discussion Tamiya 1/20 Tyrrell P34 #20053

[Hecky]

I've decided to have a go at some F1 cars. I'm using this Tyrrell as a bit of a warm up before I try the Lotus Type 79. It's going to be more or less an out of the box build with some extra pipes here and there and the Studio 27 PE parts.

 

[Hecky]

I started it at the weekend and got a few bits painted. I need to flat back the lacquer on the body parts and give it another coat as it's got a bit of texture over the decals.

 

[Hecky]

I had a go at making some mesh covers for the throttle body trumpets out of some plastic mesh and some wire but I'm not happy with them. I'm going to try again with some steel mesh to see if it's any better.

 

[pjgtech]

Nice, looks a cool kit, I do remember when this car used to race, think they outlawed it after a while didn't they?
Its on my "to do" list to try an F1 car at some point, and I fancy a 1960 jobbie, maybe Lotus 49 or similar. I used to do a lot of PC sim racing years back and raced in a UK league (Grand Prix Legends) which was based on the 1967 F1 season/cars/tracks, so I have a fondness for that era of F1.

 

[Hecky]

I'm not sure if they banned it or not, I think it just became uncompetitive? I have a 1/20 scale Honda RA272 waiting to be built too. I think that's around the era you're after. It looks like a nice kit

 

[Steve-the-Duck]

The P34 did race a full season in 1976, and actually came first in one race. One problem with it was tyre changes in a race. Other teams did do paper studies for six-wheelers, but none were built. Changes to the car for the 1977 season made it much heavier and therefore uncompetitive, so the whole idea was dropped

I had the 1/12 of this kit, an d never got around to building it, and off it went to eBay (where it often asks silly money). Then there's a newer release with all sorts of etc h and stuff.
For some reason, and why I've never done this scale version (though I need to), the alternate scheme all blue is twice the price of this one

Annoying
Tamiya are supposed to be re-issuing the other scheme soon, so we'll see

 

[Hecky]

I like the idea of a 1/12 kit, but I like the fact that the 1/20 kits take up a lot less room on the shelf.

I tried making the mesh covers for the throttle body trumpets out of steel gauze and it's worked far better. I used a piece of soft wood and a punch to give them a dome shape then trimmed it with scissors. You can see the difference compared to the plastic mesh I had which I tried to paint silver.