ClayK

Engine plate looks great Joe. Glad to see you still banging away on this one. The reworked front end looks really good too. Keep after it! Clay

OK, finally some new work done on the Pro Mod. Good news is I got a new camera because I dropped my other one, and it looks like it's going to be really nice. Bad news is there is a spot on the inside of the lens that is showing up on every picture. I just gotta deal with it for now until I can get it looked at. Anyway, back to the chassis. I had been waiting to finish off the cage until I had the floor done. I wanted to try and simulate the spot welds (Sorry Dave, stitch welds) on the floor area. After several failed ideas, I found Micro Mark now sells the raised resin printed decals. So once I got my sheets in hand, I got to work decaling all the edges. I did top and bottom, and will do all of the firewall when the time comes. Once that was all out of the way, I could finish the FC cage. I added some Dirtmodeler PE pieces for the head rest tabs. Then I finished off the a-pillar bars, as well as the door bar "X" The last thing I worked on was the front window support. I bent it up from some small brass rod and soldered it up. Along with some DM dzus tabs. Moving forward all I have left I believe is the firewall, and then front suspension mounts and the chassis will be pretty much done. But before that, I need to cut open and hing my doors and get them all working and finsihed off nice. Thanks for looking! Clay

It's coming along Greg. Glad I could provide you with some motivation! You're doing great..... Clay

I've had to set this one aside for a while so I could get to some other projects that needed to be done in a hurry. But I should have an update soon. Been working on the floor panels some more. I think I've got something that will catch your interest when I get it posted. CK

Very nice Bart. Looks like it's going together pretty well. What size of S.S. tubing are you using for your 4 bar links? Clay

Lookin' good Joe. How far away are you from painting the chassis?

Got a bit more done.... Another cool feature on theses cars is the drilled out steering column support. I set up my mill with the rotary table/chuck at 90 degrees and chucked up some 3/32" K&S brass......then slowly started bringing the bit down hole by hole and drilling the tube out. Close to the chuck wasn't too bad, but by the time I got a couple inches away from it I was getting some serious deflection! I had to scrap the first tube, and about four bits, but tube #2 came out perfect. I got it installed as well as starting to add the dash bars, right side door bars, and a few more brackets. I still need to do a bit more around the seat and floor area, then I can add the rest of the FC cage, and left side door bars. Back to work! CK

Thanks Joe......I know what you mean about the pivot. It's kind of confusing. I'm not even sure how they get in there to pull the pins. My thinking on this car is I'm building it like theirs, but not really going to make the body removable like they do. Once I get further along, and start getting things painted and assembled, I'll probably install the tree for good. And then from there on it will pretty much be like any other car with a full tail section. Although I will paint it like it's welded up to make it look different from the chassis. But once I get to final assembly and the body goes on, it will stay on. Hope that makes sense! Clay

Thanks Chris......the floor pan is all sheet metal steel on the real car held in with a bunch of spot welds. It gets painted with the chassis. Same with the firewall and so on. Any panel that isn't steel and part of the chassis will more than likely be carbon fiber after the chassis is painted. I'm working on a few methods to simulate all the spot welds, I should have something figured out soon.

Dang Greg! Look at you go! I think dropping down to 1/16 is just what you needed to get motivated again. My method was to basically think inside out. I wanted to get everything from the center out done first so I could get to it. Now as I get further along, and more of the interior stuff done, i can add more bars and close things up. You're off to a flying start!

You're doing great man! Keep it up. I love building chassis. Probably why I have so many started projects laying around here. You're off to a great start. As far as your tail being narrow, believe me. It's much better to have it narrow than too wide or you'd never get a set of slicks in there.

Thanks for the comments guys. No Bill, no working engine anytime soon! This car will have a few "working" features, but it's not something I'm normally too into. Got some work in on the floor panels the last few days. I started out on the bottom doing the front and rear panels first. This is all .015 sheet plastic. Then I flipped it over and did the top panels one by one. They aren't actually "top" per se, but more of in the middle of the bars around them. I made the basic shape first, then drew out and cut out the center. Then once cleaned up that piece was glued directly to another piece of plastic and trimmed to size. Once all the edges were smooth, and blended in I added them to the chassis. I've also got more brass PE tabs and brackets installed, as well as the battery box and support. I decided to have Jim work up another set of hubs and rotors for me since the other ones just weren't quite what I needed. He did a new smaller rotor hat/hub, as well as some new small rotors. These will work much better! I'll trim down the lug studs later. The slicks also got some attention. Using a drum sander in my moto-tool, I opened up the centers a bit to get the new wheels in. I can't wait until I get to the point I can detail these babies. They look so cool with all that rubber around them! Thanks for looking! Clay

Man you gotta be about tired of tabs and brackets! But all this work will pay off down the road for sure. Keep after it. CK

Back to work on the big Mustang......I reworked a few inner bars of the chassis, and it's kind hard to see down in there but I did get the mounting tubes on for the master cylinder. (Two brass tubes by the lower seat belt mount) I also finally got to the main halo and a few support braces. I still need to finish the drivers floor panels, seat brace straps and a few other things before I add the a-pillar bars in there. One other thing I needed to get done before the interior sealed up was the simulated titanium tranny tunnel. I started with two pieces of .05 brass sheet to form the back part. Then I added the back loop, middle loop, and handle. I couldn't find any brass tube the right size for the front part so I machined one real quick. It was then added along with the front loop. A few strips of Aber PE welds finished it off. Still needs a bit more clean up, but it's getting there. Thanks for looking....Clay

Hi Ted, I found a lot of R2B2's race car web page, as well as their Facebook page. They are one of the few chassis builders that puts out a lot of info. Lots of pictures during construction, and lots of shots of their cars. Makes my job a lot easier! Clay Thank you very much guys! I was out of town all weekend, so I didn't get any new work done. But before I left on Friday a little box of goodies from Jim at micro nitro http://www.micronitro.net/ showed up! I can't get over how good Jim's parts are. Most of you already know this.......I had some 1/24 wheels of his before, but to see what he can do in 1/16 scale is just amazing. Here's the three piece rear wheels, and hubs. I need to open up my slicks a bit to get these to fit, but they are going to look awesome! And here's what I'm using for the fronts.....his new Gibson style front wheels. Thanks again Jim! Clay

Not a big update, but something I've been waiting to do, and think is kind of cool. One of the reasons I wanted to do an R2B2 chassis is I love some of the design features of their cars. The main one is the removable body/titanium rear tree. You may have noticed my rear clip stops short. Right at the rear coil over mounts. The reason why is everything beyond that is all lightweight titanium frame work sort of like a funny car. I had already added the top tabs before, so I set out to make the two thicker lower picots. I used /040 sheet plastic cut to shape, and added those to the back of the chassis. Next I mounted to the body to the chassis and slowly started building inside connecting the tree bar by bar. I used brass rod for the main support because it was easier to bend to the proper shape. Here's the tree about 80% finished...... And pinned in place. And with it mocked up inside the body. I still have more tabs, and body support pieces to add. But it's pretty close. Thanks for looking! Clay

Jeez dude.....first class machining there! Looks fantastic.....

I use green zap-a-gap. I don't know what it is about the dirt modeler brass photo etch, but it really bonds well to styrene with zap. It really holds well. Clay

Thanks Chris, The slicks I have are ones Terry sent me a long time ago. He's got several different sizes, so I'm not sure where these fall compared to the rest. I think these are the biggest ones he has. I know they wouldn't fit under my Daytona body, but they will work fine on this Mustang. Clay

Thanks Tim! So far from what I've used, the parts are great. Waiting on some wheel tubs next!

Thank you very much guys! I'm really having a good time on this one so far! I've been working away on the rear clip. More plastic, brass, and dirt modeler photo etch. I used Micheal's shock mounts, and tabs for the brake line mounts, and rear tree mount. I also got the rear driveshaft loop made up and installed. I used two pieces of brass bent and trimmed. Once to size, I inserted some small brass pins inside each, then soldered both joints. And just to show it's not all roses and unicorns doing this stuff, here's my pile of attempts before I got one I could use! One last thing I did before calling it a night was sand my slicks. I chucked up some 1" stock in my lathe, pushed the tires on, and spun them slow against a flat file. Took a bit of time, but they are so smooth now. And it beats sanding with a sanding stick. Hope to get the body mounted soon! Clay

I just use my hobby knife. Cut down at a 45 degree angle half way into the tubing, roll it over, cut the other side, and basically take out a triangle chunk out of the piece. If it's bigger rod, I'll do that, then hit it with a round file to open it up.

Thanks guys! Bart, PM me your email address, and I'll show you what I've got for pics. CLay

Thanks fellas! I appreciate it! I've been feeling sick for the past week, so I haven't got as much done lately as I'd like. But I did work on the pedals all weekend. My layout is pretty much just like how the R2B2 cars are. The brake/clutch assemble is all made up of brass tubing, styrene rod, and RB rod ends. The gas pedal was bent up from brass wire and soldered together. Six pieces in all. I'm not that fond of soldering and all that, but it came out pretty cool, and wouldn't have been possible to do in plastic and still be sturdy enough. The other pedals are styrene rod with plastic pads, with PE mesh for some traction. All the brass tabs are from dirt modeler PE sheets. Here's the layout. Once assembled into the chassis, everything will work independently of each other. I gotta thank Bart for the motivation and the video of how he did his. After seeing his in action, I knew I had to do the same. I changed the layout some, but the basics are the same. So thanks Bart! Here's everything in place. I also made up a set of Lenco slide mount bars, and then craddles on the chassis. And after my first post, my man Sherm pointed out i had installed my front body supports incorrectly. After going back though my pile of ref pics, and seeing how it should be done, I corrected them, and added the small braces as well as the fire line tabs. Thanks Dave! With all this fiddly stuff out of the way, now I can get back to chassis building. Thanks for looking! Clay

Thanks Bart.....my photo set up is pretty simple. I have one of those fabric photo tent boxes that Walmart sold at one time. I use rolled up paper, usually white or gray, and just my bench lights bent down to the sides. I set a flood light on top, and use a tripod for my camera. Have the camera on the tripod with a remote really helped my pics a lot.