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Saturday morning is the day new orders arrive more often than
not, so when the eagerly awaited Crescent Models Williams
FW23B and Z-Model Jordan (more on this at a later date!) arrived,
I felt like a child in a toyshop.
Crescent Models
are very much a 'multimedia kit' with resin main body, white
metal undertray, front wing and smaller accessories. Photo-etching
is either stainless or nickel steel (not sure which) for small
parts, wheel centres, rear wing endplates and suspension.
The wheels are turned aluminium with nice rubber tyres.
The brake
discs are turned brass, to which will be added white metal
brake callipers. The front wing is a very complex shape, and
as with recent Tameo kits, produced in cast white metal.
The decals
are quite acceptable to the standard of Cartograph. The main
criticism here is that the carbon fibre used to portray the
inner surfaces of the front and rear wing end plates are not
at all convincing.
Instructions
are a double sided A4 sheet similar to SMTS, adequate but
a little vague on part placement diagram. A second sheet is
provided showing the finished model from several angles in
full colour.
A colour chip
and specification for the Williams Blue is attached to the
main instruction sheet. There is also a black and white photograph
showing the position of the turning vanes under the front
suspension arms.
An interesting
inclusion is a template that requires cutting for masking
the rear body before the Blue is airbrushed. On the main body,
around the airbox top and from the cockpit to the lower nose,
there are fine panel lines to aid masking.
Generally,
everything is as it should be, but not to the quality of say
a current Tameo kit. The white metal castings remind me very
much of how Tameo produced white metal casting a few years
ago. Not bad at all, just a little rough and they clean up
quite nicely with fine wet & dry. The photo-etching is
much the same and looks acceptable. The etched parts lack
the almost three-dimensional feel of more recent Tameo items.
They are however no worse than Provence Moulage.
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The
wheels and tyres are particularly well done and remind me
very much of Tameo.
The kit is
generally up to the standards expected by most model builders
these days and the resin body is cast in a similar resin to
Marsh Models. It does not have the complexity of a recent
Tameo or BBR and in many ways will suit the novice builder.
So that is a brief look at and comparison of the kit components.
Before I start
a new model, I usually spend hours looking in books, magazines
and photographs or indeed any reference material that I can
find. This is where my first reservations of the model started
to creep in.....
The exhaust
outlets are entirely in the wrong position, fig.1. They are
too far inboard and replicate the position at which they were
finalised prior to the USGP.
The initial
position of the exhaust outlet first tried by Williams was
at Spa and then the Italian GP two weeks later. Page 40/41
volume 9 of Formula 1 magazine clearly shows the rear view
and the true position of the exhaust outlet. To rectify this
is a fairly easy procedure. Firstly, with a sharp scalpel
(I used Swan Morton #11), cut around the edges of the exhaust
outlets. This is so that when filled it will be easier to
blend into the rear bodywork. As a matter of interest, I always
use Plastic Padding elastic car body filler for filling as
it sets hard enough and is easy to rub down. The next bit
is a little more difficult as a certain amount of 'guesstimation'
is required. I am not in a position to have scale plans of
the FW23B so I relied only on photographs as a reference to
drill the new positions.
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Using
a 1mm drill, positioned as shown in fig.2, but DO NOT drill
too deep otherwise you will break through the lower rear body
just under the 'flip up'.
The hole that
is produced will then require opening out as per fig.3. As
a reference, beg, borrow or whatever, F1 Magazine Vol. 9 pages
40/41 and 130/131 and you will see what I mean.
The front wing is also questionable. The instructions show
that there are two air deflectors under the front wing. Not
only are they shown to be straight which is incorrect, but
also I can find no reference at all that they were used for
the Italian GP. The same goes for the deflectors on the end
plates. I am not disputing these were used at some stage,
but not for this race. They were duly removed. If I am indeed
wrong on this score, it will be easy to fit them later.
The front
wing aerofoil section is also on the rather heavy side. I
rounded all leading edges and thinned all trailing edges.
The instructions
show that one of the aerials is fitted to the right hand side
pod just behind the radiator inlet. This is also incorrect.
There should be three aerials on the top of the body centreline
just forward of the cockpit. Nearest to the cockpit should
be the flat blade aerial, black for Montoya. Moving forward,
the next is a black 'round' aerial and close to it the pitot
tube.
The white
metal undertray was the next area tackled. This includes small
aero devices ahead of the side pods which I didn't find totally
convincing, so I modified them slightly. Be careful here because
the metal is soft, I can't recall how many times I bent the
things!
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After
the ends were glued on, I smoothed these parts as best as
I could with a small Swiss file and a tiny amount of filler
where necessary. As these pieces are of an aerofoil section
in the conventional sense (albeit very shallow) and not reversed
as on the front and rear wing elements, not too much work
was required. However the outer edges did not look quite right
so I filed the upper section to slope down 4-5 mm from the
end face. The lower (under) side, I filed until almost parallel
with the upper profile. There is an excellent example of this
part on page 87 of the brilliant Giorgio Piola book 'Formula
1 2001 Technical Analysis' (ISBN8879112791). Once I was happy
with the profile and shape, I searched the spares box for
some scrap photo-etch. I cut off two pieces to length and
glued them to the end face so that the lower edge was flush
with the lower aero profile; this produces an upper edge fence
that stands proud by approximately 0.5mm.
The assembly
of the turning vanes is very awkward, and at the time of writing
I still have not yet fitted them to the model. There is no
template as a guide to bend them to. This is in effect another
problem area, as the turning vanes are a three-dimensional
profile form and difficult to replicate. Again, study photographic
evidence, or better still Giorgio Piola's book pages 34, 86,
87, 89. As to the colour of the vanes, the instructions suggest
that they are blue. This is very difficult to confirm from
photographs, but in the Giorgio Piola illustrations the suggestion
is that they are black, indicating natural carbon fibre.
While the
paint on the main body was hardening, I completed all remaining
painting. I used Halford's Satin Black for the suspension,
undertray and all ancillaries but then a big mistake was made!
After finishing
the body in Halford's Appliance White and leaving it to harden
for three days or so, I masked off the white as necessary
to airbrush the blue. As Tamiya have produced the later generation
Williams, I thought that the blue recommended, Deep Metallic
Blue, would be ideal. How wrong could I be, it's far too dark.
I airbrushed four light coats on the front wing, rear wing
assembly and the main body.
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After removing all masking,
and viewing it in strong sunlight (it was hot the first week of
assembly) it looked okay, but in subdued light the blue looked positively
purple/black. I was not happy with the panel engraving either, as
even when painted they still looked far too deep and wide to my
eye.
At this point I
made the decision to strip off all the paint and start again. I
have always used acetone to remove old paint of both resin and white
metal with no ill effects at all. Unfortunately the Crescent resin
is considerably different to anything I've encountered before. Although
the paint came off very easy as it always does, the resin has not
exactly started to melt, but it was now very soft and pliable and
not as hard as it had been, so be careful. Depression quickly sent
in!
After further preparation,
the body was eventually re-sprayed with Appliance white again. Searching
through Halford's Blue stock, the nearest colour match I could find
was VW Pearlecent Indigo Blue. Although darker than the included
sample chip, when airbrushed on, the Indigo blue looks convincing-particularly
in natural daylight.
As a suggestion,
cut narrow BareMetal foil (BMF) strips to mask off all straight
lines as required. Then use the paper template to make the top of
the side pod masking profile again using BareMetal foil.
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This will leave a much lower
demarcation line after the blue has been sprayed. By doing so it
will be easier to feather the edges before the silver decals are
applied. (Like I didn't do!)
After three days
I airbrushed on Gipgloss single pack lacquer, for some reason I
cannot get on with using Halford's aerosol clear lacquer. All suspension
components were treated to carbon fibre decals (BBD014), as were
all the replacement sections for the wings. I also added some to
the top of the airbox camera and the aero features in front of the
radiator sidepods. I did not apply the carbon fibre decals prior
to lacquering but afterwards, as I think this gives a far more realistic
finish. After a few hours, I applied some silver decal strips to
the lower rear wing.
The wheels were
assembled, then sprayed with Halford's gloss black. When dry I airbrushed
on two coats of Alclad II Aluminium (ALC001). This gave the impression
of slightly dirty wheels without the brightness of plain aluminium.
As I had no intention of using the kit wheel mounting parts, (they
look over scale to me) I filed the short pins that locate the wheels
on the brake disc assembly until they were just a little proud of
the wheel centre. The brake assembly was then glued onto the suspension.
When hardened, I fitted the wheels to the brakes and added Tameo
wheel pins (TMKPG20) to the centre position. The pins were then
painted using Humbrol Metallic Blue and Metallic Red.
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So,
in conclusion, how does this kit compare?
The general execution
of this kit is very good but there are areas like the aero features
on the rear body that could have been photo-etched. The wheels and
tyres are very good, but the same cannot be said of the kit wheel
nuts that are grossly over-scaled.
The resin body
is very nice in general, but the panel lines on my kit did not look
so good when painted. I feel I made the right decision by filling
them, though this is personal preferance.
The decals are particularly
interesting, generally well printed except for some of the very
small ones. They are extremely thin and are reminiscent of some
of the North American aeroplane decals. No solvents are required
and I certainly would not even think of using Solvaset (SS). I did
however use Micro Set (MSSET) just to keep the decals wet enough
when positioning them, and had no ill effects at all. The ineffective
carbon decals were used as templates for a better option as described
earlier.
What is important
is does it look right when completed? I have to say yes it does.
Crescent Models are a new manufacturer and must be applauded and
encouraged for their effort.
Without modification
the finished model will look good, with a little modification, the
final result will be even better. It was an easy build with the
exception of my own mistakes, and when completed does look convincing.
In my opinion, no kit is perfect.
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1/43 scale is always about
compromise because of manufacturing techniques and final product
cost; so all things considered, Crescent have done a reasonably
good job.
Would I buy more?
Yes most definitely and I have done so. At last I have an alternative
to die-casts (uuuggggggghhhh!) for recent Williams subjects in my
collection. Let's just hope that Crescent will continue to produce
and develop good quality models; there is little doubt that they
will get better with experience.
Thanks to these
new Crescent releases we are now nearly up to date with current
Williams' but what about some of the older ones. I would love to
have the Iso IR01, FW02, FW03 and FW04. FW05 was a bit of a dog;
so don't hold out much hope of that reappearing! I do have a John
Day of the Hesketh 308C that I modified into a FW05, but was never
too happy with it because I had to hand paint some of the markings
as no suitable decals were available. Here's hoping!
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