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Everything posted by Scale-Master
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The Wildcat, (and Coyote, McLaren and Eagle) were being cast by PM in the late '70s before I started working there. The Eagle was originally done by IMRA but had different decals, and the others share some parts. But I cast more than I could count of all of them during my time there. My Wildcat has a label, but no picture. Maybe it's faded off? My McLaren doesn't even have a label.
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This is an older 1/43rd scale kit from late 1980 or sometime in 1981. I know the date because I have a personal attachment to this kit for a few reasons. Primarily because I cast all the white metal parts in this kit when I was the head caster at Precision Miniatures back then. The parts were mastered and the molds were made by Lloyd Asbury. The box art was drawn by my late friend Dale King. The decals were drawn by my father, Lloyd S. Jones of Scale-Master Decals. These look a bit rough due to their age of 42 years, but this will be built as an alternate version so I only need a few of the ones on this sheet. This is the raw body (and chassis) casting straight out of the box. It's pretty clean even compared to more modern kits, but still requiring some clean-up. Interestingly, to mold the front grille opening as part of the body (instead of a separate piece), they were spin cast in a unique three part mold. (Actually four parts since each mold made two bodies.) A separate plug for each body had to be sandwiched between the main halves and carefully extracted from the metal body after each cast. Lloyd was quite the innovator… The rest of the parts include PE wire wheels, semi-soft tires, vacuum formed windshield and headlight covers, chrome parts and a good amount individual parts for decent detail of the time.
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I reworked the headlight covers and added the seals & fasteners. They are just sitting loose on the body.
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Never can be too careful...
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Thanks Andrew. Not quite yet, I still have to set up the throttle linkage before the engine goes in.
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The sawhorses are finished. I made decals and added the pivot point fasteners.
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I mixed some enamel cream and acrylic clear yellow and painted where the magnets were visible on the bottom. Steel pins locate the wood beams to the frames. Ready for final paint…
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Thanks Noel! I painted the insides of the horses and the latch/locks before installing them with hinge pins.
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I set my mill up to work as a planer and shaved some basswood stock down for the tops. I also imbedded some magnets to make them more stable when the hood is perched on them.
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I soldered a second layer of brass to the stiffeners for detail, and stiffness…
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Thanks Scott! I soldered the sheet metal stiffeners to the A frames.
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On my list of ancillary parts is a pair of saw horses to support the hood when it is not on the car. I started with some brass C channel and rectangular box stock. I milled the box stock into another size of C channel for the tops. I soldered the perimeter of the A frame together. (As fun as making them fold up seemed at first, their job is to show off the car part safely first.) Next I cut the angles for the bottoms of the legs.
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Thanks guys! Yes it was very nice to see you too Pete, despite the occasion. I made small doors for stowage for the inner door panels. The knobs are steel. I painted the doors to match the wheels and the recessed areas of the panels are body color. The inner door handles are fabricated from aluminum. I also added a latch mechanism to the front of the doors for safety. The front and rear latch pins are aluminum. I'll add the two fasteners to the bottom of each door panel when they are permanently installed to the doors.
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I machined the aluminum door handles too. The inner door panels were given some attention and a few more magnets as well. I was using screws to attach them to the doors when I started, but the magnets will make for a cleaner look. Up until now they were just being used to align the doors to the body. I haven't decided if I'll fill the two bottom holes on each on yet, or add a small pull bar. Depends on the inner latch handle…
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Once I got the door lines better than the real cars I've been using for reference I turned my attention to the door handles. I like the cleaner smooth look better than the T-bar handles with the deep dimples that came in the kit. The sleeker GT40 style handles made sense since the same guy designed both cars. I cut out a section of the doors to fit the brass inserts I made to receive the handles. After they were located uniformly I filled in the dimples too.
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I got the engine cover and doors to open and close smoothly and uniformly, but the doors and their panel lines still needed some adjustment. I added material (more sheet plastic) to the roof to make the left door align better. The A pillars also received more material for the same reason. These shots give a good indication of how much material (white styrene) was added to true up the body panels. I did not use any putty at this point, just styrene and CA. Hopefully this will be under primer for the last time soon…
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Now that the inner door jambs have been fleshed out, the final adjusting of the door lines should be achievable.
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Thanks Tim! I fabricated a pair of rubber floor mats... Made custom decals for the Lola logos.
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Thanks Guys! Time to work on the body again. I had gotten the doors to fit pretty well along with the other body parts, but knowing the changes I would be making to the chassis would affect the body I didn't try to make them fit as well as I intended to. The first adjustments were to do some inner door jamb work. Plus one of the doors had fatigued from handling so it was drilled and steel reinforcement pins were installed. The right door ended up with a low spot on the top rear and on the front next to the fender. Sheet styrene was added to fill as well as reshape the edges and corners. The rest of the body in those areas was reshaped at the same time. Still more to do, but a step in the right direction…
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I made the plug for the alternator and the hot lead with a small eyelet and nut. The loom was made by wrapping .0085 wire around .039 diameter wire. The leads for the tach and battery for the distributor are also poking out. I added the signal wire to the solenoid (with another tiny eyelet and brass nut).
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The cut-off switch was also milled from resin as was the switch knob. Custom decals were made for it too. I also finished the starter cable that runs from the switch to the solenoid; the smaller wire feeds the fuse block.
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I made decals for the fuse box and lightly distressed the top one as often the printed ink gets scuffed. I did a little dirt and dust wash around the crevices and the mounting hardware has been installed too.