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LWBNomad

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About LWBNomad

  • Birthday 03/29/1952

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  • Full Name
    Stanley G Munn

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  1. Absolutely GORGEOUS!!! In chapter 8 of Gerald Wingrove's book, "The Complete Car Modeller", he wrote, "... adapting some of these techniques to the excellent metal Hubley kit, may be a useful foot in the water, before going it alone from scratch." Bob's stellar build shows what can be done with the Hubley Duesenberg kit (later re-issued by Gabriel) as a base. I'll be watching for the January Model Cars magazine. Can't help but wonder what Bob will do next. A scratch-build?
  2. I’ve made it this far on rattle cans in the garage (cold & dusty) and in an unvented basement (gassing myself). But if I want to take things up a notch, I have to start airbrushing - especially if I want to use Allclad. And I do. I’ve had an old TV cabinet kicking around the basement; the TV has long since been recycled, but the cabinet was too nice to just trash and I thought maybe I could turn it into a stereo cabinet or something. Well, here’s the something. Made of blond maple, with nice doors that open and tuck inside, there’s plenty of room for a 20” x 25” filter on a downdraft plenum. There was a shelf and turntable for the TV; I took those out. All I needed was a fan blower to mount behind the cabinet; it could be connected to a disused outside air vent with 5” ducting. I calculated the airflow based on static pressure of the length of vent (just one 90 degree elbow to reach the outside vent) and I had plenty of leeway - I'll have more airflow than I need and I may need to cut a bleeder vent in the plenum. The blower motor has a second plenum at its outlet that allows mounting a flapper valve to help keep cold winter air at bay. The outside vent also has a flap. This booth should handle anything, even rattle cans. Not expensive; cost me just a little more than one of those little portable plastic booths you can buy on ebay (plus shipping and taxes); but this is much more functional, looks good (it will garner no complaints), and closes up to keep the dust out. An array of LED puck lights gives nice even light and no shadows.
  3. Gorgeous build! Dang. Another kit to look for.
  4. Here's an inner wheel half with both sets of holes for leading and trailing spokes. The plane of leading spoke holes are just slightly offset from the plane of trailing spoke holes so that they'll all go quietly to the hub without clashing. Because the carbide bits break if you feed them against a surface at an acute angle, the rim was pre-drilled with a small carbide router bit. I'm prepping more than one set of wheels this way (my personal form of madness).
  5. Thanks for the compliments! I drilled more holes last night. With practice getting the feed rate right so as to avoid breaking the drill bit, it took just 14 minutes to do 26 holes on my last wheel rim. So I've done all the trailing spoke holes on all five remaining wheels; now I'll move the jig to do the leading spoke holes. I'll still use a pin-vice and a high-speed steel bit to drill the holes in the hubs, but I'll mark pilot holes with the tip of a scriber to make sure the bit can't wander and the holes are properly placed. Having the rim holes drilled makes it easier to cut out the plastic spokes a few at a time and get the positions for the wire spoke replacements correct. However, I don't see any way around hand-work for drilling the hub holes. It's still going to be several weeks before I have a set of wires as nice as Bob's. I have three of these Hubley Duesenberg kits; I want to build at least two of them. This will keep me off the streets for a while...
  6. I've been fretting about how to drill the rest of these wheels so that they don't take two weeks each. I picked up a Dremel drill press but my old Dremel 270 - which rotates nice and slow plugged into the foot pedal rheostat - won't fit. I then bought a new Dremel 100 to fit the drill press. But it doesn't work plugged into the foot pedal rheostat. Looks to me like the old Dremels are better than the new ones. So I looked again at my floor-standing Delta 14" drill press. The pulleys can be rigged for 460 RPM. The .016" carbide bits I ordered arrived yesterday, they have ⅛" shanks and the big drill press chuck will take them, no problem. Then all one has to worry about is lateral runout, as the carbide won't take any lateral loading. I set up a jig and tried it. Very hard to modulate the feed and I broke two bits on the first wheel half, but the problem was that I couldn't see the action and fed too quickly, breaking the bits. No problem with lateral runout. Then I ditched my safety glasses and put on my magnifying visor so I could get in really close and see the action, and be much more delicate managing the feed. The second wheel went fine. This is working! The first two photos show the jig positioned to drill holes in the rim for "trailing" spokes; once the trailing spoke holes are done, the jig will be re-positioned to drill the "leading" spoke holes. The trailing and leading spoke holes need to be on separate planes; this was an error I made in my first hand-made wheel and I had to re-drill half of the holes I'd done. The last photo shows a wheel half with the trailing spoke holes completed.
  7. Here is my first wheel half, completely spoked. And I am stoked! The elation at fitting the last couple of spokes would not be believed until one experiences it.
  8. Thank you, Bob! PM has been sent, I think.
  9. I have such a combination, but I've been unable to find a fine enough chuck to hold those tiny #78 drill bits. I'll keep looking. Actually, I've ordered carbide bits that have a ⅛ shank, that will solve the issue - when they get here. I also found that #77 bits are considerably stronger while only being .002" larger and the larger holes, which I've drilled in the outer rim only, with spokes inserted can be filled by CA glue.
  10. I'm happy to report that mere mortals can do this, too! This is my first wheel, in progress. A little hacked up with false starts - broken drills, not enough thought into the drilling sequence, etc., but the back halves of the wheels, which this is one of, can hide a multitude of sins, to a point. It does get easier. But, egad, this will take some time.
  11. Well, thanks again for the useful information, Bob. I picked up some 00-90 hex-head bolts that are sold here under the brand name Hob-Bits, by Woodland Scenics out of Linn Creek MO. I'm still experimenting with drilling .016 holes in the Duesie's rims. I now have a half dozen different pin-vices, but I keep breaking these tiny drill bits. Today I bought a Zona with a free-spinning palm knob that looks like it ought to be more user-friendly. But I've also ordered some carbide bits and figured out a jig that ought to speed up drilling holes for the 468 spokes - especially so if I can use it on my drill press. If it works, I'll post some photos of it.
  12. Bob, are you using Plastruct hexagonal rod for bolt heads?
  13. Thank you for the information, Bob! I love your work! Please post more as you progress.
  14. I'm wondering if there are drawings somewhere for a Duesenberg that might have dimensions for the details you've added to the chassis? Since acquiring this kit, I've been sort of struggling with how far to go with improvements to the basic Hubley architecture. I think they got the proportions and stance correct but, of course, they abbreviated the detail as it just was not expected in the early sixties, not to mention price point and all the commercial considerations. Correcting the wheels is a major step, but I should like to go further than that. How far is the question. I had this kit when I was about 15 or 16; built it out of the box, painted it green just like the box illustration and loved the car. But it was too big to go with me when I left home and that one is lost to history. I bought the phaeton AND the town car kits on ebay just a while ago. Doing the Phaeton first.
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