Ferrari 550 Maranello LeMans 2005 Team Larbre Competition. 1/43 BBR scale model kit.


 Hi all!

The previous build of Jaguar XJR-9LM took all my patience and cemented my opinion that I'm very bad at scratch building and modifying the kits. So, as a next model I wanted to take a rest, without any additions, modifications and just build something out of the box. Thus I chose a box that was marinated couple of years on my shelf - 1/43 sclae kit from BBR. It is not the dream kit I want to build, but it is multimaterial with resin body, which is alsosomething new to me. So, let's get started!

First I investigated the most critical parts as body, interior and wheels for fitment. I noticed huge gaps between interior and body that have to be filled. Therefore I used milliput putty for this purpose. As I remember from my previous experience with this putty, it has not very good adhesion to the plastic, but with a resin it worked out very well so, I can recommend this solution. 

TIP: Resin + Milliput putty have a great adhesion to each other.


  As I wanted to putty adhere to the interior part only, I protected body with the masking tape.

The next interesting challenge I faced was the windows. First off all, they are flat and made of a transparent thin plastic which is difficult to adjust to the shap of the body. Moreover there are no deepening or slot to fit the windows. And I decided to make the slots (did I say no kit modofocations? 😁)


Other things like lines deepenings and drilling the holes for antennas is very obvious so, I won't describe it here. I want to mention also the step of dry-fitting the rear wing since it will be very noticable if the wing is not fixed straight.

Checking the ride height is crucial for the model, therefore don't forget to fit the wheels. Since the wheels are fixed by the white metal bars which is very soft and flexible I needed a clear understanding of how wheels will fit to the model.


As the last body preparation step, I cut out vacuumed front lights. I bit tedious process, but I managed it well.


After those basic steps it is time for priming and painting.

I used white AK Primer and filler and Tamiya LP-79 Flat red as the base color for the model and flat black for the window seals and air inlets.


As the next steps I clear coated the body to avoid silvering of the decals. And since the kit offers planty of them I want to make sure that decals will be applied nicely.

There is also a way to remove the silvering is to apply matt clear on top. This is what I did with the rear wing.

TIP: Matt clear will hide decal silvering




Super gloss clear is used to coat the body after decal application. And then comes the sanding and polishing process. As usual Godhand sponges came into play, starting of with the 4000 grit and proceed with 6000 - 8000 - 10000 finishind with my favourite AMMO Stick bringing the shine to the model. The last step for the body work is to apply Tamiya Wax to protect the model from the finger prints.

Working on interior seemed to be quite straightforward, but I didn't like how the safety cage was offered. It ismade of white metal which requires very delicate work with soldering since white metal has very low melting point and easily can be destroyed. I tried to replicate safety cage from the brass pipe but greatly failed reminding to myself that I'm bad in scratch building and decided to continue with the kit defaults.



And as always, even the model doesn't require it I'm always seeking the opportunity to use my fiber laser. This time I cut side mirrors as opposite to instruction suggestion to paing it chrome silver.

Just a side note to the tires. The kit is very old (that's why it was sold on discount 😁) and rubber tyres were quite stiff and damaged during fitting them to the wheels. So, I had to glue them again with super strong gel and then sand them to give a realistic look also used some weathering powder from Tamiya. Those powders serves two purposes greatly: make tyres look a bit dirt and dusty and hide silvering and decals edges. I love to use them!

There it comes the final assembly and photoshoot. Thank you for tuning in and reading to the end! See you next time!

 

                   

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