Harry P.

The only reason I even have a photo hosting account is so that I can load up there and use PB as a "holding pen" and post the photos here. So seeing PB as a "tool" is exactly the way I use it. Good point, Alberto.

When I was looking for the instruction booklet for this kit (which you provided), another forum member PM'd me and told me he had a spare kit. He actually also sent me the instructions (before you sent yours, so I have two!)... I described to him the condition of my chrome parts and asked if he would be willing to sell me the chrome parts out of his spare kit. He told me his chrome parts were pretty much exactly as I described mine, so apparently mine wasn't an isolated case.

The "mistake" you made is you forgot to add an overall coating of dark gray dirt/grime/gunk. After a year or three on the road, the underside of a car all gets covered with the same generic gunk, and you really don't see individual components "rusting" at their own pace, different and starkly contrasted from other components. For example, in your first photo the bottom of the engine and the exhaust pipe and muffler would all have the same coating of gunk, and all be closer to the same color... not the individual weathered but different colors you did. The colors of the individual components would over time all become closer in color as the chassis "weathers." Of the three you posted, the last one is probably closest to reality.

I've also heard that Citroens were very advanced cars. Wacky looking to our eyes, yeah... but the engineering was way beyond what the Big Three were feeding us at the time.

It's all a matter of personal preference. One is no better than the other, just as chocolate ice cream isn't any better than vanilla, or vice versa. It just depends what you like. Tom doesn't like PB; I'm just the opposite. I've used PB for many years, never had an issue, and never have paid a dime (it's free! ). They do offer a "premium" paid account, but in six or seven years of loading up my PB albums, after probably thousands of images, I'm still at only 20% of my allotted "free" capacity. Can't beat that. BTW.. most people who have problems with their photo hosting site are actually having problems with their web browser, not with the photo hosting site itself, whether it's Fotki, Photobucket, Picassa, Pinterest or whatever. And I'd bet the majority of those people are using IE.

The kit has a chrome windshield trim surround, but the chrome tree was unusable. Many of the pieces had very thin (or no) plating; you could see the plastic underneath. And even the parts that were fully plated weren't shiny, they were all more of a satin finish. So I cut the tree apart (to fit everything into my Tupperware container) and soaked the chrome parts in "Purple Power" for two days. After that time, all it took was a gentle scrubbing with an old toothbrush to remove any last bits of chrome. Notice the little "Flying Lady" hood ornament at the lower left of the photo.. .

Next, the front doors. But before I can build them, I have to glue the cowl into place. And before I glue the cowl into place, I have to paint it, paint the firewall, and paint/detail/install the dash (and the windshield). The painted cowl is in the dehydrator at the moment, so in the meantime I'll work on the dash.

Because the roof will have a slight arc to it front to back, the tops of the doors have to have a matching arc... they can't just be flat across the tops. The arc is so slight that I didn't think I could do it by soaking and then bending the wood. The amount of "spring back" would be enough so that the pieces would probably not hold the arc. So I went with an old woodworking trick to bend wood: laminating several thin pieces together and forming the arc before the glue sets, then clamping the piece to shape. Once the glue sets up, the laminted piece will hold it's shape with no "spring back." Under all these clamps is one of the pieces I'll use for the door tops. It's two thin strips of wood glued together to get me the final thickness. You can see how slight the arc is (between the two white pointers on the ship curve)... Once the glue dried, the pieces held their shape, as you can see... Two identical mirror image doors... I only hope that once I hinge the doors to the hinge post, I can maintain the good fit... Because of the wheelwells, the rear door glass can only roll down about half way... but half is better than none!

There's another factor that plays a role here that we haven't considered: "handedness." People who are right handed generally are more practical, detail-oriented, numbers and data types, while left-handed people are generally more creative and more into the arts ans things like that. I know that's a generalization and not everyone fits the pattern... but enough do so that the theory came about. The whole "left brain vs. right brain" thing is kind of interesting. BTW... I'm left handed, so you'd think I would have scored somewhere above 50... but I got an even 50 exactly.

Jealous?

"There's room enough here for science to live, And there's room enough here for religion to forgive"...

Looks good to me! Now how about a shot of that grille? And the engine...

Cutting the slots exposed raw, unstained wood... so I used a Q-tip "brush" to quickly run some stain into those slots.. More to come...

Now comes a tricky part. I have to cut slots into the front and rear door posts that run on the inboard side of the door panel to serve as the channel that the window glass will fit into (and theoretically run up and down in, if the windows on my model actually worked... which they will not! ) I started the slot with my razor saw, but the blade is too thin to give me a wide enough slot to fit the .010" clear styrene sheet I'll use for the "glass" (which looks to my eye to be a good scale thickness)... so the slot was widened with my other razor saw, which has a thicker blade... giving me a wider slot:

Then I added the first piece of horizontal framework, the beltline piece: And the rest of the horizontal pieces: There's something very subtle going on here. The horizontal pieces are not spaced equally... the top third of the exposed panel is slightly smaller than the middle third, and the bottom third is slightly bigger than the middle third. I think this makes for a more elegant design than if I had spaced the horizontal dividers equally.

Next, the rear post was notched, and another slot cut into it to receive the rear edge of the panel: That rear piece was then glued into place. I'm using CA for all the wood parts of this model. CA sets up fast, but not instantly... so as soon as I glued that rear post into place I clamped the door assembly between two pieces of flat scrap wood. That way, once the CA sets up hard, both front and rear posts will be perfectly parallel and I will have a door that's perfectly flat, with no twist or warp:

BTW... here is how I built the rear doors. First step was to make a cardstock template of the panel. Then I used the template to cut the panel out of my birch veneer, and I attached the curved piece of the framework to the surface of the panel: Next, I cut the front door frame post to length, matching it to the length of the door hinge post I made earlier. I used my razor saw to cut a slot into this piece, to receive the front edge of the panel: Then glued that pice to the panel, always checking fit and alignment with the door hinge post as I go:

Holy moly! I think this is the first time I've seen this thread. Amazing work going on here. This goes way beyond "building a model." To have the various skills required to do what's being done here is impressive, to say the least. Man, we have some amazing craftsmen on this forum!

Half of me says you're just having fun and don't really mean it. the other half of me says ban you from the forums forever. See? Completely balanced!

I decided to change things up a it. Instead of a flat roofline, the door posts are slightly higher than the windshield posts and the tops of the rear side panels, meaning that the roof will have a subtle but noticeable curvature to it front to back. I went with a curved roofline rather than flat because it looks more elegant. In order to make the top crossmembers of the doors, I'll need to know what that curvature will be... so I took out my trusty old set of ship curves and found the one that gives me the correct curvature. I used a red Sharpie on the curve to mark the position of the front edge of the rear side panel, the door post, and the windshield post... Now I can carve the rear doors' upper crossmember to shape using the ship curve to shape it, and finish up the rear doors.

Trudging on... Time to make the doors! First step is to make a cardstock template. The red lines indicate where the wide horizontal beltline will be. The door itself is made pretty much like the rear panels... cut the panel to shape, then glue on the framework pieces, constantly test-fitting the door as I go, piece by piece, to make sure everything lines up correctly. I'm using CA glue here, so there's very little margin for error. Once you glue a piece down, there's really no way to move it. You have to get it right the first time... The hard part is the fact that I'm working in 1/16 scale, so the margin for error is tiny! In 1:1, if my door gap was off by 1/32 inch, you'd never notice it. But in 1/16 scale, 1/32 inch equals a scale half inch... and it's noticeable to the eye. So I am working with literally hairlines as margins for error, and keeping the door shut lines parallel to the rest of the body is very tough. This one door represents 3 hours of work... and I'm a fast worker!

50. Perfectly balanced.

Malaysian.

This week's car is a 2002-2010 Proton Arena, known as a "Jumbuck" in certain countries. Who got it right: otherunicorn Badluck 13 Foxer GeeBee Ace-Garageguy dw1603 Zandmann ChrisR matthijsgrit bbsbase jaymcminn