Chris B

With the rear end finished I threw some color on it and while waiting for it to dry I moved on to tackling the exhaust starting with the Lakester style headers. I had to make a wedged shape piece of styrene to glue between the head and header flange to raise the angle of the primaries up so that they would not interfere with the chassis rail/ I took this opportunity to drill some holes and super glue styrene locating pins to the header flanges. It is my intention to run an exhaust pipe out of the back of the headers under the vehicle some how.

Beautiful model. What do you use to paint the exhaust/trans etc?

Apart from a few nuts and bolt details added I'm calling this rear end finished

A little more work tonight Unfortunately my medical issues are catching up with me again. After having surgery to remove the infection from my left foot, the time I spent struggling to walk has affected the osteoarthritis in my right hip and I have been having issues with it dislocating when I'm sitting down and intense pain. in the last six months it has really affected life in general not to mention work. It has been a struggle to sit at the building bench and I tend to sleep a lot in the evenings because of the large dosages of meds I am on for the pain. After an X ray showed earlier this week that the ball has collapsed the specialist has final acknowledged the need for surgery and that is now happening early in October thank goodness. I have been continuing to work on the new diff assembly and have so far constructed one shock mount that I have attached to the axle tube and have begun constructing some shock absorbers from scratch out of styrene stock I was a little concerned originally that they may have been a little large, out of scale but after looking around at some photos of other models and 1 to 1 vehicles I am happy that they are fine. I have drilled some holes in the floor boards and glued some styrene rod in at an angle to simulate a mounting tube that the upper shock stem passes through. it is my intention to also create a washer and rubber mount to fit over the stem for added realism. I'm also going to add some nuts and washers to the lower eye.

One of my favorite kits I'll be following this one

Ah thanks for the info

Tell me more what are these NB castings?

Looks awesome. That vinyl top looks real

Trimmed things up a little and drilled some holes for the pins I have used to secure the transverse spring to the axle tubes and it all looks like it fits pretty good. Next up will be shock absorbers. I haven't been able to find anything suitable in the parts stash so these at this stage will be scratch built also.

Well after spending a little bit of time modifying this axle this afternoon I've decided I really don't like the results. I stumbled upon a chrome center section just randomly laying on a shelf in my display cab net. i have no idea where it came from or what kit it came out of but I played around a bit with it and decided I liked the look. I stuck it in a shot glass of bleach and stripped the chrome from it split it into two halves and gave it a good cleanup, I glued the two halves bvack together and drilled it out to accept the axle tube and I have decided to stick with the enclosed torque tube for a drive shaft. I think I'm liking the results so far, what do you think?

So I pulled the phaeton out of the display cabinet this rainy afternoon to discover that the rear wheels have a huge amount of negative caster. I guess the resin has maybe not cured strong enough to hold the weight of the model itself for an extended period of time. The axle seems quite firm and was originally cured under a uv lamp. I don't feel much like making another one even though I do have the mold. After a quick cup of coffee I decided to cut the axle tubes from the center section. I am going to drill a hole through the center of the center section an slide a length of styrene tube with a piece of wire up the center of it for strength and move on. I have never been 100% happy with the look of this axle, to my way of thinking it lacks a little in detail around the center section so I may attempt to add some more detail as well. I'll see how I feel about this once I have sorted the bent axle issue.

Looking forward to watching this one progress. I've got this one tucked away in the stash for a future build.

Thanks Guys

Thanks Guys

Gosh it's hard to believe it's been 6 months since I posted on here and a lot has happened in that time. The good news is that I have finished the model I started for my Wife of the glass house. It was only supposed to take me a couple of nights but it turned out to be quite an en-devour Needless to say the Wife is very happy with her glass house that she is proudly displaying. I have to say that i did enjoy the challenge that it was, every leaf, flower petal and page in a book had to be assembled and glued etc. Now that it is complete I have dusted of the bench and will be back into getting on with the Phaeton and some photos will be on here very soon. I have had quite a spend up since my last post I've purchased a spray booth and a dehydrator and countless other tools that will be put to good use. I have also come to the realization that a 1 to 1 boat project that i have been working on for some time now due to poor heath issues, Rheumatoid arthritis and a hip that has deteriorated to the point that it frequently dislocates itself when In sitting down will never be finished and I have removed it from the rotisserie that it was on in my garage and put it on the market. Because of this I now have space to build a purpose built model building area with a new bench set up complete with a Hobby zone Modular Workshop System and new shelving for the paint booth and dehydrator etc Thanks for the patience guys. I'll be back real soon with some updates on the Phaeton.