Tamiya Benetton Ford B188 F1

[barryf1fan]

Since the MotoGP bike is finished, was down to this, a Beetle, another MotoGP bike, or a rally car. In the end the F1 won out. Picked this up on ebay pretty cheap a few months ago and always loved the paint scheme on this car.









This kit is a bit on the old side, and although the plastic seems to be in good shape the decals are from 1988'ish and they have yellowed. Gonna look around for some replacements or may have to just make those work. We'll see.

[barryf1fan]

Sourced some decals, will be here in about 3-4 weeks. They are new decals, not originals, so hoping they are a high quality set.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Ok I am here, got my chair, drink and popcorn

[Gary30]

Been trying to get hold of one of these myself, was probably one of the very first kits I built back when I was a spindly little 10 year old, brings back good memories. I’m in.

.....off to eBay I go.....again....

[bfrd]

Please let me know where you got the decals. I have this kit in my stash. I had a poster of this car as a kid.

[barryf1fan]

Please let me know where you got the decals. I have this kit in my stash. I had a poster of this car as a kid.

I got them off PicClic, an ebay store... unfortunately I got the last set they had. They were $15, however, there were a couple of other sets for $35+.

Just search Tamiya Benetton B188 decals, and a few options will pop up. They will be for the B188 & the B189 versions.

[barryf1fan]

Spent about an hour cleaning up the front suspension components and reading through the instruction manual. Looking at the actual kit and it's pieces, it doesn't look too bad. In fact, it looks a bit on the easier side, however, this will be far and away the most difficult paint job I have attempted on a model.

This kit was also done back before Tamiya included "mask" with their kits, so this will be a big challenge for me, as once again, this kit will be built completely OOB and with paint brush and rattle can finishes.

Pretty excited to start on this one, but will be taking my time again as I don't want to mess this one up. I was pretty lucky to find this one cheap as the majority of kits on ebay right now are pretty expensive. Anyhoo, updates will probably be slow but I will share when I get some bits done - definitely just praying for patience when I start on the body.

[barryf1fan]

Just ordered some of the Scale Motorsports CF decal sheets off of ebay. Should be here next week. I've never used, or even seen, the stuff so I ordered, 1/48, 1/24, 1/20, and the 1/24 yellow CF sheets.

We'll see!

[Twokidsnosleep]

Just ordered some of the Scale Motorsports CF decal sheets off of ebay. Should be here next week. I've never used, or even seen, the stuff so I ordered, 1/48, 1/24, 1/20, and the 1/24 yellow CF sheets.

We'll see!

You are going to love them and good to get an assortment

[Shunter]

Great car and look forward to watching your work..

[barryf1fan]

Made some progress this weekend, mind you though, I suck at taking "progress" pics - so please, bear with me. Got the body, and then most the parts primed and painted, built most of the front suspension up. Also got the front and rear wings built and painted. I've already broke a couple of small pieces, as this kit is over 30 years old. With the decals being "yellowed" I doubt this kit has always be in a climate controlled environment. But, doing my best with it and will just deal with these issues as they present themselves.

Anyhoo, here are some pics of the progress.

Wheels primed and painted in black (and again, sorry for the less than stellar cell phone pics...)











Looking at the instructions, I was thinking this was going to be an easy build, but that hasn't been the case, so far. It's still Tamiya quality, but it's 1988 Tamiya quality.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Some good progress there buddy
She will be a stunner when done

[Kevthemodeller]

Looking forward to this, build. I remember all the controversy that surrounded the Benetton team, as F1 moved away from tobacco sponsorship.

[barryf1fan]

Worked on my F1 car tonight after work (how many sorry saps get to say that??), had a busy day, not bad just busy. Got a bit more of the rear "assembly" put together and/or painted. Painted up the brake calipers and discs, also black panel washed the engine/tranny.
[Sorry, no pics... nothing real exciting]

Cleaned up the rubber and mounted the tires on the wheels
[pics, but not real exciting either. ]

Obviously the prepped tire on the right... These old tires, again this kit is circa 1988, had a really big seam - at least it seemed quite substantial. It was destroying my sanding stick, so went in the garage and broke out the 400 grit sandpaper. I think they came out nice. Unfortunately, the decals I ordered are coming from over seas and aren't scheduled to be here til first week of August (or so...)





They sure looks da'business all mounted up.

[Twokidsnosleep]

Yep same boat with work and then what I call the three D’s....dinner, dogwalk, dishes all before I get to model.
Some days are better than others, some a worse

Good work on tidying up the tires. Don’t sweat the centre seam line too much as I have watched videos of the cars rolling out of the pits with the rubber seam on their tires.
Keep at her man

[barryf1fan]

Able to do a little work on the Benetton today...

Finished up the engine assembly. May do a little more to it, but pretty good for me, I'm liking it, though.
Needed to work on the exhaust a little more, but I broke one and had to fix it... making it look better is above my pay grade. . . for now.



The tire decals were good as well.



Found a couple more pieces that were broken, this time not by me. This kit was pretty cheap, now I know why. Oh well, been able to fix it so far. Looking forward to do some more work.

[barryf1fan]

Had a question that maybe someone can shed some light on.

The Goodyear tire decals went on okay, but they are old - you can see in the pic above that there is a bit of "flaking" (don't know what to call it) on the edges... Can I use some Micro Sol on these dry-transfer decals to get them to lay down smooth?? Any other ideas?

TIA!!

[Twokidsnosleep]

Had a question that maybe someone can shed some light on.

The Goodyear tire decals went on okay, but they are old - you can see in the pic above that there is a bit of "flaking" (don't know what to call it) on the edges... Can I use some Micro Sol on these dry-transfer decals to get them to lay down smooth?? Any other ideas?

TIA!!

No idea mate
I put a layer of clear over my FW-19 Tires’ decals and it sealed the wrinkled decals ok.

[Tay99]

Nice iconic f1 car, great job with tires

[barryf1fan]

Nice iconic f1 car, great job with tires

Thanks Tay, and yes, this is one of my favorite paint schemes on an F1 car. I always wanted this kit and the Jordan 191 (7-Up car) to do way back when these came out, couldn't really afford them at the time though.

No idea mate
I put a layer of clear over my FW-19 Tires’ decals and it sealed the wrinkled decals ok.

Well, tried the Micro Sol on the tires decals and it worked pretty good. Put some on fairly liberally and let it set for about 3 minutes and then just dabbed off with a Q-tip and they look a lot better. Not perfect but better.

[barryf1fan]

Had the opportunity to do some work on my model this weekend. Really enjoyed getting back to it as I have been really busy with some "life" stuff (hate adulting - as my wife will say ) lately, but was able to make some time to jump into the paint job. Again, this is by far the most difficult paint scheme I have attempted, and there is no "kit" supplied mask in these older Tamiya kits.

Cock-pit done



This is one of the areas that a repair had to be made. The steering wheel was supposed to have a little "stub" for the steering column, but that was one of the pieces that had been broken off (didn't notice it on my initial look-over when I started the kit) and needed a fix. I ended up using a bit of a toothpick and sanded down to size needed and painted it up - came out pretty good.

Front & Rear wings with decals laid down.





The decals are really pretty good... probably as good as the Tamiya cartograph decals, so that was good.

Body so far . . .



Only one more little spot to paint the yellow... but then I'll have the "under the cowling" portions to paint. Overall pretty satisfied with it and although I'm making slow progress, it's progress and I haven't messed anything up horribly. I'm loving this kit so far - even with it's shortcomings compared to "new" Tamiya kits. Another thing is I am having some good luck with the masking tape as it's not leaving anything on the paint when I mask an area that has already been painted - one of those colors I had to mask twice and it will be masked again to do the last shot of yellow. The tape isn't leaving any residue behind.

Thanks for looking

[Tay99]

Great job on the masking and paint.
what paint and masking tape are you using. I’ve the zero paint set for this kit.

[barryf1fan]

Great job on the masking and paint.
what paint and masking tape are you using. I’ve the zero paint set for this kit.

I'm just using the Tamiya masking tape (various widths) with painters tape to tape off none painted areas, which are becoming less and less... And just using Tamiya rattle cans, that's all I've used on all my models. Wife's birthday is next month and she told me after her b-day I can go ahead and get an airbrush, etc, etc... She's in her last class of her master's degree and $$ has been a bit tighter.

[Tay99]

Great job with spray cans, you will like it when you get a airbrush lot more control.

[barryf1fan]

Thanks!! And yeah, looking forward to getting an airbrush setup, whilst also being a bit nervous and intimidated about it. I had an airbrush 25 years ago, that I painted RC car bodies with and never got the hang of it, but gave up on it too quickly.

Thanks again for the kind comments - there's some mistakes on it but having a good time with it and look forward to getting some more done.

[Kingdan]

This is looking great always loved the Benetton scheme so colourful wish they Would bring it back to racing just for nostalgia lol you're doing a great job so far

[barryf1fan]

This is looking great always loved the Benetton scheme so colourful wish they Would bring it back to racing just for nostalgia lol you're doing a great job so far

Thanks Dan!! These F1's ('80s & early '90s, especially the V10 era) sound so good too - just so much better than the hybrid stuff we have now. Really looking forward to getting more done.

[barryf1fan]

Made a bit more progress on the B188 tonight. Time has been limited and it has been a bit frustrating because I want to work on it but don't want to start some bit and not be able to finish it. Pleased with the progress so far though.

Just a couple of pics. . .

[Twokidsnosleep]

Paint and decals are looking fantastic
Nice work

[bfrd]

Barry,

This is some excellent work. I went back over the thread and didn't see the paint order. What order did you paint the body?

[barryf1fan]

Paint and decals are looking fantastic
Nice work

Thank you sir! Wish I had more time to work on it right now... but soon I'll be able to slow down a bit and have more time to focus on it. I made a huge mistake on it, forgot to put the steering "rack" on before gluing the front suspension in !!!

It won't fit through the little opening so I'll just mount it when I'm all done, will have to modify the rack (read: cut it in half) and just fake it in. What an idiot. It will be fine though. It's been a challenge, this car, as the plastics are a bit brittle/soft/pliable... not sure how to describe it. Almost like how plastic will get when you leave it out in the sun. It'll be real bending, or it just snaps off. Like I said a few posts back, I can see why this kit was a bit on the cheap side as I think it may have set in someone's garage for a while (like someone in Texas ), but it was only like $17 plus the shipping.

Barry,

This is some excellent work. I went back over the thread and didn't see the paint order. What order did you paint the body?

Probably painted it all wrong. I painted the back of the monocoque and engine cover black first. Then the green, red, blue and finally yellow, in that order. I masked it so I didn't paint over any other paint color - and you can see tiny slivers of white primer in a couple places - but overall pretty pleased with it. This is far and away the hardest paint job I have ever attempted, and for rattle cans it don't look too shabby.

Thanks for the kind words guys. It has several mistakes on it so far - and I'm sure more to come - but it's not too bad so far.

[barryf1fan]

ALRIGHTY THEN! ! ! The adulting of life has subsided a bit and had the chance to work on the B188 tonight.

This is how I felt finally being able to work on a model



So here's a little pro-gress. (Did forget how many mistakes I had on this, but don't care, just had fun working on it)



Used the Scale Motorsports Yellow CF decal for the intake tunnels... instructions called for a mix of paint and I didn't feel like brushing areas that large, so tried this instead. I think it turned out pretty well for the first time using the stuff.



Got the engine mounted to the chassis, the head-rest on, and the windscreen too.
[And YES, those are blue metallic brake calipers - - - why you ask, because Homey don't care! Wanted something a little different and you can't even hardly see them once the wheels are on... so there. ]







Up next is to finish the decals up, add the "modified" steering rack I forgot to put on when mounting the front suspension, and then put the wheels and tires on.

Can't wait to get this one done!
Thanks for looking!!

[barryf1fan]

Got this one done! My post on Sept 18 ( was at work) was the last time I was able to even venture into the model/game room until last night. Thrilled I was able to get in there two days in row.

Need to do some proper pictures of her, but here she is. The rear engine cowling/cover does not fit right and pops up on one side (the side opposite that you push down) and although it fit pretty good before I started the paint job it doesn't fit too good now.

Here's a few pics of the final bits going on... the wires for the front and rear wings were a supreme challenge, especially the two on the rear wing.

Had to be super careful screwing the wheels on, after "repairing" several bits (the front right brake duct broke 3 times. ). So saying I was nervous is a huge understatement.









Had a lot of fun, and a few challenges to boot with this kit - the age, the paint job, and several "new" things I hadn't faced before made it a real love/hate kinda thing. On top of that, having a family issue right in the middle really put a damper on the progress. I understand what you guys mean when you mention "losing your mojo", as I definitely lost mine. Glad I got back to it though as I love the way it turned out - even with my low-dollar skill set. And I'm improving with every kit I tackle. Really looking forward to getting an airbrush and joining the ranks.

-Barry

[Pete75]

Love it Awesome job on something a bit different - Thierry Boutsen would be pleased! Must be one of the most interesting F1 liveries ever & a real challenge/headache to get all that masking done right. Much kudos to another rattle can-ster!

[barryf1fan]

Love it Awesome job on something a bit different - Thierry Boutsen would be pleased! Must be one of the most interesting F1 liveries ever & a real challenge/headache to get all that masking done right. Much kudos to another rattle can-ster!

Thank you, sir!! It wasn't a headache per se, but it was most definitely a challenge.

And I think you mean a rattle can-star.

[Kevthemodeller]

Superb build