Codi

Looks nasty Tyrone. LIke it! cheers

Like the way you mounted the box Chris. Hadn't thought about doing it that way, but I like it A LOT! cheers

WOW.............just WOW.

Just came across this thread Randy. Your mad skills and this kit were made for each other. Beautiful to say the least. Is there anything you can't do? cheers, tim

Eloquently said Cato. Thank you on behalf of all of us that want to wish Harry the best at this time. You captured it all. Get well soon Harry. Tim

Trust me Chris, my skin isn't that thin. No harm, no foul. Now, about that next Vega post please. Thanks Dave.......I'm going to start on the block this week in aluminum. Should have something done by the weekend. Kids are now officially out of school today, so summer messes up bench time a bit, but it's ALL good! Cheers everyone!

Chris, I might do it at final assembly. Something to consider. My ref. car pics show it all shiny and bling bling. Engine, trans and rear will be the focus of this car. Bob & Scott, Lloyd and Kerry, a sincere thank you to each of you! Randy, nice to see you back dude. You KNOW I'm asking for my GT40 update. Thanks too for the comments, glad to make your day. Brad, I wanted to give it to my wife for Mothers Day but she wasn't all that thrilled. Soooo, it will go on the Mustang after all. John, well, I think you have effectively crushed any notion I might have had as to who is a fan. And I am one of yours. Now please tell me what you're building and where you're hiding it so I can check it out. cheers

Certainly enjoy your postings Chris. Your weathering skills are top drawer too. Hmmm, what's next? cheers

38 nuts and bolts and fittings.......several hours just putting them all on. But it IS done now. Cheers, tim

I was on a roll with the plating. As Chris has discovered, it can be "hit or miss" with the Caswell system. The more experience I get at it, the more frequently I get it right.....shocking, right? Anyways, I plated the rear today but first I used their "acid copper" before putting on the nickel. It plated VERY quickly. When applying the nickel, or any of the solutions I believe, you have to very aware of certain parameters or you start to get "shmutz" on the finish. It doesn't polish out from my experience. So when doing this, less is more and it's better to err on the side of just enough, than my typical attitude of "if a little is good, a lots gotta be better". I'll add the bolts to it and the pinion collar. I'm just glad the plating went well because having to remove it and starting over isn't fun. cheers

Beautiful car. Any engine pics to share? cheers, tim

Thanks Kerry. Today I machined front the lip to the engine girdle and soldered it up. I used Caswells copper plate and then nickel on it. The last pic is of the Henry steering box that was finally nickel plated. As an fyi for Chris, these parts were dipped, not wand plated and doing the copper plate first and then the nickel seemed to give better results. Next I'll get to plating the rear finally. cheers This is the pic of the steering box and you can clearly see the lip that I added at the front of the girdle.

Thank you Chris. Dave, THANK YOU for your assistance as always. Wouldn't have been possible to attempt this without it. Cheers

Great result Roger. Always loved that period of pro stock and one of my all time favorites was the Motown Missile. What's on deck next for you? cheers, tim

Hope everyone had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend. I spent some time doing drawing to get the block / engine going. Dave's 417 Donovan info that he shared with me was of tremendous help and his ideas on how he did HIS Donovan were even more helpful. I've blatantly copied ( I prefer "adopted") some of his machining tricks too. Since this will be my first attempt at machining all or most of an engine, I wanted to proof out my numbers and even how to setup certain operations / tools to get the block done. I used Renshape for this block as practice for the real deal in aluminum. I was happy with how the proto turned out and with just a few tweeks, I'm confident I can pull off a reasonable version in metal. Can't wait to get to the heads and valve covers for this engine. Next is to solder the girdle together and plate it and continue doing drawings for more engine parts. Joe, you've not lost your humor and I truly enjoyed that laugh as well. THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE! cheers, tim One of Dave's tricks of the trade wherein how to get the ribs onto the block...........simple but VERY effective. To the best of my knowledge there are no 417 Donovan engines in 1/25th out there and the one I have was from a vintage kit. It has more than a few errors in its design / dimensions. Mine isn't perfect but I can say it is / will be better than the kit piece.

Really nice touch on the electrical box Chris, along with everyone else you've shared. You're killing the small details. Like that a LOT! cheers, tim

Very impressive solution Cato. I read your description regarding the door panel matter ( don't you just hate the word "issue"?) and can truly respect the effort expended to get it to fit properly. Your conclusion as to why this occurred was interesting as well. Like you, I want to know the whys and wherefores when you run into such obstacles. Great result all in all sir. cheers, tim

Thanks Tony, but I'm not in Dave's league, or zip code or.....you get the idea. I got the rascal soldered up and done today. Other than adding the necessary bolts to it and the pinion cover and plating, it's done. 8 hours of soldering / finessing the last few bits today to get it to this point. cheers everyone.

Thanks Eric (and Andy too) for the feedback / info. The idea of doing a brief Youtube video would be fantastic Eric. If you ever have the opportunity to do so, let me know and I'll certainly check it out. I'm sure many other builders would like to see it as well. Great build you have going there. cheers, tim

Dave, thanks for teaching me everything I know. I've said too many times that its more important to have a good mentor than anything else when learning a new skill such as machining. Always striving for more. The Donovan will be next after I get some drawings done. Again, thanks!! Chris, you're absolutely right. A lot of research and time goes into any part before putting tool to metal. Especially when I have to get "creative" in how to do a setup to achieve a particular result. I'm so much better at puzzles now than I was before taking up machining. Thanks Bob. Mike, thanks man. I'm still quite the newby at it but I believe I'm getting better at it with each new part. To stay grounded, I just go check out Dave's (comp1839) photo bucket for inspiration and ideas and then i "bug" him endlessly. Poor dude! I always seem to stumble across something new that hes made that just blows me away. Cheers

Hey Joe, any pics of the box / kit this car came from by chance? I'm not savvy on particular releases by the model company's. This one looks like its going together really well. Flames from the headers, I DID read that right? cheers

Thanks Eric. Now I've got something new to add to my list of building techniques to explore thanks to you. My 13 year old has Adobe on her computer thanks to school and I'm going to take some time to have her show me the ropes. I can see many applications just based upon the things you've accomplished on this build already. Very cool is all I can say. As an fyi, is this something you do as part of your current job and how difficult is it to learn in your estimation? cheers, tim

Soldering this thing up has not been fun. I only have the "spines" and rear cover to put on yet, and then plating time. I've been on this for more than 3 weeks now and I'm more than ready to move on from it. At least 70 hours in it when all said and done. cheers, tim As mentioned above, the rear cover has not been soldered on yet.

Must say I'm flattered by all the positive comments. Dave hit upon the fun part of machining with his joke about getting rid of the "ugly" metal to get to the jewel. It's truly what I enjoy about machining. It made me think of those dinosaur kits that have bones buried in plaster and they give you a wooden mallet and pick to "chip em' out". Always cool to see what the "prize" is. Today I was anxious to complete the twin while the numbers were fresh in my head (even though I take copious notes). I'm going to shorten each side by 1mm and increase the taper of the splines. But this is so close to being done now. Thanks again for following along. cheers, tim

What a cool touch to the bottle Chris. Little details like that need to be in your build book one day. cheers, tim