Been a while since I gave an update here. Project’s moving forwards, just much more slowly now that lockdown’s easing and work’s picking back up.
^^ This is where I am with the Lotus. Tried something a little bit more adventurous with the studs. They’re arranged in a radial pattern orbiting around the Lotus emblems at either end. I made a proper mess of the epoxy again though so this one’s going to need a lot more attention to get it up to standard. The whole experience put me off making further progress on the Pig and the McLaren. They’re already sold so I really can’t afford to fuck them up.
Went even more outlandish on the studs for those two though. Like with the Lotus, I wanted to try and integrate the grip pattern into the design of the liveries…
I got some transparent plastic foil, overlaid it onto the laminated decks, marked out the key features of the livery and then used it as a basis to design the stud layout around. Once I had the lines laid out, I marked out the location for each stud, put a transparent reinforcing ring around it and then melted out the centres with a soldering iron. Yes, it took a long time.
Despite having a template all mapped out, I still needed to freestyle a lot of the stud placements. The livery lamination looks perfect on all of the boards but as soon as you overlay something that is actually geometrically perfect, you realise how far out you are in places and how being even 1mm out of place ruins the whole effect.
[Edit] One other thing to mention about the stud patterns is that they’re designed to have a greater density of studs towards the rails of the pockets. This was the main practical takeaway I had from doing the Gulf. When I was in a long, hard carve, I felt that offering some more purchase around the rails would be more reassuring.
I’ve been farting around with the Ferrari for quite a while, trying to get the rails looking tidy. Who knew that you could buy 1 mm wide masking tape? 
Epoxy is curing on The Pig as we speak. Thankfully it played much more nicely than on the Lotus. I’m using a higher viscosity resin this time around and it looks like applying that with a foam roller first for even coverage and then giving it a series of very light brush strokes along the length lets it settle better. The less pronounced the orange-peel, the easier the sanding stage is going to be.
Not looking forward to that stage tbh but nothing good ever came easy.