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1929 MercedesSSK


kennb

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Skip, if you are interested you can see my pctures in a German forum.

http://www.wettringer-modellbauforum.de/forum/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=44033

I hope it works.

Kenneth, Skip's hint is excellent. The 1/16 Entex/Gakken/Revell Mercedes SS is probably one of the best and most attractive car kits ever made. I suppose the box still contains real (!) wire wheels.

Yes, it has the lacing wire wheels. I was so intimidated by them that I traded a 1/8 Jaguar E-Type to a friend who laced them for me! But if you look at Ken's other threads, you'll see that he's mastered the art of lacing wire wheels, which he could do just fine with the Lindberg SSK. Interestingly, the Revell version of the 1/16 kit doesn't have chromed wheel rims, while all the others do (I have the Entex/Revell/Minicraft versions).

And Jurgen, that SSK in your link is just awesome, over the top and overwhelming!! And, is the Bugatti Atlantic the Bburago kit? I'd love to see more pictures of that.

Question: Do you have digital files on the SSK instrument gauges? If you do, I could use them -- e-mail to sjordan47@comcast.net

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The Bugatti pictures are here

http://www.wettringer-modellbauforum.de/forum/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=43679

Only the naked metal body except hood and radiator comes from a Burago ready-made diecast. The rest is self-made.

Indeed I have found a file named "SSKL Instrumente (=gauges)", but I do not remember what I really used for my model. It is stored with a MS word processing programme called "Works" that many computers cannot open. Shall I mail it anyway? Otherwise I could make a screenshot and post it as a ordinary jpg here. Please let me know.

I can do it not before tomorrow or Thursday because in Germany it is almost midnight. I hope you agree.

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Here's my attempt at a translation of the caption on the diagram above. Perhaps Jurgen can correct it (Interesting to note that there's a remote tire pump on the dash).

INSTRUMENT PANEL

TRANSLATION FROM SS MANUAL

11 3001 = Injection pump

13 431 = Pressure gauge shutoff valve*

85 701 = Oil pressure gauge

85 721 = Tachometer

85 756 = Speedometer & odometer

85 901 = Switchbox

85 951 = Instrument panel lights

85 1002 = Clock

85 1101 = Fuel gauge

85 1142 = Air pressure gauge*

85 1161 = Water temperature

85 1171 = Ignition switch

85 1181 = Fuel overflow*

85 1191 = Starting lever

85 1301 = Hand tire pump*

90 331 = Horn switch

99 403 = Plug contact for hand lamp

* “only with fuel = demand by tire pump”

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The Bugatti pictures are here

http://www.wettringer-modellbauforum.de/forum/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=43679

Only the naked metal body except hood and radiator comes from a Burago ready-made diecast. The rest is self-made.

Indeed I have found a file named "SSKL Instrumente (=gauges)", but I do not remember what I really used for my model. It is stored with a MS word processing programme called "Works" that many computers cannot open. Shall I mail it anyway? Otherwise I could make a screenshot and post it as a ordinary jpg here. Please let me know.

I can do it not before tomorrow or Thursday because in Germany it is almost midnight. I hope you agree.

I'm on Mac. so any unusual software probably won't work. A large screen shot would be great. I've been working in Photoshop Elements and other graphics programs to try to sharpen up the diagram above enough to reduce to the proper scale, but I still have to keep trying.

Edited by sjordan2
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The Bugatti pictures are here

http://www.wettringer-modellbauforum.de/forum/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=43679

Only the naked metal body except hood and radiator comes from a Burago ready-made diecast. The rest is self-made.

Indeed I have found a file named "SSKL Instrumente (=gauges)", but I do not remember what I really used for my model. It is stored with a MS word processing programme called "Works" that many computers cannot open. Shall I mail it anyway? Otherwise I could make a screenshot and post it as a ordinary jpg here. Please let me know.

I can do it not before tomorrow or Thursday because in Germany it is almost midnight. I hope you agree.

That Bugatti is also spectacular -- I have the built-up diecast and a couple of Bburago assembly kit versions, and I can see everything you did to it. It appears to be the Pope Atlantic before Ralph Lauren had it restored. Any engine shots? And how did you open the side vents on the hood?

Edited by sjordan2
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Glad to see this thread. I've bought a couple of these as g-bomb kit-bash fodder, and one virgin-in-the-box, cheap. Always got the impression from the somewhat toylike appearance that many things were wrong, and the proportions seemed off. Still, it always looked to have potential. Thanks to all for making research materials more available.

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For an experiment I sanded the back of the wire wheel off until all that was showing was the wire,,,,,,vast improvement but not sure. it does have some depth to it and the chrome will match the grill ect.

DSCN4669_zpsf54982ce.jpg

The lacing is really small and trying to get a decent rim is posing s problem, I might just try to cut out everything other than the rim and cast what is left....same with the hub.

Edited by kennb
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For an experiment I sanded the back of the wire wheel off until all that was showing was the wire,,,,,,vast improvement but not sure. it does have some depth to it and the chrome will match the grill ect.

DSCN4669_zpsf54982ce.jpg

The lacing is really small and trying to get a decent rim is posing s problem, I might just try to cut out everything other than the rim and cast what is left....same with the hub.

Nice job. However, chrome wheels would not be authentic except for a modern over-restoration -- nothing more than painted silver or body accent color, such as white or red would be period-correct.

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gorgous vehicle (those colours ?)

Dark gray and black with a red interior. The photos have different color balances because one was shot with flash (the top of the hood is closer to the actual color) and the other was shot at "golden hour" at dusk. I talked to the photographer (www.schlegelmilch.com) of the bottom shot and he said the car was a somewhat dark gray, so I'll be using Tamiya TS-4 German Gray, if it's dark enough.

Edited by sjordan2
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Kenneth, Skip, here comes the screenshot:

I hope you can use it.

Skip, your translation is linguistically perfect but I am afraid you were misled technically.

#851301 "Handluftpumpe" is translated litterally "manual air pump". Nowadays we use an air pump for inflating tires, so you drew this obvious conclusion.

In those old days you find such an airpump at least on every racing car. It has the purpose of generating an over-pressure in the fuel tank and by this securing the fuel supply of the engine. Since I am not a technician I dont know if this pump has to be operated continously or only when starting the engine. F. e. the Bugatti 35 or the Fiat F-2 (I will show both) have very large pumps on the passenger side. All items on the dashboard marked with " *) " are connected with the pump.

Besides the mentioned Mille Miglia car there is probably a second Mercedes coachwork with conventional fenders and running boards - but this is contentious.

I do not believe it because the rear end looks completely different.

To everyone who is interested in Mercedes cars I do recommend a visit of the German Mercedes homepage. If nothing has changed you can download there for free two comprehensive English books with tons of historic pictures in the press area. For immediate access simply type in any modelling magazine - even Bavarian-Australian Beerdrinker News should be sufficient. You can download as pdf-files

  1. a history of the Silver Arrows racers from W25 to present
  2. a production history from the very beginning to present

Skip, p l e a s e reconsider your colour choice for this fantastic kit. I built it approximately 40 years ago and in the meantime I saw many versions. Best by far looks on the model white cachwork, black fenders and trunk, silver wire wheels, raised black soft top, fenders with the integrated running boards as on your picture. But of course colours are always a matter of personal taste.

Harry, of course I will show my SSKL in this forum with some acknowledgements within the next weeks. Additionally I will present several historic GP cars (among others Mercedes W 154 and W 196), some as superdetailed twins, that is the first one with and the second one without coachwork. I hope you all will be interested.

Edited by Plastheniker
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My color choice is based on a one-of-a-kind 1933 factory model, which also has kind of a strange engine with extra air intakes, as described in the Schlegelmilch book. Almost everyone builds the black and white version (made famous by Willy Forst), which is less to my taste. The original SS brochure also shows it in kind of a greenish cream with chocolate brown fenders with a tan top. This is a very mysterious car that I can't track down (the Mercedes Classic Center releases that kind of detail only to existing owners, they tell me), though I did see it in the corner of a video on a Salzburg car meet.

I've never seen this engine configuration on any other version.

33SSengine2.png

As for the hand pump, I was probably confusing it with this, though there is a floor-mounted foot pump on the passenger side for pumping gas.

mm_zpsf44fc3d4.jpg

Thanks for the gauges.

Edited by sjordan2
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Skip, Mercedes is very helpful and friendy whenever you need pictures or copies from their archives. When I scratchbuilt a pre-war Mercedes truck about 10 years ago they sent me a lot of material without any charge. I suppose they never give such an information as you wanted in order to make it difficult for criminals to make f. e. fake SSK from S or SS.

I suppose you refer to the special intake manifold on the Schlegelmilch-photo. Indeed I found no similar picture either.

There seems to be the following solution:

As seen on this table there were two different types of engines and several different versions.

This second picture

shows ( photo top left) engine M06, obviously for display, with an identical manifold, the 3 openings in it, however, are closed by screws. The drawing of the M06 (bottom right) shows those downward bent tubes additionally that fit into these holes exactly as seen on your picture.

Edited by Plastheniker
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Those cars had no fuel pumps, so keeping the fuel pressurized meant working the hand pump pretty much all the time, didn't it? Wasn't that one of the jobs of the ride-along mechanic back in those days?

Skip... "reifenluftpumpe" means "tire air pump." German has a lot of long words that are combinations of several smaller words, in this case "reifen" (tire), "luft" (air), and "pumpe" (pump).

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Those cars had no fuel pumps, so keeping the fuel pressurized meant working the hand pump pretty much all the time, didn't it? Wasn't that one of the jobs of the ride-along mechanic back in those days?

Skip... "reifenluftpumpe" means "tire air pump." German has a lot of long words that are combinations of several smaller words, in this case "reifen" (tire), "luft" (air), and "pumpe" (pump).

Clearly, one semester of college German was not enough.

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Jurgen -- almost all archive shots I have seen of the SSK/SSKL rolling chassis show it as completely white, including the drive shaft and axles. I know the visible parts of the axles and frame members are usually body color, but Mercedes also has an ancient history of showing a chassis in white (even the Gullwing) for PR purposes and reproduction in print.

Would the SSK chassis really be all white or all body color?

Edited by sjordan2
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