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

zenrat · February 16, 2019, 05:16:31 PM

Quote from: PR19_Kit on February 16, 2019, 12:15:04 PM
Quote from: Hobbes on February 16, 2019, 12:11:04 PM

That's coming along nicely

Do you have a set of cycle wings for the front wheels?

Sadly no, but I plan to scratchbuild a pair from styrene sheet and a hair dryer.

Unless anyone has better ideas?

Do it the way they used to for Hot Rods IRL - create them from a spare wheel cover.
Obviously you need to find one in scale, but there are quite a few kits with them. Got any 20's to 40's cars in The Loft? Maybe even a 50's one with a continental kit?

PR19_Kit · February 17, 2019, 02:41:30 AM

Quote from: zenrat on February 16, 2019, 05:16:31 PM

Do it the way they used to for Hot Rods IRL - create them from a spare wheel cover.
Obviously you need to find one in scale, but there are quite a few kits with them. Got any 20's to 40's cars in The Loft? Maybe even a 50's one with a continental kit?

Good thinking there, I'll have a look see.

Weaver · February 17, 2019, 03:07:33 AM

Just a thought: could you get one of those wooden wheels that craft/woodworking shops sell for toy cars and use it as a blank to smash-form a mudguard?

Alternatively, don't you have one of those DIY vac-forming machines? If so, cut the wooden wheel in half, put the halves on the vac-former bed and form a piece of plastic over them.

PR19_Kit · February 17, 2019, 10:01:53 AM

Quote from: Weaver on February 17, 2019, 03:07:33 AM

Just a thought: could you get one of those wooden wheels that craft/woodworking shops sell for toy cars and use it as a blank to smash-form a mudguard?

Excellent idea, and there's 2-3 Hobbycraft branches in range of me too.

Quote from: Weaver on February 17, 2019, 03:07:33 AM

Alternatively, don't you have one of those DIY vac-forming machines? If so, cut the wooden wheel in half, put the halves on the vac-former bed and form a piece of plastic over them.

An even BETTER idea!

I've yet to commission the thing, and that would make ideal 'first vacform job'.

PR19_Kit · February 26, 2019, 03:45:00 PM

I commissioned my vacform machine tonight and it worked a treat!

The project was the bonnet bulge on my brother's car, seen here for real. You can also see the zillions of louvres on there as well.

I made up a balsa mould for it, and it's TINY, but I reckoned it'd still be OK in the machine. That's it over on the RH side of the A4 sized machine base below.

Then I clamped an A4 sized sheet of 10 thou. styrene in the top part of the machine, stuck it in the oven set at 170 deg C. and checked until it went floppy. Then I started the vacuum cleaner and slid the clamped styrene sheet on top of the base. In one second it was done! The styrene was sucked hard down over the mould and that was it.

After a serious amount of cutting, trimming, filing and sanding I glued it in place on top of the bonnet, and this is it all hanging together on the model.

All the parts will need a bit of trimming and some PSR, but it's looking pretty good, to me anyway.

kitnut617 · February 27, 2019, 06:51:09 AM

Kit, where did you get the vac-form machine from ?

PR19_Kit · February 27, 2019, 06:55:03 AM

A guy about 10 miles up the road from me. He was advertising them on eBay at a very good price (like £40

) and it would have been rude NOT to get one. It's very well made and works a treat, as you can see.

I checked y'day to see if he was still selling them, but there's no sign of them now I'm afraid.

kitnut617 · February 27, 2019, 07:14:30 AM

Thanks Kit. Does it have a brand name, or did the guy up the road make them up himself ?

PR19_Kit · February 27, 2019, 09:11:55 AM

He made the whole thing himself, in his garage!

He had a small milling machine that milled out the styrene cramps and all sorts of other stuff. When I was there her maybe 10-12 of them ready to go and some more in build. He also made a smaller version, maybe A5 size, but he said they didn't sell as well.

PR19_Kit · March 06, 2019, 02:10:40 AM

More work on the bonnet, which now has it's full colour paintwork as well as the holes, bulges AND the louvres! The latter look really good, and are a real breakthrough in model tech, I'm VERY impressed with them

The body now has its widened rear wheel arches, and a RIGHT pain they were to do! I added a 4 mm wide strip down the centre line of the arches and then PSR'd the hell out of them, as you can see. Lots of sanding in my future I reckon..........

The rest of the detail work has been done forward of the firewall, generating all the extra stuff that my bro has added to the real car, but goodness knows what most of it does!

And lastly, for now anyway, the two paint colours can be seen with all the bits assembled. I'm pretty pleased with it so far, but quite a way to go yet. The green in this pic is much more the truth than that on the bonnet pic itself.

zenrat · March 06, 2019, 02:42:07 AM

Coming along nicely there Kit.

PR19_Kit · March 07, 2019, 08:29:12 AM

Do you ever get that 'bitten off more than you can chew' feeling? I'm in the middle of one right now.

My bro's car model needs some pukka racing seat belts, and The Hon. Zenrat suggested that some 1/24 Eduard etched belts from Hiroboy just up the road from me may be the answer. Sadly they didn't have any in stock but suggested their own seat belt kit may do the job, so I bought one.

To say they're complicated would be an understatement, the kit for two sets of belts has no less than 41 etched nickel silver buckle bits, 6 white metal castings, a length of nickel silver wire, two sheets of decals, 4 lengths of double sided tape and a long length of seat belt material!

It would be impossible to build up one of these without a magnifier as the bits are so small, luckily I have one, and here's the results of my first 30 mins. of labour.

That's three of the buckles and two lengths of belt material, and I've only another SEVEN to go like that!!!!

To show how small it is, here's that belt alongside a Swann-Morton scalpel. (No, I haven't got an oversize Tamiya paint pot, sorry...........

)

PR19_Kit · March 07, 2019, 12:28:36 PM

That's enough on seat belts for a few days, my eyes will take ages to recover!

Here's the complete set of belts ready to be attached to the seat, after I've painted it of course. There's TWENTY parts in that one set!

kitnut617 · March 07, 2019, 02:54:09 PM

That sort of brings back memories Kit --- my Dad put seat belts in his Morris Traveler before seat belts became the norm' (he put in a set of those turn indicators too, the ones that were a little arm that popped out and before turn signals became the norm'). Anyway, the seat belts he put in were a full set of RAF seat belts out of an aircraft, with a center buckle just like what you have there --- Mom didn't like them at all

PR19_Kit · March 07, 2019, 03:22:08 PM

Quote from: kitnut617 on March 07, 2019, 02:54:09 PM

That sort of brings back memories Kit --- my Dad put seat belts in his Morris Traveler before seat belts became the norm' (he put in a set of those turn indicators too, the ones that were a little arm that popped out and before turn signals became the norm'). Anyway, the seat belts he put in were a full set of RAF seat belts out of an aircraft, with a center buckle just like what you have there --- Mom didn't like them at all

I'm not surprised she didn't like them, 6 point belts don't really work for women!

I hope your dad reinforced the structure of the Traveller before fitting the belts, in standard form there was no way a Traveller body shell would stand the loads of an accident. We tested one in 1964 and it failed abysmally, and from 1965 onwards they were strengthened to pass the tests.