I've been busy tinkering again. I put my big girl pants on and glued all the pieces for the rear half of the roll cage together - that's the main rear roll protection, the section behind it that in real life would take the fuel tank, and the internal bulkhead behind the driver. Plus I drilled two holes in the top of the main section to take the wires that hold down the roof rails. So it now looks like this:
I sanded down the rough edges as best I could, and smoothed the remainder off with some wood filler. And then, when all was nice and dry, gave it all a coat of primer.
Really happy with that, as there was a lot of potential for things to go wrong. As it is, everything fits together rather nicely. I also made the fire extinguisher that fits onto that rear bulkhead - it's a small confection made out of rolled paper and then sanded to shape, but it's safely in the box of parts in its own little ziploc bag for now.
As I'm busy working on the driver's cab, the next bit was the seat. Not as straightforward as I'd have liked, purely down to the fact that I don't really have that many photos which show it in any great detail. I have a decent enough view of the side wings at the level of the driver's ribs and the top of the seat, but nothing below that. So I did the next best thing and guesstimated.
I've seen my fair share of racing seats over the years, so I knew more or less where I needed to be, but oval racing seats are a little bit different to those used for circuit racing. It's more true of the modern ones, but it's not too difficult to extrapolate backwards somewhat - especially thanks to some useful input from the guys over on the Old Skool Superstox group on Facebook and the website for Kirkey Race Seats.
I used the dimensions on the website to make my template, but then when I folded the seat into shape, it was clear that the Kirkey seats are made for American backsides, and not one to fit a 15 year old Hampshire beanpole...
A bit of jiggery pokery got something that matched what I could see on the photos, and I ended up with the basic structure for a seat to take a 4-point harness as it would have been back in 1984...
Then, of course, I had to make it look more realistic, so cue a bit of fun with some printer paper, a little more card and the inside of a packet of Petit Beurre biscuits...
I'm really happy with that. Bought some binding from the haberdashers to make the belts with, but that's for another day...