Studio 27 1:20 BAR 002, Japan 2000

[Alex_Kung]

It has been years since I completed an F1 car even though it is my favourite model subject.

Recently there was an online build. Try and build a model in 24 hours during the Daytona 24 hours. I accepted the challenge hoping I could finish something.

I chose this kit as it looked fairly easy. White with decals on it. They recommended you go through the instructions to get a better feel of the kit. Good advice I ignored. That will come back to bite me later.

http://www.alexkung1.com/scale/bar02/bar02_files/image002.jpg
Doesn't that look like a simple decal scheme to finish?

One other rule was they allowed you to put together 4 parts onto the body before the start. Something I didn't think I needed. (Note: next time read the instructions)

Come start time and I open the kit and encounter my first problem. I figured my first thing to do would be to prime the body and about an hour later I would paint it white.

http://www.alexkung1.com/scale/bar02/bar02_files/image003.jpg
Nope I forgot about the white metal parts for the front wing mount and the part for the air intake. Both these parts would require several rounds of puttying and sanding. This put be back a couple of hours.

[Alex_Kung]

So while the body was drying from the puttying I wasted no time and started to clean up the white metal parts. I then assembled the gearbox and rear suspension.

http://www.alexkung1.com/scale/bar02/bar02_files/image004.jpg

Problem number 2
http://www.alexkung1.com/scale/bar02/bar02_files/image005.jpg
The brake air ducts did not line up parallel with the floor. At this point in a normal build it would spend hours fixing it so it is perfect. (or more likely it would go back into the box and on the shelf)
In this case with limited time, I left it. You can also see that the rear of the gearbox does not sit on the undertray. Something that will come back to haunt me later.

http://www.alexkung1.com/scale/bar02/bar02_files/image006.jpg
Thank goodness I remembered to test fit things before I started painting. Without the rear suspension and gearbox the body fit perfectly onto the undertray. Not any more. No time to finesse things in place. A pair of pliers came out and things were bent until the things fit. (I can hear you gasp. I did too as it felt so odd to not have everything perfect). I also actually had to cut a bit of the body away around the left circle to get things to fit. I am remembering more and more how much work these kits are.

[Alex_Kung]

http://www.alexkung1.com/scale/bar02/bar02_files/image007.jpg
So after puttying and sanding the body it was quickly primed with Plasticote Sandable Primer. The undertray and rear suspension was painted with flat black from a spray can. I think it was around midnight. If you look closely at the rear suspension you can see they are bent.

http://www.alexkung1.com/scale/bar02/bar02_files/image008.jpg
Something else I forgot that took a lot of time was that the white metal parts all had to be played with so that the wheels are all touching the ground at the same time. I normally do not use accelerator but this was the exception. At least the upright was level for the front.

I put a spacer under the undertray and then started to measure all the uprights to make sure they were the same. I include this spacer on all my resin kits so there is no weight on the suspension pieces.

[Alex_Kung]

While the primer coat was drying on the body, I started on the little winglets and barge boards. That was when I realized I should have attached them to the body before priming. Fiddling with them after the body was painted white is inviting disaster.

http://www.alexkung1.com/scale/bar02/bar02_files/image009.jpg
Winglets added after giving the surfaces a light sanding. You can also see in the back the front and rear wings glued together.

http://www.alexkung1.com/scale/bar02/bar02_files/image010.jpg
No time to prime the parts as it was getting very late and I wanted to get some sleep before continuing in the morning. Here the underside of parts will get the white and I will wait for about 10-20 minutes before I paint the top side. This way if there is some damage to the white while handling it is on the bottom. To speed things up I used a spray can

http://www.alexkung1.com/scale/bar02/bar02_files/image011.jpg
Now to paint the top side. By this time it was about 4am and time to get some sleep while the white dries.

[wilchan]

This is super cool!! So good to see Alex's work again. Your Jaguar R1 conversion has inspired me to try the conversion back in 2004 Please keep the update coming

[steinietrabi]

Crazy mission...

Yes, the kits have their pitfalls and you usually only think about it when it's too late or in your case when there's actually no time.
Otherwise you say to yourself... Oh well then just that or any adjustment, rework or again from do it in front... but that's just not possible with something like that!

Definitely a mammoth task and I hope you succeed in mastering it.
Keep us informed!

[Shunter]

The joys that always crop up when building, I’ve given up traitors push one through quickly, it never ends up quick.
Enjoying the read and look forward to hearing and seeing the outcome.

[Alex_Kung]

I did get the model finished but it took 1 week instead of the 24 hours. It was a bit liberating not trying to be perfect. It really moved the project forward fairly quickly. I am spreading out the posts a bit so there is not too much at once.

So I got 4 hours of sleep and had about 4 hours to the deadline and thought I could complete it. Fate had other plans.
http://www.alexkung1.com/scale/bar02/bar02_files/image012.jpg
As I said when I chose the model I thought it would be just small decals on flat surfaces.
Morning arrives and the paint is dry so time to start decaling. That is when it hit me that the decals are not straight forward. There is silver on the car and it wraps around curved parts of the car. There were some pretty colourful words at that moment.

http://www.alexkung1.com/scale/bar02/bar02_files/image013.jpg
The one piece decal for the nose curves in 2 directions as well as under the nose and to the sides of the nose. This took me an hour to do. This was when I realized I was not going to finish in time. I even pushed back the finish time to when the race ended 1:30pm. Even then it was not enough time.

http://www.alexkung1.com/scale/bar02/bar02_files/image014.jpg
You can already see that the decal for the inside of the cockpit has already been installed. It may look simple but it curves onto the top of the cockpit and there are 2 recesses around the shoulder that the decal had to be massaged into.

Here is the next fun decal. One of 2 decals for each side. So this decal will have to go on the side of the car as well as up the side and front of the airbox. In the end I had to cut the decal in 2 places so it would fit up and in front of the airbox.

[Alex_Kung]

http://www.alexkung1.com/scale/bar02/bar02_files/image015.jpg
This was after the main kit supplied decals were put on. There were gaps all over the place and Studio 27 gives you a strip of this colour for you to fill in all the gaps. I figure there was around 8 little sections that I had to fill.

Once this was done I was burnt out and this was well after the race had finished. I would spend the next week finishing the kit.

http://www.alexkung1.com/scale/bar02/bar02_files/image016.jpg
All the wing decals added. A relatively painless process that I thought the entire car would be like when I chose it.

http://www.alexkung1.com/scale/bar02/bar02_files/image017.jpg
The rest of the kit decals went on fairly quickly. It is looking better and better.

[gp-models]

Good job in such short time, keep it going, don`t care about the deadline, decaljob shows clearly your efforts and it was worth it!