Scaleauto 1/24 White Kit – Building Tips

[BarkingSpyder]

Here are some FAQS/Tips from building my Viper white-kit in prep for the June 1/24 race in Waxahachie. These are probably too late for anyone prepping for Wax, but may be useful for future ScaleAuto events.

1. There are no printed instructions; so before you do anything else – dry-fit the parts to figure out where the non-obvious ones go. Document with a paper sketch and some pics with your phone or tablet.
2. Before painting with primer, use very fine sandpaper (#500 – 1000), to rough up the body’s outer skin.
3. Before painting with primer, on the inner skin mask off the attachment studs and areas around each hole for a clear or photo-etched part. Also mask off the inside of light recesses – again so you can leave them white, or paint them silver or red, and have bare plastic for glue to attach to. If you do not do this, you will later have to scrape these areas clear of paint and primer before you glue in the clear or photo-etched parts. Use “cockpit” glue or other clear drying glue (no CA!) for the windows and lights.
4. Dry-fit the wing and rear diffuser when priming and painting. Remove before gluing in the rear clear or photo-etched parts. Some of the smaller or odd-shaped parts are extemely difficult to mount because of the confined area where they are mounted, and because of their wierd shapes. Use hemostats and toothpicks to position and hold these small parts.
5. The mounting tabs on the photo-etched parts may be much larger or smaller in diameter than their mounting stubs inside the body. Expect to have to dope the studs with some glue to make them thick enough, or have to shave the studs to make them thinner. Hold the photo-etched parts with finger or toothpick until the glue starts to tack enough to hold the part still. Expect photo-etched parts stick to fingers, gloves, toothpicks, clear parts – everything except their mounting studs. Have your flashlight and magnifying glass ready to search the floor and the darkside of the moon for a part that flew off as you sneezed or while you were sitting the body down to dry. Check your shoes and clothes also!
6. Glue in the wing and rear diffuser as part of final assembly. Apply generous amounts of glue to the wing uprights/mounts and ‘filet’ glue into the bottom of the wing and the trunk. Complete final painting (use a brush to fill in gaps and scratches) after glue has dried for 12-24 hours.
7. If you are using a lexan cockpit, you may want to use some of the hard-plastic dashboard parts (guage and switch clusters) to add a tiny bit of realism to the dash. Primer can be helpful to improve paint adhesion since paint often runs on the naked lexan skin. The gray color correctly matches the gray interior typical of a race ready cockpit. Use bright colors for the firesuit, helmet, and dash display screen. Use black, silver, or gold for the helmet visor/sheild. Carefully trim off the edge of the lexan cockpit in 1/6 to 1/8 strips. As you get closer to the cockpit fitting, trim at the 1/16 to 1/32 level.
Expect to fiddle alot when trying to tape in the cockpit and lexan glass.

[BarkingSpyder]

In a pre-assembly dry-fit:
The painted Viper body, with chassis attachment hardware plus lexan cockpit & glass; is appx 57gm – easily meeting the 55-60gm weight range. The cockpit and glass are both appx 2.5gm /ea, the shell appx 30gm and the attachment hardware 22gm.
The chassis weighs appx 138gm for a total car of appx 195 gm – 10 gm below the minimum of 205gm.

When assembled, with the wheel inserts, lights, screws etc I expect the total weight to be between 201-205gm.

[BarkingSpyder]

The completed Viper body, with chassis attachment hardware plus lexan cockpit & glass weighs 60gm, the max allowable. The cockpit and glass required lots of tedious trimming to fit, and several pieces of strapping tape to attach to the shell. The wing and all clear and photoetched parts were reinforced – not excessively – with glue to prevent damage during race impacts.
The completed body and chassis, with wheel inserts and all hardware, weighs 211gm, comfortably under the 215 max.

Concors details:
— The rear wheel inserts need to be trimmed on the edge/circumference or else they stick out 1/32 from the wheels for the sponge tires, making them illegal if viewed from above. It is a very tedious process to sand them carefully until they fit, then you may need to touch up the paint removed during the sanding process. The disk brakes look good – I painted the calipers bright red to mimic Brembos, altho the modeled versions do not appear as fat as the real ones. I painted the disks silver but they could be painted grey to resemble carbon disks.
— The exhaust ports are best left without the glued in “tips”, the eliptical divot in the body has a hole that can be reemed out slightly to resemble the actual exhaust exit in the 1:1 car. The bottom of the photoetched parts sheet has two perfectly sized rectangular pieces that were glued with CA following the exhausts to mimic the backfire sheilds on the 1:1 car. The photoetchs are in thin stainless steel which was tough to cut – I used some diagonal pliers to cut out the rough pieces and used a file and metal sandpaper to round the edges. Some gray paint dabbed in a tapering pattern mimics the ash and carbon that covers the real guards after a race.
— The kit comes with two grills – I chose the reinforced one which does not have an obvious set of studs to glue the front photoetched grill to.
— The supplied tow-hook is incredibly small and wimpy and would be snapped off within the first few races. I replaced it with the rounded tip of a ziptie, drilled out with a 1/16 drill in a pin-vise. This nylon version is not only bright red its virtually indestructable. I also moved the position down from upper left nose to the lower right grill which seems a more common location. I will upload some pix in a later installment.

[BarkingSpyder]

[u]Concors:[/u]
— Some small brass eyelets (a size smaller than we use for 1/32 guide motor wires) make great ‘nostrils’ in the Vipers air scoop where racing versions have pipes feeding the airfilter. To emphasize them I painted the scoop cutout a bright red.
— The baffles for the side air vents (for the front wheel wells) DO NOT fit the studs in the body. I had to cut the studs down and use a notch in the bottom of the shell (which did fit correctly) to snap in the baffles. BTW – out of the parts bag these baffles look at first like splitters but there is no obvious place to fit them on the nose of the car.

[u]Rear Axle Spacers.[/u]
The stock wheels – made for rubber tires fit – but the sponge wheels are a different dimension and dont. Correct the spacing as follows:
1. Build right/passenger/nondrive side with (a) 2x long spacers (b) either an 1/16in plastic washer/spacer or 2-3 metal spacers.
2. Build left/spur side with (a) 1x short spacer. (Alternately: The spur spacer does not seem to be really needed and there are no obvious rules prohibiting it from being removed/left off.)
3. Use motor mounts to adjust gear lash. Dont use axle or gear spacers.

[u]Guide spacers.[/u]
— Front tires need to touch track, but the blade needs to be as deep as can be (its not as deep as some other wood guides).
The 1/24s seem to easily ‘porpise’ out of the slot in some wavy parts of the track (hairpin and coming out of turn-1).
— Use some spacers to drive the blade down, so that the front tires just barely touch.
— To prevent the nut from working loose, put some LokTite on the guide threads and let it dry before adding nut. Put one thin spacer on top as a washer to improve movement. Lube it lightly.
— Get advice from Marty or Russ.
— The motor wires are a weird stiffness, its hard to get them to consistently auto-center the guide. I moved the shrinktape back to the motor so the wires were looser up near the guide.

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