MFH 908/03 - 1970 Targa Florio - Siffert\Redman

[ianc911]

Hi Folks,

Well, it's time to start another project again after finishing up the 908/02. This time I thought it might be fun to try something with a little more detail, so naturally I took a look at MFH's offerings, figuring I might as well buy myself an early christmas present.

What I settled on was the #12 Siffert\Redman 908/03 of the 1970 Targa Florio. I'd already built a Marsh kit in 1/43 of this car, but it's always been one of my favorites, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.



I imagine this will be quite a long thread, as I don't really anticipate finishing until next summer some time, but I'll throw some shots in here now and again to keep me honest. These were taken a couple weeks ago when the kit first arrived from Mac's Models. BTW, Mac is awesome after getting so frustrated with Strada time after time. Try him by all means if you haven't yet!

Opening the box - Uh oh - trouble already: I'm missing the right hand door!



Call me crazy, but sorting out a new kit fresh from the box (over a beer of course) is always one of Modeling's most fun processes for me:





A couple of early mockups of the front frame (or flam, as the quaint MFH instructions call it). Things have progressed considerably since this pic, but I still haven't passed step 2 yet!





Thanks for visiting and wish me luck!

ianc

[TvD]

Cool! I've got this kit in my stash as well so I'll be following you closely

[Porsnatic]

Wow, how many kits can you build with all that parts?..hahahaha...Great kit, though!

[denilsonvm]

Great choice and good luck!!! :-)

[ianc911]

OK, here's a quickie to show a little progress. It's been the Thanksgiving day weekend the past 4 days (one of the few nice things about being a yank), so there's been some time to retire with a beer or glass or wine to the garage and get a little work in.

The first few steps of the kit are concerned with the construction of the cockpit\front frame area, so I've been trying to get that together. So many holes I've drilled!

Decided it had to have brake lines, or the interior would just be missing something. At first I tried with solder, but it was just too difficult to bend and shape, so I finally ended up going with this copper wire I had around. I don't think the color should be too far off.

I'm not completely happy with the color of the semi-transparent material MFH supplies to replicate the fiberglass of the car, so I've tried to dirty it up a bit with a bit of dry-brushing. I considered spraying it all en masse, but like SB, I arrived at the conclusion that it would just be an exercise in futility.

Overall I'm happy with the progress so far, but it has (as expected) been quite time-consuming. Thanks a ton to SB, who had access to some shots of the teardown of the actual #008 chassis which he sent me. Helped a lot, and will continue to help as I progress onward. 'Til the next one, and thanks for looking!









ianc

[icon_modeler]

225 shots of the car when it was in the shop I work at a couple of years ago. Good luck with your build and have fun!!!

http://s601.photobucket.com/user/dtc...?sort=3&page=1

Funny thing is, MFH must have found my shots and used them as well because I have yet to find a period picture that has a fire bottle mounted the way MFH did in the kit. In fact the 908/3 was built as the ultimate light weight racer and I doubt that Porsche installed an onboard fire system because of the added weight. At best I think the cars might have had a hand held fire extinguisher onboard. Anyhow like I said, I have never found a period picture that shows the fire bottle like MFH supplies in the kit or any fire bottle for that matter.

[TvD]

Originally Posted by icon_modeler

225 shots of the car when it was in the shop I work at a couple of years ago. Good luck with your build and have fun!!!

http://s601.photobucket.com/user/dtc...?sort=3&page=1

Is there a way to download all these really great pictures at once? I don't really feel like downloading all 225 one at a time...

[fanalone]

Beautiful Car, I hope new news about it

[ScratchBuilt]

Whoah - I'm getting flashbacks here, but on a smaller scale! That's a lot of progress - looking great. Out of interest, is there anything in the kit to put in under the X-frames in the sidepods to be the tops / sides of the fuel tanks?

Paul Frere writes in 'The Racing Porsches' that the 'now compulsory' fire system wasn't fitted until 1971 - and as IconModeler said, there seems to be a lack of contemporary detail photos showing whether they carried a hand-held in 1970. If nothing else, the fire bottle adds a little colour into the cockpit!

SB

[ianc911]

Hey gents,

icon_modeler, thanks alot for the link! I've grabbed them all, and although Photobucket doesn't let you grab them in high res, they will still be extremely useful, and it'll save SB from having to muck around and email me any more in dribs and drabs because of the file sizes. A virtual treasure trove! You may be right about MFH using your pics for their kit. I notice that they even included a small Momo decal for the steering wheel. Until I saw your pics, I didn't even know what it was, and I seriously doubt it was there in 1970...

TvD,

There are various utils that let you grab all the images from web pages. I used something called Bulk Image Downloader, which while unfortunately not free, is very useful for just these sorts of occasions.

SB,

Yep, after looking at your WIP, I'm now thinking how nice it must have been to work in the larger scale and have more room for things. Just now I've started on the dash and wiring at 1/24th is not fun - I've got to find some way to abbreviate it. I wish I could find shrink tube small enough for this job... That, and something to use for zip ties, of which there seem to be an abundance!

To answer your question, no, the kit supplies nothing to go under the X-frames in the side pods. May have to try to cobble together something there, although right now I'm contemplating drilling into the left one to pass the wiring harness from the dash into (and potentially out of sight).

The kit supplies two sections of large oil hose coming off the front cooler and for the life of me I can't work out what they attach to when they come out of the firewall and into the engine bay. Still very opaque on the left hand side in the area by the tanks...

I also wondered about that large fire extinguisher tank. I see that although MFH supply the tank itself, they do not include in the kit the drilled metal distribution tubing for the extinguishing medium. Also, the logo decal for the extinguisher tank in the kit reads 'Wulkan', whereas icon_m's pics show a different logo (can't really read it). Your comment about adding a bit of color is spot on though...

Oh well, will keep plugging...

ianc

[ianc911]

Hi again folks,

Well, we had family visiting over the holidays, so I didn't get the time I thought I was going to get to work on the car, but I did manage to get some time in nonetheless. Work is still progressing on the front end, but I still haven't passed step 6 yet! Closing in on it though... Just the firewall, seats, belts and the (argghhhh) wiring to go...

I'm eager to move past the cockpit, since the next steps deal with the construction of the engine, and this looks like fun. Anyway, here are some shots of the progress to date. Probably should have documented the progress more thoroughly along the way, but there you go.









Thanks for looking, and hope you all had happy holidays!

ianc

[Greg23]

Really enjoyed the next to last pic.

[ianc911]

Well, things have been moving at an absolutely glacial pace I'm afraid, but believe it or not, I am making slow but steady progress. Can't believe I've been at this since last Oct!

Managed to get the cockpit mostly wrapped up with the seats and firewall in place. Remaining to do here are the seat belts (because they attach to the rear frame members which are not in place yet), and the wiring behind the dash (because I'm lazy and dreading it )









I've also managed to knock out a fair amount of the engine, which itself contains more parts than a lot of the 1/43 kits I've built! Getting the ignition and fuel lines in place required so much handling that I've actually worn a lot of the paint off, so now I need to go back and do some touch ups, as well as add a couple of belts, some oil lines, and further miscellaneous cabling. Will be working on wrapping this up, and I've made a start on preparing the gear box for paint as well:







That's pretty much all I've got to show for now, but I think the cockpit and the engine are the most labor-intensive parts in the kit, so once they're a wrap, things should move a little more quickly. Famous last words...

Anyway, there you go and thanks for looking!

ianc

[bradfordian]

Did you get a door to replace the missing one or did I miss somethingnin a previous post?

glacial pace or not you doing great job,love all the itsy bitsy wires in the cockpit.

[denilsonvm]

wow!!! nice job!!! looks like you spent more time building the interior than I spend in a whole model :P