Formula one

Modelling the Tamiya Lotus 78 a step by step guide for  beginners

1/12 scale

by Mario Covalski © Modeler Site

 

This special issue is only available in pdf format. This is a technical article of 35 pages. This note is offered in PDF format to be read or printed using Acrobat reader, contact our webmaster > Here

Includes more than 85 pics, here we show only the text pages.

 

Esta edición especial está sólo disponible en formato pdf. Esta es una nota técnica de 35 páginas. Esta Nota es ofrecida en formato PDF, el cual puede ser leído o impreso usando el Acrobat reader, contacte a nuestro webmaster > Aquí

Incluye más de 85 imágenes, aquí solo mostramos las paginas de texto.

 

This same technological advance I’m speaking about, makes of it one of the most difficult kits to build. The chassis with a definitive aeronautical design, is moulded in one part with the body which compels the modeler to paint huge parts aluminium and black, which furthermore will need a later handling during the assembly process.

Like its predecessor, the Lotus 72, the 78 had a complex suspension design, and its attachment points, brakes comprising two callipers, wing shaped pontoons, and a numberless great news to be scale reproduced…but which turn the construction much more complicated.

This was one of the 1/12 kits I’ve built more times, the one shown here was the fourth within a period of 20 years and was finished in 1998. In spite of knowing about its hidden woes, I couldn’t still solve some problems which will be listed later on. Nevertheless, the indications about certain stages here below, will be of great help to the modeler to make the construction easier, allowing him to get better results with less effort…something that everybody expects.

This note aims at providing the beginner a complementary guideline, apart from the Tamiya instruction's manual, including photos of a detailed and quality enough model to encourage him/her in what we could call a hard and laborious work.... facing for the first time with a Tamiya's box.....with a 1/12th inside.

Before beginning......

If this is your first 1/12 kit (it would be better it were not), I advise you to take a decision right now: if you will build it following literally the instructions, if you will add the suggestions provided here, or if you will intend to superdetail the model, trying to copy to the utmost the details that can be seen in the offered pictures.

Once your decision has been taken; if you have some experience in other fields of modelling, you can go ahead with an ambitious project, if not, you could build an out of the box one, the details you'll find illustrated here, are easy to be achieved by using simple tools.

This special issue is only available in pdf format. This is a technical article of 35 pages. Includes more than 85 high res pictures. > Here

 

Esta edición especial está sólo disponible en formato pdf. Esta es una nota técnica de 35 páginas. Incluye más de 85 imágenes de alta resolución. > Aquí

 

 

Support us ordering our notes in PDF > Here