absmiami

The brackets are then liquid glued on to the top frame rails now these rails are curved - down - and they don't run parallel - John Cooper was the last race car builder to rely on chassis tubes that bent every which way continued to do this for years on his grand prix cars - til his drivers, and his competitors, like Chapman, convinced him that this was not a real good idea .... - so the brackets are filed at odd angles and glued to the top rails with the strip sitting on the brackets to guide placement - that's where the leaf spring sits ...

So the rear leaf springs are perched on some brackets Made these out of some evergreen channel strips first glued back to back and then filed and drilled and filed again

today's photos : additional eng bay frame tubes plus a shot of the Merit rear susp kit part the uprights will be cut away and probably used in the model and the leaf spring will be made from brass strip or perhaps nickel silver also will make a transaxle "box" to hold the half shafts - probably got to scratch those too - we'll see the brackets supporting the leaf spring will magically appear in the next download

by the way - dogfish is there a certain beer that you are particularly fond of ?

time to add some engine bay frame tubes - still in catch up mode - this was done bout a month ago once again - evergreen and liquid glue the 3rd shot shows how well you can repair a body shell gap or break with renshape ...

suspension brackets from Evergreen strip front and rear - eight in total

beginning work on the rear frame and suspension pick-ups again Evergreen strip, files, saws, and liquid glue

the brown stuff glued to the end of the bodywork is renshape it files nicely and adheres well with zap formula glues was used here to fill in where a portion of the body had broken off

front frame construction using evergreen rod - 1/16th - with one of the Deeks white metal suspension arms n white metal - modified to attach to brackets - again made from evergreen

so this is the Deeks Cooper F III kit with the white metal parts - including suspension, wheels, and engine some preliminary work has been done on the nose ...

okay - I learned that you can not open a word perfect link here - so here's the bio: Chassis Num: MK9-14-55 In 1955, the car was sold new by Cooper Works to the USA and its period race history is unknown. It was imported back to the UK by Clive Osbourne in 1970 and sold to Roger Sweet in the mid-1970s. In 1980, it was sold to Richard Crosthwaite. This 1955 Cooper T36 MK9 was driven by Stirling Moss at the 2nd Festival of Speed at Goodwood in 1994. Subsequently raced by Oliver Crosthwaite. It was sold in 2002 to Charles McCabe, the present owner, who has campaigned the car in North America. The car is powered by a Norton Manx 499cc single cylinder engine with a short-stroke magneto ignition. The engine produces around 50 horsepower and is matted to a Norton 4-speed manual gearbox. The oil system is a dry sump setup with a separate 1 gallon fuel tank. The clutch is a 'Dry multi-plate' setup with a Norton motorcycle pattern. The front brakes have two leading shoes while the rear is a single disc HRG-Lockheed, centrally mounted unit. The total weight of the vehicles is a mere 530 pounds.

I photographed the car bout ten years ago at Limerock and this is a bio on the car fr the internet Chassis Num.wpd

this is what I am building :::

nothing fancy - just evergreen stock, some drawings, trial, and error - lots of error. there is a white metal suspension arm attached - more on this later .... kinda choppy - learning how dto do this ....

Some of the Merit parts will be used in the resin knockoff shell casted by Guido of ScaleKraft eons ago. The casting is quite thin - allowing construction of the Cooper frame from Evergreen styrene tubing and stock

top and bottom body shells glued together, enclosing one peice front and rear suspension assemblies. Kit had been partially glued together decades ago. Nothing, NOTHING, managed to seperate the glue joints

sorry gary - you can't watch you'll learn all my secrets ... Rodney - the scale is 24th - Merit only did 24th scale for the car kits - think they did other scales for some other subjects

Dale King ! Herb Deeks! the plot thickens ... thing 1 - I too have the Deeks resin knock-off of the Merit Cooper. And yes, It had white metal parts for the engine, susp, and wheels spoiler alert - these white metal parts are gonna come in real handy for this build thing 2 - Guido was a big fan of Mr. King's. When he sent me the Cooper body castings, he included a photo-copy of Dale's 1/12 scale build !!

thanks ! you're my first reply don't you win something ? actually - I took the workbench shot AFTER I cleaned it up

almost forgot : It's always critical to keep you workbench clean and well organized !!

Wow - my first build blog - finally got an "eye phone" - and learned how to take pictures - and even download them. So into the modern world we go ...... Buried somewhere on the workbench is a 1/24th Merit Cooper FIII. Kinda rare. Bought mine years ago as semi-built-up. Started but not painted or finished. Gonna actually build this with a thin-cast resin body from Guido or ScaleKraft fame. It's a knock-off of the Merit body with a nice thin casting. Also kinda rare - I've never seen another one. To the best of my knowledge, Guido stopped casting before he actually produced a resin kit of the Cooper - which is a shame. Anyway, I'm a complete sucker for Merit kits - got a bunch. Delayed this build until I found some photo-etch that could be used for the chain drive - which I finally stumbled upon recently - more on this later. This is not a "real time" build. The work on the body and chassis was begun earlier this year. I'll post as I have time and sort of catch up on the build as I near completion. Here goes .