Brabham BT 52B

bossy122
My first thought on this kit: WHY 1 giant white decal? Bullwinkle, that trick never works! Here's hoping Shunko, Tabu or Museum Collection make some after market decals with just the pinstripes ( HINT HINT) by the time I get that far.
Surprised there aren't as many pieces to this kit as there are for the Lancia S4 kit.

bossy122
So, Shunko made what I needed and finally I am starting the proper build. My first impression is : LOT of flash! Some serious sanding of seams on this kit. Second impression: the fits can give me fits. The exhaust left some major gaps between pieces but it looks like I got it worked out. Third impression: some very thick PE. I've had to buy a bending tool as I cannot bend it with my other tools.

bossy122
A HARD lesson learned: the instructions, coupled with the horrible fit of all the exhaust pipes and the turbo pipes, to get them to fit anywhere near correctly, A. assemble ALL parts in step 3 at once. B. When doing the assembling, use the floor of the car as a jig, otherwise it's all an absolute guess and , with mine, was not correct. I had to twist and break the joints to force shit into place and thus making this project curbside going forward. But with the cockpit body and engine cover being moulded as one piece, it was headed that way, regardless.

Rod -
Interesting turbo design. 2 small turbine housings driving 1 large compressor. Never seen that before.

bossy122
And as it happened, fueled with jet fuel. Good ol Gordon Murray, he was a thinker.

bossy122
Some positive news with this one. The kit decals that I had feared actually go on really well.

Rod -
Decal looks great. Does it say who printed them?

bossy122
No, it doesn't say on the sheet. As I recall, their Lancia S4 decals were the same "consistency". The thing I really appreciate is that they adhere so much better in grooves and such. None of that bubbling up crap that I see with other decals.

bossy122
Got quite the surprise with the sidepod markings. I hadn't realized there were 2 decals to complete the edge. Then, as it turned out, I put the top one on first when I needed to put the bottom on first. I actually had remove the top one, put it back on the paper and do a rush job to get the bottom one on and softened before reapplying the top one. Rather nerve racking, that, but it got done.

bossy122
Think I may move forward with this project after all.

bossy122
This thing is just one hurtle after another! The front wing dry fit in its level position and the nose of the cowl is no where near fitting properly. Now, Beemax tricked me with the bonnet seemingly not fitting properly on their Lancia S4 kit, but I have yet to figure out the trick to this other than using sand paper or an Xacto blade.

bossy122
Basically had to weld the cowling onto the body. Just as well, nothing to see underneath.

Rui S
I always liked that white/blue, in the race track. Well done 👍

bossy122
Yes, I remember when they inverted the colors at the '83 British GP thinking that scheme looked way sharper than the blue on white.

bossy122
Done.