sjordan2 Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 (edited) Speaking of dashboards, not too long ago I got a mixed bag of old watch crowns in different styles and sizes from eBay. Knobs, buttons, switches, caps, etc, for vintage cars in larger scales. Edited April 8, 2015 by sjordan2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twokidsnosleep Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 (edited) Speaking of dashboards, not too long ago I got a mixed bag of old watch crowns in different styles and sizes from eBay. Knobs, buttons, switches, caps, etc, for vintage cars in larger scales. Ooooh, that is a sweet idea. Have to keep my eyes open for those Great tip, Skip Dash is superb, Harry Edited April 8, 2015 by Twokidsnosleep Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobthehobbyguy Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 Nice work on the dash. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted April 8, 2015 Author Share Posted April 8, 2015 First step of the seats is cleaning up the parts... there was some flash on both the bottom cushions and seatbacks, and on the pivot pins (the seatbacks fold forward). Once I had the seat parts cleaned up, I scrubbed them with fine steel wool to break the surface gloss of the plastic and give the acrylic paint I will be using something to grab onto. Then I used a drop of CA in spots where it won't be visible on the finished seats and glued the pieces to some pieces of scrap wood "handles." The seats were then painted with acrylic craft paint (color: Ocher), and when dry I dipped the painted parts into wood stain. The stain actually gets absorbed by the porous acrylic paint and gives me a nice "leather" look. I painted the back sides of the seatbacks the same color as what I used for the interior "carpet." The final step was a coat of matte acrylic spray to knock down the shine a notch. The seats were then installed: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted April 8, 2015 Author Share Posted April 8, 2015 The exhaust manifolds both had a sink mark on them . A little dab of Bondo took care of that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted April 8, 2015 Author Share Posted April 8, 2015 Ok, here is the point where any Jaguar purists out there may want to cover your eyes. Or at least sit down... ... because I am about to reveal the fact that I'm painting this Jaguar brown. Yep. Brown. I know, I know... a brown Jaguar? Blasphemy!!! But I wanted to try something different, not the expected BRG or red. So I got a can of Krylon "Short Cuts"... the color is "Expresso," which is a nice, rich chocolatey brown. In the next photo you can see the seats installed, and the engine finished and installed. At this point, there is no clear coat on the body color yet: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted April 8, 2015 Author Share Posted April 8, 2015 Here's a closer look at the engine. I used ship model rigging thread for the ignition wires, but I painted the tan thread yelloe to simulate that cloth-covered ignition wiring from back in the day... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted April 8, 2015 Author Share Posted April 8, 2015 Before I painted the body, there were a few mold seam lines to deal with... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted April 8, 2015 Author Share Posted April 8, 2015 And here is where it stands as of right now. The body is installed, and there is one coat of Future on the bodywork so far. I'll probably add a second coat. The ribs on the running boards are BMF. On the real car, there are smaller, thiner strips of rubber inset into each chrome strip, but at this scale there's no feasible way to create that detail. I thought about slicing some very narrow strips of electrical tape and trying to do them that way. Maybe I'll still give that a try and see how it looks. Once I got some clear on that brown body, I was a lot happier with the look. It's definitely not a "normal" Jaguar color! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twokidsnosleep Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 (edited) Very sharp looking, I like it a lot! The leather of the seats, the wood on the dash and the brown body all go together very well I like the spokes on the wheels as well, you handled that nicely What are you thinking about steering wheels wise??? Edited April 8, 2015 by Twokidsnosleep Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobthehobbyguy Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 Great color choice. Coming together nicely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted April 8, 2015 Author Share Posted April 8, 2015 Very sharp looking, I like it a lot! The leather of the seats, the wood on the dash and the brown body all go together very well I like the spokes on the wheels as well, you handled that nicely What are you thinking about steering wheels wise??? Maybe a "wooden" rim, maybe the factory black wheel. Not sure yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaughingIndian Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 Great idea on the spark wires and yummy body color with the saddle leather interior ... don't forget the exhaust tips Harry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobraman Posted April 8, 2015 Share Posted April 8, 2015 I have to try that Future stuff. It seems to work good and quite a few guys seem to like it. Is it better to spray on or brush ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted April 8, 2015 Author Share Posted April 8, 2015 Great idea on the spark wires and yummy body color with the saddle leather interior ... don't forget the exhaust tips Harry I know. Haven't gotten that far yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted April 8, 2015 Author Share Posted April 8, 2015 I have to try that Future stuff. It seems to work good and quite a few guys seem to like it. Is it better to spray on or brush ? I've tried spraying it and found it hard to work with. It is very thin, basically like water, and tends to run and sag when sprayed (at least when sprayed by me! ). I much prefer brushing it on with a big, soft, squirrel hair brush. I have better control that way. I actually do only a part of the car at a time... maybe one fender, let it dry, another fender, let it dry, then the body. I like the "slow but sure" brushing technique, because it makes it easier to watch for runs or sags when only dealing with one section of the body at a time instead of the whole body. I just use the tip of a paper towel to soak up the excess if there are any runs or sags. With practice, you learn how much Future to apply to avoid any sags and runs. And Future is self-leveling... you will not see any brush strokes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobraman Posted April 9, 2015 Share Posted April 9, 2015 Thank you Harry. Almost time to go Mustang hunting , no ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cato Posted April 9, 2015 Share Posted April 9, 2015 Somebody send an EMS team to Jordan's house..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted April 9, 2015 Author Share Posted April 9, 2015 Thank you Harry. Almost time to go Mustang hunting , no ? Yep! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted April 9, 2015 Author Share Posted April 9, 2015 I added the details to the firewall and added cables to the battery... The battery tray and battery are on the passenger side of the firewall: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sjordan2 Posted April 9, 2015 Share Posted April 9, 2015 The engine is amazing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sjordan2 Posted April 9, 2015 Share Posted April 9, 2015 For those who know me and think I'm having a heart attack over Harry's non-standard choices, I'll just say the following... The factory offered the ability for buyers to specify any color scheme they wanted outside of the catalog. This included body, interior, and canvas, as well as any color piping for upholstery and canvas. Brown was a popular color for high-end cars of the period, including Rolls and Mercedes SSK fenders. Personally, I like the very Spartan approach of the SS100 factory cars. This means I'm not too thrilled by the wood dash (metal with body color) and the shiny wire wheels (usually silver, body color, black or red), but you'll find these aftermarket touches on restored cars, along with (yuk) engine-turned dash boards. But only one or two cars with black replacement gauge faces to augment the standard white gauges. This is still a typically jaw-dropping Harry build. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted April 10, 2015 Author Share Posted April 10, 2015 The real car has a folding windshield, and small secondary "wind wings" behind the main windshield. My guess is that when the windshield was folded down, the top speed was increased due to reduced wind resistance. Here is the kit piece, the top part that folds down molded as one piece with the lower piece that attaches to the cowl. Notice the lame "windshield wipers"... I want to build this car with the main windshield in the folded down position, so step one is to carefully cut the upper and lower windshield parts apart with a razor saw: All of the clear parts were missing from this kit (a small detail the ebay seller conveniently "forgot" to mention... )... so I had to make a windshield. I used an old business card to cut out a paper template, then transferred that to a sheet of Lexan to create my new windshield: More to come... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 The small auxiliary windscreens mount to the lower part of the windshield (the part that attaches to the cowl and doesn't fold down). The exact configuration of the way the small screens are mounted to the windshield base varied... I looked at my photo references and created a "generic" arrangement. First thing I had to do was create the frames that the "glass" would sit in, I used Plastruct U channel, "chromed" with Spaz Stix: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted April 11, 2015 Author Share Posted April 11, 2015 The "glass" for the smaller windscreens was cut from Lexan sheet. Here is the completed folding windshield with secondary windscreens installed: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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