François

My first test bulkhead, the shape is not quite right yet but almost. Once painted aluminium, l'll add polished aluminium curved sheets with the bolts. Should eventually look something like this.

I reworked the pedal arrangement and incorporate the throttle between the clutch and the brake. I 3d modeled the firewall as per the kit's part but l'll try to get it closer to the real thing and print it. If it looks ok, it will replace the kit's firewall. I finaly got the drums right.

Printed the drilling fixtures for the rims. I just need to glue in small tubing in the appropriate slots to act as drill brushings and I'll be good to go.

Thank you Bugatti fan. Just to clarify, the only part l'm printing is the hub. I could have used the kit's hub like I did with the Alfa but it doesn't fit the new spinner hub l'm making and it basically didn't have the correct shape. The rim portion comes from the kit. And of course the wires themselves will be hand bent and hand laced. 3d printing has in deed upped the game but I still like to use the kit part whenever it is possible.

Did some more work these ladt few days. Added the front brake shoes with spring. Modified the rear shoes to simulate the double shoe setup (I missed that one). The real setup calls for one pair of shoes actuated by the foot pedal and one pair actuated by the hand brake. Started tinkering with the gear box and drive shaft. I 3d modeled the wire wheels. it's not 100% accurate but all I needed was to create the hole patterns on the rim so I could design the drill jig.The kit's wheel are not accurate, they have 1 set of holes on the outside rime and 2 sets on the center portion. In reality, it's 1 set on the outside rim, 1 set in the center and 1 set on the inside rim. The hubs will be printed. And the jig I'm still not happy with the brake drums I printed. New one are being printed as I write this. I also added pedal pads with the Bentley 'B' on thems. And the clutch fork. That's pretty much it for now.

John, l'm using the kit's original frame that l'll be updating so I can fit the brake system's various pivot shafts and whatnots. The reason I 3d modeled it was to be able to fit the brake linkage. I mainly use a dial caliper, scale protractor, a ruler and my eye ball to copy the parts. The Airfix's body supplied with the kit is a simple molded tub.

Big John, what I meant was that 9 months ago, l modeled the wooden body using the kit's plastic body as a reference and a few weeks ago I modeled the frame using the kit's plastic frame as ref without ever checking one with the other. I'm just surprised that my models fit together.

I mated the wooden body with the frame and the fit is surprisingly good considering that they where 3d modeled 9 months apart.

I've pretty much finished the brake linkage modeling, l should be ready to send these parts to resin print next week. 20230706_222859.mp4 I decided to tackle the steering box. To my 'not so big surprise', the steering wheel is not linked to the wheels on this kit, in other words, the front wheels won't steer by turning the steering wheel. That's not acceptable. So I decided to add a worm gear combo to fix this. Here's what the kit provides what's surprising is that there seems to be a space already moulded in to receive a worm gear. Could it be that in the past, the kit provided something for this? So here's what I wanted to do and after final fitting and the result 20230706_214017.mp4 I should be ready to start the frame rail modifications soon and should have a glued up frame shortly.

Thank peteski yes, it was effectively a C section frame hand beaten on special toolings.

Test fitted the fuel tank in the chassis, it fitted fine. I also received all the internal parts for the engine, there's a lot of fitting to do but the result should be good.

Thank you absmiami, I didn't know about the Delage. l have no doubt that these type of systems must have been quite scary to use let alone ajust. So many pivots and levers but, from a pure design stand point, you have to admit it is way cooler then a simple hose filled with fluid. It's a lot more fun to 3d model this then a simple hose and a lot more fun to do in scale.

I'm almost done with the brake system modeling. I thought the italiens where gutsy designers, but the way these bentley boys did the front braking system is beyond cool! They use double universal joints with the pivot points properly located to permit both an up/dw mouvement of the wheel while still being able to steer. Quite a nice design. 20230701_221945.mp4 I started modeling the handbrake system, and if all goes to plan, it should be functional And finally, I printed some small ajustable candles, I wanted to see if I could print functionning threads, and it's possible

So, I've been working alot on the rear drum and spinner hub, printing like a mad man. Here's a crude sketch on how I think the set up would be like. here's a shot of spinner hub and nut mounted with the drum in place. We can clearly see that un like what the kit provides, the nut is just à threaded plate with wings. The chrome cap is not part of the dpinner nut but rather of the spinner hub. My version so far.

The rear axel is assembled and brake shoes are working better with the new cam design. Now, I'm toying with the idea of printing new finned drums with proper spinner hubs. Here is my firts test for the hub The brake system's cad model is advancing nicely. I added the brake pedal. Unfortunately, I tried printing à few levers but they're too small for à filament printer, l'll have them resin printed. 20230628_215117.mp4

I received my ABS filament coil for the printer. It's alot harder to use then the PLA but the results are pretty good and, being styrene, it's easy to trim and sand. I redid some rear brake parts and althought it's far from being finished, we can already see that the brakes work. 20230625_210732~2.mp4 I also started to study the front brakes mecanism. There are a lot of pivot shafts with levers mounted on them. It's really hard to find good pictures of the different components. I did find a drawings that has some good info. What is not there, I'll need to improvise. Hers is the old drawing of brake pivot shafts and levers configuration. First print test of cross member with pivot shaft housings. it's not bad but the wall is too thin. I'm slowly advancing the cad model of the full brake system. Bentley sure loved pivots and levers!!

I've read a bit on the different plastics normaly used with a filament printer. There seems to be 2 popular types, PVA (or polyvinyl) and ABS (also know as styrene). I've been using PVA since it what I got with the printer. It print ok but is very hard to sand and it's also hard to gloss. ABS on the other hand, being styrene, is much easier to sand. Styrene is what our plastic models are made of so I figure that any part printed with ABS should be easy to glue using any model glue. And, as a bonus, ABS can be glossed using acetone. So I've ordered myself a roll of ABS gray filament. I guess I'll be reprinting all the rear brake parts again. Oh well, live and learn !! The result is still nice with the PVA, I'm very curious to see if it will be any better with the ABS.

So, the fuel tank fabrication is done it's pain painted, and ready for final assy. all 4 leaf springs are ubolted painted and rope wrapped. I've been testing the 3d printer a lot and althought it's not precise enough for certain parts (like the internal engine parts) it's good for less complex and detailled design. So I decided to greatly improve Airfix poor excuse for brakes. When I started this build, my intention was to create all brake linkage and possibly have it move a bit like on the Alfa. But I'm going a few step further and 3d print new brake shoes, brake shoe mounting plate (with added details) shoe actuating cam, rod, lever and mounting bracket. Now seeing how it's going since I started printing these parts, I'm pretty confident that not only will the brake linkage move, the brake should actually work. Well, at least that the plan. And being the mecanical nerd that I am, I also decided to drive the rear wheel from the engine. At one point, this kit had an electric motor somewhere so the drive shaft and certain other parts where moulded with square ends or square sockets, depending. This will permit me to transmit from the front of the blower all the way to the differentiel casing. But it's an empty differentiel casing you say, well yes it is but I'm adding 2 gears to correct that. It won't be a real differentiel per say but still, the rear wheel will turn. Now, hiw that for geeky! Here are a few pictures of this endavour. 3d cad model 20230620_154131.mp4 Airfix brake shoe representation and mine(not final parts) My shoe plate and actuating arm bracket the differentiel parts That's it for now.

Wrapping on one leaf spring is done. I'm very happy with the result. Also, I received a Ender 3 filament printer today as a father's day gift. It's used and not worth much but it was a gift so I want to try my best to make it work. It's very easy to use but so far the results are a bit sketchy. Anyone Know how to properly set up this printer?

I'm done with the ubolts and nut on the leaf springs. Alot of bending, cutting and fitting but I think it should look alot better. I'm going thru my printed nuts and bolts too fast and they're expensive to get. I'll draw them up myself and have them printed locally at a fraction of the price of buying having them shipped from germany. It's off to print and after that, thread installation, that should be fun!

I started work on the rear leaf springs today. I've seen a few different version of how it was done back then, some were left bare (you could see the separate leafs), some were wrapped with a cloth of some sort and some were wrapped with a rope. I had to search thru all my ref car pictures but I eventually found a picture that shows a very small portion of the front leafs wrapped with a rope. Althougt the picture in question is of a green car (my ref is black), being they were all built pretty much at the same time I opted for a rope wrap. Ref car What Airfix gives, you can see that they moulded a rop wrap which is not too bad but the ubolts are really bad. my first try, all I had was a red nylon thread, l'll have to get a thread in a beige/natural color and perhaps in a smaller diameter. I also made a proper ubolt. This is just a mockup, but at least now I know what to do.

No problem Noel, but I must warn you, the wings are extremely fragile. I'll modify the part a little bit first by making the wings à little bit thicker. They represent a 1/4dia nut ar 1/12 scale, is that ok?

Well actually, one of the employee has a printer and does small jobs for clients. Quite convenient.

Thank you Bugatti fan. The cutter comes from Amazon and the wingnut, same as most 3d printed parts I but in my models are designed by myself. I get them printed at my local hobby shop for what I concider to be a ridiculously low price. I basically pay for the material.

The engine inner parts are just about ready to print