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 Rank: Super-Elite        Groups: Official Builds, Administrators, Moderator, Global Forum Support, Registered Joined: 04/06/2011 Posts: 4,466 Points: 13,555 Location: ipswich
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Yet another great update.
Really enjoying this one.
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Very nicely done Robin, it really is making a big difference to the stock parts.   Mark
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Many thanks again to Roy and both the Marks!  In this instalment we begin the first stage of re-engineering the brake cylinders into something closer to what the reference photos show.... The details on which the brake cylinder re-build is based on come from two photos (with a third later on), which are shown in Photo 6, and Photo 8. Photo 6 shows the brake fluid tanks actually fitted with the same green tubing as used in the kit, but if you look closely at the blown up section in Photo 7, the arrow is pointing to a light coloured connector which indicates that as mentioned earlier, the right hand tank is split between the master cylinder and the right hand outer cylinder. The set up I’m actually going for is shown in Photo 8 with much thicker blue tubing. The main reason for this is a) I haven’t got any green tubing to match the kit part and b) I can actually see where the things are going to in this picture! As you can see in the second blow up shown in Photo 9, the left hand tank is connected to the rear of the left hand cylinder by the blue tube which then feeds into a copper pipe (like conventional water plumbing) which is routed up to a three way bronze coloured connector. From there, two horizontal copper pipes pass out around the corners of the chassis into an ‘L’ shaped connector which joins onto that white braided cable supplied with the kit. As you’ll see later, what I first thought was a black coloured nut in the middle of this connector is actually a black metal ‘D’ shaped tab welded onto the wheel strut with the connector securely bolted into it. The left tank therefore supplies both front brakes! On the other side, the right hand tank has a shorter blue hose which is split into two and connects to the two rear connections on both the master cylinder and the right hand one. The front connections have two thinner tubes coming out of them, white on the master cylinder and brown on the right hand. These pass through a hole in the front of the chassis and into the cut out in the triangular box on the chassis wall seen just above the nose cone fixing point in Photo 8. So, a lot of work to consider, starting with the re-working of the two outer cylinders shown in Photo 10. This should have been a ‘before and after’ shot – but I accidentally glued the first resin nut onto the before cylinder instead of the after!  Basically, the front moulded spigot is cut off and the little raised bump is drilled out to accept a 1mm copper micro tube. The nut is one of the middle sized resin castings with the thread sanded off and also drilled out to slide over the spigot. Photo 11 shows the two cylinders after airbrushing with Vallejo Black Primer followed by Metal Colour Semi Matt Aluminium (on the left) and finished off with Vallejo Blue-Green on the nut, dry-brushed blue-green and white for the highlights and given the Humbrol Black Enamel Wash (on the right). The first cylinder was then super glued onto the gold chassis front plate as shown in Photo 12. Then for the tubing! As I mentioned, I didn’t have any of that translucent green that came with the kit, but I did find a perfect source for the thicker blue version – mains cable insulation! This is the neutral wire of course and the progression from mains cable to Ferrari brake fluid pipe is shown in Photo 13, from top to bottom: piece of stripped insulation, groove filed into the rubber at one end for the jubilee clip to fit into, jubilee clip fashioned from thin aluminium sheet, embossed with a pounce wheel, tubing with Jubilee clip fitted (before I realised my mistake putting the screw thingy on the wrong way! ) At this point I was a little wary of how much force the thick tubing would be putting on the thin plastic spigots on the fluid tanks and the cylinders after it was bent around. Fortunately I discovered this could be neutralised by inserting a thin wire into the insulation, shorter than the tube to allow the two spigots to go in. The pre-bent pipe is shown in Photo 14 along with the thin wire (and the corrected jubilee screw!  ) The first pipe is shown glued in place in Photo 15, the master cylinder and right hand cylinder have also been super glued in place at this point, the master in the centre has been drilled out and fitted with a styrene rod base and nut with an aluminium tube for a spigot. For those thinking of adding this detail to their kits, wait until the end of this section as I came up with a far better method of fitting the split tube (after it was too late to change mine!  ) It was whilst drilling through the cylinders that I realised that they were actually moulded hollow inside! Note the hole in the chassis between the two tanks, this is for the copper pipe connector which is coming later. The next task was to form the three-way connector to join the two pipes going to the cylinders to the single pipe coming from the tank. This is shown in Photo 16 and is simply composed of two pieces of 1mm diameter brass rod. The end of one piece is bent around a 1mm metal former to create a loop or ring which is then tightened around the second piece with pliers and soldered together. The soldered joint was then filed down to form a more ‘boxy’ looking thing as shown here. Photo 17 shows the two blue pipes attached temporarily before they were removed and attached to the cylinders as seen in Photo 18. The arms of the brass ‘T’ joint were then snipped back and the two pipes joined together as in Photo 19. Throughout all the pipe measuring I was using the brown insulation from the same cable, pushing it on to one of the spigots, bending it to where it had to go and marking the length, then cutting it to size and checking the fit. Once it was just right I then used the brown bit to cut the blue to length. The final part of this section was to fit in the last blue pipe from the tank to the three way joint. This was ‘ahem’ fiddly, but got there in the end!  Now, as I said earlier, for those who might want to add their own such details, I worked out an easier method after I’d done all this! As you’ve seen, I left the rear spigot on the right hand cylinder and added one to the central master cylinder – what I should have done is this. Remove the rear spigot from the right cylinder and drill it out just like the front ones. Drill out the central cylinder and add on the raised tubular base and the turquoise nut (also add the nut on the right hand cylinder too). Then, when making the brass rod ‘T’ joint, make the two side arms longer than I did, place the T between the two cylinders and carefully bend the arms down to match the holes. Once the brass rods fit, cut them to size allowing for the bit that will be glued inside the hollow cylinders. When that’s done you can then cut the blue tubing to size and slide it up the bent brass arms and simply drop the ends down through the nuts and super glue into position. This will allow you to get the ‘U’ shape much lower down than I got mine as I was stopped by the height of the spigots (especially the new one I fitted on the master cylinder which could have been much shorter)! Anyhow, I’m pretty pleased with the overall look of the new ‘plumbing’, just hope the system is pressurised and not gravity fed otherwise I’ve got no rear brakes! (But then we never had any anyway!  ) In the follow up instalment, it’s time to move to the front of the cylinders and a whole lot more plumbing to add in! Until then, Happy Modelling to you All! Robin. Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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The first task needed to continue the pipe work to the cylinders was to knock out some connecting nuts and a three way junction for the copper tubing to the front brakes (shown arrowed in Photo 20). There were a pair of brass compression nuts for the left hand and master cylinders and a different rounded connector for the right hand cylinder. I did try to create the compression nuts from a length of hex styrene rod by securing a short length in my Mantua mini wood lathe and filing down the rounded top as the lathe spun around. I did get some pretty good looking nuts, but the effort required and the difficulties in getting a consistent finish convinced me to look for an easier solution. That solution came by way of a supplier of sub-miniature nuts and bolts on Ebay as shown in Photo 21. These are ‘Acorn nuts’ machined in solid brass and are even threaded on the inside. They were my second attempt, the first being a set of ten M1 nuts. As the copper tubing was 1mm I assumed the nuts would be just right – they were TINY! As you can see in Photo 22 they are miniscule up against the new set, which are M2.5 (and they are not cheap!) As I would be needing quite a few of these nuts overall I decided it would be easier (and far cheaper) to cast them in resin which would be much easier to drill out as well. The nuts are shown temporarily glued to a Lego base plate with Deluxe Card Glue, once set, I built a Lego brick wall around them and simply poured in some mould rubber to create a simple casting mould. The process of creating the nuts is shown in Photo 23. After mixing a small amount of resin I used the mixing stick to drop some resin into each nut mould on the little block of rubber. Then each one was prodded with a cocktail stick to remove any air bubbles and allowed to cure. Once solid we have a selection of acorn nuts, each on its own little round base. The top of the rounded acorn was then gently sanded flat before a 1mm drill bit was hand drilled down through nut and base. Finally the hollowed nut was pressed up against the side of a cutting mat and with the mat holding it steady, a safety razor cutter was held flat against the base of the nut and slid forward slicing the nut clean off as seen on the right. Gripping the nut in a pair of tweezers it was then gently rubbed over fine sandpaper to clean up the bottom ready for priming. With those underway, I could then think about the copper pipe connector, which was bolted to the front chassis plate between the two fluid tanks. Photos 24 and 25 show the first version of the design. Two pieces of styrene rod were joined into a ‘T’ (one being filed with a round diamond dust file on the end until it fitted snugly to the other). A larger diameter rod was then also filed the same to fit on the top of the ‘T’ with a sanded down resin cast nut super glued on the front. The three arms were then drilled out to accept a solid smaller rod (this one was about forty plus years old) which then had a drilled out steel nut from the spectacle repair nut and bolt set glued onto the ends as shown in Photo 25. The rear of the top section was also drilled out from the back and a bolt super glued into place (why you’ll see later!) My initial intension was to cast the whole thing in resin, unfortunately I hit an unplanned snag! When cast, I then had to drill out the moulded nuts to push in the 1mm copper micro tubing. What I hadn’t allowed for was that the forty year old styrene rods behind those nuts were about 1mm diameter themselves so when the nuts were drilled through the section behind was so thin they would break off with the slightest pressure (a real ‘Doh’ moment!) As shown in Photo 26, the Mark 2 version did away with both the resin nut and the thinner section behind, I simply drilled right through with a 1mm bit and now the copper tube itself provides the thinner piece with a drilled out steel nut replacing the resin one. Remember that bolt glued to the original? That was so I could push a bolt of the same size into the rubber mould before adding the resin resulting in a ‘cast in’ metal fixing point to secure the connector to the plastic chassis front . The plastic plate was drilled and the connector literally screwed into place (a very tight fit it was too!) The next job was to bend the micro tube into the complicated shape necessary to a) attach the bottom nut to the connector, b) curve back up from the bottom of the connector, passing over the gold frame and down into the cylinder via the resin nut. After an entire evening spent trying to persuade a one inch piece of copper tube to do all that I decided there must be an easier way (actually it was more like ‘  to Hell with this, there MUST be an easier way! ’) And there was! Back to the craft and hobbies section on Ebay and I found a coil of copper plated aluminium wire – looks just like the micro tube but is much easier to bend into shape. I think it was about a ten metre roll for just a couple of pounds or so. This is shown fitted into the bottom of the connector in Photo 27 and down through the resin nut and into the drilled out cylinder in Photo 28. Note, I went over the copper plated wire with a thinned down Vallejo acrylic Copper just to tone down the ‘bright and shiny new pipe look’. The two other copper pipes, which come in from the sides, have to wait until the front wheel struts are in place as their fixing points are part of the struts, (or will be once I've added them on). Now for the right hand front cylinder connection. That one was different to the other two in that it doesn’t have an acorn brass nut on the end. Instead there is a strange looking brass connector that looks more like a heavy duty electrical terminal than a hydraulic equivalent! I forgot to put in the photos of the parts going together but as you can see in the following photos it was made from two diameters of styrene rod, liquid poly glued together with the fat short piece drilled out for a 1mm brass rod to glue into the cylinder with a thinned down resin bolt head glued over the top and the longer thinner part drilled to take the 0.5mm wire painted brown to match the ref photos. Before adding this on however it was first necessary to drill out a fairly big hole into the triangular box as shown in Photo 29. The insert pic shows the actual part on the real thing. It should really be a ‘D’ shaped cut out rather than a round hole which I could have done earlier before gluing on the box – if I’d known then I was adding all this stuff on! Using a drop of super glue, the end of the brown painted wire was glued into the drilled out hole after first threading it through the hole in the chassis front as seen in Photo 30. The hole was drilled large enough to glue in a short bit of the rubber sheathing to act as the rubber ‘anti-rub’ grommit. A small resin nut was then drilled out for the wire to pass through, painted brass and threaded on to the wire as in Photo 31. Finally, the wire was shaped into position to reach the cylinder through the brass connector and the excess snipped off before gluing the end into the connector and sliding the nut up to finish it off (Photo 32). In the following instalment the white tube in the middle is added in and work begins on something else (I have no idea what it is), but it seems to be connected (literally) with the rear brakes (somehow)!  Until then, Happy Modelling to you All! Robin. Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Great update Robin, very nicely done. I see in this update you've gone nuts Mark
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Many thanks again Mark and you're closer to the truth than you realise! This instalment should have been posted some days ago but I had to completely re-do it as I made a major boo-boo as you'll see below and had to pull everything off and start again! However, before all that happened... Before carrying on with the next part of the brake system it was necessary to jump ahead of the official build schedule and screw the top and bottom sections of the chassis together. The reason being that many of the extra parts going on lead from one section to the other so it made sense to join them up to avoid any unfortunate ‘coming aparts’! Photos 33 and 34 illustrate the positions of the four fixing screws – two at the rear, which are hidden by the firewall when that goes on, and two in the floor to be hidden by the seat later on. Photo 35 shows the centre cylinder with the white tube or cable in position. As this follows a much more curving route than the brown one fitted last time, I made the white one out of a length of thin solder painted white. It passes from the centre cylinder under the blue hoses and up through the same hole as the brown to finish in the same cut out on the chassis side. The extra mechanism to be added for the rear brakes is shown in Photo 36. It begins with a metal rod attached to an offset cam on (the driver’s) right shown by the left hand arrow (or so I thought) and then goes into a black rubber tube indicated by the right hand arrow. The tube then passes through the front chassis panel above the brown and white tubing where (from what I can tell) it passes back through the cockpit on the driver’s left, along the side of the body and back to the left rear brake where a steel cable exits the tube and is attached to a triangular plate on the brake mechanism. How it gets to the other rear brake I have yet to discover! The cable will come much later when the rest of the engine/gearbox comes together but the front mechanism will be going on now. Photo 37 shows what I thought I was looking at! The red outline covers the brass end of the brake mechanism and what I took for a cam coming off the gold coloured bracket cylinder. So off I went happily making up the mechanism shown in Photo 38. Aluminium micro-tubing to make the metal slide thing and the ring attachment on the end with styrene tubing and sheet with a tiny length of micro copper tube to make the cam which then fitted into a larger styrene tube glued to the front of the metal cast bracket. After much hard work I ended up with the completed system as seen in Photo 39. It really looked the part too! So on I went with the next stage, adding the wheel struts so I could then add the final part of the brake line connectors, (which is why they are actually in place in Photo 42!) It was only when I was putting the photo pages together and bringing the build diary up to date ready to post the next instalment that I suddenly realised why the same area looked different from the back angle – I’d completely miss read the reference photo – as shown in Photos 40 and 41, there wasn’t any cam on the gold bracket, the sliding thing was actually bolted to the black rocking arm piece which is attached to the shock absorber! You’ve got to laugh haven’t you! (hint: NO!) Ah well, off it had to come. Fortunately the reconstruction wasn’t as difficult as I’d feared, the actual mechanism was fine, it just required a longer black rubber tube to allow the attachment ring to reach the new location which first needed to be drilled to take a brass ship building pin to form the new ‘bolt’. Photo 42 shows the plastic anti roll arm having been drilled and fitted with the brass pin. Behind it is the tube extension on the bracket which would have to be removed as well and a new front section fitted over the ground down ‘stud’ that was there before. The existing mechanism is shown being passed down the brass pin in Photo 43, once glued in position up against the rocker arm the excess pin shaft was snipped off leaving just a mm or so proud of the ring. A slightly bigger resin nut was then prepared, before priming and painting with Vallejo Brass it was drilled out on the reverse to allow it to fit over the protruding brass pin and then super glued in place as shown in Photo 44. The composite Photo 45 shows the new attachment from the rear together with the darned ref photo that caused all the bother! Now they finally match up! In order to fit the flexible rubber hose to the chassis front plate I took a small piece of aluminium micro tube (same one as made the larger sections of the mechanism itself) and epoxy steel glued it to the chassis as shown in Photo 46. After leaving it overnight to set fully the end of the hose was simply push fitted into position. I had also super glued it onto the aluminium spigot first time around which meant some careful scalpel work to get it off again! Once in place (unglued this time) I then cut a small section of the rubber tube to glue on the inside of the chassis front as shown in Photo 47. They are not connected at all but give an optical illusion of passing through the plate. When the chassis is complete I’ll glue the long cable, probably of black electrical wire into the short rubber piece and lead it back the side of the chassis to the rear brake. It’ll be in the way if I do that now. Finally, in Photo 48 we have the re-located mechanism, now in the right place! The only piece I needed to replace was the rubber hose with a longer section, which wasn’t too bad at all. It actually took far longer to re-write and re-photo the diary than it did to change the model! DOUBLE CHECK YOUR REFERENCE PICS!!!In the next instalment its time to put on the wheel struts to fit the brake line connectors on to. Until then (further ‘errors’ permitting), Happy Modelling to you All! Robin. Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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In order to complete the brake line connections I first had to install the front wheel struts or arms, and to do that I first had to screw on the metal brackets, which they fit onto. The brackets are shown in Photo 1. The smaller one on the left is the rear lower arm bracket and the larger one holds the spring shock absorber in place further forward. They are shown screwed into the chassis in Photo 2, using a Type D screw in each. You might notice the shock bracket has a different finish than in the first photo – the entire structure of arms and struts comes in a standard gloss black finish, but as you can see in Photo 3, on the actual car the metalwork is more of a metallic steel finish. The solution as shown in Photo 4 is the Uschi Metal Polish Powder – Steel Type, applied with cotton buds or the eyelash micro brush on the left (bought just for modelling I can assure you – no, not that kind of modelling! ) A tiny amount is rubbed onto the painted metal surface and then burnished with another cotton bud to polish it on. The effect is seen in Photo 5 with the rear arm screwed into the bracket with a Type E screw and then polished with the powder. The shock absorber follows on next, also secured with a Type E as shown in Photo 6. I actually spent a week waiting for an order of the Uschi Iron Type powder to arrive (the only one I hadn't got for the Sopwith Pup build) only to find that the new powder wouldn't adhere to the kit gloss black finish at all - rub it on and buff it all off again! For some reason the chrome and steel powders are fine on the same paint! The front arm fits into the gold coloured bracket as seen in Photo 7 but is not screwed in yet, the screw which secures this arm also attaches the front nose and wing and I’ll be leaving that lot off for as long as possible – its getting very difficult to move the chassis around on the workbench as it is – flipping great thing! With the lower arms attached the upper ones can be swung into position to fit over the moulded on rings (which I carefully painted the steel colour but need not have bothered as the arms cover them all up!) The rear arm shown in Photo 8 has three Type G screws to secure it whilst the front upper arm has two of the same ( Photo 9). Note the rear part of the bracket shown by the arrow – this is actually moulded onto the plastic chassis and as you can see, I painted it steel. Once the arm was attached I went back and re-painted it gloss black to match the kit metalwork as shown in Photo 10. Photo 11 shows the effect of polishing the entire set of arms and the top of the shock absorbers. Note the chrome coloured rocking arm ring which is connected to the shock absorber – this was impossible to push fit onto the metal spigot as the instructions said to do, and in the end I had to carefully drill the hole in the ring a little wider – then it was too loose! Fortunately the reference pics show this ring to have a chrome nut securing it to the shock so one of the resin cast acorns came in useful as seen here (the actual fitting on comes later). The lower arm on the front uppers wasn’t polished yet, I would need a clean surface to glue on the next scratch built item – the brake line connector! The prototype is seen in Photo 12 and the construction and fitting will be the subject of the next instalment. Until then, Happy Modelling to you All! Robin. Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Just catching up Robin, usual high standards. Excellent work. Mark
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Many thanks again for those kind words Mark, appreciated as always! Before continuing on with the rest of the brake line rebuild, my sincerest sympathy for all those modellers who, like myself have their modelling workshops up in the attic - its Hell at the moment (almost literally I would think!) Even with the skylight and a fan running the heat is awful - I tried to paint some single wire strands from some 7/02mm wire to make up some scale electrical wiring a couple of days ago - the brush went dry before I'd gone half way along the four inch wire! Anyway... The actual brake line connector is shown from front and back in Photos 13 and 14. It is essentially an ‘L’ shaped copper pipe equipped with brass compression fittings just like a domestic water system and is secured to the lower of the front upper arm struts by a pair of nuts onto a ‘D’ shaped metal tag welded to the strut (the black part in the centre). In order to construct it as seen in Photo 15 (the earlier sneak preview was put in to fill up the last space in the photo page! ) It is composed of a bent section of micro copper tube because the more flexible copper plated aluminium wire would probably bend out of shape with the brake line fitted on the end of it! There are three resin cast acorn nuts, drilled out to take the tubing and a pair of resin nut and threads with the thread sanded off and the nut drilled out. As you can see in Photo 18, these nuts were later sanded down to half their thickness before final assembly. The final nut on the forward end of the tube is fixed on so that the front is left hollow to take the pipe from the nut back to the T connector on the front of the chassis. In between the resin nuts is a brass bracket made from a piece of brass profile, filed to round off the top and drilled to take the 1mm copper tube. This is showed glued to the lower strut with steel epoxy glue in Photo 16 and painted in gloss black enamel in Photo 17. The Nuts were painted with Vallejo Brass acrylic before sliding them onto the tubing and fixing in place with a drop of super glue ( Photo 18 again) and then slid through the D bracket and again super glued into place as shown in Photo 19. A length of the coppered aluminium wire was then cut and bent to pass from the front T connector, behind the brake fluid tank and around the chassis to mate up with the front nut as illustrated in Photo 20 and on the other side in Photo 21. The T connector where they both meet up is seen in Photo 22. Photo 23 shows what I thought was the finished plumbing in all its glory – until I had to re-arrange that mechanism I’d put on the wrong place! Anyway, as you can see, the front looks a little more complicated than the basic kit did! The next job is to fit on the actual brake lines and for that I need to open up Pack 47 as shown in Photo 24. The only parts I need are the two brass connectors seen above the gold coloured dome, which is the cover for the steering mechanism. The big chrome part to the right is the covering plate to the steering column with the metal sliding ratchet, which moves the front wheels at the bottom. Also included are a couple of packets of Type E and J screws to attach those parts later on. So in the following instalment, its time to add on the brake lines and probably make a start on the steering system. Until then, Happy Modelling to you All! Robin. Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Rank: Super-Elite Groups: Official Builds, Administrators, Moderator, Global Forum Support, Registered Joined: 04/06/2011 Posts: 4,466 Points: 13,555 Location: ipswich
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Yet another fantastic update here. It's mind-boggling what you are doing.
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 Rank: Master Groups: Registered
Joined: 21/04/2011 Posts: 1,072 Points: 3,245 Location: Buckinghamshire
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I agree with Roy,
your attention to detail is amazing. Brilliant stuff.
Chris
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Very nice work Robin, this has got to be a very good reference guide for anyone building this kit. Keep up the great work. Mark
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Grateful thanks as always to Roy, Chris and Mark for their kind comments! Modelling has become impossible up in the attic at the moment, even with the skylight wide open and the fan blowing away my hands are dripping with sweat as soon as I get up here! Fortunately the actual construction is a little way ahead of the diary so I can still update the write-ups for a while whilst I wait for the damned heatwave to pass (the shielded wireless thermometer in the back garden was 102F yesterday! ) So onwards with the brake lines at last... Before beginning the brake lines, there were a couple of bits to add on to the front wheel struts to complete their assembly. These are shown in Photo 1 and comprise a pair of plastic moulded bracing struts, which go from the main shock absorber frame back to the metal chassis sides. They are supplied in the usual shiny chrome finish but most of the reference photos I’ve collected tend to show them in the same metallic black as the rest of the structure (as shown in Photo 2). I was therefore able to sand off a few of the slight flash lines in the plastic, paint them with Humbrol Gloss Black Enamel and finally give them the same Uschi Steel Metal polishing powder treatment as the rest of it. The left and right bracers are shown in position in Photos 3 and 4, there’s a little bit of careful flexing to get them to fit in ( very careful as they are plastic) and I had visions whilst doing it of having to make a new set out of aluminium micro tubing if anything went wrong (or snap!) The ‘spanner shape’ at the front push-fits into the slot in the metal strut and the triangular plate at the back locates over a little peg sticking out from the chassis sides. Photo 5 illustrates the parts required for the brake lines. As I mentioned at the beginning of this section, they were going to end up a little shorter than the basic kit versions due to the location point moving back from the front cylinders to the ‘L’ shaped connector made previously. Shown in the photo are the two brass effect plastic ‘nozzles’, one already glued into the end of the white tube, and below are two lengths of flexible wire. I had hoped to use the same copper plated aluminium wire I used for the pipe work from the cylinders – it fitted just right and would keep any shape bent into it once inside. The problem was, once the brass nozzle was glued in one end (I used super glue gel instead of the epoxy indicated in the instructions) I couldn’t push the shortened length of wire down the tube leaving the last few mm free to push over the new L shaped connector. Without the brass nozzle I might have been able to get the wire to move down enough but I didn’t think far enough ahead for that! In the end I had to use the thinner steel wire shown below the tubing, which does the same job, but not quite so smoothly as the thicker wire did. The small length of tube seen above, is the amount which was cut off the kit length. I determined just how long by cutting an oversized length of thin solder and then moulding it to go from the connector, run along the struts and arc back into the disk brake housing (minus the length of the brass connector and plus the short bit over the end of the ‘L’). The run of the brake line is shown in Photo 6. The plastic nozzle at the brake end is supposed to just push fit into the brake housing – God knows how though! I just couldn’t push it hard enough to get it to go in tight and so in the end I drilled out the hole very slightly and used the super glue gel to fix the nozzle in place. The official instruction then tell you to secure the brake line to the metal strut using a thin wire twisted around (which looks horrible!) They should have cable ties to hold them on and just for the occasion I’d come up with another method of making them! This time I bought a pack of 4mm “ High Quality, Premium Grade Cable Sleeving” on ebay - £2.49 for two metres! A 30mm or so length of it is shown in Photo 7. As before, if the cables or wires can be threaded through you can simply slice off a thin ring of the sleeve (like the pair at the bottom right) or as in this case, slice the sleeve down the middle to open it up and then use a sharp blade and steel rule to slice off a thin strip as seen at the bottom. With a small drop of super glue gel on one end of the strip, it was glued on to the strut and once dry, the brake line was held down in place whilst fine tweezers held the strip and pulled it around the strut enclosing the tube before gluing the strip tight to itself. Once that was dry, the excess was cut off as seen in Photo 8. Once all the handling around this area is complete, the little rectangular styrene blocks will be added and painted black to complete the effect. Finally, in Photo 9 we have both brake lines in place. Remember that piece of the white tube I cut off? Wouldn’t you know it – it was the exact size required to make that white asbestos fire extinguisher tube coming up under the steering wheel! (Something to remember if you haven’t got to that part yet!!) In the next instalment – fitting in the steering mechanism! Until then Happy Modelling to you All! Robin. Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Rank: Master   Groups: Registered
Joined: 25/11/2018 Posts: 1,284 Points: 3,878 Location: Southeast UK
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Nice work as always Robin, looking really good, though I see that you are still struggling with one particular area in your career as a modeller - that of being able to build anything straight out of the box!! 😄😎👍 Glad that you still haven't overcome that affliction though! Kev Per Ardua Ad Astra
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Rank: Master Groups: Registered
Joined: 21/04/2011 Posts: 1,072 Points: 3,245 Location: Buckinghamshire
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Another fantastic update, Robin.
Your workmanship and attention to every detail is remarkable.
Chris
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You never disappoint, stunning work as usual. Mark
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Many thanks for those kinds words Kev, Chris and Mark! I know Kev, I know! I'm sure it comes under some kind of mental compulsive illness - "Outofboxicus notgoodenufficus" or something like that! I've been thinking for some time about a little 'side project' - I've still got dozens of old models up in the attic which I made in my early years when I was about ten to fifteen. Most of them are in need of some repair (but at least they avoided the fate of lots of others which ended their existence going down in flames (literally) in the garden) I've often thought of selecting one of them, maybe an old Airfix WW1 biplane or similar, repairing it as best I can and then trying to get the same classic old kit on ebay and building another, this time putting everything I can into it, using both fifty odd years of increasing experience and the massive increase in modelling supplies which we have now compared to back then just to see how much our hobby has improved over all those years! It would be interesting at least! Back soon once its cool enough to airbrush! Robin. First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Rank: Super-Elite Groups: Official Builds, Administrators, Moderator, Global Forum Support, Registered Joined: 04/06/2011 Posts: 4,466 Points: 13,555 Location: ipswich
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Yet more mind-boggling stuff. This is going to be a masterpiece.
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Many thanks for that Roy! Have to admit, once you get into these car models, even without any deep technical knowledge of how the things work (I'm like Oddball in his Sherman) the urge to upgrade and improve is just as strong as all the other models I've built/building/thinking of building!! I'm beginning to get the hang of using the reference photos now, tracing wires and pipes in one of them and then finding another from a different angle to see where the darned things disappeared to in the first! So on with the steering... The first task in order to fit on the steering mechanism is to thread the gear strip through the two side ports in the chassis. Once it is in position it looks as it does in Photo 1, laying in the moulded slot on the chassis floor. Note that I also gave the gear a rub over with the Uschi chrome powder, not so much for the part seen here as that is almost entirely hidden by the rounded cover later, but for the part which sticks out the sides and connects on to the steering rod. The ends of the gear strip terminate in a double-layered ‘D’ shaped connector which encloses the ring on the end of the steering rod. To get the screw holes lined up I stuck the brass handled needle down through the holes which lined them all up nicely as shown in Photo 2, and the close up in Photo 3. The gear and the two rods were then secured together with a pair of Type E screws, following the instructions not to over-tighten them! The steering wheel column was then dropped back into the semi-circular groove seen in Photo 1 (ensuring that the cog slipped into the gear and the wheels (or disc brakes in this case) were parallel and the steering wheel itself was central (lower strut pointing straight down). Then the gold coloured plastic cover screwed down into place with three Type J screws as seen in Photo 4. The full view is seen in Photo 5 and though I couldn’t believe it at first, the whole mechanism actually works! Turn the wheel left or right and the front wheels follow perfectly! (Phew!) At this point I veered away from the official kit instruction schedule. The way the kit carries on doesn’t make logical sense to me – first of all it has the protective plate fixed on in front of the steering column and then the entire engine is screwed on to the rear of the chassis. Then, with all those parts in the way you have to fit the steering gear ‘doors’ on (which are inside all the front wheel struts) and then put in the driver’s seat. OK, the front plate and the seat can be put on with the model down flat on the bench but the doors need some careful pushing in from the sides which means holding the whole thing in one hand and pushing with the other – the last thing you want is that flipping great engine sticking out the back and getting in the way! So, first job is to thread the lower seatbelt through the two slots in the seat panel as shown in Photo 6. There is another job which, after following the kit instructions I would have done at this point if I’d known how fiddly it was going to be but read on below! The seat panel is then carefully passed under the steering wheel where the two pegs moulded on the floor behind the gear strip engage with two moulded columns on the underside of the seat. Before that however, I brush painted the gold dome cover with Vallejo Metal Colour Gold to match the other re-sprayed gold sections and to hide (or camouflage) the front shiny screw as seen in Photo 7. There are another two pegs and holes at the rear of the seat, which also click together, and Photo 8 shows the seat panel in position. Now it was finally possible to take the clear tube from the fire extinguisher and trim it back to the correct length and fit the end with one of the scratch built resin caps as shown in Photo 9. A drop of gel super glue fixed the cap in place, and another on the back of the cap also glued the cap and tube to the back of the seat cushion to prevent it from unrealistically dangling in mid air. Now for that task I would have done earlier if I’d known! Photo 10 illustrates the next step in the seat belt construction. You have to take the little round centre piece with the four raised pins, and super glue the four metal strap ends as shown in the photo. This seems very straightforward – its anything but! Talk about fiddly, the worst part is the two lower straps previously threaded through the seat – it would be far easier if they were glued onto the centre piece BEFORE the seat was fixed into the cockpit – there’s just not enough room to get long fingers in there! Anyway, I managed to get all four strap ends glued in eventually (some of them more than once!) The quick release is them completed by adding the rotating brass catch onto the front of the belt assembly, again with super glue as shown in Photo 11. The one thing that becomes obvious is the tendency of the belts to ‘hover’ above the seat. In the reference photos of the actual thing, the weight of the real belts makes them lay flatter across the seat so some remedial effort was needed. This was achieved quite simply with a small blob of super glue gel behind the top part of each belt behind the “arexons” sticker. This was enough to make the rest of the harness lay flat as shown in the final Photo 12. In the next instalment the steering gear covers are installed followed by another small conversion to the instrument panel before the protective plate goes on the front. Until then, Happy Modelling to you All! Robin. Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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Carrying on then, Photo 13 illustrates the contents of Pack 49. This consists of four gold coloured plastic parts to make up the pair of ‘shutters’ which blank off the big holes in the chassis sides allowing the steering arms to pass out through. The other item is a great little metal multi wrench, which obviously will be used later? This is the first real complaint I have regarding the time-line of parts received in the model. If you remember back to the construction of the front wheel struts and arms way back earlier, I mentioned how I had to use a pair of flat nosed pliers to tighten up the silver metal bolt which holds the main assembly together. I even looked all through ebay for a spanner or wrench of the correct size – I found one eventually but the cost was prohibitive – nearly £20 and all the way from Japan! It turns out that the smallest arm on this little tool (the one at three o’clock) IS a spanner to do up that bolt! Why the Hell didn’t they provide this thing back then when it would have been a Godsend? Mutter, mutter, gripe! Anyway! If you’re still waiting to start your kit, grab that thing early on! The first thing I did was to re-spray the gold parts with the Vallejo Metal Colour Gold to match up with the rest of the re-painted gold and also used the Humbrol Black Enamel Wash to accentuate the right angles in the layers as you might just see in Photo 14. The panel has to be slid up over the steering arm from below, the arm passing through the slot in the panel and then rotate the panel ninety degrees so that it fits into the recess in the chassis side. It takes quite a bit of finger pressure to get it to fit in snugly, hence why I left off the engine until it was all done! The smaller panel with the semi-circular cut out is then pushed in behind the arm as seen in Photo 15. In this shot it is just lightly pushed in and has to be pressed firmly again to snap it down into position, just as the left hand one is shown in Photo 16. Strangely, the right hand one needed a lot of pressure, the left hand snapped into place with very little! With the panels in place, there was just one more job to do before the ‘metal’ panel in front of the steering column could go on. The object of that job is shown in Photo 17 and close up in Photo 18. This is the cable coming out of the top-most instrument in the cluster. On the kit, the black tube is simply pushed onto the spigot sticking straight out, in actual fact as you can see in the two pics, it comes out at right-angles after passing through a worm drive unit. Thinking fondly back to my dear old Tomos Mopeds, they had a very similar thing for the speedometer – a worm drive on the axle with the speedo cable attached at right angles running back to the speedometer on the handlebars (after a few thousand miles the darned things used to wear out and the speedometer needle would jerk up and down the scale until the worm gear was replaced!) Don’t expect the Ferrari ones do that though! Photo 19 shows the component parts for the new worm drive up against the kit black tubing. There is a short length of brass rod the same diameter as the plastic spigot on the instrument rear together with two even shorter lengths of aluminium micro tube. By luck, the aluminium tube has an inside hole the same size as the spigot too, the short piece fits over the spigot and is super glued to the longer bit which has been filed with a semi-circular trough into which the short one fits. The brass rod is glued through the longer tube with a tiny bit protruding out the back and a longer piece out the front onto which the black tube is pushed. Sounds complicated but all is revealed in the assembled state seen in Photo 20. The drive is shown pushed onto the instrument spigot (and super glued) in Photo 21, the cable now sticking out to the right and then it was attached to the roll bar with another DIY cable tie and carefully threaded through the existing ties on the two oil tubes as shown in Photo 22. This is a pretty simple little up-grade but makes quite an improvement to the cockpit. Finally, the front metal plate can be added on – once it’s been ‘modified’ that is! I had to airbrush it with Vallejo Metal Colour Duraluminium of course to match the rest of the bodywork and this required masking off the Ferrari VIN plate as shown in Photo 23. I also scanned the VIN just in case anything went wrong so I could print off a new decal if required. Note the sneaky ‘holder’ at the bottom left – this was the waste part of the wheel hub rivets casting (yes it’s a Lego brick!) As shown in Photo 24, the rear of the panel has a great big spigot sticking out which is supposed to fit into the hole in the instrument frame (very luckily shown in the photo above and arrowed)! However, this doesn’t exist on the real car and during a couple of dry runs to fit the thing on I found it almost impossible to get the spigot into the hole AND to get the two leg bottoms over their screw holes – it felt like the panel was about to snap in two! Still, as I mentioned, that sticky out part doesn’t exist on the real thing and in the following instalment I’ll show how the real thing IS fitted on the vehicle and the changes I made to the panel to follow that example. Until then Happy Modelling to you All! Robin. Plymouth57 attached the following image(s): First wooden ship: The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second: Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third: HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
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