Rear Suspension

Here’s some work on the elements of the rear suspension, starting with the brake cooling intakes. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating – in 1/12 scale even single components are models in themselves. Here we have resin for the area that mates to the hub bearer, up to just below the ‘neck’ which is white metal. There’s a photo etch part inside the intake which, on the real car, I think, divides the airflow to provide two seperate ‘streams’ to the disk and the caliper itself. I added two fasteners that are apparent on reference photos. The lower part is covered in carbon fibre decals, although from reference photos it’s not clear whether they are CF or glass fibre material. The intakes themselves were painted with Tamiya XF-69 NATO Black then washed with thinned black oil paint, which I think gives black parts a bit of extra depth. Taking some techniques from working in smaller scales I added some shadow around the joins of the intake to the main part, and some subtle highlights and a bit of grime with MIG Oilbrusher ‘Starship Filth’.

01/01/2022 – After the model languished in it’s box for over a year while I was distracted by other proects I finally got round to getting it back on the bench. I’ve turned attention to the rear of the car car, including rear supension and the transmission.

These are the drive shafts. I did them up in satin black and an Alclad aluminium shade. (I forget which I’m afraid.) The metal area was then given several washes with thinned Tamiya Gun Metal, which gives them a nice transparent blue hue in the recesses. A picture in my reference book shows handwritten information on one shaft so out with the red and white to make a suitable shade of pink. (You can also see the rear of the gearbox housing in Alclad Titanium Gold behind them.)

This item sits on top of the housing for the differential. My assumption is it is an oil filler, as it is accessible from outside the car without removing the rear bodywork. The real part appears to be fabricated aluminium sheet, with those lovely fat weld beads that are characteristic of such an item. MFH don’t depict these so after drilling out the mounting holes for the attachment points for hoses I reached for some Archer Fine Transfer weld bead decals. These are great poducts that feature a resin bead on normal waterslide decal paper backing. It’s amazing how the conform to surface detail with a bit of setting solution, just like conventional decals. Here’s the unpainted item, and then dressed in more Alclad with the lower hose union and PE filler cap in place.