Scale-Master

The valve cover hold-down bolts and breathers were machined from aluminum. Both are patterned from the same line of Eddie Motorsports parts. Yes, there is a little grime around some areas…

Rear corners ready to install.

Thanks Tim! Yes it was rewarding to see the colors start to come together after 3+ years of it being in my imagination. I made the water temperature probe/sender and the bellhousing bolts & washers. I also made decals for the "fan" belts and fuel lines. I made the worm type hose clamps for the radiator hoses that connect to the engine. I also made decals for the hoses. The lower (water pump) hose is actually an upper hose for a small block C3 Corvette, and the upper is a big block C3 hose. That's just the way they fit in this application. (The lettering is intentionally distressed as the printing on the real ones is often that way.)

The distributor, as well as its hold down clamp, is installed, the signal wires are routed and vacuum advance hose plugged into the canister. The ignition wires come later…

After the first round of paint for the interior it was time for another test fitting of some of the body panels to the tub.

The intake manifold has now been final installed, (with gaskets), and the fuel lines are temporarily attached until the upper carb gaskets are added and the distributor is installed. (The valve covers are not finished yet, but they make the engine look better than just the raw heads. And because… magnets!)

I 3D printed the vent screen masters for the Webers when I grew the other carb parts, but I didn't make the mold to cast them then. I used a platinum RTV mold against glass to cast these in resin. I made the four bleeders for each caliper and installed them before mounting the rotors and calipers to the spindles. The soft brake lines and hardware have been installed too. I also made the Willwood decals.

The Corvette master cylinder (with J56 proportioning valve) has been installed and all the hard lines for the front and some of the rear have been connected. I put off making the bleeders on the master when I made it, so those were done today as well. The oil coolers have been reinstalled and plumbed.

The front suspension is assembled and it works. 99% of the hardware is installed too; I'll add the fittings to the upper ball joints later. I was going to use the rubber-like bellows for the tie rods, but one split when I installed it. So I machined a new pair of them. I installed the floor mats and added the little metal anchors to keep them in place. The Jabroc strips have been installed to the tub too.

There's a few weeks' worth of work… Still a few more hardware items to machine, but it is starting to take shape.

This is one of the front shocks. Both ends get rubber eyelet bushings. I put off making the stabilizer links when I was making the other suspension parts, but now I need to make them before proceeding on this section. Here are the kit provided parts next to my scratch-built ones. They are made of steel, brass, aluminum and resin.

Thanks! And nope. .202's with straight plugs like my real car this engine is partly based on. And even though they are painted to go with the block, they are aluminum. (Something I could never bring my self to do on my real car.)

Time to start assembling the engine permanently. The heads, oil pan and oil filter went on first. The oil pan received a little residual dirt weathering on the bottom and a little grime was added to the gasket areas. The starter, bellhousing and fly wheel were next. The fuel pump block off plate was installed too. The tub has been painted too.

Thanks Guys! I noticed this morning that I forgot to put the windshield wiper on it. And while I jokingly blamed Monty for sparking my interest in building this little one, I'll apply the same to him if I do the N gauge '55 Chevy I've been meaning to build. (I already did a flamed '50 Merc coupe in 1/160th.)

As much as I was leaning towards red for this, after seeing the full body in color I went with black vinyl and micro-fiber suede for the seat cushions. I did the first cut of the paint up to 12000 grit on the front end. Now it needs to cure again before I go for the second round. This hot weather working in my favor at the moment.

Le Mans Miniatures 1/87th scale kit. WIP Thread:

Those mirrors were fun… The bodies are resin and the kit provided tiny thin PE posts. The resin parts were not painted and the PE ones were, but they were very undersized so I made new posts from thin strips of styrene. I found a fluorescent orange Tamiya paint pen that did not need a white base to cover well and brush painted the mirror parts. Chrome silver paint will have to do for the mirror faces…

Got the wheels, Gurney flap and wing installed. There's even a little PE tow ring for the front.

The interior is one piece of resin. I cemented it to the PE chassis. The steering wheel is PE too with a pin for the steering column.

The rear wing is PE, I think it's maybe made of nickel, it is not brass. It comes pre-stamped to give it an airfoil of sorts. The wing tips are brass PE. All the decals have been applied. There were a couple tiny green areas that I touched up with X-28 Park Green. I was pleasantly surprised at how close it matched these decals, but then it did a good job in the same application on the Tamiya kit of the same car…

The two side graphic decals were laid out on the sheet on the wrong sides. The other decals are laid out on the sheet as they should go onto the car. After a little head scratching I figured it out. These were even more difficult to get to conform than the previous ones. Even on the correct sides, they were a bit short in the rear areas. Fortunately the kit includes a small section of green decal to patch with. It also provides a section of white dotted lines. It took two pieces of the green to fix each side.

Four more decals applied. A good 90 minutes for them. The two around the headlights were more work than the first one. There are a few nice little PE parts for the rear end. This is the first to be installed. I still need to trim/touch up the decal before fitting the Gurney flap.

This is the first decal for the body graphics. It took about 30 minutes to apply.

The clear is Valspar AC2100 two-part urethane. The hot weather today worked well in having it kick off faster than normal. What a difference the clear makes in the color… Almost like it got turned up to eleven.

After almost 38 months of working on this project, the body is finally getting painted. This is the base coat. It's a color I had custom mixed in DuPont ChromaSystem called Violent Blue. As many of you know, without the clear the color is very muted and appears darker.