[Mercedes-Benz 300SL W198 with conversion to the “Blue Mauritius”]

We continue with the interior design.

The advantage that I build two models means that I can always show you the kit part with my changes in comparison.

The side panels were divided as much as possible and necessary.

The fact that the height of the map pocket on the kit part was much too small was a gift for me; I was able to simply place the new pocket on top of it.

Here are all the parts loosely put together.

The floor has already been primed gray. The next step is flocking.

If anyone has noticed that some of the parts have different leather colors, that is absolutely correct and intentional.

Parts from the 1955 original were used on the original vehicle and some parts were replaced with new parts during the restoration.

I tried to adapt this to the original using different shades of blue.

 

 

[Mercedes-Benz 300SL W198 with conversion to the “Blue Mauritius”]

good morning,

After the first seats were finished, the handles for adjusting them also had to be reworked.

These were made from fairly soft plastic as part of the kit and were glued very well to the seat shell.

During dismantling, they deformed extremely or broke completely. So new construction!

 

[Mercedes-Benz 300SL W198 with conversion to the “Blue Mauritius”]

good morning,

the engines are nearing completion and I have started on the interior. Here is the seat from the kit.

The backrest padding is a little too high. In the original it is flush with the back shell or is even a little lower.

So I separated the back cushion, sanded it out a bit and glued it back together.

If we have the opportunity, we can also take a look inside.

Now the side cushions have been built up a little and the seat now fits much better into the shell.

And here are all the seats in the individual construction steps.

From the kit part to my version with the seat shell covered in genuine leather and the upholstery with cotton fabric and printing with the original pattern.

 

 

 

 

[Decisions . . . ?]

Since I'm more into classic vehicles and pure sports vehicles aren't my thing, the 917 wouldn't be for me.

I'm sitting at the 300SL right now and I'm thrilled.

Otherwise, I can also recommend the Cobra, a wonderful model that required very little or nothing to be reworked or improved.

The Bugatti from IXO would be something for me. If Agora could take this over and turn it into a monthly series that would be fantastic.

[Mercedes-Benz 300SL W198 with conversion to the “Blue Mauritius”]

good morning,

I actually wanted to limit myself to essential features such as interior design, color, rudge vents and rear-view mirrors for this build, but it's not possible...

When you look at the pictures of the original and compare them with the kit parts, there are big differences and so now let's go into more detail.
I would now like to try to bring all visible components in the engine compartment as close to the original as possible.

Accordingly, I dismantled the intake manifold again and took care of the pipe with the strange silver rings.

Here are pictures of the original.

In the first step I sanded off all the beads.

Then the two beads of the rubber area were rebuilt with 1 mm and 1.5 mm semicircular profiles.

In the third step I put shrink tubing over it and shrunk it with a lighter.
Then all protruding areas could be cut off and hose clamps installed.

 

With a few modifications to the etched parts, the smart terminals come very close to the original.

[Mercedes-Benz 300SL W198 with conversion to the “Blue Mauritius”]

good morning,

The Silver Arrow has been finished, cleaned up briefly and the conversion of the silver W198 into the “Blue Mauritius” is now starting.

I don't start with construction phase 1, the hood, radiator grille, steering wheel, dashboard, etc. are only unpacked when they are installed.
So I start with construction phases 4 and 6 to 13 to put the engine together.

All parts of an engine at a glance

I won't name every screw here or document every single step.
Rather, I will present assemblies and go into special details.

The Bosch injection system

Next, the pressure lines to the injection valves are plugged in.

But these have to be repainted first, as the original ones are made of aluminum.

And that is the current status.

The attentive observer will have noticed that everything is on the table twice.
The reason is that I have a very good relationship with the owner of the original vehicle and he asked me if I could build one for him too.
No sooner said than done, I received a second delivery and am now building a duplicate of this beautiful car.

 

[Black gull wing]

Now I recognized it on the edge, these are the etched parts from Karsten Schmidt "FineModelCar".

Unfortunately he no longer produces them, at least that's the answer to my query. It's a shame, it's a shame.

If anyone has these lying around and wants to get rid of them, I'm looking for them!

[Black gull wing]

Hey, the photo-etched parts look fantastic. I am very interested in two such bows.

[my W196R Stirling Moss]

Hello,

Thank you all for the positive feedback.

I came up with the idea for the leaves when I saw this graphic of the opening mechanism.

I even wanted to make it functional but gave up on the idea.

Let's see how closely you looked at my pictures. Who discovered the third maple leaf? 😉

 

[my W196R Stirling Moss]

7 hours ago, Mark, The Master Modeller said:

 I may well steal that idea when I get to build mine.

Hallo,

Thanks for the feedback.

Always happy, that's why I share ideas and don't sell them as a construction report. By the way, these are round head nails 1.2 mm long but I shortened them accordingly and painted the head silver or white in the two places on the start number.

[my W196R Stirling Moss]

good morning,

 

After the individual parts of the body were assembled, the rest went pretty quickly.

Since I want to make the body removable later, I replaced all the screws with pins.

Yes, you can see them, unfortunately that is unavoidable, but at least they are not Phillips screws.

And here are the pictures after my dirty orgy...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here with the body removed, the only thing missing is the second set of wheels with single spokes in new, but they are still coming.

 

 

I hope you enjoyed my construction report, I definitely enjoyed the model. I welcome comments and suggestions.

 

 

 

 

 

[my W196R Stirling Moss]

let's get to the main part of the body.

The first thing that was installed here was the two tank flaps.

 

7

 

 

Then came the ventilation flaps for the driver's footwell.

These can be opened and closed by the driver using a linkage.

 

 

 

 

In the last step of this assembly, the circuit board and the loudspeaker were screwed to the base plate and everything was mounted with the sill panels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[my W196R Stirling Moss]

Now the cladding can finally be put on and the body is closed.

Let's start with the nose, this will be permanently installed later and is not removable.

 

 

Here is an original picture of a very battered front.

 

 

Denting the protective grille of the intake tract was more difficult than expected, the photo-etched part is really extremely stable. I'm guessing stainless steel here.

 

 

According to the construction instructions, the radiator grille should be installed with a spring to keep it closed.

 

 

In the original there was a linkage so that the driver could fold the grille up while driving and use the wind to clean the grille.

I left out the spring so that the flaps could be shown open.

 

 

 

 

[my W196R Stirling Moss]

good morning,

It's coming to an end, I've now finished the seat. In the first step I made my file a little smaller, so the checks look a little better.

 

 

The individual parts of the seat could then be reupholstered. I like the result much better than the kit variant specified by Agora Models.

 

 

[Modeler Site detailing photo array]

good morning,

The only thing I'm interested in here are the Rudge wing nuts on the wheels.

Why are you selling your construction reports?

Something like that should be shared in a community, that's what our hobby thrives on. Pay money for a report... No without me.

[Modeler Site detailing photo array]

Hello,

It's probably very interesting, or not... in any case, I'm not prepared to pay money for a construction report.

Especially if you don't really know what you're getting. It could also be 137 pages of garbage.

I think I'll continue to show my garbage in my report and it won't cost interested users anything.

[Bugatti 57 and Lancia 037]

Hello,

I just discovered this beautiful picture of the Bugatti parts and am sharing it with you here.

I hope that this model, like others, will be published by Agora as a monthly subscription.

[my W196R Stirling Moss]

good morning,

The T-shirt transfer film arrived and I was able to print out my design.

Either the temperature wasn't right or my processing time was too slow. In any case, the backing paper was very difficult to put on but the middle area can be used.

The pattern turned out just great, I think.

Next, the components are glued. Here you can see again in comparison how simply and poorly the kit parts were created and glued.

The checks on the pieces are also too small at 4x4 mm, the original fabric has 40x40 mm boxes and in our scale these are 5x5 mm.

[Black gull wing]

Hello,

nice progress, I like it.

I see you left the gearbox red. Unfortunately, I never saw a red gear in any of the original pictures.

Do you know more about this? Why did IXO make this in red?

I would also be interested to know how exactly you do this with the logos and lettering after repainting?

Do you want to install the hubcaps on them?

I would like to represent Rudge closures, but I can't find anything suitable. Let's see how you can file something like this yourself from a piece of plastic.

[Mercedes-Benz Das Blaue Wunder in 1:8]

good morning,

I'll revisit the old post. Since my W196R will be finished shortly and the start of the W198 will follow, such a racing transporter would be exactly the right thing. It would be really great if Agora or any other provider would produce this vehicle in 1:8.

I can really well imagine that many of those who built the Fangio or Moss car or the 300SL would present them at the “Blue Wonder”.

It would be really great to have this vehicle as a model.

 

[my W196R Stirling Moss]

Hello Frank,

You have a good eye for proportion, I printed the squares on 4x4 mm in my test print.

The dimensions of the original check are 40x40 mm, which is 5x5 mm in our scale.

Before I print on the transfer film, I will enlarge the checks accordingly.

[my W196R Stirling Moss]

It gave me no peace, I was absolutely not satisfied with the first result, so I took everything down and started again from the beginning. I thought about mixing the flakes, so I first mixed a small amount as a test and when it looked good, an appropriate amount for my project.

I sifted the blue with a little black, a small amount of silver gray and a relatively large amount of graphite gray over and over again until everything was mixed well and evenly.

What can I write, I'm absolutely satisfied now.

So if you need a different color for your project, the flakes can be mixed perfectly.

[my W196R Stirling Moss]

good morning,

Seat part 2: I finally got the viscose flakes for the outside of the seat. Big thanks to Stefan for the quick help.

Although these are supposed to be navy blue, they are very light or blue, more like royal blue but good, you can't get anything else.

So everything is prepared and ready for flocking. I chose a grey-blue adhesive varnish to take out some of the strong blue.

And now things have to happen quickly again. Apply varnish and sprinkle flakes immediately.

After they dry you can see the disaster... The blue is, I won't say it, but hm... and I was too slow again, in some places the paint was too dry again and the flakes didn't stick.

I don't like it at all, crap, but when installed you can't see much anyway.

Then I worked on the upholstery material. I redrew the pattern on the PC and printed it out on normal paper as a test.

In the enlargement you can see what the printer does with it.

Definitely better than the smooth sticker from the kit. I then want to print the whole thing on a T-shirt transfer and iron it onto fine cotton fabric.

Let's see how it works out.

 

[my W196R Stirling Moss]

Hello,

I really like that, I got an original sample of exactly this fabric and want to use these colors.

Why is it always shown with a blue and white checkered pattern in so many model representations? It's gray and not white!

In the piece you have on hand, the blue seems a bit pale but definitely closer to the original than the bad sticker from the kit.

I plan to print the printout on T-shirt transfer and then transfer it to fine white fabric.

[my W196R Stirling Moss]

good morning,

As I already announced, it would have already been the seat's turn. However, the one supplied with the kit cannot be used in this way.

Here are the components from the delivery.

This is what the seat would look like according to the building instructions.

Although, that's not true, according to the building instructions it would be red, since nothing has been changed here and the building instructions were taken from IXO's Fangio car.

But now the bad news... Unfortunately, Agora put absolutely no effort into the design of the seat.

I also find it really bad that the side panels are extremely offset from the back section.

But even if everything were well made, the color would still be absolutely wrong. The seat is way too bright.

I have pictures of the original Mercedes Benz upholstery material and it tends to be more gray.

I also got a piece of this original fabric and the color is clear here. It is gray and not white and the blue is significantly darker.

Furthermore, the front edge of the seat was not black.

So I painted these silver and then copied the shape of the side parts onto paper and then transferred them to the leather.

Incidentally, Sir Stirling Moss' seat was navy blue and not black like the kit part.

Now I could reupholster the pages.

In the second part (as soon as I have dark blue viscose flakes) the backrest is flocked from the outside.

Then I have to take care of the correct fabric cover.