absmiami
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Everything posted by absmiami
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Gerald Wingrove has passed away.
absmiami replied to Bugatti Fan's topic in General Automotive Talk (Trucks and Cars)
proud owner or four of his books they have always inspired me and informed me RIP -
jammed a piece of evergreen strip into the cylinder head when its time to fit plug boots and radiator pipes into the cylinder head - the extra material will keep everything in position than sawed the gear case in half and added some bits and pieces of evergreen to detail the front and back of the cyl head now need to make two pumps that sit down low in the front of the gear case - one - or both - not sure - are oil pumps - one might be a filter ... haven't quite figured this all out yet oil lines go in and out of a tank in the scuttle and in and out of a small radiator sitting under the water radiator and then through a pump and then in and out of the engine block so if anyone would like to send me the MFH instructions for the 1/12th 158 kit - the pages showing the oil lines - that would be nice .....
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Road and Track mag used to be really good Really ! they would sometimes publish drawings fr artists that would show us stuff that we could not otherwise figure out - like what does the bottom of the engine bay on an Alfa 158 look like ?? this is a scan of a section of a full page layout the sheets of evergreen plastic come in handy every third blue moon ... the correct size "metal siding" sheet - railroaders would use it to make an HO scale metal roof ... was scribed w/a Tamiya scribing tool to open and deepen the grooves ... presto - one finned engine sump base - with a couple of round oil filter covers punched from sheet plastic ... will be epoxied to the bottom of the block after finishing more stuff ...
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don't try this at home - no just kidding Do try this at home ... the plug wires run through a really neat guide that is drilled with plug holes and openings for (?) heat dissipation like swiss cheese this would be a bear to machine - like the supercharger - would take hours to do well so I appreciate the 3D printed part - which is very accurate but can we open and drill it for the wires ?? turns out that we can - the material is translucent - so you can see where the twist drills are going but the material is also tough and just a little flexible so if you go slow and use progressively smaller and larger drills, you can actually open the part which is pretty cool ....
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as I was adding some detail to the Weber Carb I recalled that Indycals' instructions warned that there might be some interference with the intake manifold once the supercharger and carb were attached yup, there is .... not a big deal - removed some material from the back one third of the manifold and on goes the supercharger and weber carb ......
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some test fitting want to make sure that the engine with the carb and intake horn will clear the bonnet its close but looks OK a profile photo of the real car looks like this ... about the intake manifold though ....
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in case you've never opened a Merit kit box ... by the way - the art work on the original kit boxes was great ... 0793 is shot of the kit engine sitting on the kit frame with the new and improved engine besides quite a difference in scale block length vs the Merit engineer's guess ....
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all of that great cyl head detail that was drawn and printed into the top of the cyl head was removed to shorten the engine so I then had to replace it with some bits and pieces of Evergreen plastic the engine actually had a two piece cyl head - two blocks of four cylinders - bolted together in the middle that's what the part is in 0790 - representing the tabs at the center of the cylinder head that are bolted together ...
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the cylinder head marked the valve cover bolt holes with an xacto and a caliper measure, divide, and drill - I'll add some RB Motion dome-head nuts - the smallest ones then sanded a slight "crown" to the cyl head the black is just a sharpie to help me with the marking and measuring - actually you could "paint"the valve cover w a sharpie finish most of the engine will be flat black anyway ...
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one brief note for Merit kit owners the kit engine has a single supercharger - which is accurate for the early 158's the Indycals engine kit duplicates the two stage supercharger on the 1950 Fangio car the intake horn points forward and down - this is correct for the Fangio car the later 158s and 159s had the intake horn that turned up and drew its air from the behind and above the engine bay so even GP cars from the early fifties were evolving and changing within the racing season this is not a recent development !!
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the printed parts had pegs that matched the kit mounting points on the kit frame one small problem the kit frame is all wrong ... I've got enough drawings and literature to be certain that the frame rails ran straight back - like a ladder - yes, it was referred to as a ladder frame ... and were only 16 MM - in scale - apart - a very narrow - and simple - frame the round chassis tubes visible on the 159 were not used on the 158 you can also refer to a building blog for the 12th scale MFH - they got all of these details correct so on the back side of the gear case cover you can see 2 things thing 1 - Portaro gets the basic shape of the block and cyl head right thing 2 - I've begun to modify the frame mounts by removing that section from the printed parts and re-shaping the 3D material and adding evergreen for the mounts - front and back so whenever I get around to 1. grinding out the kit frame, and 2. making the new frame - from Evergreen stock - no big deal - the engine will slip right on to the frame and should be securely mounted ...
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had to drill eight spark plug holes into the cyl head - and I will have to add a bunch of bolt holes and openings for the radiator pipes the intake manifold is a very nice casting - but it is too long - matching the block's length so that got sawed up, re-glued - and then placed into a new peg hole it sits just above the superchargers - got to move them too - they sit farther back on the side of the engine block - the unit actually juts out past then end of the block the superchargers are a nice example of how 3D printing can give you a complex part that would take weeks to scratchbuild might add a some bolt details - we'll see ....
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some more photos of weekend progress the engine will now sit in the engine bay of the Merit Alfa without the distributors jammed under the radiator tank the exhaust ports are gone - the new openings are drilled and await square flanges ....
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So the idea is to modify the 3D parts to something that has the correct length - which will eventually make for a better fit in the Merit kit body - once I fix the frame ...... and the 3D parts have a much more accurate shape than the Merit block - which was basically - a block ... so I started by sawing off the valve gear casing at the front then I sawed about 4 1/2 scale inches off the engine block which left me with a straight seven engine block - suppose I could build it like that but just in case some judge decides to count the spark plugs or exhaust pipes (maybe 30% chance?) I removed the spark plug and exhaust port detail - which I will replace ...
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momentary distraction or just a break fr the Delage ... Michael Portaro - aka Indycals - has a shapeways page with his 3D printed parts including a kits of parts for the Merit Alfa 158 Michael has some issues with the new shapeways pricing policies - but we'll leave this issue aside for the moment the kit is intended to build the Merit Alfa kit without major structural change to the kit - and the 3D grill is awesome therefore: the parts look great - but the engine block was designed to fit like the kit block and use the kit exhaust pipe problem is - the engine block on the Merit kit was about four scale inches too long - why ?? - who knows this was the first attempt to produce a detailed 1/24th kit of Grand Prix car - and the design is nearly sixty years old - so I guess no one complained ..
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I tried shaping the part to show some creases in the seat cushion - but it wasn't working well on the mechanic seat back ... so I pulled out a bag of leather scraps and found some brown leather that matches the color on the car the grain is fine so I think it will look okay with some work to finish the leather folds at the top of the seatback and it was reasonably thin - I don't often use leather in 24th scale - but this will do ... will have to figure out the seat cushions - either cover them in leather or make "leather" cushions ...
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the driving mechanic seat back is recessed on this car - it's a neat feature but I have to piece together the renshape parts to follow the contour of the cockpit opening once I got the part roughed out I began to think about the finish ...
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OOPS SNOOZING AGAIN ..... the friction shocks are done so its on to the seats - just about the last parts that I need to make ... renshape again - different sizes and shapes - mostly hand tool shaped with random tooth files and sanding sticks
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engines ... my bad thought the Mecum car used a chevy engine - but probably all of the Mecum cars used Ford engines - right? http://www.britishracecar.com/BillThumel-Lola-T70.htm this is a link to a walk a round of the Penske Lola T70 - which is Chevy powered but generally useful for the chassis and suspension photos the present day restored cars have different features - but that is more down to what was/is available at the time of the restoration ... check out the purple rivets - I was told at a vintage event that those are period correct for the Lolas rivet counters rejoice !!
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what the heck its a beautiful car ...
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2 cents ... the shape of the IMC body is much better than the AMT slot body - particularly the nose AMT box art says 1/24th but maybe not - appears to be about the same dimensions as the IMC but the wheels on the AMT kit are a bit better than the IMC the engine block in the IMC kit appears too small but that can be corrected the block is shorter than the IMC Chaparral kit engine - both used sm block chevys - which is funny - cause the body of the Chaparral is way too narrow ... are you going to make the Mecom car or what ?? I photographed the silver Skip Hudson Mark I T70 at Palm Beach motorsports park two weeks ago beautiful car !! I'll post a photo if you want to see it ...
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each shock has an outer disc that I punched from .005 copper sheet then I made the clips - that look like mechanical spiders these are hand filed from additional machined nickel discs and then simply marked black with a sharpie the shocks are attached with some castle nut castings from that Russian aftermarket company - they make the nut/bolt assembly in different sizes - I am drilling holes in the 1.6 mm size and then cutting them from the bolt casting - probably finish these with a silver sharpie - the real things are cast and therefore have a relatively dull finish ...
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some more assembly shots not sure - but I think the disc for the middle leaf is a bit thicker - I made these about .015 thick - in contrast to the thinner outer leaves ... then made the brass posts for the chassis pickup points
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here's how they are made the joint is tricky - used silver solder for strength and hand filed for the taper the fine cutting saws sold by UMM are helpful here ... you may have seen these made in larger scale on the excellent Voisin build on the BritModeler site ......
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so I also need to make the friction shocks - most pre-war race cars had these the delage had opposing pairs of these shocks left and right on the rear suspension and 2 more sets of shocks under the chassis fairing up front for these I'll use model factory pico's castings the rear shocks - seen here - are made from pieces of nickel silver - discs and bars soldered and then bolted together with an .070 mm section of bolt the discs - 3 in each shock - are turned on a lathe - .010 width and about .190 width - which is just less than 5 scale inches
