Post by richardh on Apr 3, 2019 23:02:33 GMT -5
Lotus 25 - Monaco 1962
When Colin Chapman launched the Lotus 25 it was quite a moment in racing history - occurring soon after I started taking an interest in the sport. I wanted to build the early version of the '25 and this model is based on the Lotus 25 Jim Clark raced in the 1962 Monaco Grand Prix.
In Mr Clark's book (Jim Clark at the Wheel) he recalls setting fastest time in practice which of course put him in pole position. But he goes on to say how chaotic the start of the race was with him being more or less squeezed over to the side and when things got going he was pretty annoyed and down in seventh place! Of course he quickly picked his way through the cars in front of him setting fastest lap in the process and to quote from his book "I was really in the groove now, clipping the pavements and I managed a new lap record - 1:35.5 - in getting past Bruce" (the eventual winner in a Cooper). As ever the dreaded Monaco gremlins struck and his gearbox started giving trouble (no clutch) and eventually the engine blew up on lap 55. So using the photo below I used this as inspiration for this build.
This project started well over a year ago and has been on and off as time permitted and build problems needed to be resolved. My real goal was to find a simple way of building the small 1960's type F1's using either a FF030 or 050 motor.
Using a standard 16mm "U" channel I figured out a way of building the basic chassis component that would house the main mechanicals. The wood body held the front axle in place and with a bit of luck all four wheels would touch the ground at the same time!
Trial run - building the BRM P261
I started off with a simple model of a 1964 BRM P261. This was the trial car - build it quick and dirty, not too much detail and fuss - get it working and test the system out. The car worked out fine but the FF030 motor as expected was underpowered even when running at 14v. At the voltage it was okay but I wanted more oomph so decided the next car would have to have a 050 motor and somehow I would need to resolve the issue of making the driver look like there was no motor there by cutting away as much as possible.
The trial chassis with FF030 motor
Trial run BRM P261
Building the Lotus
My goals were to build a chassis using the aluminium U section, use a FF050 motor, make and create as much on my own as possible and find a way of making the driver really "sit down" inside the cockpit and get him really low (basically head on the motor).
Parts used:-
Body - Beech wood, hollow assembled in strips with nose opening for reference
Windshield - Discarded tomato box, cut and bent round a large screwdriver shaft
Decals - Indycals - Lotus 25 Monaco 1962 #18
Driver - Immense Miniatures
Chassis - 16mm aluminium U channel
Motor - FF050 (Policar)
Gears - 9t 1.5mm shaft pinion / 24t offset aluminum slot.it crown
Guide - Slot,it SICH07
Wheels - PCS 32165 hubs
Tires - Scalextric W9555 set with treads (will probably swap to D'Art urethane rear tires)
Inserts - Custom made from thin card, some plastic square stuff honed into those wobbly web shapes, lots of Canopy glue and yellow paint
Suspension - Thin galvanized wire (partially cut in places to make bends sharper)
Coil springs - M3 nylon screws
and of course my life saver - Formula 500 Canopy glue - (plenty, used almost everywhere)
Shaping the Body
I was in a bit of a hurry when doing this and forgot to take photos! Actually - shaping the body is quite quick once you have the nose opening done (critical) as this gives me an aiming point when sanding. Figuring out clearances for gears etc is tricky as is some of the smaller details at the front - those tiny flairs just in front of the front top suspension arms.
Finished chassis trimmed and filed down
FF050 in place - the guide wires were too thick so have been replaced with more flexible NSR narrow leads
Building the Driver
This was the real challenge. Basically the head had to sit right on the motor with very little space for the body section. There would be no place where the arms could be attached to what little upper body that would be available. I had to figure out a way of holding things in place whilst very small parts were clued together where possible.
I started by cutting the IM body as thin as possible under the head and of course separating the lower and upper parts where they would need joining somehow. This was resolved with thin galvanized iron that was bent to support the two parts and provide some strength to the driver structure. To save precious space the tin was hammered down even thinner and all this helped make the general structure thinner and thus make the driver sit even lower.
The top body part was then further carved out at the neck so that Mr Clark's head could tuck in even tighter. Looking at the full size photos of his driving posture it seems he just moulded himself deep in the car and was really squished in which gave him that incredible look of sitting so low down in the car.
The driver jig
You can see the paper wrapped over the motor to fix the arms...
I made a jig which duplicated the actual inside width of the wood body so that I knew how wide the arms could go. Also figured out a way to hold the steering wheel in the right place so it too could be used as a place of support for the arms. Start off with the main body, fix the upper body and head - then for the tricky part.
Now for the arms! I put a piece of paper under the head and upper body and taped this round the sides of the motor. With a bit of luck I could glue the arms onto the paper and if there was a bit of glue stretched over to the body part there would be some strength there. We did not actually need anything to be real strong - just enough to hold together.
Arms glued on. The wood on the side limits the driver width so it will fit the body
You can see how thin the assembly is from this picture
When the driver body was finished I was quite pleased with the result. The driver (to me) seemed to sit low in the car even though the shape over the motor was a bit odd but generally allowed the viewer to see a reclining driver with legs under the steering wheel and head eye level just above steering wheel where it should be.
Finished driver. Next time must spend more time on that gearbox.
new NSR leads now in place - these will become my standard goto as they occupy less space.
and finally the car starts taking shape... building those pesky inserts....
The three components of the wheel inserts. Not perfect but they will do. The gaps are filled in with Canopy glue which covers up a multitude of modelling sins.
Jig to support suspension during gluing process
Dashboard done, must do better next time...
Under view of body
Ready for assembly
The exhausts is a paper clip with tapered metallic tape wrapped over. The taper gives the pipes their shape and the last few mm are exposed so will hopefully first crumple before destroying all my hard work gluing this on when I crash.
Low level photo showing side profile
And of course the display box before the car gets destroyed by my driving.
Thanks for looking
Richard
When Colin Chapman launched the Lotus 25 it was quite a moment in racing history - occurring soon after I started taking an interest in the sport. I wanted to build the early version of the '25 and this model is based on the Lotus 25 Jim Clark raced in the 1962 Monaco Grand Prix.
In Mr Clark's book (Jim Clark at the Wheel) he recalls setting fastest time in practice which of course put him in pole position. But he goes on to say how chaotic the start of the race was with him being more or less squeezed over to the side and when things got going he was pretty annoyed and down in seventh place! Of course he quickly picked his way through the cars in front of him setting fastest lap in the process and to quote from his book "I was really in the groove now, clipping the pavements and I managed a new lap record - 1:35.5 - in getting past Bruce" (the eventual winner in a Cooper). As ever the dreaded Monaco gremlins struck and his gearbox started giving trouble (no clutch) and eventually the engine blew up on lap 55. So using the photo below I used this as inspiration for this build.
This project started well over a year ago and has been on and off as time permitted and build problems needed to be resolved. My real goal was to find a simple way of building the small 1960's type F1's using either a FF030 or 050 motor.
Using a standard 16mm "U" channel I figured out a way of building the basic chassis component that would house the main mechanicals. The wood body held the front axle in place and with a bit of luck all four wheels would touch the ground at the same time!
Trial run - building the BRM P261
I started off with a simple model of a 1964 BRM P261. This was the trial car - build it quick and dirty, not too much detail and fuss - get it working and test the system out. The car worked out fine but the FF030 motor as expected was underpowered even when running at 14v. At the voltage it was okay but I wanted more oomph so decided the next car would have to have a 050 motor and somehow I would need to resolve the issue of making the driver look like there was no motor there by cutting away as much as possible.
The trial chassis with FF030 motor
Trial run BRM P261
Building the Lotus
My goals were to build a chassis using the aluminium U section, use a FF050 motor, make and create as much on my own as possible and find a way of making the driver really "sit down" inside the cockpit and get him really low (basically head on the motor).
Parts used:-
Body - Beech wood, hollow assembled in strips with nose opening for reference
Windshield - Discarded tomato box, cut and bent round a large screwdriver shaft
Decals - Indycals - Lotus 25 Monaco 1962 #18
Driver - Immense Miniatures
Chassis - 16mm aluminium U channel
Motor - FF050 (Policar)
Gears - 9t 1.5mm shaft pinion / 24t offset aluminum slot.it crown
Guide - Slot,it SICH07
Wheels - PCS 32165 hubs
Tires - Scalextric W9555 set with treads (will probably swap to D'Art urethane rear tires)
Inserts - Custom made from thin card, some plastic square stuff honed into those wobbly web shapes, lots of Canopy glue and yellow paint
Suspension - Thin galvanized wire (partially cut in places to make bends sharper)
Coil springs - M3 nylon screws
and of course my life saver - Formula 500 Canopy glue - (plenty, used almost everywhere)
Shaping the Body
I was in a bit of a hurry when doing this and forgot to take photos! Actually - shaping the body is quite quick once you have the nose opening done (critical) as this gives me an aiming point when sanding. Figuring out clearances for gears etc is tricky as is some of the smaller details at the front - those tiny flairs just in front of the front top suspension arms.
Finished chassis trimmed and filed down
FF050 in place - the guide wires were too thick so have been replaced with more flexible NSR narrow leads
Building the Driver
This was the real challenge. Basically the head had to sit right on the motor with very little space for the body section. There would be no place where the arms could be attached to what little upper body that would be available. I had to figure out a way of holding things in place whilst very small parts were clued together where possible.
I started by cutting the IM body as thin as possible under the head and of course separating the lower and upper parts where they would need joining somehow. This was resolved with thin galvanized iron that was bent to support the two parts and provide some strength to the driver structure. To save precious space the tin was hammered down even thinner and all this helped make the general structure thinner and thus make the driver sit even lower.
The top body part was then further carved out at the neck so that Mr Clark's head could tuck in even tighter. Looking at the full size photos of his driving posture it seems he just moulded himself deep in the car and was really squished in which gave him that incredible look of sitting so low down in the car.
The driver jig
You can see the paper wrapped over the motor to fix the arms...
I made a jig which duplicated the actual inside width of the wood body so that I knew how wide the arms could go. Also figured out a way to hold the steering wheel in the right place so it too could be used as a place of support for the arms. Start off with the main body, fix the upper body and head - then for the tricky part.
Now for the arms! I put a piece of paper under the head and upper body and taped this round the sides of the motor. With a bit of luck I could glue the arms onto the paper and if there was a bit of glue stretched over to the body part there would be some strength there. We did not actually need anything to be real strong - just enough to hold together.
Arms glued on. The wood on the side limits the driver width so it will fit the body
You can see how thin the assembly is from this picture
When the driver body was finished I was quite pleased with the result. The driver (to me) seemed to sit low in the car even though the shape over the motor was a bit odd but generally allowed the viewer to see a reclining driver with legs under the steering wheel and head eye level just above steering wheel where it should be.
Finished driver. Next time must spend more time on that gearbox.
new NSR leads now in place - these will become my standard goto as they occupy less space.
and finally the car starts taking shape... building those pesky inserts....
The three components of the wheel inserts. Not perfect but they will do. The gaps are filled in with Canopy glue which covers up a multitude of modelling sins.
Jig to support suspension during gluing process
Dashboard done, must do better next time...
Under view of body
Ready for assembly
The exhausts is a paper clip with tapered metallic tape wrapped over. The taper gives the pipes their shape and the last few mm are exposed so will hopefully first crumple before destroying all my hard work gluing this on when I crash.
Low level photo showing side profile
And of course the display box before the car gets destroyed by my driving.
Thanks for looking
Richard