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Return of the Austin Seven!


jbwelda

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just some teaser photos of what I have been working on the past few weeks...some of you might recall my previous austin:

nicefrontright1.jpg

well in that build thread someone mentioned the resin body i used had actually been sourced from a ROG BMW 3/15 so i had to go out in search of one:

boxandcar.jpg

with the idea that i would build a make believe british hot rod with a more trad look: full fenders, usa vintage speed equipment, but very british wheels and a lotus twin cam motor. unfortunately i had to ditch the brit wheels aspect as i considered lotus wobbly webs, jaguar d-type drilled wheels, and my original thought, southeast finecast photoetch MGB wires. all proved too tall for the look i was after so i ended up using some pewter fenton rears from "dude tek" (love that name, mastered by bob dudek so it makes complete sense but i was practically literally lol-ing for a long while on it), and some resin halibrand spokes from reps and mins of maryland.

mockupwwheels2.jpg

and heres a look at the motor laid inside the body, currently in silver undercoat waiting for a chrome yellow in the next couple days:

engineinchassisheadersi.jpg

motorandbody3.jpg

anyway i will post some more pics in the days to come, and this one ought to wrap up in another month or so if i keep at it...

as always, thanks for looking!!!

Edited by jbwelda
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thanks for the comments folks, i am way further along than the photos indicate, there was some fairly radical stuff and scratch building i had to do to make room for the motor and stance...like find a dropped front axle that would fit and then narrow it severely, build a recess in the firewall and cut away a lot of the floorboards and refab them, plus the front subframe had to go and was replaced by some tube frame section i constructed that you can see around the motor. still more filling needs to be done on that but as photos i will post soon make clear, its pretty far along. those rear wheels look nice but they took some extreme polishing to get to that state from the raw pewter. also i am not going to detail this to the extent i do some because i have really only limited interest in this (as terror says, kinda stubby looking) and wasnt really sure until recently if i would actually go through with the build because of the limited interest but so far i am glad i did because its starting to come around. i see an aluminum moon tank hanging off the front and maybe a chopped down 32 ford grille but we shall see...

charlie thats a lotus twin cam motor from a tamiya europa there. had to do a bit of mods to it since the europa is a mid engine car with a transaxle; had to chop the transaxle off and replace it with an "american" style hot rod trans, i think i may have sourced that from the blueprinter double dragster (pre-reissue). i do have to say its a whole lot easier to do that in plastic than it is to do it in real life! ah the joys of models!

thanks again for looking and please keep the comments coming and also if you have built something similar, post the pics!

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i thought i would add a couple photos from the past, one that might be of particular interest to Chuck, who expressed an interest in getting a couple of these kits. you should be prepared to deal with a few ejector pin marks, for instance:

chassiswithsinkmarks.jpg

:)

pretty scary if i do say so myself! and they are everywhere: on the finely detailed door panels, in the wheel wells, on the dashboard, oh yeah...

on a completely different note, someone on my other thread mentioned that the front suspension was modeled especially correctly on this kit so i wanted to keep what i could, but still drop the front end down as much as it would go. so after thinking about it, it was direct into my parts box for a dropped front axle that was *very* narrow. no such luck, so i found one that i thought i could narrow considerably, then cut the spring and detail from the kit axle and grafted it all together. then i realized that all the detail i was after was on the piece i deleted but at least i have a usable front axle.

stock front axle and suspension:

frontaxlestock.jpg

and the dropped axle and suspension, in a rough state of course:

frontaxledropped.jpg

finally, the wheels:

wheelsandtires2.jpg

thanks for looking!

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i thought i would add a couple photos from the past, one that might be of particular interest to Chuck, who expressed an interest in getting a couple of these kits. you should be prepared to deal with a few ejector pin marks, for instance:

Whoa! A veritable minefield of ejector pin circles! :lol: I think I'd solve that by not using the fenders and making my own floor. :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

and just to show things are progressing, slowly, but progressing, heres an update!

gotta love that thing about making a JDM version with a hot engine, i like that!

heres some of the pieces: rear chassis and floorboards, motor, in the background

you can see the front axle and the hood if i decide to use it

chassisandmotorwheelspa.jpg

and a couple of shots of the firewall from front and back, carpets and quick

change rear end(!) hanging out back there.

floorboardfirewallseats.jpg

finally, looking at front side of firewall back into interior. theres more to do

there of course, but its starting to come together.

seatsandfirewall1i.jpg

photos to come of body after its been painted...i had the color coat put on but the paint

sagged a bit so i had to sand and now its ready to be reshot. i am using tamiya

chrome yellow and which has a tendency to creep away from high points so i am having

a problem getting a nice even color. but i think it will come around.

as always, many thanks for looking!

Edited by jbwelda
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finally, looking at front side of firewall back into interior. theres more to do

there of course, but its starting to come together.

seatsandfirewall1i.jpg

This is turning into a neat build. I may have to build one myself, if I ever get done with all the 1:1 British car projects in the carport.

How did you do the carpet? It looks really nice.

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thanks for the comments everyone!

for dave, thats just normal flocking there, detail master i believe, 1:5 mix grey to black and i used diluted elmers white glue to hold it down. looks a bit "shaggy" but not too bad.

and i sold my 1:1 lotus series one super seven and my mgtf so my driveway consists of pure japanese cars now. leaves a lot more time for building models, models that dont leak oil!

one note to anyone thinking of building another of these, besides the ejector pin marks of course, the rear deck just begs to be opened up and/or the seats cut away from their backing and hinged to fold forward. thats what i should have done but did not...it would be an excellent place to put a spare tire and the battery, which will not be included in my build because there is no good visible place to put one. also a near-full size fuel tank would look great back there, i am going to use a machined aluminum moon tank hanging in front of the grille shell or at least thats what i am thinking at this point; may change as the rubber meets the road so to speak.

Edited by jbwelda
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ok we got color! a fairly even, well covering coat or twenty of tamiya chrome yellow!

bodyinyellowfrontright.jpg

bodyinyellowfromback.jpg

heres a shot of the body in color next to the chassis with rear suspension wrapped up:

bodyinyellowandchassis.jpg

hmmm looking closely at a couple of those i hope i dont have some flaws happening

on the right side...but right now i really dont feel like investigating it so i am

calling it lense flair for now!

finally a couple of shots of the rear suspension: half springs and friction shocks which also

kinda look like traction bars. i made it look ok i suppose but theres zero travel...but the

quick change rear end makes up for it in koolness:

chassiswithrearsuspensi.jpg

rearsuspensionandaxlesi.jpg

next up on the paint front is to let it gas out for a week then color sand it, a thin coat of pearl clear

and then a couple coats of model master gloss clear and a final sanding/polish job on that.

let me add a shot of some interior components, tonite i am going to build a pedal cluster for brake and

clutch and i have a skull shift knob in the works.

interiorcomponents.jpg

thanks again for looking and of course any comments/comparisons welcome!

Edited by jbwelda
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well a slight setback on the "pain job"...i forgot the cardinal rule of painting: try to not drop your fresh paint job in the dirt!

oh well a couple days drying up and a few minutes/hours session with some wet and dry and it might be almost like it never happened! hopefully i wont burn through the clear and the color doing so or it will be into the strip tank with ya!

this was just after spraying a gloss pearl clearcoat...pay attention kids and don't let this happen to you!

fkeduppearlclear2.jpg

fkeduppearlclear.jpg

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well some good news: interior is near complete:

floorseatsskullnicest.jpg

skullcloserup.jpg

as always, comments and "what a dummy"s always cheerfully accepted or at least ignored!

by the way, notice the ejector pin mark on the side of the old revell parts pack master cylinder

and handbrake. those darn things are everywhere!

i hope that one gets a bit more hidden though i cant imagine that it will be.

Edited by jbwelda
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