the United ColoURs of hatton

T he United Colours of Hatton!

Regular contributor Mark Hatton shows us how he turns a plain white kit into one of the most recognized liveries of the late 1980’s

The real ex-Piquet Benetton B190 seen at Oulton Park time-attack in 2013. And very colourful it was too!

Ihave written about a few F1 car builds in these pages previously and now I decided to do my most complex build so far – for me anyway. I am not at the skill or confidence level as other builders, such as Philip Prestage, who are quite happy to hack bits off and graft bits on to produce superb mini replica’s, but I am getting better and more adventurous - slowly! Certainly, F1 seems to be well catered for at the moment with kits from Policar and now Scaleauto and suitable decals are also readily available from vendors such as Kevinoz and Pattos. It is just a matter of deciding what you are comfortable at having a go at.

For this build I decided to stretch my spray-painting skills with the Benetton B190 in multiple colours and very simple hacking mods to the new Scaleauto low nose F1 90-97 white kit (Ref SC-6251). First off I looked at multiple pictures on the web to find a livery that I thought I could take on and then I located the decals from Kevinoz (kevinoz-decals.com) and the kit from Pendles (www.pendleslotracing. co.uk). I also contacted Kevin directly to ask for his advice on what paints to use for the build as he has always been most helpful in this area and in general advice – thanks Kevin!

So, now I have all the bits it’s down to business. Usual stuff, make sure you have all the parts as sometimes there are parts missing. Next check all the parts for any rough edges etc. and trim as required. You may find it easier to leave some of the parts on the

Spray painting and easy bit first to spray either grey or white undercoat depending on what the topcoat is going to be. For this I spray painted the main body white and all the other parts grey. Once dry the front and rear wings were painted black – easy so far. Now the fun begins as the main body is four different colours and this was my major challenge as I did not need to do any chopping of the body as the Scaleauto kit was fine as it was in my eyes. In the past if I have not been able to separate the individual parts to paint different colours then I have tended to just do two colours. I paint say the whole body first in the lightest colour and then mask off and paint the darker colour. Example: some time ago I had an SRC Capri body that I wanted in green with twin white stripes over the bonnet and roof so I painted the whole body white then masked off just the lines and painted in green. To my surprise it worked very well with crisp lines but for this build I did not think that approach would work quite so well.

This meant that I would start with the white body and then just mask off as appropriate just for each colour. The body painting pictures will show you what I mean. Trouble is that means very crisp lines are required and I have found that the paint and masking tape do not always co-operate in this area and the lines can be a bit fuzzy, which is not ideal, or the paint can bleed under the tape if you do not push it down properly. The other major issue I have had in the past has been that when you take the masking tape off, you can end up pulling the paint off underneath with the tape – been there too! So, a few painting trip wires and obstacles to overcome then!

I had already decided that between every paint cycle I was going to leave the paint to dry for a week. This meant that it took me six weeks just to spray paint the main parts – but worth it in the end from my perspective! So white body and black rear wing masked off as required, I then sprayed blue, left it to dry and then removed the tape. Now this is the first time I have used Tamiya TS spray paints and what a revelation. It dried quickly and when I peeled off the tape I had just fantastically crisp lines! Boy was I pleased and stuck it under the nose of my (adult) son and proclaimed what a brilliant job I had done. He then looked at my effort, compared it to the picture(s) I was using as my guide and said (with some amusement) that I had got the line in the wrong place! Some extreme foul whispered adult language followed from me and mild laughter from my son who just suggested that “I try again and maybe do it properly this time!” So I did and it worked out OK second time round.

Now onto the red, after a week’s wait, and the masking started again. Each time I did this it generally took me at least 60-70mins just to mask the correct area off before about 20-30 seconds of total spray painting could ruin everything! I usually do two coats, sometimes

Here you can see how I sprayed the body after the white undercoat had been applied. I started with black for the front and rear wings. The rear wing was then masked off along with the rear of the main body and blue was applied. I then masked off the red area followed by the green. Finally the engine cover and front wing endplates were painted yellow and a blue band applied across the nose.

This is what you don’t see! I proceeded to use paint inside the front of the nose and then all around the side of the driver cockpit area and extended down towards the rear of the engine cover area. This gives uniformity once the driver cassette has been installed if you looked around the gaps.

three depending on how the colour looks when dry. To my surprise the lines were about as perfect as I can get with no bleed onto the blue and just a crisp and clear finish and no paint peel either. I did have a couple of places where the odd bit of spray had gone where I did not want it to go but not over the previous colour. This could be resolved by mild scraping with a scalpel. The following week it was onto green and same again. Lastly, I had to do the yellow but the week before I had just painted the remaining white part of the body shell all green. Now, after masking off the top of the engine cover and a band across the nose, I used white undercoat first in both areas followed by yellow for the top of the engine cover and the blue band across the nose. At the same time I did the front wing outside end plates white then yellow.

As I said earlier, the Tamiya TS paints gave fantastic results and in future I am going to use these as much as possible. It really showed up with the yellow (not Tamiya paint) as when I peeled off the masking tape it was a bit like a certain pizza advert where a slice is pulled out and the cheese just stretches before it breaks off. That is how my yellow paint looked in miniature as I peeled the masking tape off! The blue on the nose – perfect separation. However, it all worked out OK in the end but nowhere near as well as the Tamiya paint – lesson learned again!

With all the waiting in-between spray painting it gave me plenty of time to decide which driver I was going to select, either 19 Alessandro Nannini or 20 Nelson Piquet for the 1990 B190 I was trying to recreate. No brainer really for me as I was never a Piquet fan and Nannini often produced an entertaining Sunday afternoon F1 drive! It also turned out that it was the easier helmet colours for me to try and paint so that was settled. So, driver parts and cockpit painted and assembled and ready to be fitted later. The chassis was also complete from the point of painting black as were the wheel inserts, wing mirrors and so on so I just needed to get the decals slapped on before final assembly.

So all painting complete, the front and rear wings glued in place and onto my favorite part which is applying the decals which can, if you are not careful, end up a minor disaster as well! At each point, before applying the next colour I was checking to see how the decals would fit and to make sure they would be enough room so that they did not go over onto two colours, unless they were supposed to. Finally, I would see if all my patience and planning were correct?! Mind you before that I had to cut the decals out which was its own little challenge when you have white decals on an almost white background decal sheet.

All the parts except the rear wing. You can see the separate motor pod, motor and rear axle that’s been removed. The wing mirrors are still on the original sprue and the black wheel inserts are waiting to be installed. The driver parts are complete along with the front suspension and guide blade all waiting to be built up.

The completed model with decals applied. These were a set for the Benetton B190 supplied by Kevinoz.

A close up view of the cockpit enables you to see the buttons on the driver’s steering wheel and the dashboard detail. Both of these decals were taken from a Policar Monoposto kit.

Anyway, that all worked out Parts/items required/used: OK and so did all the spacing and painting that I had carefully • SC-6251 F1 90-97 white kit low nose done before hand except for one • Kevonoz decal set Benetton B190 little thing. I decided to apply the • Policar monoposto kit steering wheel nose decals all as one piece as and dashboard decals found on the decal sheet which • White undercoat paint (Halfords) looked fine when I applied them • Grey undercoat paint (Halfords) but once it dried it had pulled • Gloss black paint (Halfords) the “AutoPolis” part on the blue • Tamiya TS-8 Italian red band off center and pulled it • Tamiya TS-35 Park green slightly more to the nose. Not • Tamiya TS-23 light blue the end of the world but mildly • Valspar 1130 buttercup yellow • 6mm Model Craft flexible (white) frustrating/annoying. The decals masking tapewere also applied over three • Vallejo masking tape – various sizesseparate sessions so as not to • Humbrol acrylic red #19 (rear light)move drying ones which I have • Humbrol acrylic black #21 (wing done in the past as well – duh! mirrors, body interior, helmet detail,

Once all the decals were fully seat belts & touch up) dried then it was a couple of • Humbrol acrylic aluminum #56 (wing coats of Humbrol clear varnish mirrors, helmet & seat belt buckles) and onto the final assembly. • Humbrol acrylic blue #14 (driver) This involved refitting the • Humbrol acrylic green #38 (helmet motor pod and the guide blade and driver race overalls detail) plus soldering the wires in • Humbrol clear gloss varnish AC7431 place in the eyelets. The front • Humbrol Clearfix glue AC5708 suspension part was glued in place in the main body as was the cockpit driver cassette (as I call it) and then finally the wing mirrors. The front axle and wheels were popped in and finally the wheel inserts were pushed in and lightly glued in place. The main body was then attached to the chassis. All done and was I pleased with the results? I would have to say yes as even though I had not done any drastic surgery to the kit getting all the painting correct was a big challenge for me. Now for my next project I will be doing… well The front view clearly I have a couple of ideas, but it may take me a showing the blue band while before I finish them! Why not have a go across the nose that was painted on using Tamiya at your own build and send it into the magazine light-blue spray. as Terry is always happy to showcase every one’s work in the Slot magazine Readers Rides section for us all to enjoy. – All the best Mark n Probably my favourite view of the whole model is the top-down view as you can see all the different colours and how the breaks follow the lines of the body. From this angle even the original red motor pod does not look to out of place.