Codi

Thank you John & Art. I was able to sneak in a little bench time this morning and made the master cylinder. I used that little trick that Chris shared to replicate the rubber boot on the end and stacked up 3 micro rubber washers. To replicate the look of the top cap I machined a super thin groove all the way around the body. I'll use a wash to bring it out a little more during final assembly. cheers, tim

"I'm Batman"..................said with the inflection from the original movie. I think it was Michael Keaton that uttered it. Anyways.................cheers, tim

Great choice of colors Brad. You're oh so close now. Nice job on the entire build. cheers, tim

Thank you Paul for sharing not only the thread, but answering my other questions and offering to help. That's very generous of you. Cheers, Tim

Sent you a PM Tyrone. Nice too what you've started! cheers, tim

You're making it look easy even if it's not. You have a very keen eye for perfection. I love the stance along with many other aspects of the car. cheers, tim

Phenomenal. (have to try some new word to describe this) What a creative thread and use of your talents and today's tech. I envy & thank you and the others such as Chris & Paul in showing what can be done. I find all of this just fascinating. Count me as one of your fans too. cheers, tim

This will be my last post for the year so I wanted to say to those that celebrate it, MERRY CHRISTMAS and to ALL a HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I want to acknowledge those that posted comments. Niko - Mold lines, that's funny coming from you, I've seen your work and follow along as well, you are an excellent builder in your own regard. Thanks again! Joe - Thanks man, I don't know about decals sticking to alum. but I'll experiment a little bit. I just like the look of the alum. but I might anodize in red or blue the filter housing or ??? I've got some time to decide yet. Again, thank you. Brad - See my comment to DaveWilly below. I've looked at your gasser / altered builds too and have the thread on your front suspensions in my notes as reference. They're helpful and a "guide" for when I get there. Many great ideas and methods on the forum shared by others that help a lot! Randy - That was your present Randy, now where's mine? I asked Santa for new updates on a particular GT40 and Birdcage Maserati, oh and a shiny, cool, Ferrari FXX......... John - Like Joe, I'm curious if you still have the Mr. Machine? That was a funny post and appreciated as always. I think you should thank Santa for giving you a Mr. Machine many years ago, I believe it helped to ignite the imagination candle as witnessed by your many creative builds over the years. Thanks too for the compliment! DaveWilly - I thank you sir, but it's kind of helpful to have Chris with his thread on the Vega lighting the way for me. Our cars are of the same period and many of the features I'm attempting for this build he did to a level of accuracy that few have achieved in 1/16th. I strive to put as much detail as I can and I have learned a lot from what Chris has done. Granted, in 1/25th, it's a bit more of a challenge and there are some things I just won't be able to do I'm afraid. Chris is not the only builder here that I look up to, but I count him too as an inspiration. PartsMarty - Appreciate your following along and that you like what you see. Chris - See above. Dave (comp1839) - Many thanks sir for all you've done to help me and the friend you have become. Cheers, Tim

Thanks John, Chris and Paul too. To answer your question Paul, I used a .010" end mill which specs out at .27mm. Got the brackets today. They're not permanently glued yet and the trickiest part was drilling the holes on the ends to accept the A/N fittings. With a painted frame, I might just leave the oil filters in aluminum and put a decal on them to accent em'. cheers, tim

Sorry MIke, but I wouldn't subject the general public to my machinations. (pun intended) so no youtube from me. Dave & Chris, here's a quick peek at the oil filter(s) bracket that I'm trying to replicate. In pic 2, the PE plate that I have to bend in a 90 degree is from M.A.S. The twin caps go on top of the PE plate with the filters below and the 2 machined "caps" on the topside. The last pic shows the ribbed / finned piece that slots into the top caps. There will be 2. The width of the finned piece is 1.2mm. The ribs are .22mm wide. I snapped off 3 end mills just doing the 1st one as I didn't have enough rpm on it. When I run these tiny endmills I typically run around 5k rpm but I forgot to change it up & thus the busted bits. I had no issues once I changed that. I have to make it's twin, drill the ends for the A/N fittings and part them off for final assembly. Another day it should be done. I tried a different approach to making this piece but it failed. I think this will all make sense when completed. cheers, tim

This is amazing. I saw over the weekend a 70's pro stock chassis from TDR printed in 3D in metal. I ordered one because I want to see how far the technology is progressing. Just to be clear, too cool what you're doing here and something else I'd like to learn. Sent you a PM btw. Cheers, Tim

Thank you Steve & Brad. Randy, the hand is coming along fine. I made the twin oil filters after dinner tonight but I have to say that after seeing your Ferrari I'm glad this car is not nearly as modern as yours. That car has just phenomenal detail, you're bringing that one to life. Dr. Frankenstein I presume? I hope to get some bench time this weekend to get the remote oil bracket done. The filters will be painted and decaled later. cheers, tim

I was always a sucker for any of the Motown Missile cars as a kid. Nice job on it. cheers, tim

I love everything you make Randy. This is no exception. cheers, tim

John, thanks man. Woke up this morning and my hand felt 100% better. Slowly getting there. Scott, Brad & Ray. Appreciated too but it wasn't necessarily easy, at least not for me. I think you're staring at close to 20 hours or so from drawings, planning & machining to get them correct. I'm pleased but I don't want to do them again anytime soon. Mike, thanks too, I don't know if they sell them anymore. I bought them maybe 3 years ago and have 3 or 4 in my parts stash yet. Ah, the math. Too much to explain here but I started with diameter X pi. And some insights from my friend Dave. This morning I machined the fuel pump base. Doesn't look like that much but it took me the entire morning. cheers everyone!

Thanks guys and I want to answer some of your questions. Bob, shaving the belt was easy actually. I stretched it teeth down onto an oversized piece of alum. Chucked it in the lathe and used a sanding file and took it down gradually. About a minute and it was done. Pete, appreciated. I do have to agree that it helps if you have done some machining to understand what goes into it. I like the challenge in trying to figure out how to make something and then going about doing it. My biggest fault is that I do something that can be made easier and quicker but my lack of experience leads me down the harder path. But I'm learning it as I go along and it's fun. Wait till you see the steering box & dual remote oil filter bracket that I want to attempt. I hope. Thank you Art & Joe. Paul, not jewelry..........but I appreciate the inference. Ah, Dave. Well now that's a story all itself. Which I'll share. I had the blower pulley done last Thursday before my surgery. BUT, my numbers were wrong and I had even run a few teeth and checked it and liked what I saw. Did the whole pullley (cutting one is a 2+ hour step for me to cut such skinny grooves) and the belt didn't fit. I discovered my number was off by .6 of one degree on each tooth. Made all the difference and it fits perfectly now. I shoulda asked I know but sometimes you just gotta let the student figure it out for themselves. Oh, so I took 2 1/2 hours just to cut the teeth in the 2nd one. Yippee. btw, thanks very much for the compliment. Jim, thanks for following along. The engine guys ran the belts on either side of the idler. I discussed this with some very knowledgeable people and there are different schools of thought on it. I am NOT trying to start a debate on whether one way is better than another. To each his own. I'm going to set mine up to showcase what I think will be the most interesting parts of the engine. I have yet to make some of those bits and pieces, so I'll make a decision when I get closer to final mock-up and assembly. Good question though. Thanks Chris. As I said at the beginning, I've always admired the ones on your Vega and really wanted to see how close I might be able to get in my scale. On the belt shaving, please see above what I shared with Bob on how it was done. Got some cool things coming up that I have drawn up and want to make soon. I promise to get you that list by this weekend. Cheers, Tim

Thanks again fellas. I've been a little slow getting back to this as I had finger surgery last Friday. Same operation as before (my 8th one) and I could finally get back to the bench. Completed the pulleys. The toothed belt is an M.A.S. blower belt that I skived down about 1/3 to thin it up. I drilled a plate to mock them up so the idler pulley is a little higher than it will be on the car. I did this as the belt had a little too much tension on it so I wanted to store it this way to give the rubber some "memory" and to loosen it up a bit for final assembly. Cheers, tim

Hey...............wait a second.............I counted 338 rivets, shouldn't it be 341 Chris? Stunning is all I can say. cheers, tim

An artist and his canvas

Now we're talking. I can't wait to see more of it Paul. Just one request, more light would let us see even more of the details. I don't want to miss anything. Your 3D capabilities are fantastic. cheers, tim

Nice, John's imagination is running wild. Those seats are so sweet John. Very creative..................as always! cheers, tim

I had to share those couple of pics because I was truly pleased with how it looked so far & that you would appreciate the difference too. Many sincere thanks for the comments & interest in the build. I did want to answer Chris about the starter brackets. I probably won't be bothering to machine that. M.A.S. makes some fantastic brackets for specifically for that in P.E. I have had a few sets laying around now for sometime and will use them on this build. No reason to attempt making them, I'm afraid if I did, it would just add another week to the build. I'll share a pic of them and the model number in my next post. I will be making the necessary idler pulley bracket though as I want to attempt one that incorporates the front motor mounts into the design as well. cheers!

Sorry to hear about the bad back Brad. Had a disc out when I was 20. You're oh so right how painful it can be. btw, I didn't forget you. Those cut-off discs I sourced from a company called Rio Grande. They specialize in the jewelry trade. I find a lot of helpful tools in their catalog. cheers, tim

Thanks Pete. I DID chuckle btw. Paul, glad to hear you like what you see so far. I wasn't aware of your background. I think the rest of the build should be of interest then. Today I got the crank pulley finished and the idler pulley. Blower is last. Hope to get it done by Thursday. cheers everyone! Got some machinist blue to clean out in the corner of the pulley as you can see.

Love the pics you share of the 1:1 and your parts spread out on how you're replicating it. Fantastic job Randy. I think you've got one here that's going to be awesome on the tables. cheers, tim