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The DeAgostini 1/8th Scale Ferrari 312 T4 Options
Plymouth57
#221 Posted : 23 November 2022 21:01:55

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Thanks again for those kind thoughts Mark and Roy! Blushing
Coming along well at the moment, just been doing some repainting on the front brakes air scoops - the reasons why will become clear when I show the work on the rear brakes air scoops!BigGrin
Have also made the computer use a little easier too. The diary is put together on my old Windows XP computer to be able to run the Corel Printhouse program and then uploaded on the Windows 10 one as XP won't log on to Modelspace (that started about a year or more ago). Until now I've had to put the '10' keyboard under the computer table and then slide the XP monitor onto the top of the '10' desktop case, followed by the XP keyboard ... now I've got a monitor switch box so both computers are able to use the same screen. Much less pulling and pushing, just got to get used to the old XP displaying on a totally different screen shape - almost square where the old monitor was widescreen - the 800x600 photo pages just look ....wrong!BigGrin I'm also getting another mouse too, swapping the one over between the two leads to unfortunate episodes of "why isn't the flaming thing working, it's plugged in right - oh, just not into the right computer!"Blushing

Anyhow, onwards!

Before carrying on with the brakes, it is first necessary to finally secure the gearbox assembly to the main engine block. Photo 1 is a last look through the inside of the gearbox with the two screws visible at the back, which were screwed into the holes in the engine rear. Once that is fixed firmly in place the plastic rear section which should go on now but was screwed on earlier in order to airbrush the whole unit in one go is replaced and screwed back down as shown in Photo 2, the yellow arrow indicates the screw position which marries up with the protruding tube seen in the previous shot. Photos 3 to 5 illustrate the rear brake discs coming together. The whole assembly is simply push fit. Photo 3 shows the two brake discs after their Humbrol Blue Grey Enamel Wash with the central axle. Photo 4 (which was taken before 3 but they fitted in to the spaces better this way) shows the two halves of the discs with the bottom right one still in its kit chrome finish to compare just how effective this wash is in turning chrome into steel! There was no skill or finesse needed here – a large soft paintbrush (a Revell size 6) was used to both mix the wash with white spirit to dilute it down and then to liberally ‘slop it all over’, all the work being done by the raised and sunken detail itself just pulling in the wash as shown here. After an overnight drying the halves of the discs were snapped together and then pushed onto the ends of the axle as seen in Photo 5. The black lines on the axle are where I scraped and filed off the flash lines – this is simply to ensure the axle turns smoothly in the gearbox channel, the whole axle is encased in the channel so repainting wasn’t required. The axle assembly is shown sitting in that channel in Photo 6 – not easy to take as the darned thing keeps falling out of it! To secure the axle in place, as seen in Photo 7, the first part of the rear suspension block is screwed into position, trapping the axle in the now circular channel (this part was also airbrushed at the same time as the gearbox!) The screw visible at the bottom engages into the hollow cylinder seen underneath the axle central ‘bulge’ in the previous photo.
Photo 8 is another screen shot from the kit instructions showing the rear brake connector pressed down into the semicircular hole in the top of the gearbox. As you can make out here, the kit version has two long spigots sticking out of the sides over which are slid the two white brake lines later on. At the front is a simple ‘stump’. As you will see later, in actual fact the kit has simplified those brake lines. On the actual car, just as Ruda did in his build (thank you Ruda) the brake lines are really a pair of copper pipes far thinner than the kit ones – some more scratch building again! Photo 9 shows the stages of the conversion (watch out for the ruddy thing pinging off your workbench if you go down this route – its so slippery to hold in both fingers and tweezers!) At the top, the side spigots have been cut off back to the moulded nut and a tiny hole drilled into each. The front stump is also removed and a 1mm hole drilled into that part, the black square in the top pic is just the flash removal showing the black plastic showing through. The centre pic shows the piece after a re-paint with Vallejo Air Chrome for the body, Vallejo Brass for the nuts and black for the top nut. Once dry the whole thing got the blue grey wash as usual before it was push fitted into the gearbox as seen in the bottom pic.
Before plumbing in the brake connector, I first needed to do it for the clutch return. As you may remember, I’d previously drilled a 1mm hole into the underside of the front nut on the clutch return and Photo 10 shows that hole now fitted up with a short length of the 1mm diameter copper plated aluminium wire. This runs down to the top of the engine and then goes under the ECU. The fact that it isn’t actually attached to anything under there doesn’t matter as nothing can be seen underneath anyway!Cool The illusion however, as shown in Photo 11 is that it is running out from the other side of the ECU and down into the firewall (brown or white tube I have no idea!)
In the following instalment the brake connector gets its main pipework and the suspension linkage system begins (and gets in the way a lot!)Cursing
Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.


Plymouth57 attached the following image(s):
Rear Brakes pic 1.JPG
Rear Brakes pic 2.JPG
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
admin
#222 Posted : 28 November 2022 07:07:50
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Hi Robin,

As usual , stunning work. I have started to regularly steer people to this build as a reference build that illustrates the potential of the kit, fully realized.

Keep it going!

Cheers,

Mark
roymattblack
#223 Posted : 30 November 2022 12:15:46

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Another amazing update here.
Incredible work going on. Just superb.Love
Plymouth57
#224 Posted : 04 December 2022 21:31:54

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Grateful thanks again to Mark and Roy! (You do say the nicest things!!Blushing Blushing Blushing BigGrin ) The build is progressing well at the moment apart from the discovery of the first bad breakage of the kit! I've had some minor bits and pieces but all of them were plastic and non load bearing parts which were easily repairable - the current one - not so! The repair does seem to be going ok though and should be strong enough for the rest of the bits to go onto it - more on that when we reach that part!Cool
Anyway, where was I .....
Oh yes..
Photos 12 and 13 illustrates the path taken by the forward copper pipe coming from the three way connector fitted last time. After threading the 1mm copper plated aluminium wire through the brass painted resin nut, the pipe exits the connector and kinks to the right to run down the side of the clutch return and then down the front of the gearbox body where it joins up alongside the identical pipe coming from the clutch return. From here it simply follows the first pipe to disappear under the ECU – and magically re-appear out the other side like the first one, heading for the firewall.
That was the (fairly) easy part – the other two side pipes will turn out to be much more fiddly! Photo 14 shows the component parts for the next item on the schedule – the “Rear Suspension Linkage”. This comes all together in Pack 65, consisting of six plastic pieces – the gold coloured plate which attaches it all to the gearbox, a pair of black arms or levers which join onto the black axle and two chrome plated links (which are different shapes!)
Photo 15 shows the plastic finish on the kit parts for the arms. In all of the reference photos of this apparatus, they appear a more metallic black for the most part with the bigger left hand one (with the ball prong on the end) being a reddish coloured, almost rusty iron finish. That was handy as I chose to re-paint them using the Uschi Iron polishing powder for the side joints and the whole of the right hand ‘split ended’ arm with the rusty iron arm painted in Rough Iron acrylic as shown in Photo 16. The two chromed links were pushed onto a couple of cocktail sticks as shown in Photo 17, and given the Humbrol Blue Grey Enamel Wash as usual.
Photos 18 to 20 show the linkage unit in position on the rear of the gearbox, Photo 20 with the two chrome links in place. This was a simple push fit with the pins on the linkage engaging into the corresponding holes in the gearbox – again quite a tight fit with the linkage being gently wiggled about to get it to seat fully into those holes.
Now the fun began! Pack 66 is shown in Photo 21, this contains the two joined rear brake callipers along with the two brake lines, a section of black vinyl tube which joins onto the tubing already running along the right hand side of the body via a joining piece and a right angled connector which fits into the side of the gearbox. Also included is a little triangular plate, and another link, which joins it onto the linkage just fitted. The first test fit of the callipers however, reveals a possible shortcoming as shown in Photo 22. I say possible because as yet I have no idea if this area is later obscured by something added over the top, but if it isn’t, as you can see indicated by the arrows, we have a rear brake calliper without any brakes! (Brake pads that is – now my age is showing – I originally put brake shoes here!).
So, just in case there isn’t any ‘cover up’ to follow I decided to fill the gaping holes in with something. Photo 23 shows the process under way. Using my thickest plasticard (bought for when I eventually start my paper/card model to plasticard projects) which I think is about 2mm thick, I began by sawing (too thick for my traditional knife cutting) a strip which just fits inside the width of the calliper interior and then shaping the bottom to fit the curve of the kit part. Once it fitted fairly closely I cut off the excess to leave a panel, which filled in just under half of the gap as shown on the right. Next came a pair of brake pads, I’m not sure what actual shape they are supposed to be as I couldn’t find any pics on the internet, the modern Ferrari sports cars appear to have a more rectangular or lozenge shaped pad – maybe the 312 did as well? Anyhow, I went with a simple curved design seen in Photo 24, stuck onto the back of masking tape to paint both them and the back plates in Vallejo Grey Surface Primer. The ‘F’s on the plates simply indicate the fronts onto which the pads will be glued! In Photo 25, the plates have been painted in Mig Matt Aluminium and the pads in Rough Iron to simulate the braking surface material (were they ceramic back then?) The plate and pad is shown glued in place in Photo 26 and the shot in Photo 27 shows how that gaping hole is now filled in. With that finished I then had to alter the attachment points on the callipers for the brake lines. In the kit, you are supplied with a pair of white flexible tubes, much like the front brake lines. However as you will see later both on the photos of the actual car and as Ruda did on his build, the real brake lines are actually copper pipes – the same as the one coming from the firewall to the three-way connector. Fitting those pipes onto that connector was going to be very fiddly but fitting them on the other end was much easier as seen in Photo 28. I was able to use yet another of my home cast acorn nuts, drilled out for the 1mm copper aluminium wire. The spigot or pin sticking out of the bottom of the calliper had to be cut back a little so that the nut could be super glued over what was left, leaving enough of the drilled out hole in the nut to take the copper wire. Once they were both glued on, they were hand painted in Vallejo Air Chrome and the entire calliper assembly was then Humbrol Blue Grey Enamel Washed to pick out the bolts and lettering as seen in Photo 29.
In the next instalment, the callipers get fitted on to the gearbox, (temporarily as it turned out although it was supposed to have been permanentBlushing ), and the little triangular thingy goes on and allows me to finish a part that was begun ages ago!BigGrin
Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.
Plymouth57 attached the following image(s):
Rear Brakes pic 3.JPG
Rear Brakes pic 4.JPG
Rear Brakes pic 5.JPG
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
roymattblack
#225 Posted : 05 December 2022 13:00:15

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Just gets more amazing with every update.
A truly wonderful build.Love
Plymouth57
#226 Posted : 17 December 2022 19:03:31

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Grateful thanks for those kind words again Roy!Blushing As I mention in the closing part of this instalment, the build is a little way ahead of the diary write ups at the moment which has suddenly become a blessing in disguise! As you'll see later on, not only have I come across the first serious bit of damage to one of the component parts (I've had a few plastic pieces with 'cosmetic' faults which I've put right as I've gone) but the construction has come to a sudden halt as of yesterday when my airbrush packed up! The last time I used it was a couple of weeks ago and I put that down to the extreme cold weather (51F in the conservatory) but yesterday was even harder to spray and when I tried to clean it out the needle just wouldn't go back in. Turns out it is a tiny brass screw with a rubber O ring deep down in the body which I can't unscrew. Anyway, a new one, identical to the first is now ordered but won't be expected until just after Christmas so in the mean time I've got some air scoops and a radiator to catch up with!
So anyway...
As promised last time, Photos 30 and 31 show the brake callipers fitted on to the rear of the gearbox. Although this is supposed to be a simple push fit of the two holes in the central plate over the two pins sticking out the back, I found that the plate wouldn’t quite fit dead flat and so I very slightly enlarged the holes and added a couple of largish drops of super glue to the gearbox and glued the callipers on. The next part to go on was the little triangular plate shown in Photo 32 after it’s Humbrol Blue Grey Enamel Wash treatment. As seen on the actual vehicle in Photo 33, this sits on the corner of the gearbox and is connected to the anti roll thingy by a short link and to the long black vinyl tube from the cockpit area. That long tube no longer exists of course as I cut it short and fed it into the large rubber sleeve earlier on. This was because I’d already discovered that the triangle plate was in fact connected via an even longer black cable to the very front of the car and the other end of the anti roll device fitted at the front which ‘passes’ through the chassis (another optical illusion on mine)BigGrin . The other difference is that on the kit version the connections to the front and the rear anti rolls are underneath the plate. Whilst I did find one photo of this arrangement, all the others, as in Photo 33, are attached to the top of the plate. I did consider altering this part, but although the long cable would have been quite simple to alter, the link to the rear anti roll arm would have been more difficult to re-align so I left it as it was. This is where I had a bit of a loss of concentration! I fitted the link onto the plate and then fitted it onto the arm. Then I somehow got the idea I had fitted it on upside down but only after I’d also superglued the link to the plate, (it was a bit loose). When I tried to remove it again the link broke off the plate leaving it dangling from the arm as seen in Photo 34. I managed to hold the two parts together long enough to re-superglue them back only to come to the conclusion that it probably wasn’t upside down in the first place!Blushing The next task to tackle was the fitting of the twin copper tubes from the triple connector up on top of the gearbox down to the brake callipers. In the kit, a pair of white flexible tubes are provided for this, much like the front brake lines, but as Ruda did in his build and as all the reference pictures show, these brake lines should be shaped copper pipes instead. Again, these were made from the 1mm copper plated aluminium wire, in Photo 35, the left hand one is fitted on whilst the right hand is under way. This whole procedure was extremely fiddly, made worse by that darned anti roll gubbins fitted earlier in the centre of the gearbox. The kit white tubes simply pass down on the outside of everything else but the copper ones have to follow the contours of the gearbox, pass down the inside of the brake disks and then do a ‘180’ to engage into the DIY hollow nut connectors on the underside of the callipers. Since this involves going underneath the axle of the anti roll mechanism I would, in hindsight, suggest fitting the copper tubing (if you’re going down that route) before push fitting the anti roll in place (I wish I had!) Both tubes are in place in Photo 36.
Another alteration was required for the little ‘fitting’ I think the instructions call it, which is positioned on the forward corner of the gearbox. It is moulded pointing obliquely forward, I have found a single reference photo of it in this position, every other one shows it pointing in the exact opposite direction. There is nothing at all connected to this ‘fitting’ in the kit, it does in fact come equipped with yet another oil line which is directed rearwards to – I’ll show you that later!BigGrin
Photo 37 shows the conversion of this little part under way. I first drilled into the ‘nut’ end of the fitting to glue in a short piece of brass rod, it came from my store of offcuts so I’m not exactly sure what size it was, looks around 0.8mm on the ruler though. This is to provide the push on anchor for the thin yellow tinted silicone tubing I’ve used for all the output lines from the oil expansion vessel. At the bottom, after removing the brass rod again the pin which is inserted into the gearbox top is held gently in the vice (just enough to stop the thing moving but not enough to crush the plastic) whilst the actual fitting is razor sawed off above the bottom nut. After sanding the cut edges to clean them up, the fitting was super glued back on pointing the other way (you can’t simply rotate the thing in it’s hole as the hole and pin are semi-circular, not fully round!) The fitting can be seen lightly pushed into its hole in Photo 38, now pointing backwards. This photo is actually there to show the shiny copper tubing ready to be dulled down with a coat of Vallejo Copper acrylic as it then appears in Photo 39, the protective tapes seen here are the shiny backing papers from a roll of luminous tape, but any kind of waxy paper would do the same job. The fitting has also been painted now and pushed fully down into the locating hole, the body and bottom nut are Vallejo Air Chrome and the output is Vallejo Transparent Red (as are all the oil pipey things it seems).
Photos 40 and 41 shows the actual thing on the real car, note also those copper pipes coming from the triple connector down to the brake callipers.
The last part of this section is to make the new cable attachment for that little triangular plate also seen clearly in those last two pics. As I said, in the kit this is simply the black tube from the cockpit area ‘plugged’ onto the pin on the triangle. For mine however, the vinyl tube has become a length of black 7/02 electronic wire which is fitted into a connector composed of two sizes of aluminium micro tubing and another home cast resin nut as seen in Photo 42. Unlike some of the metal tubing, these wouldn’t just slide one into the other so I had to drill out the ends of the bigger tubes and sand down the ends of the smaller one so that it just went in enough to super glue together. Photo 43 shows the procedure, I wire stripped the end of the black wire and twisted the seven cores together to form the inner cable (like a cycle brake cable) before threading on the aluminium collar and the chrome painted nut and gluing them in place. The tubular fitting parts were then similarly glued together before super gluing the end tube over the twisted cable as seen in the bottom pic. The other end simply push fitted and then glued over the original pin sticking out of the triangle (after some drilling out antics to make sure it could fit over it!) It is seen all attached in Photo 44 (along with the air scoop and gearbox radiator which I haven’t actually got to on here yet!)Blink
In the next instalment, I’d better get those air scoops done for real!
Until then Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.
Plymouth57 attached the following image(s):
Rear Brakes pic 6.JPG
Rear Brakes pic 7.JPG
Rear Brakes pic 8.JPG
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
roymattblack
#227 Posted : 17 December 2022 19:23:36

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Just amazing.
I think you are writing the 'guide' to building this kit.

Keep it coming. It's just SO interesting to follow.BigGrin
Markwarren
#228 Posted : 19 December 2022 08:42:43

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Amazing work Robin.Love

Mark
Plymouth57
#229 Posted : 24 December 2022 21:21:38

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Many thanks yet again to Roy and Mark, greatly appreciated!!Blushing
Carrying on from last time...
The component parts for the rear brake air scoops come, as shown in Photo 45 in Pack 67. It’s a very simple construction, just like the front air scoops, each one is composed of two parts which just clip together with no glue required. I have been trying to figure out for some time just exactly what those scoops are made of to try and get the most realistic finish on them. Different photos in the reference ‘library’ seem to show different finishes, I couldn’t decide if they were formed from sheet metal as some appeared or moulded plastic as they looked in others. One of the photos definitely seemed to show a join down the middle whilst others were quite smooth. As you can see in Photo 46 on the front scoop it is difficult to judge what they are made of! It wasn’t until I looked at all the photos together that I finally realised the answer – what I had thought was a coating of airborn muck sucked into the scoop (seen in Photo 46 and also on the rear scoops as well) is in fact the rough inner surface of a moulded fibre glass! That’s where the mould line came from. The front scoops appear to be just fibre glass whilst the larger rear ones have a metal panel along the top edge to take the captive nut that the outer bodywork bolts on to. I decided to remove the front scoops and give them both a coat of gloss black enamel instead of leaving them in the black plastic finish, (I had to go back to the first instructions to see how I’d fitted them on in the first place – fortunately just push fitted on!Cool ). I may go back and re-do them again in semi-gloss, they look a bit too glossy in the photos although they actually look great in real life. Photo 47 shows the front scoops with their new gloss finish and also a matt black enamel interior for good measure. The rear scoops were easier to do as I could paint the interior matt black before I clipped the two parts together and then glossed the outside. Photo 48 shows one of the rear scoops after the interior had been painted and then clipped together. There are two more details I’ll be adding in, compared to the basic kit finish, both can be seen (one of them only just) in Photo 49. The yellow arrow indicates what appears to be a protective skin of possibly asbestos to keep the heat of the exhaust pipes away from the fibreglass scoop. Harder to see in this shot is the hole in the centre of the top ‘lip’ of the scoop with the captive nut on the inside. To create the asbestos blanket I turned to a new material I hadn’t used before. I’ve had it for a while now after I saw it in the Hobbys (or was it Hobbies) catalogue and bought one out of curiosity. It’s a sheet of thin pewter designed to make either clothing or flags and banners for scale model figures etc. I cut off a strip from the end of the sheet, about an inch wide and six inches long and proceeded to scribe a series of parallel lines using a thick needle and steel ruler. It wasn’t the grooves I was after but the raised lines on the reverse. Once I had covered the strip with the grooves/lines , I then began again at right angles, creating a weave pattern simulating the asbestos material as shown in Photo 50.
Using a thin paper, I then traced out the shape of the blanket on one of the scoops and then used the paper shape as a pattern to cut out the weave embossed pewter, which, I nearly forgot, had been painted in Vallejo grey primer followed by a thinned Humbrol Black Enamel Wash and allowed to dry before the cutting out! This is shown in Photo 51 being stuck on with a couple large drops of super glue, the gloss black scoops have already been dry brushed with Vallejo light grey to highlight the pair of bolts at the base and the top and side edges just to give them a bit of ‘wear and tear’. The scoops are shown fitted on in Photos 52 to 54, the left hand one fitted tightly using just the kit push fit pins but the right hand scoop was a little loose and so I slightly widened the locating holes (although loose, the scoop wasn’t quite flat to the gearbox) and super glued the thing in place. I also gave the metal plate in the top of the scoop edge a little dull aluminium dry brushing and in Photo 54 you can see the holes drilled into that top edge, which were also dull aluminium-ed by sticking a paint tipped cocktail stick down into them, to simulate the metal fixings inside.
Finally for the pre-Christmas posting, Photo 55 shows the next part of the build – the gearbox radiator which comes complete in Pack 68.
So until the next time, Happy Modelling and a Merry Christmas to you All!


Robin.
Plymouth57 attached the following image(s):
Rear Brakes pic 9.JPG
Rear Brakes pic 10.JPG
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
Plymouth57
#230 Posted : 31 December 2022 20:43:27

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Photo 1 shows the actual thing on a real 312T4. As you can see here, the radiator is almost entirely a matt aluminium including the actual grill area. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get a clear enough view of that blue decal/sticker/label on the top to be able to create a DIY version, if I do, I’ll try and draw one up to print off. The first task as usual was to airbrush the entire main body in Vallejo Matt Black primer before airbrushing a coat of Vallejo Metal Colour Semi Matt Aluminium over that. Once it was dry I then used the Humbrol Blue Grey Enamel Wash to go over the grill sections (the one grill is a separate piece which was pressed into place after the wash treatment) together with ‘spot and flow’ wash applications to pick out the ridges and shelves in the surrounding body. The reference photos show the base or stand which the radiator is cable tied onto to be a darker shade of the aluminium base so I gave that section a more liberal coating with the blue grey, as you can just make out in Photo 2. The nozzles attached to the radiator moulding were airbrushed along with the rest of the body and given the same blue grey wash but the separate connectors were left in their kit chrome with the wash applied over that – fortunately they didn’t have too much flash in evidence so I didn’t need to do a sanding down and re-paint this time. Photo 3 shows the kit tubing attached to the radiator nozzles along with a new pair of cable ties made from the same 0.5mm black silicone rubber sheet. The straight tube, which passes down the side of the gearbox was left as per the kit but I later replaced the longer rear tube with a more authentic looking one as you’ll see later.
The radiator stand is press fitted into a pair of slots in the top of the gearbox as indicated in Photo 4. This is a fairly tight and firm fitting, whether it will require super gluing as well remains to be seen as forthcoming parts of the construction require the entire car to be worked on upside down!Blink I am currently working on creating a wooden support jig to hold the car in either way up, this won’t be that easy to achieve until the rear wheels are added on though. In Photo 5, the radiator is in position and the side tubing has been fitted into the left side of the gearbox (very fiddly to get that bottom connector to push into place!)Cursing
In the final Photo 5, the rear tubing has been fitted in. This passes from the right hand connector beneath the radiator to a hole in the left hand rear of the gearbox. The kit tubing supplied for this is the standard black vinyl tube which in this instance is too shiny to look right. As you can see in Photo 1 the actual rubber pipe (with the yellow lettering on it) is a much softer looking material. I managed to find a cheap source of something similar in the arts and crafts section on ebay – a silicone rubber tubing designed for making wrist bands etc, it has a slightly ‘knobbly’ texture, much like the hosing seen on full sized car engines. It was only a couple of pounds or so (without looking up my purchases on ‘my ebay’ for a whole five yards of the stuff, is called “Jewelry tube” and is 2mm in diameter. The hardest part was enlarging the hollow ends to get it to fit over the kit connector pins! (a combination of drilling it out and gentle heat followed by a brass pin when that didn't grip too well). As you'll see later on, the connector under the radiator needed some repair work during the 'upside down antics' (but it's all better now!)
In the next instalment, I come across the first bad breakage incident with the first parts of the rear suspension system.
Until then Happy Modelling and an equally Happy New Year to you All!

Robin.
Plymouth57 attached the following image(s):
Gearbox radiator pic 1.JPG
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
bfam4t6
#231 Posted : 02 January 2023 00:43:25

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Still a crazy awesome build Robin. Thanks for continuing to share it!
-Dustin

“Details make perfection, and perfection is not a detail.”
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Porsche 2.7 RS


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Plymouth57
#232 Posted : 10 January 2023 21:28:38

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Many thanks for that Dustin, well appreciated!Blushing It's certainly going crazily at the moment - some breakages to rectify which then led to other breakages which were also fixed!Blink Currently I'm working on the old silicone moulds again to cast a set of rear wheel hubs to fit into the spare tyres as I did with the front - except these are bigger!BigGrin

Before getting into the rear suspension proper, there are a couple (well, three actually) of things to tidy up. These consist of the long cable along the left side of the chassis which is the anti roll control coming from the very front of the car, the other very long cable running along the right hand side which comes from the instrument panel to the gearbox and finally, the rest of the gear change control rod which starts at the gear lever in the cockpit and runs to the back of the driver’s compartment before re-emerging into the engine bay and on back to the gearbox. I’ve had to wait until starting the rear suspension because the right hand part of the strut assembly is also a part of the gearbox! Photo 1 shows the contents of Pack 71 which contains that strut/gearbox piece together with the three Type G screws which screw it to the gearbox (as usual, the screws come with a spare!)Cool The oblong slot in the metal casting takes the gear shift rod which, strangely, doesn’t come with the right hand strut which it fits into, but with the left hand one in Pack 69! I’ve altered the order of the packs a bit here as the kit supplies the parts to fit all of the left hand strut on first and then the right, I’ve pictured them going on together so as not to have to duplicate the identical procedure. So, Photo 2 illustrates the left hand inner strut screwed in position whilst Photo 3 shows the slightly larger right hand version, (ignore that black cable curving down under the strut – that’s one of the tidy up bits coming soon! First of all we have the black cable running along the whole of the left side of the chassis – that’s what it is supposed to do, the kit actually has it coming from the instrument panel part way along but as mentioned earlier, I diverted that one into the thick rubber conduit running back to the engine bay after cutting off most of its length. The new cable is a length of black insulated 7/02 electrical wire which is wire-stripped at the back end and twisted to create the inner wire cable and super glued into that extended arm on the triangular plate on the top of the gearbox as seen in Photo 4. The wire then travels back along the side of the engine bay running along the groove in the air intake frame (into which it was super glued) shown in Photo 5 and is then run along the top of the big rubber conduit to which it is cable tied with the 0.5mm black rubber strips (Photo 6) before finally finishing up in the black rubber sleeve previously glued to the inside of the chassis in front of the foot pedals as shown in Photo 7. This then ‘connects’ the cable to the anti roll mechanism attached to the right hand front wheel.
Now back to the right hand strut. In Photo 8 you can see the gear change rod fitted in place, into the oblong slot on the left and out of shot, into the firewall on the right. Only one problem – it’s supposed to be straight!Crying Whilst the front gear shift rod in the cockpit is metal, the rear half of it with the threaded connector moulded on is plastic – in my case, warped plastic!Blink I’d waited until now just in case inserting the two ends into their slots/holes had also managed to straighten out the curve, but as you can see here – um, not exactly! I found some aluminium micro tubing of the exact same diameter in my store so I decided to replace the shaft part and keep the detailed bit on the end. Photos 9 and 10 illustrate the task involved. Unlike some of my brass micro tubing, the brass rod I had available didn’t simply slide down inside of the tube so the first job was to carefully drill out the aluminium until the rod could fit in far enough to glue in place as a core for the joint to follow. I then cut off the moulded plastic gearbox connector and drilled out the end of that to accept the same brass rod, glued that in place and then slid the aluminium tube over the brass to create a new, straight metal rod. The aluminium was polished up a little with steel wool and the kit-chromed plastic connector was given the usual Blue Grey Enamel Wash as seen in the bottom picture. The finished replacement rod was then super glued into position as shown in Photo 11 (which, as I hadn’t been following the kit instructions to the letter as regards fitting which to what and when, proved to be ‘unfortunate’!)Blushing
As for the right hand cable, this should have been done back in section 66 (Pack 66 which included the brake callipers along with the extension piece of cable and a joiner. I’d left it off until this point because I knew I would be working in extra bits like the new gear change rod etc. This cable, like the anti roll one on the left is also supposed to follow the groove along the air intake shelf, in the final sections of the build, there is actually a piece of double sided tape provided with which to fix it into place. The only problem is, if you follow the instructions to the letter, the joiner, which is a little thicker than the cables, ends up exactly in the middle of the groove which is a) more difficult to fix down and b) according to the reference photos, there isn’t a joint in that location. This is where that third cable from the instrument panel comes in handy! By using that piece of pvc tubing instead of the supplied piece I was able to move the joiner back towards the front of the engine bay by cutting off a section of the front cable as shown in Photo 12 (the arrow illustrates the joining piece). As you might notice, this was actually done before the new gear shift rod went in. The new section of cable was fitted with the end connector first which plugs into the gearbox side (shown in Photo 15) and then run back to the air intake shelf groove and super glued in place before pushing onto the joiner and the now shortened front cable. Both this cable and the anti-roll on the other side were given white rubber cable ties (most of the reference photos show these as white though a couple are black) as seen in Photo 13. Finally, just to show it’s not all plain sailing, Photo 14 illustrates what happens when you grip the wrong place when trying to push something else into its locating hole! The rear callipers came away from the gearbox (with an awful sounding ‘snap’!)Blink Fortunately, the replacement copper-aluminium brake lines held the unit on without suffering any damage and I simply re-super glued it back into place without any problem. This is one of the problems I’m finding with super detailing in this scale – this thing is getting bigger and bigger and heavier and heavier. Building it ‘by the book’ means there’s lots of places you can hold it without damaging the tough manufacturers paint and chrome finishes – with everything either re-painted in much more delicate media, together with lots of extra ‘non load bearing’ additions, you have to be extremely careful where you hold it – which is why, in the near future you’ll be seeing my DIY ‘dry-dock’ to hold the entire thing safely while I work on the underside! “Now turn the model upside down”? No Way!BigGrin
Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.
Plymouth57 attached the following image(s):
Rear suspension pic 1.JPG
Rear suspension pic 2.JPG
Rear Suspension pic 3.JPG
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
roymattblack
#233 Posted : 12 January 2023 09:22:33

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Yet more mind-boggling stuff. I really enjoy your updates.
Keep them coming. Love
goddo
#234 Posted : 13 January 2023 12:35:03

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Amazing stuff Robin.
An inspiration for all of us to go that extra mile to real enhance our models.
Chris
Markwarren
#235 Posted : 15 January 2023 10:23:31

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Very nice work Robin.Love

Mark
Plymouth57
#236 Posted : 22 January 2023 21:25:25

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Many thanks again to Roy, Chris and Mark for those kind words!Blushing

Things are proceeding nicely at the moment, all four wheels are now on (despite the trials and tribulations which you'll see in the coming instalments and the 'beast' is now sitting in her working jig which allows me to work on her right way up or upside down!BigGrin
So without further ado, (I've had more than enough of them lately) here's the first of the problem pieces!Blink

The next part of the rear suspension is the pair of ‘upper and lower wishbones’. These come in two packs, Pack 70, illustrated in Photo 16 and the right hand pair, which come later in Pack 72 shown in Photo 21. This is where I hit my first real case of broken parts. The set up is supposed to consist of three pieces, as you can see in Photo 16, there are three pieces (not counting the screws), unfortunately that is because I accidentally left out one part – a plastic strut which clips onto the top of the metal silver and black upper wishbone (you can see that bit resting in position in the next photo). The silver and black wishbone is supposed to be a single piece but in my case, the black arm or strut has been broken off somewhere along the line as shown in close up in Photo 17. The only way I could see of fixing this part was to drill out the broken ends and insert a strong metal pin before super gluing the parts back together. Glue on its own wouldn’t do in this case as this part does end up taking the full weight of the rear of the car when completed. Photo 18 shows that darned useful mini bench drill at work drilling out a 1.5mm diameter hole into the black strut. This was followed by an identical hole into the wishbone part, which was then fitted with a short length of 1.5mm spring steel rod (essentially piano wire!) This was a very tight fit, the rod was tapped in by a small hammer taking extreme care that the wishbone was fully supported behind (one breakage is quite enough thank you)BigGrin and then super thin super glue added for good measure. That spring steel is absolutely awful stuff to cut through, after many minutes with a junior hacksaw I resorted to a diamond disk cutter on the rotary tool, and even that took its time!Blink Eventually, after equal care in tapping the strut down onto the pin I managed to get a good strong repair joint as seen in Photo 19 – the damaged one is on the left (I think!)
Photo 21 shows the right hand wishbone set – together with that plastic piece this time. The only difference between the two packs, apart from this one being in one piece thank goodness, is that plastic oval bracket seen between the arms of the black lower wishbone. That is used to secure both lower wishbones to the underside of the chassis when the suspension goes on. Most of the reference photos show the upper wishbones to be a darker metal than the chromed kit parts (one photo does show them silver however), almost a gun metal colour and I had something similar in my stocks – the Vallejo Metal Colour Jet Exhaust which I’d bought for the shadowing in the cockpit area. They were given the Vallejo Black Primer coat followed by a couple of coats of the Jet Exhaust resulting in a really nice finish shown in Photo 22. The only other addition was a thin application of Humbrol Rust Enamel Wash along the seam lines and ridges. Photo 23 shows a quick test fit of the left hand wishbone which brought out another little oversight – the instructions said to screw the wishbones onto to the upper brackets before screwing the brackets to the gearbox and because the screw goes in from the front, there isn’t any room to get a screwdriver in there if they are already on, (as, of course I'd gone and done), so off the brackets had to come. Remember I said I’d super glued the new gear change control rod into the upper strut? Fortunately I hadn’t glued the firewall end, so the whole lot came off together as seen in Photo 24, the arrow shows the screw that fixes on the wishbone. Finally in Photo 25, both wishbones are fitted on. And that revealed the next possible problem!Blink
All will be revealed in the next instalment, until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.





Plymouth57 attached the following image(s):
Rear Suspension pic 4.JPG
Rear Suspension pic 5.JPG
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
roymattblack
#237 Posted : 23 January 2023 12:08:03

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A great fix there. Well done.
I'm sure we have all been in that boat at one time or another.
Yet another epic update.
Plymouth57
#238 Posted : 01 February 2023 21:34:29

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Well, I can't tell you how much of an honour this is to be in the same category as Sticky Wicket's masterpiece!Blushing Blushing Blushing Mind you, I had the same heart stopping moment when I thought my computer was playing up until I realised the diary had moved!Blink
Anyway, things are going much smoother now that I'm past the self-inflicted damages section as you'll see in the forthcoming instalments - this one is just leading up to the great suspension debacle!BigGrin

Carrying on, Photo 26 shows the two upper wishbones from a different angle. The one thing that was giving me a little concern was that the broken and repaired left side was, once screwed into place, about a mm forward of the undamaged right hand one. The repair shouldn’t be causing that as the glued back section merely sticks straight out but although I had checked the rest of the struts against each other and couldn’t find any differences, was the broken one also very slightly warped? I would have to wait until the other parts were screwed and bolted into place to find out for sure. (Spoiler alert - Yep it was!)Blink
Photo 27 shows the next part to be completed in Pack 73. This is composed of the rear section of the suspension bodywork which encloses the two spring units and is composed of three plastic pieces – the main body and a pair of covers for the inside part. The two outermost holes fit over the centre shafts of the wishbones and are then screwed into place, locking the wishbones into position (hopefully!) Also included along with the screws are a pair of tiny plastic bolt ends which cleverly encase a strong magnet. Photo 28, excuse the off focus, shows the rear body test fitted in position just to make sure that left hand wishbone would actually fit, this was taken before the re-paint (note the difference between the plastic part and the Vallejo metal colour gold gearbox), the arrow points to that screw hole into the wishbone. Those little magnetic bolts are seen attached to a steel six inch ruler in Photo 29 which made it very easy to give them the Humbrol Blue Grey Enamel Wash and once dry they were just pushed into the two screw holes where they clicked into position over the screws as shown in Photo 30. The rear plastic body has by now been airbrushed black followed by gold and drybrushed with a gold and white mix to highlight the ‘um, highlights as well as repainting the various bolt heads with Vallejo Chrome followed by the Blue Grey washes.
With the rear body unit in place I could now add in the lower wishbones. These are metal castings finished in a semi gloss black as seen on the top right in Photo 31. The one in the left foreground has been polished over with Uschi Iron Polishing powder. The strange thing with this finish is that it looks different from different angles and lighting! (At least in photos, with the naked eye it appears more uniform!) In Photo 32 the two lower wishbones are being fitted over the two pins on the underside of the gearbox, the raised cylinder in between the pins takes the screw which secures the bracket in place, fixing the wishbones to the gearbox as illustrated in Photo 33. With the lower wishbones secured, the last part of the rear suspension to go on are the spring cylinders which come in Packs 74 and 75 and are shown in the final Photo 34.
Fitting those cylinders in (and all the problems that came with them) is coming next.
Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.


Plymouth57 attached the following image(s):
Rear Suspension pic 6.JPG
Rear Suspension pic 7.JPG
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
Plymouth57
#239 Posted : 10 February 2023 21:44:36

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The pair of rear springs is shown in Photo 35, the top one after the application of Humbrol Blue Grey Enamel Wash and the bottom one in the standard kit finish. The half expected problems began whilst trying to fit the left spring into the rocking arm. The instructions tell you to fit the top of the spring in first, sliding it up from underneath and passing the screw through the anti-roll link then through the rear flange of the arm, through the hole in the spring end and finally through the inner or forward flange of the rocker arm. Trying to get that screw to fit through all the above was a battle to say the least! The anti roll link was ok and the first flange eventually went in but during the attempt to get the spring and rear flange to line up I didn’t notice that the arm wasn’t exactly lined up – instead of the screw passing through the flange it was actually pressing against it with the result that the rear flange cracked as shown by the arrow in Photo 36, at the same time, the pressure exerted also tore off the bottom of the plastic anti roll link! The broken link is shown in Photo 37. I did try just super gluing the link back together and it did hold, right up until I stupidly couldn’t resist the temptation to see if the suspension did actually still work – when it immediately snapped off again!BlinkBlushing
There was nothing else for it but to try and fabricate a replacement link somehow. The results are shown in Photos 38 to 40. The link was fashioned from a pair of brass rods, bent into a ring and soldered to disguise the join. These were super glued into a length of aluminium micro tube which was first held in the chuck of the mini drill and rings filed into it with a diamond dust file like using a lathe (if I had one!) Once painted over with Vallejo Duraluminium and Blue Grey washed, the result wasn’t too bad at all. The right hand spring went on a lot easier because I reversed the instructions and screwed the bottom of the spring into the chassis first – this made the top joints line up far easier and the screw went through each layer in turn with no problems. Whether this was due to doing the screws in reverse or the left arm was slightly warped I don’t know, but it got on all right eventually (I would still recommend doing that bottom screw first though!)Cool
The final parts for the rear wheel suspensions, comes in Packs 76 and 77 as shown in Photos 41 and 42. Each one consists of a little semi axle, a metal casting called a stub axle and two central wheel hubs, the semi axle and wheel hubs are plastic. There seems to have been a design change during production here as we get the original hubs as shown in the instruction pictures and a slightly different set in a little poly bag entitled ‘Replacement’. The difference is that the original hub has a pair of locating lugs running down the sides (as shown in Photo 46) whereas the replacement hub has done away with those and is completely smooth. I did think at first that the new hub was a single piece moulding where the original comes in two parts which are pressed together, however in actual fact the new one is also a push fit two parter which just happens to come already ‘pushed’!BigGrin One of the metal cast stub axles was actually slightly defective as shown in Photo 43 where the arrow is pointing to a slight blemish in the edge of the inner rim, it should look like the other one shown in Photo 44. After checking with a dry fit however the blemish is virtually hidden by the tyre so no problem there. Photo 46 was taken earlier during the re-spray of all the gold coloured rear parts which is when the metal stub axles were black primed and Vallejo Metal Colour Gold airbrushed. The chrome plated plastic hubs were given the Blue Grey Enamel Wash, Photo 47 showing the difference between the washed hub parts on the left and the kit finish on the right.
Photo 48 illustrates the left semi axle and inner hub in position after the semi was pushed into the semi-circular hole in the centre of the brake disk. This is slightly different from the instructions which have the hub parts fixed onto the metal stub axle first, I found it easier to put the hub on the semi axle first, pushing that into place and then adding on the metal casting which just slides between the arms of the suspension frame where it is secured by three bolts indicated by the arrows in Photo 49. One word of caution here (actually its quite a few words), the bolts are tightened up with the four way spanner provided earlier, however, that spanner is, shall we say, not made of the hardest metal known to man!Blink In doing up the left axle I managed to virtually strip the smallest spanner until it just spun around on the bolt heads! Fortunately, after seeing various 3.2mm spanners on modeller’s supply sites at horrendous prices I came across an ebay site selling ex MOD 3.2mm x 4mm spanners for around £5 (what the heck the MOD has that requires a 3.2mm spanner is anybody’s guess) but it was a Godsend for this project and is shown in the top of Photo 50.
The other reason for Photo 50 and 51 is to illustrate another little change to the build procedure, which I found very useful. When screwing in the first of the metal stub axles, getting the bolts to go in was extremely difficult. These are the Type I ‘screws’ which are actually a form of self tapping bolt, tightened up with that 3.2mm spanner again. I discovered it was far easier to insert those bolts whilst the stub axle was still off the suspension, screwing them in as far as they could go and then removing them again leaving the hole in the metal tapped with a thread as shown in Photo 51, (before I then countersunk the rim to clean it up a bit!) With all three holes tapped it was then much easier to insert the Type I bolts in again through the suspension arms and tighten them up fully. Photo 52 shows the right hand stub axle in the process of screwing in those bolts. There was one last little ‘accident’ to put right during the suspension work as shown in Photo 53, which was taken before the stubs went on – during all the screwing around (pardon the image)BigGrin I put too much pressure near the gearbox radiator and managed to break off the right hand oil pipe connector! The oil pipe itself puts too much torque on the broken joint to simply glue it back in place but fortunately the radiator itself wasn’t glued down (although it had a pretty limited movement due to the other pipe on the left underside). I managed to drill a small hole up into the broken connector and also into the other part of it still on the end of the rubber tube and glue in a length of brass rod to act as a solid core to glue onto. This was cut to size, pushed up into the radiator and super glued back in place neatly. The final photo of the rear suspension is Photo 54 and shows both stub axles finally in place, all connected up with the semi axles and rear brake disks. And I’m never touching that area again!Cursing
The next section in the build schedule is the rear wheels and since I’ve got half a photo page left I’ll start them here! I’ve jumped ahead to Pack 79, which contains the parts for the left rear wheel hub as shown in Photo 1 of the new section. This is because, just like the front wheels I’m going to make resin cast copies of the wheel hubs so I can use the racing slick tyres as a part of any large display base in the future. The first part is actually in Pack 78 with the rear tyre (slick version) but I’ve had to jump way ahead to the last part of the instructions to grab the pair of wet weather tyres for my version. The rear hub consists of seven parts plus two screws and a bolt. The big conical hub (or rim body) is plastic as are the four retaining bolts (shown on the sprue here) and the central hubcap, whilst the gold coloured inner hub (or rear rim closure) is metal. The black screws are Type A’s and the securing bolt is a Type L.
Unlike the front wheels where I cast the retaining bolts as a separate push in part, I decided to push them in on the hub body first and mould the whole thing in one casting. Photo 2 shows the hub body with the four bolts in place (three of them visible here). I then glued the hub to a square of white melamine board using the Deluxe Card Glue around the outer rim (after first drilling two holes to take the pins on the inner rim before realising if I made the mould that way up the resin casting, or the original for that matter wouldn’t be able to be removed from the rubber!Blushing ) After the hub was glued in place I then built up the Lego brick box and secured that around the hub with masking tape on the outside, before mixing up the silicone rubber with the catalyst at 2% and pouring the rubber in, both around the hub and down inside it as well until it was completely submerged as seen in Photo 3.
In the following instalment, some ‘adapting’ of the finished mould before getting on with a second mould for the metal inner hub to complete the task.
Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.
Plymouth57 attached the following image(s):
Rear Suspension pic 8.JPG
Rear Suspension pic 9.JPG
Rear Suspension pic 10.JPG
Rear Suspension pic 11.JPG
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
Markwarren
#240 Posted : 11 February 2023 09:57:05

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Very nice work Robin as usual.looking like the real thing.Love Love

Mark
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