It helps to have a mate who.....

[loupgarou]

Will you be able to insert the passenger seat (if any) through the roll cage?
Beautiful work. Does your brother deserve it?

[PR19_Kit]

Will you be able to insert the passenger seat (if any) through the roll cage?
Beautiful work. Does your brother deserve it?

No, they don't race with the passenger seat installed, but the left hand seat belt harness will fit in through the gaps.

Yes, he does actually. He did most of the legal work sorting out my late Mum's will, so I'm very happy to do something like this that's in my field of expertise.

[PR19_Kit]

So help me, this is the first and LAST model I'll ever build with these 'DIY' seat harness kits! 

So far I've glued my tweezers to the belts, my pliers to my tweezers, the belts to my fingers, my trousers to my leg at least four times, the tweezers to my trousers and goodness knows what else! 

I've got 1/2 of the passenger harness made now and I'm not doing any more today or I'll be at risk of throwing the whole shebang out the window! 

I'll do something simple like more decaling............

[zenrat]

Which seat belts are you using?

My favourite are the Eduard photoetch ones.  I find I can fold the metal over hard and so not have to glue the straps to the hardware.
I still have to glue the belts to the car though.
Gel superglue or liquid?

[PR19_Kit]

They're the 'in house' Hiroboy belts, etched stainless buckles etc. with white metal clasps and fabric belt material. They didn't have any of the Eduard stuff that you recommended in stock when I needed them.

Both sorts of superglue, but the very runny sort works best on the belts, but also glues everything else to everything else!

[zenrat]

Hmm, from experience I know runny superglue will soak through material and that will cause it to glue to the tweezers.
Maybe contact adhesive would work better?

[PR19_Kit]

Yes, you could well be right there Fred. 

I may give it a go on the second half of the belt assembly today.

[Weaver]

How porous is the belt material?

The reason I ask is that at work, we paint up layers of porous fabric onto formers by putting the fabric on first, and then painting liquid glue onto it, in a similar way to fibreglass layup. What I'm thinking is that it might be possible to assemble the belts dry, put them in place, and then wash them with glue. Of coursem it has to be the RIGHT glue. The stuff we use at work is thermoplastic granules dissolved in a solvent, so it air-cures to be, effectively, a layer of plastic (essentially the plastic keeps the air in the duct, and the fabric tells the plastic where to be). If the seat is plastic, then a small amount of sprue dissolved in liquid poly might do the trick.

[PR19_Kit]

It's pretty porous as it's real fabric, only scaled down as far as I can see.

That's a tricky idea H, but I'm not sure it'd work in this instance. The belt assembly involves folding the belt material through 180 deg. after passing through the buckles and fittings etc. and it's very stiff. So much so that it needs holding in the folded position with tweezers or pliers, which invariably get glued to the belts. 

I might say that the kit includes a few lengths of very narrow double-sided tape which you're meant to use to fasten the belts together, but on my first attempt it lasted maybe 5 mins. before it all sprung apart! 

It's moot anyway, and I've finished the belt assembly and installed them in place, using a mixture of super-glue and Evostick, but I won't be using one of these belt kits again.

Here they are attached, together with the engine installed and a few decals added too.

[zenrat]

Coming along nicely.

[PR19_Kit]

It's getting there, but still needs work and the delivery day is NEXT Friday! Less than a week to go! 

I'm collecting its custom made case at Cosford, so that'll be a load off my mind. I nay be working on the roll cage on the SIG stand there too........

[NARSES2]

Coming along nicely.

'Tis indeed

[PR19_Kit]

A vast amount progress over the last few days, but then I have been working on it the entire time as 'Delivery Day' is FRIDAY! 

The roll cage has been manufactured, assembled, fitted and painted. All due to Zenrat's magic idea of steaming the styrene rod over a kettle.  Actually I used an egg poacher for the larger radii, it produces more steam over a wider area. 

The headlights were painted and glued in place, after the sidelights were made from short lengths of clear rod, and most of the taillights are in place (the remainder later as they're SO small!) and some small paint details have been added. Oh yes, I glued the nose cone on too.




The front mudguards have also been edged, trimmed, sanded, primed and painted, and their support struts added. The latter were due to a chat I had with a car modeller at Cosford. He told me he used earing wire for this work, yes, really. Apparently it's quite strong, bends easily and yet does NOT spring back. Luckily I know a woman who runs a jewellery shop and she GAVE me about a dozen of these wires! RESULT!

They do just what it says on the tin, superglued in place inside the guards, using the 1:1 pics as masters for the angles etc. and then bent to the correct shape with needle nose pliers. All I have to do now is glue them in place...........

Yeah, right. That's next, plus the exhaust, the mirrors and the air filter, and then it'll be DONE!



The tiny mudguards with the obligatory Tamiya paint pot. NO, it's NOT Strobez's 4 times full size one!

[zenrat]

I have over the years collected a wide range of various gauge wires.  Best ones have come from inside the twist ties they use to hold toys into the boxes with the clear windows in.  Strip off the plastic coating and you have a wire which behaves exactly as the ones Kit describes above.
I get odd looks at xmas as I follow the kids round snaffling the twist ties as they open their presents...

[PR19_Kit]

Best ones have come from inside the twist ties they use to hold toys into the boxes with the clear windows in. 

Ahah, or even the ones that hold slot cars onto their bases inside the clear cases I expect! 

And I've been throwing the darn things away for the past few years!