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Vel's Parnelli Jones F5000 Al Unser Car


Art Laski

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I've been dying to get to this kit for a year now, and I finally just decided to dive in, even though I still have some other projects in motion.

This is Kevin Kuzman's Silver City Models resin and white metal kit, which will be my first of this type. It's going to be fun getting this one built. Like many race cars, there were multiple liveries, but I am going to do this one of Al Unser:

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Here's the kit:

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Right now I am just in cleanup mode, and getting ready to mock it up. In doing so, I'm looking at areas that I could improve upon without creating a major project out of this. One thing that jumped out at me right away were the brakes. Since they are so visible on this kit, I figured they could use an upgrade. I had some Detail Master vented discs that are the perfect size, along with some calipers as well, but I needed to make some brake hats to be able to use the rotors. This looked like an opportunity for me to use my lathe for the first time. I have no machining skills (yet), but this is a simple enough project to learn on. The material I had was too soft, but I still managed to make something usable, ugly, but usable. Hey, I made something!

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Edited by Art Laski
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Thanks, Chris. No, I didn't get a mill. I got a Harbor Freight mini lathe as a partial trade for another piece of equipment I sold. I'm not sure yet how well it will serve me. I may end up selling it in favor of a Sherline, but this is at least getting me started,

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  • 1 month later...
Thank you all for looking!
I stalled a little on this because I needed to do some fab, but I am back at it. The exhaust pipes don't have a support bracket in the kit, so I decided to make my own. I did it in brass because I thought it would be stronger, but I could have done it in styrene in a tenth of the time. I struggled with it for a couple of days, thinking about it many hours and several do-overs! All for a simple part...
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I also re-bent the headers so they came out more to the side rather than down to match the references I had, but I broke one of the white metal pipes, so I decided to replace the pipe with aluminum tube. It's a little rounder than the original casting and might help save weight on the model which will help save wear and tear when travelling. This sucker is going to be heavy!
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Edited by Art Laski
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Hi Art,looks like the start of sumpin beautiful, I,am a big fan of Parnelli's,I'm actually working on his 1970 boss mustang Trans am car,this one looks like it's gonna have some serious details. One thing,I think the rear uprights are solid,? If so maybe you could do some whittling might be cool.Shaun

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Hi Art,looks like the start of sumpin beautiful, I,am a big fan of Parnelli's,I'm actually working on his 1970 boss mustang Trans am car,this one looks like it's gonna have some serious details. One thing,I think the rear uprights are solid,? If so maybe you could do some whittling might be cool.Shaun

Shaun,

Thanks for looking and the suggestion. While you are correct in that the uprights are in reality hollow, the fact is that the only visible sign of that is a hole on the backside which is obscured by the tire and wheel. I considered it though, until I revisited the references... ;)

Art

Edited by Art Laski
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