Hot on the heels of my MS11 1968 F1car from MFH comes this. Could there be a bigger contrast in a similar subject? While the method of construction, the detail and the materials differ widely , I wonder if they can compete , side by side on display with 60 years between launch dates?

So this is Tamiya’s first ever “big scale 1/12” model released in 1968. It’s a 1967 Honda 1500cc V12 Formula one car RA273. Cutting edge at the time of its release both as a racing car and a model. By todays std’s its rather under engineered with not a huge parts count and has the obligatory fret of chrome parts that even now, 60 years on, manufacturers still insist on putting in the box to boost sales of household bleach. I can’t be sure, but I very much doubt that this car had any chrome on at all. The challenge here will be to make this look like a model of a famous racing car and not a plastic toy car. To that end I think the legless driver will have to sit this one out and certainly the recommended “Racing white” Tamiya colour that is anything other than white. The Racing white looks like you painted it white and lacquered it with a low-quality wood varnish 20 years ago and the lacquer went yellow. Looking at pictures of the original in the Honda museum it’s not a modern bright white but neither is it a yellow white. Its hard to pin down a colour in a photo as monitors and personal setting give a huge variation, but it doesn’t look to far off my own car which is Audi Ibis white.

Anyway, the plan is to strip the chrome and either use a metallic paint of replace parts with alloy or stainless, add some detail if practical and generally set my self up for a very public fall if it all goes wrong

I think the problem i need to solve is there is a lot of chrome type struts on the suspension. The kit has a Chrome fret but its not great and of course you have you problem of the attachment points to the fret and damage to the finish. There are also problems like this

you can see the bracket at the top of this rear engine mount. The suspension arm is held in place by a pin in the bracket. This all wrong, the suspension arm should be bolted to the engine bracket, the pin is a Tamiya addition so the suspension arm is held in place and can still move.

I need a lathe ☹️

Chrome is one of those kit affectations I don't get. Bandai has several sprues of differently plated parts in their recent flagship kit of the RX-93 Gundam so it's not just car kits. At least they're not chrome.

As for the white, Honda's Championship White might be a good match. It's a warm white which is supposed to be in tribute to the colour on the RA273. They use it on all of the Type R variants.

Carl

Hmmm, the more i look at this the more i can see problems but only if you want a correct model.

If i use a bolt to hold the shock then the suspension arm will foul the head. The reason being the entire bracket is the wrong shape , its on the right lines and will look ok but its a representation rather than an accurate part. This opens a can or worms because if i alter one part i will have to alter half a dozen more to suit. I could try making a pin and drilling it and fitting a much smaller head to the pin and make a fake bolt. That way it would add a little detail which the whole thing lacks and it would make a nice model but its not ever going to be correct. The kit looks like its designed to have working suspension which seems a bit pointless and it may pay to fix it in position because its going to be the pivoting of parts that causing the problem because the pivots etc are all way over size so they are strong enough to bounce under the load of the springs.....Hmmmm more food for thought.😄

I see your probs, Paddy. For some occasions, I used brass tubes and connected them with these Connecto connectors, stutter .

Connecto - Albion Hobbies

Cheers Rob

The body of this car is pretty straight forward here, its just 8 pieces. What isn't straight forward is getting them to fit 😄

I jest they are not that bad but as always, dry build with some tape.

You will need to spray the inside cockpit semi gloss black before assembly

The under side is a bit of a mission, both in length and width but with care, getting the panels to fit, can be done

And eventually you have the foundations of the rest of the kit

Now you can spray the body if, unlike me ,you have decided on a colour.

I did try Ibis white which is the colour of my car but it was a bit bright, i tried a test piece of the recommended TS7 but its very yellow and nothing like the pictures of the remaining cars in the museums. Now i think the white primer as above with a gloss coat might be the answer as gloss clear over matt does give a subtle toned down gloss. I do however have some Honda Championship white on order so we shall see.

This is my alfa and it is actually gloss clear over Matt Tamiya hull red it just takes the super high gloss off the finish

Edited July 4Jul 4 by Paddy

Not the best weekend 😀

I sprayed the nose cone and dropped it on the carpet so now i have a hairy nose cone.

I got the Unobtainium exhaust but broke it trying to get it of its print suports

I have decided to fix the nose cone in position as what's behind it is not really relevant to the model, its a mix of poor detail, incorrect and nonsence parts aimed at giving it working steering in the form of a large brass rack and pinion. I mean why ? does it need sterring ? i cant see me zooming round the floor 😆

The Unobtainium exhaust is hollow and the wall thickness is probably thinner than the print supports that hold it but to be fair i supose its my fault...however the rear pipes are a much smaller diameter that the kit pipes and even the kit pipes look to small compared with pictures. Its salvageable if i cant do anything with the kit exhaust but TBH i preferer the kit exhaust.

Look at the huge brass screws holding the nose on 😂

Edited July 6Jul 6 by Paddy

Now you can see why i needed to get the nose tacked in place so i could align the decal stripe.

Paint is a basic mat Automotive primer with a light Tamiya clear gloss so the decals will sit . I will give the whole thing a thicker gloss and polish once the rest of the decals are on. Maybe by then i will have stopped laughing at that Tamiya screw 😂

I am happy with this, it could have been a lot worse. Still needs gloss coat but i will get that on and put it away for a while to dry.
Now i know i have the foundations to work with i can think about the details and ancillaries. amazing as the decals were marked 2002 that i got away with them but they were still vac sealed in an airtight cellophane sleave.

That looks good there. Can't believe how small that body is.

9 hours ago, FG2Si said:

That looks good there. Can't believe how small that body is.

The kit comes with a driver but honestly if you put him in he looks like the wrong scale 😊

There is a very fine line between blaming a kit for your own bad work and just not doing a proper job, often the excuse is trying to make a silk purse from a pigs ear.

This one i recon 60/40, its not a great kit but i am definitely not firing on all cylinders either, i am inclined to give Tamiya the edge on this one 😉. Its one of those models thats hard to get excited about, i cant explain why ? maybe building it on the back of the MFH Matra doesnt help. Anyway it is what it is, the appearance is ok but the detail is woeful, almost none existent in places. i have fixed the nose cone in position permanently, there is a radiator and some hydraulics in there but its just a token gesture on Tamiya's part and to fix it would require a complete scratch build. not imposable by any means but there are very few pictures of what it should look like and the rest of the kit doesnt really warrant it.

So there it is , all my excuses laid out but the bottom line is, other people seem to have succeeded where i am struggling so sometimes you have to hold your hands up 😂

At the start is said i have never seen a F1 with a load of chrome. Well i hadn't but i stand corrected as this Honda does have chrome just about everywhere Tamiya has specified it. Nearly all steel parts are actually chrome, wishbones, stub axels, suspension struts and so on. Not the wheels though but thats easy to sort. its now at the " add detail " phase so maybe i will get a bit more enthusiastic. There are lots of great pictures on the web of the cars in the factory museum so no excuse now not to up my game a little.

Edited July 10Jul 10 by Paddy

The engine has a strange box shape between the cylinders. The Unobtainium exhaust instructions require you to remove this. I am not sure which exhaust to use at the moment but the box section doesnt seem to do anything and its not on the original engine.

anyway its gone now and the resulting hole is covered with a bit of plastic card

The engine has gone through white primer, white gloss, some parts titanium and some a sort of bronze gold.

If this 1968 car follows the path of modern Honda Engines the bronze parts would be magnesium but i dont know going 60 years back.

The original engine shows a bar across the rear which is the throttle bar which links left and right cylinders (top of pic)

Also look at all that detail between the cam covers, none of which is on the model but in fairness it wouldn't be seen under the exhaust which exit out the top there as well.

oddly this is missing on the kit, they give you the levers each end and the backets to hold them but they are not connected

I found a bit of 1.5mm alloy tube that fits through the brackets, it has a 0.9mm bore . I cut the pins that locate in the brackets off and drilled them out and fitted some 0.9mm steel pins and a 33mm long piece of tube

This looks better but i am wondering thy Tamiya didnt do this, i have looked ahead and i cant see it will foul anything later but this might come back to bite me.

Edited July 12Jul 12 by Paddy

Bit of plumbing and wiring tonight. I needed to get this done before threading it all got to complicated as parts are more added

Crisp work!

Nice little engine block.

Those small changes you've made really improve the look of the engine.

Carl

Entering the home straight now. Not really a labour of love, more a sense of duty 😂

All done, turned out OK considering i only built this because it beat me last time

:-)

Wow, that' looks great @Paddy . The results belay the issues you had with the build.

Carl

Stunning result!

Very nice, and you proved, the Honda doesn´t have to look toyish in the end. How do you like the RC166 in the backround. I built it a while ago with all extras and loved it.

Cheers Rob

Really good for a grandmother of a kit 👍 !

Hubert

4 hours ago, DocRob said:

Very nice, and you proved, the Honda doesn´t have to look toyish in the end. How do you like the RC166 in the backround. I built it a while ago with all extras and loved it.

Cheers Rob

After i built the 166 i never built another bike without adding metal spokes :-)