McLaren M19C - GP Belgium 1972 - WIP

First thing I want to correct are the missing rivets. MFH used tiny holes where they should be, so I have to drill them out (0,3mm) and put a 0,4mm resin rivet in. First 10 are done here. 

Slowly but steady... 37 rivets done, a few lost 'in space', and a drill broken. But quitting is not an option 😉 

Here you see how I deal with the rivets from the inside. I fix them with superglue, and once this is dry I can cut the remains away and sand the surface smotth ageain. 

After a few hours (more like 3 days) the main cowling is done. Looking good so far. 

The other body parts are done the same way. Here one of the side pontoons is finished - another day of rivetting has passed 😉 

The front cowling has rivets all over the surface; even at the rear, as can be seen here. 

The rear of the central hub will be closed off with a metal part, which received the rivet treatment as well. The front suspension part still needs to be done. 

Time to do a dryfit of all the rivetted body parts. The top cowling is done - check! 

Both side pontoons are done - check! 

The nose cone is assembled, but doesn't need any rivets - check! 

Putting the central hub together shows us that the interior still needs to be rivetted. But although I might be crazy (to do this job) I'm not stupid: the red colored area will be skipped since it will be hidden behind the seat. And it saves some rivets. 

Meanwhile I also opened up the gaps in the seat, to put the safety belts in. 

Central hub with driver seat in place. 

Putting all these bodyparts together will give us an idea of how the McLaren will look like. 

Still missing on this picture are the rivets at the front suspension. I also prepared the suspension arms, which are fully functional by the way. 

This is how the central hub looks like with the main parts dryfitted. 

And when we add the nose cone it looks a little more like a racecar instead of a bathtub 🙂 

The rear wing is made entirely of white metal; this complicated the drilling a little bit (cost me more drills as well) but in the end the procedure is the same. 

Strange observation: the central photo etched wing parts are too small to fit to the rear wing. Either I did something wrong, or the kit is not well designed. Either way I have to solve this problem: I did it with superglue and flour to fill the gaps. 

The rear airscoop halves are fixed to this iconic shape. 

The tires were fixed on the rims to ease the sanding of the treads. This was quite a job since the rubber is pretty stiff. 

And finally I try a dryfit of the complete racecar. First the bodyparts. 

Next I put the airscoop and rear wing in place. 

Finally the wheels are put where they presumably will be once finished.