a full set of transparent vac-form pieces. Since the shapes of those parts are still not too complex a vac-form machine ( which I of course don’t have ) wasn’t necessary. A hot air gun and some fiddling did it as well.
I started by pouring some resin straight into the BBR glass piece. These pieces were then extended around the edges with some body filler and I sanded the surfaces smooth.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/27windcscreenforming1.jpg


Here you can see the piece for the windscreen already “at work”. I used some wrapping material from a blister package, added some “weights” and then heated the material up with the hot air gun. The material was pretty easy to handle and it was no problem to reheat in smaller areas to get it conform to the master. The preliminary result looked like this:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/28rawwindscreen.jpg


That looks a bit wild but after a bit of cutting it’s already getting closer:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/29windscreenpretrimmed.jpg


From here on it got somewhat trickier to trim all the edges because I had to be very careful not to cut off too much because that would have meant to start all over again. ( Klutz can tell from his Aston :-)
So far everything was fine and my first shot at the windscreen worked out nicely already…..only just there was one little problem! The material was a bit thick ( 0,5mm ). When putting it in place on the body it was almost sticking out beyond the height of my window frames and it was clear that with several layers of paint added it could only get worse!
So I went on a hunt to find thinner material in my home and finally hit it in the fridge :-)
A sandwich spread had a thin clear lid. That stuff had a very rough surface though. I tried it anyway to see how it reacted and it turned out the surface became nice and even once the material was heated up. In fact it worked as an indicator to show the material was ready for shaping :-) So I did a new windscreen with the thinner material ( about 0,25mm ).

Next up were the headlights. For them I couldn’t make a positive for forming from the BBR glass piece. So i cast the whole front end of the model. In the resin piece I filled the headlight openings with body filler and sanded everything smooth again.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/30headlightglassmold.jpg


Since I was at it I gave the piece a layer of 2K-primer and wet sanded it before doing the glass piece but I think that wasn’t really necessary.
To improve my tools for forming I made a frame from MDF to fix the sandwich spread lids. Here you can see it at work. It’s now kind of “gravity-forming” instead of vac-forming:-)


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/31headlightcoversgravityformed.jpg


Next up you see the piece I made, placed over the model’s nose and the outlines of the headlights roughly marked for trimming.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/32headlightglassmarked.jpg


This took a whole lot of time for all the pieces. I wanted to get them to sit as nicely as possible so I would be able to fix them with as little glue as possible ( that was going to be especially interesting for the headlights.)
In the next picture you can see all pieces dry fitted on the body.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/33allglasspiecesdryfit.jpg


A final test fit will be necessary after all the paint is on the body and then I will sand and polish the pieces.
I did some tests with dipping the pieces in Future as I had read it worked very good but couldn’t get it to work for me.

More to come. That’s it for the moment!

Quite simply brilliant! :worshippy
I feel bad about bitching about my Aston now ;)

If you ever have internet problems again, I'll personally cover the costs of fixing it just to keep you on line! :lol:

Excellent work on those headlight covers!

Excellant work. Very informative WIP. :)

More progress…this time on the interior.
Originally I only wanted to do same basics since most of it will probably not be visible after the car is put together…but then I couldn’t keep myself from adding stuff.
Here’s an outside view of the real car:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/34realdashfromoutside.jpg


BBR supplies a massive blob of resin with a solid block for the dashboard. Seat and steering wheel are white metal pieces.
First I opened a hole under the dashboard for an imaginary 1:43 driver to put his legs :-) If you look very closely you can probably see that in the finished model. I just couldn’t leave it.
Here are two pictures from the real cockpit:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/35realsteeringwheel.jpg


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/36realdash.jpg


I cut off some moulded in details and the filled up the gaps in between the interior piece and the inside of the car’s body ( they were pretty big…).
I cleaned up the steering wheel flattened it at the bottom. To fit it in the dash I mounted a brass tube to later stick it in. It’s not super accurate but good enough.
I also did pieces for the dash and binnacle hood from styrene.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/37cockpitanddashdetails.jpg


Getting on to the fire wall I made more accurate replacements for the electronic boxes. In this museum pictures there are less than in the race:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/38realcockpitrearbulkhead.jpg


Here you see them and a piece for the floor.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/39cockpitanddetails.jpg


I rather have more individual pieces because it’s then easier to paint and finish them differently.
You can also see this “spike” at the top of the rear wall that I added. That’s channelling air from the roof intake to the engine.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/40realroof.jpg


Still missing is the seat. That’s gonna follow soon:-)



Back to the “outside world” I took care of the rear view mirrors. In the kit there come two little lumps of white metal:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/41BBRmirrors.jpg

They are not completely wrong …but not really right either. For comparison here’s a picture of a real one:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/42realmirror.jpg


I should probably have cast them in resin and reworked those pieces since I’m not a big fan of white metal bits anyway but I decided to give them a try.
To have a chance to hold them I drilled holes in their arms and superglued them to brass rods.
Then I generously added material with the soldering iron and reshaped them using the Dremel, files and sand paper. After quite a bit of work they looked like this:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/43mirrorsreshaped.jpg


I also deepened the holes at the rear ends to later glue in the mirror faces.

See you for the next one! Thanks for looking!


P.S. Klutz....i'll take your word on the internet thing... lol!

it might be a bit beside the point now but I have a few sets of the 996 headlights and covers laying around not doing anything.

White metal casting! - that's a first on AF ;) :)

Really great work JayKay - especially on those mirrors. Very impressive.

P.S. Does your ISP accept PayPal? :lol:

I didn't cast them.....just remodel them using solder :-)
I'll ask the ISP...lol

@drunken monkey: Well thanks...but check the scale again:-)
I guess yours are Tamiyas, right?

ahhh....
right.

i was wondering why them clips are so big......

JK,

I have been chuckling away and shaking my head reading your last updates. they are just so good and I forget that this stuff is 1/43.

Just brilliant and really inspiring to follow as always!

Here’s another update.

After the mirrors I went to the rear end of the car. To simulate some kind of relation of the GT1 racer to the production 996, Porsche used it’s rearlight covers ( just as at the front ) and built new housings for them from CF.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/44realrearlight.jpg


BBR’s interpretation looked like this:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/45BBRrearlights.jpg


All right!???? Looks rather like pudding to me!
The pieces were wrongly shaped and too small on top so they couldn’t be saved.
I decided to make new ones from acrylic glass. My reference were the pieces from a Tamiya 996 GT3 kit. In the next picture you can see one finished piece, an unshaped block of acrylic glass, the Tamiya piece and the BBR one.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/46rearlightsinprogress.jpg


Around those two glass pieces I built the housings from sheet styrene and a bit of body filler.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/47rearlightsandhousings.jpg


On to the wheels. The GT1 runs on 18” BBS wheels. Here’s an original:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/48realfrontwheel.jpg


In the kit you get turned aluminium rims and photoetched spokes plus rubber tires. In general they look quite nice. The spokes have the standard problem of all 1/43 kits with that type of spokes…they’re not deep enough, but I decided to leave them like that.
Another thing did bother me though. The wheels were too small for the car:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/49smallwheels.jpg


The effect is exaggerated by the bright wheelhouses but there was no doubt they needed changing. So I decided to turn new rims that were 1mm bigger in diameter but would still fit the spokes ( and not overstretch the rubbers ). These look like this:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/50bigwheels.jpg


Some may argue they could still be bigger but in the end that will be o.k. This is not Pimp my Ride after all :-)

Since I was at it I also turned some wheel centres. Normally on these kits you glue the brake discs inside the rims, add the spokes and then stick them on an axle that runs through to the opposing wheel. That means though, that if you turn the wheel later, the brake calliper is also turning….not nice! Also when adding the spoke piece over the brake disc in the rim, there was a big gap that was plain wrong.
So I turned these pieces with the conical head in the next picture:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/51newwheelparts.jpg


They will hold the brake discs ( glued on from the back ) and fix the wheel. At the front I made a little hole to later glue a central locking wheel nut. That solution is still not “right”
but at least the brake callipers stay where they belong :-)

When working on the interior I left out the seat…here it comes:

First up two pictures of the original seat:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/52realseattop.jpg


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/53reallowerseat.jpg


In the kit came a white metal seat that needed modifications. Since I wasn’t very keen on doing them in metal I cast the seat from resin adding some material in places where needed.
The cast piece was then modified using the usual tools and body filler to better resemble the original. In the next picture you can see the evolution :


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/54seats.jpg


That’s it again for now. Hope you liked it :-)

That’s it again for now. Hope you liked it :-)
Liked it? I loved it! :D


All right!???? Looks rather like pudding to me!
:rofl:

Man I have a hard enough time working in 1/20 scale. This is a great thread to watch and learn from.

Wow, this is brilliant work - I hope you're retired or something :)

Jay I'm speachless... can't figure how you'll do all those mods on a little 1/43... I'm enjoying it a lot.

Hi,

looks cool, much work.

her some interior pics, maybe they are helpful

http://foto.arcor-online.net/palb/alben/28/1077928/1024_6536663561626562.jpg

http://foto.arcor-online.net/palb/alben/28/1077928/1024_3937306164663162.jpg

Thats a model building at its best Jay. Simply outstanding work.

Thanks guys :-)

@mrawl: Why should i be retired? If i believe my government that's about 33 years to go....and since i don't believe them i guess it's rather gonna be 40... if i get to retire at all...:-)


@sportracer: So they let you sit in it!? The chick in the museum was unhappy enough when i asked to open the doors to take pictures....so i didn't dare to climb in :-)

Thanks guys :-)
@sportracer: So they let you sit in it!? The chick in the museum was unhappy enough when i asked to open the doors to take pictures....so i didn't dare to climb in :-)


Hi,

that´s not me on the photo, I got some pics of this car from a modelling friend, no idea who the guy in the car is.

I thought you would recognize me, Micha! :rolleyes: :evillol: ;)

Hey guys. Here’s some more progress.

After the seat and wheels I showed you last time I moved to the rear wing. This is the white metal piece from the kit already sanded. I drilled a hole and added the brass rod for handling during painting and decaling.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/55wingupside.jpg


While the upper side was quite nice I wasn’t too happy about the underside. It was uneven and needed some more thickness and a better solution for the wing mounts.
The photoetched piece in the kit comes like this:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/56kitwingsupport.jpg


That’s a far cry from what it should look like:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/57realupperwingsupport.jpg


So I started building my own more detailed versions. Here are the pieces I made from brass sheet and green renshape and the reworked wing underside.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/58newwingsupportparts.jpg


The lower part of the support structure that sits under the bodywork looks like this.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/59reallowerwingsupport.jpg


That is a picture from LeMans ( don’t remember who I got this from…). In my pictures it looks different. It seems there were at least 3 different versions during the FIA GT season.
The LeMans version that I am building would have been a definite case for photoetching but then I didn’t wanna start the whole process for just those two pieces. So I decided to give it a try doing them “by hand”. That took several hours but after all it worked :-)
For stability I used 0,2mm brass sheet and cut and filed the shape out.
The files you see in the background are 1mm thick at their widest point. Without them it wouldn’t have been possible.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/60lowerwingsupportandfiles.jpg


To get the 3D-sections of the structure I then glued styrene bits on top of the brass.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/61lowerwingsupportpartswplasticadde.jpg


These were then sanded clean and to one height. For comparison here’s a shot with a bit of size reference :-)


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/62lowerwingsupportpartssizecomparis.jpg


Next up I put those pieces together with some more styrene bits and a brass rod and built this styrene tube that represents the built in jack and those boards with louvers that will sit left and right of the structure at the rear end of the car.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/63rearenddetailsbuiltup.jpg


I also added these pieces at the main body part where the wing support later will sit:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/64morerearenddetails.jpg


And back at the upper parts of the wing support I put my prepared pieces together and shaped them.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/65upperwingsupportsassembled.jpg


Then I stumbled over a little problem at the front end of the car I had so far overlooked. The front air intake is divided in one central opening that leads air to the nose mounted cooler and two smaller ones left and right that are the brake air ducts.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/66realfrontairintake.jpg


I recreated the two small holes that were so far missing on the model with sheet styrene and body filler after deepening the holes a bit more first.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/67frontairintake.jpg


Since I was at finding mistakes there was another one, but a big one that could have caused me some annoying problems later. At the base of the windscreen there was some material missing where the windscreen wiper will later be mounted ( the white part in the previous picture ).
After adding that I finally glued two half-round section styrene rods on the insides of the A-Posts of the greenhouse, to represent the integrated roll cage bars. The bare posts were just too thin after all my sanding and filing :-)


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/68A-postrollbar.jpg


Now the parts were finally ready for some paint. That’s gonna be in the next update!

Great job so far!...Keep on the good work, so, we can learn a lot more from you with this tiny model.

Great job on the rear wing and support !!!

Really nice detailling work!
Bravo!

Jamme

You go nut Jay....

What to say???
It would be great work in 1/24, in 1/43 it's scary! :lol:

This has pushed me over the edge - I'm buying a 1/43 kit this week!

Althou I had to keep reminding myself of the 1/43 scale, I tended to completely forget that with every new picture. This is an amazing wip in any scale but the big clear photos really trick the mind into a seeing a larger scale model and not something I would need a magnifying glass to see in reality. The diffuser soldering and the elegance of the vacu-forming of the clear pieces and that tiny support structure you made are real highlights for me. Excellent work.

Amazing work. I can't believe how small it is.

Yikes! You should be designing/prototyping real cars with work like this. Just amazing.

Simply:eek2: . I like 1/43 cars have a bunch of them I tought that correcting
panel lines was awesome this build has just raised that level for 1/43. Its one thing to buy a Tameo, Arena, Rens, PMA, Profil etc full detail kit but to put all this work into correcting a 1/43 kit is AMAZING. Please don't stop keeping us posted on your progress. I'm keeeping a close eye on this build:licka: :popcorn: .
Ariel

mrawl.....that's actually what i do :-)

Thanks for the comments all of you. I really appreciate them....although i do think you exagerate a bit:-)
I don't think it's "that" amazing. I've seen wilder things being done on 1:43rds and i'm planning to try more on future builds...
I'll post some more progress on the weekend.


Cheers!

O.k….here it goes!

After the work I showed you in the last update the model was ready for a final layer of 2K-primer. All the pieces were wet sanded with 1200 grit paper and then I painted the body with RAL9005 pure white 2Kpaint.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/69paintedbody.jpg


That paint layer may look a bit thick but it was going to get another go with 1200 paper again which turned out nicely. After that I put on another thin but wet final layer of white paint…I thought!
That is because over night disaster stroke big time!
The next morning when I took the part out of the cupboard from drying I couldn’t quite believe my eyes when I saw the result. That wasn’t orange peel but rather some kind of bad skin disease in terminal state!

After talking to the painters in my company it seemed that between those two layers of paint the hardener went “bad” and ruined the paint.
Whatever it was I had to re-sand the whole body and in the process I basically had to “dig” out all the little details again. The bad part about 2K-paint is that it is unimpressed by chemical treatment, so sanding it was!
I started doing that ( I have no pictures of that period because I was just too p…..off to take any…) but then decided to cheer myself up and started painting and CF-decaling the small add-ons like wings and stuff .
That worked nicely until I got to cover the parts up with some clear. It was 2K again but a different paint from another manufacturer with another hardener…and it went bad again. Unlike on previous models ( and other stuff afterwards ) the paintjob was very uneven and messy. It just looked like the bloody little thing was cursed or something like that.
In the end I was so annoyed I put it back in its box, moved it to the far end of my table ( very close to the bin in fact ) and went back working on the McLaren.

Then came the summer holidays and I needed something small to take on a family visit and play with, so I took the little sucker along and spent almost 2 days reworking the whole surface of the body and redo the details and edges with files, body filler and sand paper.
Finally I got back to where I was before painting. I actually improved a little bit here and there in the process but also in other areas the result was less good.
Anyway, after that I primed the body again, sanded and then put on white paint. This time I tried Zero-Paints though and was very happy about the result. The pure white covered very well with very thin coats of paint. Definitely recommend it for 1:43.
Next up I had to do the black areas that would later be CF. I didn’t wanna take any risks though as the matt white basecoat is very sensible to dirt and overspray difficult to repair. So before doing the black paint I put on a layer of 2K-clear ( also Zero in this case ) and wet sanded it. Then after some serious masking I sprayed the black parts with Zero Jet black. No problems at all here. The 2K-layer underneath made it very easy to wipe off excess paint and glue from masking tape with a bit of Isopropyl alcohol.
From now on there will be pictures again..sorry for all the blabla :-) Here’s the result after painting:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/70bodyrepainted.jpg


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/71bodyrepaintedrear.jpg


Looks a bit dull but now finally came the enjoyable part….decals!
I wanted to do the CF first ( just in case something went wrong and I needed another round of painting ( at that point after all the troubles I expected everything…) but I couldn’t resist and started with the livery.
The Cartograf decals were great to work with and had only minimal excess carrier film in some areas. The down part were the graphics themselves. BBR kept to the level of quality they had started with on the resin parts. Everything looks okay’ish but ultimately not a single decal was really right compared to my reference. That is quite remarkable! The Italians and French like to call that artistic license very often…I call it too lazy to make it spot on ( you may disagree but that’s how I see it )! Ultimately if you see the finished model it looks good. Judge for yourself :-)


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/72bodydecaled.jpg


For the dark CF decals I used Interdecals KE3 decals ( a french manufacturer ) which looked very close to the real Porsche. The pattern is not as bright as the SMS ones.
In the wheel arches I added some SMS 1/43 yellow kevlar and some SMS pewter Kevlar went into the inside of the rear end of the car.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/73bodyrightsidedecaled.jpg


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/74bodydecaledrear.jpg


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/75frontenddecaled.jpg


These pictures were taken before adding another layer of 2K-clear on top. After all that stuff could ruin the decals und put a final nail in the model’s coffin :-)
Anyway everything went nicely this time and I wet sanded the clear again and polished it up to 6000 grit with Micromesh. I didn’t go any further because the real cars weren’t polished to Pebble Beach levels either :-)
For the CF areas I had planned to not polish them and keep them to a rougher slightly matt look. That works on even surfaces but is very tricky to impossible on the small and detailed ones I had on the body ( like window frames ) so in the end I decided to airbrush these parts ( and also the wing and other CF bits ) with a misty layer of matt clear Revell enamel paint. That’s the next best thing I can achieve so far.
In this next shot you can kind of make the difference out, but now it was time to get back to some details.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/76makingheadlights.jpg


First up were the headlights. The kit comes with photoetched parts with blobs of clear for lenses on them. They were not right but worked as a starting point. I sanded them flat and polished them. Then I made these white rings from styrene rods to get them closer to the originals. They were now looking a bit flat though. So to add some depth I made additional lenses from acrylic glass rods. I think that looks better. Here you see them already mounted:


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/77headlightsinstalled.jpg


There are also the small additional lights and the indicators ( hardly visible ) are made from PE pieces with a drop of transparent orange.

This is it for now. More on the progress of the interior in the next update!

Thanks for your attention:-)

Very nice, and very small, but looks like 1:24

The body looks awesome with the decals on you did a great job on the head light too.

My flabber is gasted :)

Top notch work Jay, really raising the bar for small scale builds here. I know first hand working with 1:43 is not easy. Keep it up.

Hey Jay,
I was reading through the part where you repainted the body and noted you talking in past tense. Is this a retro WIP?

The work you are doing is magnificent. Definitely inspirational.

Regards
Nenad

Fantastic and inspiring. BRAVO!!!

Excellent painting and decalling skills. CF is top notch.

Egad! That is amazing. The headlights look fantastic, great work. CF and decals are also fab.

truely a work of art, such a beauty, I wish Porsche would come back to Lemans with another Lemans winning car, (hopefuly the Carerra GT rumor is true about being a P1 car)

G’day gentlemen! Here’s some more progress.

@BigKahuna…. I don’t know if “retro” is the right description. The model is just ahead of what I show here as you correctly noted. I’m just doing the write up for the build report. Otherwise the updates wouldn’t be so quick ( who ever followed my McLaren so far knows what I mean :-)

I carried on working on the interior. After black paint it was decorated with SMS CF decals. I chose them for the interior because they are a bit brighter and will hopefully be more visible once the interior is mounted.
Everything was covered up with some clear and the top of the dashboard was sprayed with a misty coat of matt black enamel.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/78bareinterior.jpg


From the other side you can see the dashboard part with the switches. These came as a decal in the kit.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/79dashboardinstalled.jpg


Next was the seat. I painted it all semi gloss black, then masked the back to spray the front side with black enamel again. I used a thick mixture at high pressure from a distance with my airbrush again like on the dash. That leads to a rough surface building up that looks a bit like suede or rough leather.
Then I added a Museum Collection Kevlar decal at the back and brushed on some Future to seal it. I didn’t wanna take any chances putting the decal first with clear on top and then mask it to spray the front. Normally that should work but there’s always a chance to rip the decal off with the masking tape. Anyway…most of that work will be hidden inside the cockpit :-(


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/80seatdecaledandpainted.jpg


During handling afterwards the edges of the seat kind of wore off a bit which gives a nice “used” look.

I also put the electronic ”board” together. All parts were painted semi gloss black, several CFed, then glued in place and souped up with wires brass bits and some drops of paint.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/81e-boxesandwires.jpg

In the next picture you see the parts dry mounted in the cockpit piece.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/82interiordrymounted.jpg


The seat was still missing the belts. I used the material that came in the kit. The PE buckles and self adhesive red belt material gave the choice of showing the belts buckled or unbuckled.
I chose the latter as there’s no driver after all :-)
I didn’t trust the self-sticking abilities of the belt material so I added some drops of superglue for mounting.


http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/83seatwithbelts.jpg



The decals came in the kit as well and worked with no problem. For the Recaro one I tried the red ( strong ) Tameo decal fluid for the first time. That stuff is supposed to literally “melt “ decals into tyre surfaces so I decided to see how that works on the seat as the decal was never going to stick on the rough painted surface otherwise.
A big drop of the stuff worked already too much. It more or less dissolved the decal in a matter of seconds. Should work on the tyres too but I’d have to be a bit more careful :-)

The complete seat was then mounted in the cockpit and I added the steering wheel and a gear lever I turned from aluminium.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/84interiorrightside.jpg


From the other side you can see the now mounted E-Board and the subframe for the seat I made from leftover nickel silver PE sprues.



http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/85interiorleftside.jpg


With that the interior was ready for installation!

While working on the interior I also carried on with the other bits. The details for the rear end were painted black, some CF’d and the clear coated.
The rear lights were airbrushed with transparent orange and red ( masking wasn’t exactly fun on those ) and then cleared over with 2K clear and polished. You can see they are not perfect but I decided to keep them like that. The surfaces of the glass pieces that are hidden inside the housings were painted silver for added reflectivity but to be honest if they are not directly in the light they’re quite dark. Maybe white would have been better.



http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b288/jaykay640/BBR%20911%20GT1/86rearenddetailspaintedanddecaled.jpg


So this is getting closer to the finish line:-) More in the next update!

holy cow, I hope my Porsche can look like that on the inside, well done