Codi

Appreciate the sentiments John & Dan. Paul, I actually did what you're describing on the sample one too, I know it will work that way but I wasn't particularly worried about those uneven cuts for that reason. Thanks for burning the neurons trying to help me out!! Still waiting on some end mills to start the blower so I'm looking ahead at engine assembly in the not too distant future. I've to be able to align the pulleys, blower manifold etc. properly so I came up with a simple design for the actual assembly of it all. I wanted to be able to get the crank pulley past the edge of the stand as it will hang lower than that. Machined a groove for the crank girdle to rest in and can easily slip the crank "pin" that secures the engine with a knurled brass screw. I'll bolt the whole thing to my chassis jig with 2 screws when it's time to assemble. cheers

Nice one, love that year of Mustang for the funny cars. That color looks sharp with those decals too. cheers, tim

Clay, I'm happy to be the first to post on this thread...........we're ALL in for a real treat on this one and I'm glad to see you decided to come back and share it with us. Your builds have always inspired me and I look forward to more. Cheers, Tim

Bob, I think when I get it done it should have somewhere close to 60 or bits & pieces, still nothing like Randy D's weber though. Dave, I don't know if your head would hurt from making this but I know your eyes would make things a bit out of focus for a while after you're done. Thanks too! Paul, my being "sloppy" on the practice piece. I know what you're speaking of though and it's appreciated. I have to machine a small .5mm tall area on top of the blower for the Crower which you don't see. I know when I sit down to machine this it is going to be a mental exercise. I'm figuring on a 5 to 6 hour operation so hopefully it will turn out. cheers everyone!!!

Art, my sincerest thank you for the VERY kind comments. I just checked out your brass midget and can't wait to see your progress. While I wait for some end mills to arrive to do the blower, I got it drawn up and wanted to clean up some odds and ends. The butterflies were on the list so I machined them and did a mock-up but I've not permanently affixed them yet. cheers, tim

Paul, don't know what to say having had a bad experience like yours a year or so ago. I feel for you. Chris is right though, go brass young man. I'll be sure to follow along when this gets resurrected. cheers, tim

Hi Paul, glad to see you working on this one too. I always loved this particular car and you had my attention when you broke out the Ti stock to machine it for the half shafts. What changed your mind? I have some too but after reading what a pain it is to machine and how the swarf can possibly spontaneously combust, I thought better of it and never tried. I'll be like many others and will most assuredly follow along. cheers, tim

Thanks Chris, that was / is my plan "b". I took some Renshape that I had laying around that was close to what I needed. I have corner radius cutters and the right one to do the blower, thanks for the offer though. What I wanted to confirm was how to go about cutting in the ribs with a given radius while maintaining a consistent depth in the radius and down the sides. I didn't use a corner radius on this test just to save some time. The time spent figuring it out was worthwhile & with Renshape I could work quickly as compared to cutting metal with the tiny end mills this will require. The ribs you see in the pic were somewhat square when I took it off the mill and i rounded the edges with a sanding stick ever so slightly which is why it doesn't show the "crispness" it had when I pulled it off the mill. This is a path worth pursuing but I've got to draw it up properly 1st and order an end mill that I don't have at present. cheers, tim

Pete, yup, thought I had it figured out but in re-thinking it, I don't. I'm going to try another path that might be much closer. Just some more time in the "lab" is all. Paul, I've been running that through my mind too exactly the way you're describing it. I know I could do it that way but it would be quite a bit of effort. I'll call that one plan "c". Thank you Mike, I'm pleased so far with how it looks, should be really cool when I get the butterflies made and installed along with the other fuel lines/nozzles.

Thank you guys. I think that the time it took me to do the fuel blocks I can get the blower made, or at least get close. I spent time experimenting on how to make one today and I'm going for a 9 rib design as I always liked them from that time period. Cut some ribs in and tried a quick way of doing the blower. Epic fail. You can see in pic 2 that the profile is all wrong. I've got a way to fix that and the tools to do it I believe. I'll do the butterflies next to finish up the Crower and then jump on this. Pete, I'll document with pics what I'm going to do as I go along. Cheers fellas! Tim

HOLY COW! Can't wait to see more pics of the whole thing soon. cheers, tim

Fuel distribution blocks are done. The brass one on the Crower has 13 holes drilled which caused me fits, it took me 2 1/2 days to make these two blocks after trying several ways of doiing them. The fittings are from RB Motion and are not permanently secured yet. The brass block is 3.4mm in length and 2.0mm wide. The manifold fuel distribution blcok is the out of focus aluminum piece in the pic. Next on the list is an attempt to machine a blower out of aluminum. Cheers, Tim I've seen the fuel block mounted either front or the rear of the blower. In this pic it's in the rear but my plan is to swap it around to the front...........maybe.

As Rocket in the original Guardians of the Galaxy movie said oh so eloquently............."OH YEAH"....................................amazing what you did especially when I step back and look at all the phenomenal scratch-building you did Randy on this car. Anything you can't do? Still your number 1 fan. Cheers, tim

You just went from being a high jumper Chris to a pole vaulter you've set it so high for the rest of us. You've really given me some inspiration and goals to shoot for. Great balance and realistic look to the entire car, but again, your engine turned out just stellar. cheers, tim

Hi Brad, I wanted to answer your questions as best I can. The practice piece was one where I didn't spend much time cleaning it up. The reason for the experiment was due to the fact the injector tubes & plate are something unique that I've not plated before. Round tubes / bars and flat surfaces at different times, but not something made and soldered up like this. Caswell gives fair warning that prior to plating, you'd best have it as good as you can make it. Smooth as can be, SHINY and of course, super clean. I didn't bother to smooth it out to a near perfect finish. I wanted to see how evenly the plating would take as the alligator clip was affixed in one location, so I wasn't sure how well the electrical current would flow and and through the piece and tubes in particular. What is most noticeable about the piece when actually viewing it is the difference in the plating over the areas of silver solder that I didn't remove. I like how the piece turned out and I think another half hour or so of cleaning up on the final piece will serve me well When compared to the brass one in the pic though, I almost wish the real ones had been made of brass. It looks pretty cool if I may say so myself. Hope this helped. The 1 thing I did discover that I was doing wrong on occasion was cleaning the piece before plating with either alcohol or acetone with a quick soap bath prior to plating. The booklet says not to use either and recommended Soft Scrub for final cleaning which I did this time. Cheers

Many many thanks guys for your posts and appreciation for the build. Quick update, the Caswell electroless system came yesterday. I watched a GSL video from 08' I think that showed Bill Cunningham (I think that's who did the youtube video) on how to use it. He made it look so easy AND he had great results with it. The manual they sent along was quite extensive on all of their different plating kits. After reading the directions I came across a few things they suggested NOT to do that I had been doing with their Brush plating system. That's why it was more "hit or miss" I think. So instead of using the new kit, I used the Brush plate kit with the nickel and did the dipping method instead. Yesterday I made a quick twin to the original intake I've been working on for test purposes. I didn't spend a lot of time cleaning up the silver solder joints and you can see from the pic the result. I'll be sure to be extra attentive to the final piece before I dip it to remove most if not all the silver solder I can. Please remember, the intake is approx. 1/4" in width X 5'8" in length. The result gives me confidence in using this technique when I'm ready to finish the piece with plating. My plan for the blower is to machine the front and rear plates in aluminum and do a magnesium colored finish on the blower body. I might just anodize the butterflies with red or blue or do them in an annealed, darkened brass OR I could do the injector tube bodies in blue or red inside and the butterflies in aluminum or brass. Any opinions on that are most welcome. Again, thanks everyone. cheers, tim

Beautiful Cato. Thanks too for the great info you shared on how you did it. cheers

Chris, it looks good on the manifold & blower you provided me. Got some things in store for the blower but I'm using the manifold as I just can't top that one. btw, you don't really know any curse words but I got the message. You're just too nice to swear. Pete, I saw one at Micromark for around $150. I think, the Littlemachineshop has one that is much more expensive. I bought mine several years ago and can't remember for the life of me where I got it. Sorry. Thank you John and for checking in too!! Hey Dave, thanks but I thought you were a "Walker" man now?! I checked out your sweet set-up on the tail lights on the 37'........how the heck did you come up with that cool design? REALLY like it! Bob, Scott & Davewilly, thanks too fellas. This bugger is going to be almost 2 weeks of work when done. crazy huh? (rhetorical, no need to answer unless you really feel it necessary ) Joe, hope it was nothing too serious & that you've completely recovered. Glad you like it so far, hope you like the rest. So, on the real setup there are 12 "flats" as I call them for the 8 fuel inlets and the 4 front & rear flats where the throttle linkage passes through the tubes. I found some dirtmodeler brass tabs that were almost perfect for this next step & they only required a bit of modification. I had to drill the fuel ports out as I'm going to insert .6mm s/steel tube that I'll slip the fuel line fittings into. I'm going to use .3mm nickel/silver rod that I bought from Albion for the hard lines. 12 tabs in all took me over an hour to get them soldered on properly. They are SOOOO small. I've ordered an Electro-less plating kit from Caswell that plates nickel over brass using a chemical process only. It's worth experimenting with it as the electro-plating process that I've been using I don't feel will be suitable for this part for a variety of reasons I'll skip over right now. I'll show the results of my "chemistry class" experiment once it arrives. Next I'll do the the injector plate & manifold fuel blocks, then it will be ready for plating & butterflies. Last step will be the fuel lines which I'm sure I'm going to have to ask Chris for advice as his are PERFECTLY symmetrical. Oh to have his patience. 1st pic I'm using a scribe to point out the "flats". Cheers, tim

I'll be waiting for the next pics, that's a pretty sweet looking rendering. cheers, tim

Stunning creation. Congratulations on what you've achieved. wow. cheers, tim

Flame soldered the intake together today, have to add fuel blocks and some detail "tabs". Should have this done next week then onto the blower. I did a quick mock-up out of curiosity. cheers, tim

Nicely done Art. I really enjoyed watching Indy during this time. Congratulations!

Thanks Brad, Chris & Mike.........today I confirmed certain details I want to add and how to fabricate them. Made 1 butterfly wherein I took a 1/64" ball mill and cut a groove down the center of an alum. rod and inserted it into the injector tube. It looks good when it's snugged up nice & tight to the throttle linkage rod. 7 more to go. You'll note too in the pic I inserted s/steel tube where the fuel lines will go. I wanted to be sure it was all nice & square before I sweat solder the entire thing & the pic gives a good idea how high up the butterfly sits. cheers

What exquisite detail Randy. The proper scale and attention to the smallest component sets an all new level for detail. I am completely overwhelmed with your efforts to replicate the different scale, texture and materials to bring the interior to life. Great to have the doors swing up that way so everyone can really appreciate the efforts you put into it. Thanks for the post. Cheers, Tim

Thank you Chris. I managed to get the tubes drilled and properly aligned. The blower is from the parts bin and will not be used on the car btw. Just a mock-up. I'm figuring I'm about half way done on the intake. Hope to get some more bench time over the next few days. At this point everything lines up well and fits properly. cheers, tim The butterflies will be up near the top of the tubes like the 1:1. I didn't appreciate how high up they're truly located till I saw a particular pic that Dave(comp1839) shared with me. Thanks Dave!!