Making Models From Scratch

[Reynard]

Given up on the side panels for the driver's cab. Quite frankly, they're garbage.

My fault really, I was trying to be too quick / greedy / clever in making them, and it showed. Especially compared to the neatness of the other bodywork panels I've made. The issue is that this part of the bodywork has a lot of subtle curves and direction changes - not a problem when making a full-sized car when you've got a sheet of metal and all the right tools, but far more so when working small scale and with a very different material.

I could've carried on and bodged the originals, but I'd never have been happy with whatever result I'd then ended up with. Better to cut my losses now and start again from scratch. This time, being a heck of a lot more careful and thinking about each step.

Not all the ideas from the originals were ditched - the card frame survived, but instead of keeping it as a single piece, it got split into three sections, and fitment brackets built in at this stage. And to get the curves, I used small panels that butted up against each other rather than try to achieve it with a single piece of card / wire mesh / plastic bottle etc.

They're only at the single skin stage at the moment (120 gsm card) so plenty more work needed to get them finished, but the result is a much neater pair of panels with the right shape and curvature this time. Not just that, they simply just click into place and stay there, rather than needing copious amounts of blu-tac and still not really staying put.

I also need to make the rear panel at this stage, to make sure everything fits together.

 

[Reynard]

Sort of related, I found this clip on the Tube of You while looking for something else. It's not the car I'm modelling, but it's stablemate, bought eight months later from the same constructor down in Devon. This is Paul winning the 1985 British Superstox title:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brOiGy3UYYM

 

[Andy in Germany]

Given up on the side panels for the driver's cab. Quite frankly, they're garbage.

My fault really, I was trying to be too quick / greedy / clever in making them, and it showed. Especially compared to the neatness of the other bodywork panels I've made. The issue is that this part of the bodywork has a lot of subtle curves and direction changes - not a problem when making a full-sized car when you've got a sheet of metal and all the right tools, but far more so when working small scale and with a very different material.

I could've carried on and bodged the originals, but I'd never have been happy with whatever result I'd then ended up with. Better to cut my losses now and start again from scratch. This time, being a heck of a lot more careful and thinking about each step.

Not all the ideas from the originals were ditched - the card frame survived, but instead of keeping it as a single piece, it got split into three sections, and fitment brackets built in at this stage. And to get the curves, I used small panels that butted up against each other rather than try to achieve it with a single piece of card / wire mesh / plastic bottle etc.

They're only at the single skin stage at the moment (120 gsm card) so plenty more work needed to get them finished, but the result is a much neater pair of panels with the right shape and curvature this time. Not just that, they simply just click into place and stay there, rather than needing copious amounts of blu-tac and still not really staying put.

I also need to make the rear panel at this stage, to make sure everything fits together.

I've been known to restart a project three times from scratch, so I can relate.

 

[Illaveago]

Are you restricting yours self to cardboard or could you use plasticard? I was think that you could press plasticard into shape by using a teaspoon to work it into shape .

 

[Reynard]

I've been known to restart a project three times from scratch, so I can relate.

I think it's called "learning by doing"

 

[Reynard]

Are you restricting yours self to cardboard or could you use plasticard? I was think that you could press plasticard into shape by using a teaspoon to work it into shape .

Well, most of the bits are already made, so may as well stick to what I've been using rather than switching to a new material.

And in any case, breakfast cereal boxes come free with the cereal, and I've always other bits of card and paper knocking around from working on my archive...

 

[Deleted member 26715]

I think it's called "learning by doing"

Is there really any other valid way?

 

[Reynard]

Is there really any other valid way?

No, true...

But then again, I've never done any modelling before, so I guess my learning curve has been far steeper than most. Though as with anything else that involves a modicum of skill, you're always learning.

 

[Andy in Germany]

I think it's called "learning by doing"

I refer to it as the Scientific Method.

 

[Reynard]

Anyways, finally a pictorial update...

As mentioned upthread, I've pretty well much finished the three sections that make up the bonnet of the car. There's still a few small details yet to sort, like the four Dzus fasteners on the middle section that, in real life, just lifts off (no hinges on this particular Higman), and the two small bolts that hold the nose cone in place. But other than that (and for which I really do need good daylight), they're just about ready for priming and painting.

The bit on the far left was fun (NOT), as I had to do some fancypants trigonometry to work out the angle and long side for the bit that flips up to form a windshield. I'm good for remembering the formulae for a right angled triangle, but not for an obtuse one. So I had to go and look it up in one of my maths books...

c^2 = a^2 + b^2 - (2ab cos Θ) if you are interested...

The middle piece was fiddly on account of the cut-outs for the air filter and exhaust manifold, so cue lots of paper templates and no small amount of swearing. On the other hand, the right hand piece was easy, as I could use (and then discard) the former for the nose cone that I made earlier in the build.

And the image below shows how it all fits together. The signwriting's going to be fun on that. I've actually bought some fine nibbed permanent markers (black & red) to do the really fiddly stuff as a) I've got more control with a pen, b) I don't actually have a brush fine enough to do the job, and c) the pens will still be useful once I'm done.

I've also been working on the replacement panels for the lower half of the driver's cab, doing each step slowly and methodically and taking the time to think between each step. It's made one heck of a difference.

The other thing I've done is to work out a (more or less) sequential "to do" list so that I can see where I'm at and where I need to go. The majority of the stuff left is suspension and drivetrain-related, with the last real big headache being how to attach the shocks and suspension links to the rear axle. I don't have a clear pic of that part of the car, but I'm hoping that the folks on the OSS group on FB might be able to help me out when the time comes.

 

[AndyRM]

This is seriously impressive stuff @Reynard - chapeau!

 

[Andy in Germany]

Extremely neat work @Reynard.

Why don't you paint the car in bits and then put them together: it would allow easier acces to the fiddly corners.

 

[Reynard]

Thanks, gents

Yes, the intention is to paint all the pieces individually including the bodywork prior to assembly. For the latter, the challenge will be making sure that the "Warwick Trailers" logo, which stretches all the way down the left hand side of the car, all lines up once everything is put together.

 

[Reynard]

Been full of cold this week, so not done anything on the bodywork. The work is too exacting, which is not so great when your head feels disconnected from the rest of your body... So to keep things ticking over, I've shifted my attention to the front suspension. Most of the components there are already made, with the exception of the shock mounts and the upper wishbones.

I've been messing around with the wishbones before, but my original iterations using laminated card doused in superglue just weren't going to fly - not just from the fiddliness aspect, but also down to the glue allergy. I did look on the 'bay and on Amazon at RC car parts for ready-made wishbones, but if they was the right size, they weren't the right shape, and if they were more or less the right shape, they were the wrong size. And stupidly spendy.

The vast majority of stock car front wishbones are custom made and very simple - just a flat triangle with a ball joint at the stub axle end and two simple pivots welded to the main chassis rails. However, the problem I had is that this particular car seems to use wishbones off a production car. Not only that, you can see from the photo below that they're shaped like a bell crank - good for transmitting loads, less so for modelling. Yes, this is the best pic I've got, and yes, that *IS* Derek Warwick in the driver's cab.

But I've had good results on other parts of the model with wire covered in rolled paper, and I'd already bonded the pickup pegs into the main chassis rails, so... (That yellow thing is a more or less accurate template retained from my original attempts at wishbones.)

Then add the wire core and bond to the paper with glue...

Ah drat, the first attempt (taking the measurements from that card template) gives me something that's too long... Looks reasonably decent though...

At least I'm just messing around with paper and wire, so it's easy to make adjustments and try again. And yes, that is SO much better. (The bottom wishbones were made integral with the lower set of chassis rails - you can see them in the photo.)

I still need to do the outer skin on the wishbones to make them look right, but at least I've got a basic structure that I'm happy with. I will leave that stage to when I actually get round to assembling this part of the car so that I can tailor them to an exact fit.

The last thing was to check whether there's enough clearance for the shocks... And yes there is.

I had made some lower mounts (visible just behind the steering rack) when I was making the shocks, but they raise the shocks too high, so I'm going to have to re-think that too. The original intention was to hold the shocks in with wire pins, but I think I'm just going to make a socket of sorts and simply bond them in place.

I'm happy with how the front suspension is coming. Some tidying up still needed, but at least it's a good step forward again, with another one of the remaining headaches solved. Hopefully next week I can get back to the bodywork...

 

[Andy in Germany]

Been full of cold this week, so not done anything on the bodywork. The work is too exacting, which is not so great when your head feels disconnected from the rest of your body... So to keep things ticking over, I've shifted my attention to the front suspension. Most of the components there are already made, with the exception of the shock mounts and the upper wishbones.

I've been messing around with the wishbones before, but my original iterations using laminated card doused in superglue just weren't going to fly - not just from the fiddliness aspect, but also down to the glue allergy. I did look on the 'bay and on Amazon at RC car parts for ready-made wishbones, but if they was the right size, they weren't the right shape, and if they were more or less the right shape, they were the wrong size. And stupidly spendy.

The vast majority of stock car front wishbones are custom made and very simple - just a flat triangle with a ball joint at the stub axle end and two simple pivots welded to the main chassis rails. However, the problem I had is that this particular car seems to use wishbones off a production car. Not only that, you can see from the photo below that they're shaped like a bell crank - good for transmitting loads, less so for modelling. Yes, this is the best pic I've got, and yes, that *IS* Derek Warwick in the driver's cab.

View attachment 667760

But I've had good results on other parts of the model with wire covered in rolled paper, and I'd already bonded the pickup pegs into the main chassis rails, so... (That yellow thing is a more or less accurate template retained from my original attempts at wishbones.)

View attachment 667749

Then add the wire core and bond to the paper with glue...

View attachment 667757

Ah drat, the first attempt (taking the measurements from that card template) gives me something that's too long... Looks reasonably decent though...

View attachment 667758

At least I'm just messing around with paper and wire, so it's easy to make adjustments and try again. And yes, that is SO much better. (The bottom wishbones were made integral with the lower set of chassis rails - you can see them in the photo.)

View attachment 667759

I still need to do the outer skin on the wishbones to make them look right, but at least I've got a basic structure that I'm happy with. I will leave that stage to when I actually get round to assembling this part of the car so that I can tailor them to an exact fit.

The last thing was to check whether there's enough clearance for the shocks... And yes there is.

View attachment 667761

I had made some lower mounts (visible just behind the steering rack) when I was making the shocks, but they raise the shocks too high, so I'm going to have to re-think that too. The original intention was to hold the shocks in with wire pins, but I think I'm just going to make a socket of sorts and simply bond them in place.

View attachment 667762

I'm happy with how the front suspension is coming. Some tidying up still needed, but at least it's a good step forward again, with another one of the remaining headaches solved. Hopefully next week I can get back to the bodywork...

That's looking beautiful; you can tell it's built by an engineer.