1/32 Andretti Lola Indy Car Snap Kit- Completed!

[Gary Davis]

Hey ART...this is a very good WIP my friend. Your work is really standing out on this one.

[racerbrown]

this is both fun and educational to watch!
thanks for sharing!
duane

[Art Laski]

Jul 19, 2012 18:07:26 GMT -5 Gary Davis said:

Hey ART...this is a very good WIP my friend. Your work is really standing out on this one.

Thanks, Gary! Good to hear from you.

[Art Laski]

Jul 19, 2012 18:26:15 GMT -5 racerbrown said:

this is both fun and educational to watch!
thanks for sharing!
duane

Thanks, Duane! I appreciate you checking it out.

[harveythedog2]

Awesome work Art.
Even though I know it's 1/32nd scale, in my mind I keep picturing the full size car. The quarter really put it into perspective and highlights your great detail. Great stuff!

Stu

[gavkiwi]

I keep refreshing this page hoping to see updates, I feel like Oliver in Oliver Twist, " can i have some more please"...as in more wip pix lol.

[Art Laski]

Thanks, Stu!

Jul 20, 2012 12:51:42 GMT -5 gavkiwi said:

I keep refreshing this page hoping to see updates, I feel like Oliver in Oliver Twist, " can i have some more please"...as in more wip pix lol.

Ah, my friend, I appreciate that. I got some color on it last night, but it got too late to shoot pics. I also had a slight problem with one of the masked lines that I want to correct. But this weekend I'll get some more pics taken and also document my fix for the issue.

[gavkiwi]

Woohoo! The Newman-Haas K-mart / Texaco Havoline Lola's were such a simple but elegant paint scheme! Sorry to hear about the masked lines issue. Can't wait to see more

[Art Laski]

Sometimes things don't go according to plan when building a model, but I think it's how you can recover that matters. I've done a lot of recovering the last few years!!!

I got the black on, but I had one really crisp mask line on one side of the cowl, and a not so crisp line on the other.

Here's the good side:



...and the not so good side:



In the pics, the good side looks just OK, and the bad side doesn't look that bad, but in person there was a noticeable difference.

So I masked it off and reshot the edge:





...and got a much crisper line.

Since the were base coats of color, it's not real glossy and is a little flat. Although it wasn't as rough as it looked in the pics, it still wouldn't make a good surface for decals, so I wanted to lay down a thin clear coat before putting on the decals. That's when things went really sideways!

I'm not sure what happened, but the clear just wasn't flowing out. So what did I do? Laid more on! So much for a thin coat! (It really wasn't too thick...) But it never flowed out and left orange peel over the whole surface.



To make matters worse, the wheels really came off the bus when the bottle fell off the airbrush while shooting the cowl, and I panicked and dropped the part right onto a cloth in the booth.

If you look close, you can see the junk on the side here:



so needless to say, I spent the next day watching races with a bowl of water and my polishing cloths in hand instead of cutting decals.

There was a little burn-through on the thin spots where the clear hit the cloth, but nothing I can't touch up and bury under the final clear coat.

Here it is polished back up:



That line between the black and white is straight as an arrow, so I'm not sure why it looks crooked in the pic.







Thanks for looking. More to come...

[Chris]

Art, like you say "Its how you recover that matters" I say its what you learn along the way that matters...Its going to come out fine, remember the smaller the model the more straight lines, smooth finishes and lack of stuff in the paint shows. That is one deal with 1/43 that I constantly work hard at, keeping the junk out of the paint... a speck of dust can look like a huge bump on 1/43 and so it is on 1/32 just just shows more, but I think you have it right, I was going to trash a project and my wife said just settle down, sit down and sand it out, it will come to you! She was right in the end it worked out!!! Looks Great to me just take your time and let it come your way... Chris
Ps. With the Humidity we have been experiencing here in So Cal it may have effected the flow of the clear, adjust your reducer and make it a bit thinner...

[indy]

Thanks for doing the WIP. it is fun to see your high quality and high standards coming through on greatly improving a typically unloved snap kit! The end result is going to be stunning! Just stick with it!

Jordan

[Art Laski]

Jul 24, 2012 19:21:38 GMT -5 Chris said:

I say its what you learn along the way that matters...

Chris, you're exactly right, and I have learned a lot from my mistakes over the last couple of years, not to mention getting tips and encouragement from guys like you and those on this forum who have been at it a lot longer than I have. Thanks a lot for the comments!

And Jordan, thanks to you as well!

[Art Laski]

I started to get some of the decals on. which are starting to bring this thing to life.

[harveythedog2]

MARIO!!! I love this build even more now! ;D ;D ;D

If I had a dollar for every paint mistake I have made or had weird things that happened, I be lying on the beach being fed grapes by girls wearing next to nothing!
It happens to us all. Great recovery Art!

Stu

[gavkiwi]

Oh Yeah !!!!! Looks great !

[11rowsof3]

WOW! Looking great!

[shunter]

It is coming alive now, excellent work Art.

[Art Laski]

Thanks for the comments, guys!

I had a few more challenges since my last post. some of the fabrication I did on the back of the tub, along with some mounting pins breaking while mocking things up early on, cause a little bind in the tub. I used some epoxy to keep it in place. After I painted it and started decaling, the epoxy popped, leaving a gap in the tub that will affect the fit of the cowl. Well, it also stretched the paint in one spot on the tub, such that when it's back in place, the paint creased.

This shot shoes the gap just under the "K":



Pushing down, you can see the crease:



I epoxied it back down, this time being sure I scuffed it better and laid a whole bunch in there!

Then I sanded the crease and masked it off and shot some base coat in there.





Masked it off for the final clear coat, but... in doing so, I damaged the K on the left side handling it. I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but I ended up masking off the shape of the ends of the K and brush painting it back into shape. This left it without the black outline, but I happened to look at the sheet from the Tamiya 1/20 Newman Haas kit I had out ( I had to steal the Havoline  logos on the side pods from it because the Indycals were tad too large) and noticed a tiny black line they used to identify the decals on the sheet. It was perfect. So I cut a few lengths and traced them around the K where it was missing, Unless yoju look WAY up close, it's really hard to tell.

I thought snap kits were supposed to be easy!!!!!!

This after I reshaped the lower left corner of the K, but before I added the outline.



Here's the Tamiya sheet. You can see the line running across it:



Here it is repaired and cleared:



Here's the rest of the body after decals and clear was completed, but not yet polished out where needed:





Did a little heat staining on the headers.





And a little detail painting on the shocks and upper rear A-arms, etc.



And I also added a tube from the turbo to the plenum that can be seen in these mockup shots:







Thanks for looking!

[indy]

Great stuff Art - I don't recall ever seeing this much work put into the 1/32 snappers but it really looks great! Stinks about the problems but hey they happen to us all and you are really dealing with it all very well and not letting it get you down. Shows that some care and craftsmanship can really elevate even the most simplistic models.

Jordan

[gavkiwi]

even with the issues you've had, it still looks fantastic, lovin' it!!!

[Art Laski]

Thanks, Jordan and Gav. Appreciate the encouragement!

[Art Laski]

Last week I worked on some of the engine details, getting the drive shafts in, and heat staining the heat shields, which is hard to see here.

The rear shocks look crooked because that piece has a bind in it and is not glued in yet, so it sits askew a bit right now.

Here's the progress I have pictures of so far.

I also tried shooting the pics outside to see if I could get some of the colors to show up a bit more.

[Art Laski]

Here's are some even more current pics of the radiator tubes I made out of solder. I used Tamiya tape painted with craft acrylics for the joint hoses, and aluminum tape for the hose clamps:















Thanks for looking!

[clm1545]

Looks great, Art. I know that I keep saying it, but I'm blown away by the work you guys do.
Take Care
Craig

[SWT500]

You have definitely made chicken salad out of chicken feathers. Congratulations!!!!

[macsparty]

Just wow. And that's why I never throw any decal sheet away, even after I've used up most of it. You just never know when flipping through the collection when something might come in handy. I've even used stars from a 1/72 tank kit for Johnny Rutherford helmets!

[Art Laski]

I'm calling this one done, at least as far as posting goes. I need to make a few adjustments to the front suspension and want to add a few little details before it goes to another show, but this is how it went to last week's Lower Left Coast NNL.

Here are the specs:

1/32 scale Revell Lola T-91 with a Chevy Indy engine Snap Kit that I got from Russ Bundy at the Citrus Nationals. Thanks, Russ!

It is modeled after Mario Andretti's 1991 Indy ride. the kit comes with stickers for decals, so I swapped those out for Indycals 93 Newman Haas sheet, with some graphics from the Andretti scheme and some from the Mansell scheme (thanks, Michael for the help and the great products!). A few of the decals didn't fit quite right, most likely because of the dimensions of the kit, so some came from the 1/20 Tamiya Newman Hass Lola. I also made a few decals myself to account for some differences between the '91 and '93 cars, but there wasn't much. Even with that, it's not 100% accurate graphics-wise, but it's pretty close and there are very few internet  references to prove it wrong! 

I also want to give thanks to Chris Hale for giving me some books that were great reference material for this build. Thanks, my friend!! I knew they would come in handy.

I also used Scale Motorsports 1/24 scale carbon fiber on the chassis pan, radiator shrouds, and cockpit. Indycals used for the tire decals. The steering wheel is highly modified, and the belt decals were home made. I replaced the drive shafts with aluminum tubing, painted with a mix of clear Tamiya acrylics. The radiator plumbing is solder with painted Tamiya tape hoses and aluminum tape clamps. The electronic box on the right side is scratch-built, modeled after actual components seen on John Andretti's 91 Pennzoil Lola. fuel lines are bead wire and Pro Tech with detail master and home-made fittings.

Enjoy the pics and thanks for looking!

[Art Laski]

Here are some shots with outside lighting.

[racerbrown]

incredible!
it's hard to imagine that you can put so much detail in such a small car. thanks for sharing!
duane

[harveythedog2]

Probably the best build of this kit ever! Nice detail, in fact amazing!

Stu