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 Rank: Super-Elite        Groups: Official Builds, Administrators, Moderator, Global Forum Support, Registered Joined: 04/06/2011 Posts: 4,211 Points: 12,778 Location: ipswich
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Another superb update. Keep it coming. 
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 Rank: Vice-Master  Groups: Registered
Joined: 26/05/2014 Posts: 912 Points: 2,773 Location: East Sussex UK
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Very nicely done Robin, the steering wheel looks just like the one on my car, unfortunately mine's not a Ferrari 312 T4  Building: DelPrado HMS Victory. Building: DeAgostini Sovereign Of The Seas.
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Just catching up Robin, you are doing a fabulous job. All that research is paying off.  Mark
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 Rank: Master Groups: Registered
Joined: 21/04/2011 Posts: 1,038 Points: 3,140 Location: Buckinghamshire
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Good work Robin. Great attention to detail.
As an aside, did you see the documentary about Ferrari on TV this week? I think it's been shown more than once before.
I never realised what a callous and heartless man Ferrari was back in the F1 days of Hawthorn, Moss, Collins etc.
Nothing wrong with being a strong business character but he went past the level of acceptance.
Shame because I love their cars. Sorry, very off-topic I know.
Chris
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Many thanks again to Mark, Roy, Paul, Mark (again) and Chris! There's so many Marks on here I thought I would 'mark out' (sorry) Mark from Admin - it was either Big Mark or THE Mark and the second made it sound that you had a hitman after you!  I missed that documentary Chris but the Haynes Manual on the 312 does hint a lot at his ruthlessness in the text!  Paul: love it! Next time you are down I'll bring out the airbrush and give it the once over! Mark(2): you betcha! The gear selector parts come as shown in Photo 1 in Pack 34. These consist of four parts: three for the gear selector and one for the anti roll bar release lever. From top left to right we have the selector body which clips onto the chassis, the anti roll bar lever which also clips on, on the opposite side and the gear stick itself. All of these are plastic mouldings. Below is the selector shaft which runs from the selector, back through the cockpit and into the rear bulkhead, this is a steel rod. Much earlier on, as I was acquiring my library of reference photos I decided to upgrade this section. Although I did come across a single photo showing the selector body just as it is in the kit, the majority of photos (and also the picture in the Tamiya instructions) showed the selector with slots in the top giving what appear to be five gears. Also, the shaft of the gear stick itself was much thinner than the version supplied in the kit. Overall, the changes would make the selector look more visually interesting and functional. Photo 2 shows the effect I wanted – slots for the stick to fit into and the thinner shaft. On top of that, some of the photos also showed the gear stick with a dark brown (wooden?) knob instead of the gloss black kit one (some others were black however). Also shown in that photo is the two tone effect on the gear shaft running back. I’m not sure if the darker bit up front is actually running down inside the steel shaft or if its just a different colour at the selector body. The first task after the usual soapy bath was to use the Humbrol Blue Grey Enamel Wash with a strip of masking tape wound around the rod to stain the end as shown in Photo 3. I then wound a thin strip of aluminium tape around the rod to create the rim (just visible in Photo 2), it occurred to me afterwards that I could have wound that tape around first and then stained the rod without the need for the masking tape!  ( Photos 4 and 5.) The rod was then push fitted into the selector body as shown in Photo 6 – that was another tight fit! Then, in order to accentuate the depth of the selector body underneath where the slots were going, the inside of the ‘well’ was painted with ‘The Army Painter’ Warpaints – Rough Iron acrylic as seen in Photo 7. From a scrap piece of thin plasticard, I cut off a few miniscule strips and super glued three of them into the top edge of the pre-painted well as shown in Photo 8. That was a real test of my thinnest tweezers and a steady hand, not to mention eyesight! Then it was the turn of the gear lever. The kit part is shown in Photo 9. I had to cut this into three parts, the knob and the discarded shaft in the middle and also the bottom lug which I needed to be able to still fit the lever into the body. The new parts are shown in Photo 10 and super glued together in Photo 11. The new shaft was a length of brass wire with the bottom end bent slightly to fit down into the drilled out lug and the top into the drilled out knob. Using the cut out section of the old shaft I could make sure the new version was the same height overall. The top of the selector was then painted with Vallejo Chrome, blending the plasticard pieces into the body, the knob was re-painted with Mig Dark Tracks which was a lovely close fit to the dark wood effect and when dry, the gear stick was gently and carefully pushed down into the selector body as shown in Photo 12. If you look closely at Photo 11 you might notice the rough finish at the base of the gear stick. I hadn’t noticed that, it’s the bottom of the brass wire just standing proud and I discovered later when trying to fit the selector to the chassis that I had to file that down flat – the bottom of the lug actually rests on the chassis ledge and anything sticking out stops the selector going down flush! Photos 13 to 15 show the cosmetic changes to the anti roll bar release lever. Photo 13 is the kit finish, 14 shows the details picked out with Black Humbrol Enamel Wash and the knob painted as per the gear stick in Dark Tracks and Photo 15 shows the finished part push fitted (and glued) into the left hand chassis top. Finally, two close up views of the selector slotted into place on the right hand side of the cockpit. The gold finish on the lower part of the selector was also given the black enamel wash to pick out the nooks and crannies, Photos 16 and 17. In the next instalment it’s down to the very front of the cockpit and the three foot pedals. (Talk about fiddly!) 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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Very nice work Robin, looks soooo much better than the stock part. You really notched it up a gear in this instalment.   Mark
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
Joined: 26/05/2014 Posts: 912 Points: 2,773 Location: East Sussex UK
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Hi level of detail yet again Robin, that gear lever looks so much better, nicely done mate. Regards Paul Building: DelPrado HMS Victory. Building: DeAgostini Sovereign Of The Seas.
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Rank: Administration  Groups: Administrator, Administrators, Forum Support Team, Global Forum Support, Global Forum Support Team, Moderator, Official Builds Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 1,906 Points: 5,734 Location: UK
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I just need to figure out how to create a single tap keystroke that says FANTASTIC!
I was just telling my wife that it’s a bit weird, seeing my handwriting from “over there…”
Best,
Mark
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Rank: Super-Elite Groups: Official Builds, Administrators, Moderator, Global Forum Support, Registered Joined: 04/06/2011 Posts: 4,211 Points: 12,778 Location: ipswich
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Once again, another great update. I'm sure there are many builders of this kit who will be copying a lot of your ideas.
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Rank: Master   Groups: Registered
Joined: 25/11/2018 Posts: 1,256 Points: 3,791 Location: Southeast UK
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Another great treatise on how to take this already great kit to higher level Robin.
Very well done as always! 
Kev
Per Ardua Ad Astra
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Many thanks again to Mark, Paul, 'Big Mark' (that must be very strange seeing your handiwork coming up each time!), Roy and Kev for those kind words! Mark: Here come the foot pedals ... I've got a clutch of ideas coming along as long as I don't 'brake' anything along the way, better accelerate the pace though and put the pedal to the metal as they say! As shown in Photo 1, the foot pedal parts come in Pack 35 (Big Mark said so on the label!) From left to right we have the gold coloured top plate which traps the moveable pedals in place, a small bracket which fits on the left side of the chassis and might be some sort of foot rest, the three actual pedals and below them a pack of screws (two plus a spare) which secure the top plate to the chassis floor and a pack of three springs. I was considering some extra work on the largest of the pedals, the one in the centre, as some of the reference photos show this one to have a series of holes in the side flange as seen in Photo 2. I did think that this made the pedal more interesting visually but in the end I decided to leave it solid for the simple reason that the Tamiya kit also had it solid (the perforated version could be a later type to reduce weight). The Tamiya kit also had another extra compared to this one – the instructions have a thin black wire or tube coming from the right hand pedal and running up the interior right side of the cockpit. I may well drill out a hole in the cockpit bulkhead and add that in before the lower cockpit hull goes on and prevents any further access to the bulkhead. That black cable may be the same as the wire cable seen in Photo 2 to the right of the last pedal. I’ve also just realised that the black cable itself is shown clearly in Photo 2 in the last instalment on the gear changer! Photo 3 illustrates the finish on the kit parts – the metal pedals are a shiny silver with gold or brass arms, most of them had a little ‘overspray’ of the silver onto the brass parts as seen here. The first task therefore was to carefully re-paint the brass arms with Vallejo Air Bright Brass applied with a fine brush (I’m nowhere near that good with an airbrush!) The arms are shown painted in Photo 4 and Photo 5 is a composite showing the kit finish above and the re-paint below with the silver parts given a wash of the Humbrol Blue-Grey Enamel Wash to make the grip details stand out more and turn the silver more ‘steel’. The brass painted arms were then given a wash of the Humbrol Black Enamel Wash to pick out the ribbing down the shaft before adding the springs as shown in Photo 6. The three pedals are then inserted into the set of grooves in the chassis floor with the ends of the springs dropping into the circular depressions as seen in Photo 7. I was intending to airbrush the brassy coloured top plate with the Vallejo Metal Colour Gold which was quite handy as the front edge of the plate (which is clearly visible when looking into the finished cockpit) had a nasty bit of flash as can be seen in Photo 8, this was sanded off as shown in the bottom half of the pic before airbrushing the piece with Vallejo Black Primer followed by the Metal Colour Gold. Once dry the ridges and the nut/bolt detail was picked out with the Black enamel wash ( Photo 9). The underside of the plate is seen in Photo 10, the two pegs fit into the two holes seen in the earlier pic whilst the two circular ‘drums’ accept the pair of screws which come up through the floor to secure the plate in place. This was a lot harder than the instructions would have you believe! The plate was such a tight fit against the chassis sides that I had to literally bend the wall apart to get the thing to slide forward into place, having repainted the chassis I couldn’t risk scratching the finish off! As the plate is screwed in tight I would probably recommend sanding the two sides off a little to make the fitting easier. The three pedals (and footrest) are seen after securing in place in Photo 11, it’s the one on the left, which may be getting a cable addition before long. The final Photo 12 shows them again, from the inside. Having read ahead through the instructions, the next few instalments involve the biggest and heaviest section so far, - the bottom half of the chassis. The next time the cockpit appears is when the steering wheel frame is finally screwed in place so I’ve jumped ahead and done that already – once that was permanently in place I was able to finish off the fire suppression system once and for all (and in the process, discovered more parts to it) so that will be the next instalment to follow! 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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As mentioned previously, the next few instalments will be based on adding various details to the bottom section of the chassis and the next time the upper section appears in the instructions it’s time to screw in the steering frame before the two chassis sections are fixed together. I was able to jump ahead therefore and get that frame fixed in allowing the Fire Suppression system to be completed. Photo 1 illustrates one of the two screws inserted under the frame bar and screwed home tightly. As you might remember, I’d created some scratch built fire extinguisher nozzles in resin, a ‘T’ shaped one for the front of the cockpit and a single version for the end of the tube dangling down the driver’s back. I hit a slight problem when trying to fit the translucent white pvc tube into the enlarged hole in the chassis top – the darned thing was overly stiff and didn’t want to bend in the right places! (This meant that whatever I used to form the securing band with would have to be pretty strong as it would be under constant strain.) On a last check of the reference photo, a section of which is shown in Photo 2, I suddenly realised that the white tube wasn’t actually just a white tube at all – if you look closely at the blown-up Photo 3, you can just make out that the tube is covered in a woven material – probably the same asbestos material that kitchen fire blankets come in. I fortunately had just the thing to simulate that coarse weave in a tubular form – various diameters of Mylar ‘tubing’ from an ebay fishing tackle store. At least I thought it was tubing, it turned out it’s actually a solid ‘cord’ with string down the centre! I bought this to simulate the silvery fireproof conduit covers that run down the sides of the car with various tubes and cables inside in some of the reference pics. Photo 4 shows the roll of Mylar, this was the thinnest one I’d bought and was just right for the diameter of the extinguisher pipe. The one problem with this stuff is that the Mylar isn’t a solid material, its composed of loads of silver filaments wound around that string core and once you try to cut it to length they all start to unravel! Fortunately the ‘tube’ has to fit inside the resin nozzle, and the solution was to simply paint the Mylar with Vallejo Matt White acrylic, let it dry completely and then cut off the length required before gluing it into the nozzle as seen in Photo 5. The paint made it considerably stiffer than the pliable silver Mylar but at least it didn’t fall to pieces! The hole in the chassis top had already been enlarged to take the pvc tube and the white Mylar fitted down in there fine. Photo 6 shows the first attempt at securing the fire extinguisher to the steering wheel frame. This was a thin strip of self adhesive aluminium tape wound around the frame with a thicker aluminium strip curled into a three quarter ring glued over the tube (the tube being super-glued to the tape as well). With the naked eye it didn’t look too bad but once I took the close up photo I noticed the torn face on the tape. After two evenings of that niggling at the back of my mind I decided it was going to have to come off – it would annoy me for the rest of the build knowing I should have done it better/neater/right! The vastly improved version is seen in Photo 7. Much neater and the right colour as well! This time I cut a tiny slice of Decra Led lead strip, wound it around a dowel the same diameter as the frame and sliced it to size. Then it was painted with Mig Satin Black acrylic and super-glued around the frame where the tape had been removed from. The aluminium ring around the white Mylar was still stuck in place so that was also painted satin black and once dry the Mylar was glued back in the same position. Both these photos show the nice ‘weave’ effect of the painted Mylar. While I was checking and double checking back through the reference photos I noticed a couple glimpses of that same turquoise green colour and on closer inspection discovered another two fire suppression nozzles sticking out the back of the fire wall pointing directly over the engine! Photo 8 shows the pair of them, the top pic is beside the oil expansion tank and the bottom one is to the left of the alternator. There were actually two versions of the bottom one, a simple nozzle sticking out of the firewall and the one shown here which protrudes further out with a connection going off towards the other nozzle – I went for the simple one! Thankfully I hadn’t yet screwed the firewall to the engine so off it came and the positions of the two nozzles were marked and drilled out as seen in Photo 9 . Having recently bought (ebay’ed) a set of styrene tubes coming in a selection of diameters (thought they might come in handy down the line), I selected one that just fitted into the hollowed out back of the nozzles and cut off a couple of short pieces which were glued into the holes in the firewall as shown in Photo 10. The gluing was not exactly one of my neatest jobs! ( Photo 11) This didn’t matter of course as the rear of the firewall is completely hidden from sight once it is screwed onto the chassis. I simply squirted some tube polystyrene glue into the hole from the back and pushed the two tubes in, ensuring that they stayed level as the glue set. I haven’t used a tube of poly glue for years! Anyone remember those little aluminium tubes of glue that came with early model kits – was that Airfix? (Or those little clear flexible things that you had to pierce with a pin which then squirted everywhere!) Ah! That was real modelling! Once the two tubes were set in place the nozzles had a tiny drop of the same poly glue down the back and were pressed into place as seen in Photos 12 and 13. One thing that I have been playing around with during the build is how to get a (cheap) method of making scale sized cable ties to put around the various tubes and cables, I think that’s Zip ties over the other side! The smallest conventional cable ties are 2.5mm across the tail, which is far too big on the model. There is a smaller one yet, at 1.8mm across which I hadn’t tried due to the cost (100 x 2.5mm about £1.99, 100 x 1.8mm – over £8!) In the end I did try a pack but even they were still out of scale. I tried shaving down the ratchet box to see if that would work ( Photo 20) but still not ideal. When I bought some of the rubber tubing for making the conduits out of, the seller very helpfully added a selection of his other sizes and colours as an advert as shown in Photo 14. Looking at those I suddenly thought up an idea which, as it turned out is perfect for making up the ties IF that is, you haven’t already fixed the tubes or cables in situ at both ends! For this method, they need to be free at one end. Photo 15 shows the start of the procedure. A short ring of the rubber tube is sliced off with a safety razor and the tubing threaded through as illustrated in Photo 16. I struggled with getting the second tube through until I came up with using the thick needle to pass through the ring before sticking it into the end of the second tube and then withdrawing it back through, pulling the tube with it as shown in Photo 17. This might twist the ring as seen here but teasing it back straight again is easy enough. I put three rings around the pair of fuel lines coming from the instrument panel, two are shown in Photo 18. Once they were where I wanted them, a little drop of super glue secured them to the top of the chassis. I then cut a thin strip of plasticard and cut off three tiny rectangles which were stuck onto some masking tape to hold them down whilst they were painted matt black. Once dry they were lifted off and super glued on top of the rings to simulate the ratchet parts of the cable tie as seen in Photo 19. Finally, in Photo 21, we have the contents of Pack 37, which consists of another part of the fire extinguisher system (three parts on the top right) and parts for the brake fluid tanks system. I had been toying with some upgrade ideas for those tanks, which may or may not have come about. However, those upgrades are now definitely ongoing – it’s not obvious in this photo, but two of the parts are actually broken (actually one was broken, the other was miss-formed and wouldn’t have fitted on! All will be explained in 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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Rank: Super-Elite Groups: Official Builds, Administrators, Moderator, Global Forum Support, Registered Joined: 04/06/2011 Posts: 4,211 Points: 12,778 Location: ipswich
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Another monumental update. It's just amazing. Keep it coming...
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Rank: Vice-Master Groups: Registered
Joined: 26/05/2014 Posts: 912 Points: 2,773 Location: East Sussex UK
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This looks very fiddly Robin, you are the man for fiddly, love the cable ties mate they look great. Regards Paul Building: DelPrado HMS Victory. Building: DeAgostini Sovereign Of The Seas.
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Many thanks to Roy and Paul for those kind words! The cable ties were fiddly - the up-coming miniscule jubilee clips were fiddly-er! (But well worth the effort it turned out!) Before getting on with the braking system, the first item is that extra cable I mentioned before which runs from the accelerator pedal back through the cockpit (as seen on the Tamiya kit). Photo 1 shows the rear of the pedal with the arrow pointing to the moulded hole, which I drilled out deeper to take the throttle cable which is shown in Photo 2. This is a one metre length of the thinnest pvc tubing that I bought on ebay from the model supply shop. Into one end I pushed a piece of 0.5mm silvered brass wire which was then cut off leaving just a couple of mm which was then super glued into the pedal as seen in Photo 3. When finished, the wire/tubing describes a graceful semi-circle back around from the pedal and into the cockpit, leaving enough slack for the pedal to still move forwards and backwards. Photo 4 illustrates the construction of a series of metal fixings to secure the cable to the cockpit side. From top to bottom we have a small strip of thin aluminium sheet – this is from the offcuts of the A3 sheet I bought when making the paper/card Sopwith Pups (must try and find the rest of it!) First the end was wound around a brass rod the same diameter as the pvc tubing as seen in the centre and then, with the rolled end overhanging a wood block I gently tapped the end of a thick steel needle from the back to create a raised rivet, not easily seen in the lower photo. The strip was then trimmed down to size and threaded over the tube as shown in Photo 5 (making sure the rolled end was the right way around!) A small drop of super glue was then applied to the back of the strip and carefully placed up in position on the chassis side, keeping it in place with a cocktail stick until the glue had set. There were three of these altogether; the one shown here in Photo 6, one at the same level just back from the gear stick and another just back from the pedal taking the cable from floor level up to the height of the other two. I then drilled a small hole through the cockpit bulkhead from behind, just below the gear change bar and threaded the cable through, keeping it taut with a drop of super glue on the outside. Now on to the braking system. Photo 7 illustrates the pair of braking fluid reservoir tanks. The one at the top is the right hand one when working on them (but the left from the driver’s viewpoint) and is perfectly good. The other one however wasn’t! Not only was one of the locating pins cracked, indicated by the arrow, but the opposite pin was misshapen, instead of pointing back at right angles it was off by a good twenty degrees or more! There was also a problem with the mounting plate for the tanks too – as shown in Photo 8, one of the four mounting pins was also damaged. I was already planning on airbrushing the bottom chassis section to match the Vallejo Duraluminium of the cockpit so the obvious course was to pre-fit and super glue the damaged plate in position and then airbrush the whole assembly together. Photos 9 and 10 show the plate duly glued in from front and back and Photos 11 and 12 show the entire lower chassis after a coat of black primer and a couple of Duraluminium. This is the largest and heaviest part of the model so far – the plate is plastic but the rest of it is solid metal! I was intending to leave the bottom un-painted as it won’t be seen on the base I’m thinking of making, but then again, it might stand on a mirror some time so better safe than “why’s it two different colours?” The only way around the damaged tank was to create a new bracket for it (and also the perfectly good one as well). After hunting for some thicker aluminium sheet I had almost given up and was eyeing up an empty coke can when I found the perfect piece – only about three inches by one inch but more than enough for this. I had earlier ordered a six inch sheet of a suitable thickness on ebay, only realising after I clicked ‘buy’ that the flipping stuff was in China – I can’t wait that long! Photo 13 shows the first successful bracket test fitted to the chassis plate. In order to get the correct size I first had to cut and file away all the moulded on bracket from the ‘wonky’ tank including the fastening clip at the front. The tiny screws which locate into the original holes in the plate through the bracket came from the set seen in Photo 14 – hundreds of the things in different sizes and all for about a fiver – a set of spectacle repair screws! (From guess where!) I tried to achieve the front fixing with another screw but found it too difficult trying to drill through the folded ‘tab’ at the front so instead opted for some of my smaller resin cast nuts and bolts seen Chromed and washed in Photo 15. Once dry they were lifted off the masking tape painting base and super glued on each side of the tab to create the bracket fixing as shown in Photo 16. A comparison of the before and after tanks is shown in Photo 17, the tank was re-painted with Humbrol Gloss White Enamel with the middle band picked out in Vallejo Dark Blue Grey and the filler cap in Mig Satin Black. The bracket is just placed in position on the tank here, not actually glued down yet. The wonky tank is shown glued in place with the kit part along side in Photo 18. The screws are not actually screwed into the plate, just pushed back through the holes holding the bracket in position and secured with a drop (or three) of super glue from the back of the plate. I then added some more super glue to the bracket at the join from the front, there’s some major re-working of the braking system to come between the tanks and the cylinders so I want those tanks as firm as possible. The two brackets are shown before fitting on in Photo 19, the second one still in ‘bits’ and Photo 20 shows that these things did NOT come together easily! The one arrowed was really annoying – it was perfect – until I tried to drill the screw hole at the back. The drill bit slid by a miniscule amount and the screw head wouldn’t fit in without fouling the bracket side! Some of the others were spoiled trying to drill through the front fold and the one with the question mark – I completely lost my train of thought and bent the tab the wrong way! I’d already learned that the thin metal will not bend back after a mistake – it just breaks along the fold. Finally, in Photo 21 the two tanks have been given a thinned down wash of Sepia to dirty up the pristine white finish a little and give the tanks that ‘used’ look. Things get a little complicated now. The next part in the instructions is the front Anti-Roll Bar but I’ve been working on the section after that which is the rest of the braking system parts. As you’ll see when we come to that section, the manufacturers have, shall we say, ‘simplified’ the layout of the brakes! All will be explained then but to put it simply, there’s a lot of re-working not to say re-directing going on at the moment, part of which requires the front wheel struts to be added before it all goes together (fortunately they are coming fairly soon anyway in the instructions)! So in the next instalment I’ll get that anti roll bar sorted out since that one has to go on before the brake parts can be added too! 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 work on both those tanks, what a difference it makes. Excellent work Robin. Mark
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Rank: Super-Elite Groups: Official Builds, Administrators, Moderator, Global Forum Support, Registered Joined: 04/06/2011 Posts: 4,211 Points: 12,778 Location: ipswich
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Superb work there. Keep it going - I'm enjoying following along.
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Thanks again to Mark and Roy for their kind words! The build is still progressing but slowly as I'm currently in the process (as I've probably mentioned in the text below) of redesigning the front end with the braking system. The reasons for this will be explained fully in the next instalment. The actual build schedule is progressing faster than it appears at the moment as much of section 5 which I'm on at the present is concerned with making up the second front wheel - which I did way back to fit the DIY resin hubs etc.! Anyhow, first we need to get the anti roll gubbins on ....... Oh rats! It's one of those days - just went to paste the diary text in and I haven't copied it yet! Now I have! As mentioned last time, this instalment will deal with the anti roll system which attaches (eventually) to the front wheel struts. The components for this come in Pack 38 shown in Photo 1, and consist of five pieces, the actual roll bar at the top, two silver connecting rods which will join on to the suspension springs and a pair of black connection rods, which join the silver ones to the roll bar. The first task was a simple re-paint of the parts with the silver/chrome parts getting the usual Humbrol Blue-Grey Enamel Wash and the shiny black connectors having a coat of matt black car spray followed by a Vallejo Light Grey acrylic dry brush to pick out the details and reduce the ‘toy gloss black’ appearance. The Tamiya painting instructions actually have all these parts apart from the flat perforated rod in a silver and aluminium finish although I do have some ref photos showing the black parts as black too! The new paint finish is shown in Photo 2. Next came the really awkward bit – joining those black connectors to the newly ‘chromed’ ones. Just as the black rods are different, so too are the chrome ones! The longer one goes on the flat ‘perforated’ rod and the shorter on the thin round rod. This is where the difficult part arose – the instructions say simply to fix one to the other – yeah, right!  Not very noticeable in the pics, but each of those chrome rods ends in a slight lip around the peg which push fits into the black counterparts. I ended up having to insert a round diamond dust rat tail file into the black rings to get them to fit at all. In hindsight of course I’d given those rings a coat of car spray paint – not exactly the airbrushed thin coat – no wonder they didn’t want to go in! Anyhow, in they went eventually as seen in Photo 3. Then the connecting rods had to fit on the end of the bar as shown in Photo 4. The locating holes and pegs are not in fact round but a half round to ensure they face the right way. This was another very tight fit. The perforated rod went in with some trouble, the round rod needed not only some gentle sanding down around the peg but some less gentle tapping down with my smallest jeweller’s hammer before it would go down far enough. The completed anti roll bar next fits into the front plate as shown in Photo 5. This is actually one instalment down the line in the official instructions. This gold coloured plate is a metal casting which holds the brake system cylinders, it has been re-painted but I’ll go into that in detail when we get to the cylinder section which is when this part is actually supplied. Care is needed when fitting the bar in place, that delicate curved bit at the end of the round rod has to be in the right place or you can’t rotate the bar into position when it’s screwed down! Photo 6 shows one of those two screws going in, magnetised screwdrivers are a Godsend on this kit! The two arrows on the previous photo show where the screws come back through and into the front of the metal lower chassis. Photo 7 shows the plate fully screwed down and Photos 8 and 9 show the right hand and left hand connecting rods as they will be when connected to the suspension. Finally, Photo 10 illustrates the contents of the next instalment – Pack 39 which contains that gold front plate together with the three brake cylinders, the screws which I just used to fix the plate on the chassis and a pair of white brake leads (which are going to be considerably shorter by the time I’m through with them!) At the moment I’m in the middle of scratch building some tiny components for the re-designed brake system prior to moulding and casting them in resin. The re-build will also be including micro copper tubing, re-fashioned resin nuts and bolts and some mains voltage wire insulation! 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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As a departure from my usual technique (upgrade, upgrade, upgrade) I thought it would be interesting to do a comparison build of the next stage – the brake system cylinders – in other words, I’ll build this part exactly as per the instructions, then pull it all off again and re-do it with the scratch built items! In the kit instructions this is a very simple section to put together – the second version is anything but! As you can see in Photos 1 and 2, the plastic moulded cylinders do have some unwanted flash and mould lines on them, fortunately I was already intending to do a re-spray on these parts as the reference photos mostly show them as a duller aluminium finish compared to the kit ‘chrome’. Since they are going to be re-painted I was able to sand down the offending blemishes before first airbrushing with Vallejo Black Primer followed by Vallejo Metal Colour Semi Matt Aluminium. For this pre-build however, all the parts are in their original finish. This is actually one section where the larger Centauria model is more detailed than the smaller Tamiya 1/12th scale version. Both kits have exactly the same components for the cylinders – two outer cylinders with a pair of pins on each and a central ‘master cylinder’ with no connections at all! The Centauria kit does have all four of the pins ‘occupied’ but with a vastly simplified layout of tubes whilst the Tamiya kit, (in what I think was an accidental omission from the instructions) only uses one of the pins to run a cable back through the cockpit to the rear brake – the front brakes aren’t connected at all! This is the opposite of this kit, which actually connects both front brakes but NOT the rear! I have to admit, even with the various reference photos I have to study intently, the link to the rear brakes is still a complete mystery! As you’ll see in the next instalment, some photos show a pair of brake cables running back through the cockpit like the Tamiya instructions but where the heck they come from is anybody’s guess (it’s not where Tamiya shows, that’s for sure!) Conversely, there appears to be a single cable running along the right side of the chassis to the right rear brake but it can’t be seen anywhere ‘up front’! Anyway, all will be shown next time. The first job is to attach the pair of translucent green tubes to the two brake fluid tanks as shown in Photo 3, note that in these shots the left hand and centre cylinders are only pushed in part way, the right hand cylinder is all the way in but was a very loose fit and would have needed super gluing (but I needed to get the things off again to re-paint). The ends of the green tubes then go onto the rear pin of the two side cylinders as shown in Photo 4, followed by the long white braided tubes which go onto the front pins as illustrated in the final Photo 5, (they are also very loose and would have required gluing in place.) The Tamiya kit does have the brake fluid tanks - but no connecting tubing coming off them! And for this section, that is it. The ends of the white tubes will eventually be fitted into the disc brakes with a ‘brass’ end connector but not until the front wheel struts are added on as the white tubes are 'wired' to those struts. Simples, left tank for the left front brake and right tank for the right front brake. So what controls the rear brakes? (Or in the case of the Tamiya kit, the front ones!) In actual fact, as you’ll see next time, the left hand tank (as we are looking at it) controls both the front brakes and the right hand tank is linked to the centre master cylinder and both of them control the rear brakes – with a whole lot of extra tubes, pipes and connectors (this is going to be fun!) So until then, Happy Modelling to you All (I’ve got work to do!) 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: Administration Groups: Administrator, Administrators, Forum Support Team, Global Forum Support, Global Forum Support Team, Moderator, Official Builds Joined: 24/08/2009 Posts: 1,906 Points: 5,734 Location: UK
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This is really looking great!
Mark
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US
