Harry P. Posted May 29, 2015 Author Share Posted May 29, 2015 For seating in the back, I was trying to decide whether I wanted individual benches along the side walls, or a traditionally placed rear bench seat. I went with the regular old bench seat. Mine is a very simple, with plain padded cushions (no pleated upholstery or anything fancy here... strictly utilitarian) and a folding back. Here are the parts... rear "steel" panel and hinge arms of styrene, seat cushions carved out of chunks of basswood... Here's how the seatback goes together... the seatback cushion will be glued to this "steel" panel... The pivots will be sewing pins, and the seatback will fold flat, for extra storage room in back in case our hunting party bags a big old buck or bear or something! The "metal" part of the seat will be painted gloss black; the cushions satin black to simulate leather. I'll mount it on a simple pedestal that will be glued to the floor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobraman Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Getting better and better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaymcminn Posted May 30, 2015 Share Posted May 30, 2015 Harry, one thing that impresses me about your process is how you don't differentiate between "old school" and "new school" techniques. You just go with whatever works best for you and the results speak for themselves. Things like cardstock for the floors and carving basswood for the seats really go back to how this hobby began before the aftermarket was a thing, but you are not afraid to try new products like the Spaz Stix chrome as well. A lot of modelers get into a rut building the same thing over and over, but you find some way to make every project unique. Even if I don't always comment, I'm always watching your latest build (and looking for techniques to poach!) and am always blown away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 30, 2015 Author Share Posted May 30, 2015 Thanks, Jason. Yeah, I guess cardstock and carved wood is about as "old school" as it gets, but like you said, I use whatever materials or process that I think works best for a particular situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 30, 2015 Author Share Posted May 30, 2015 Here is that roof frame, as seen earlier, all glued up and dry. You can see that the roof rails bend in two directions... arced both vertically (arc cut into the wood to follow the curve of the roofline) and horizontally (bent by boiling in water for a minute or two and then clamping in place until dry to follow the taper of the roof back to front). The vertical arc was cut first, while the pieces were still flat, then they were bent to create the horizontal arc. Small corner blocks were added for reinforcement... Looking at this frame upside down, you can see how the flat basswood panel will be glued in place to create the roof. Notice that I went with both a curved and flat roof... the roofline is arced as it runs over the tops of the doors, but the top of the roof is flat. I think this flatness combined with the arced roofline will look pretty good. Just a little design touch I went with to be a little different... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 30, 2015 Author Share Posted May 30, 2015 After I glued the basswood roof panel into place, I carved some triangular-shaped strips of balsa and glued them to the inside joints between roof panel and side/front/rear rails, for reinforcement and to provide some "meat" for when I round over the corners of the roof from the outside. Like the old saying goes, you can never have too many clamps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 30, 2015 Author Share Posted May 30, 2015 I smoothed out and rounded the balsa strips on the inside with coarse sandpaper... and rounded the outside edges and corners using coarse sandpaper and sanding sticks... And finally, I used a high-tech modeling tool I have (my finger!) to apply Bondo on the inside of the roof to smooth everything out and bury the little corner reinforcement blocks. This is probably overkill, but I want a nice, smooth roof on the inside with smooth radii and curves all around. You'll see why later in the process... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 30, 2015 Author Share Posted May 30, 2015 To give the roof a canvas texture, I used some finely-woven cotton (leftover sail material from a wooden ship kit). Contact cement was applied to the roof and the cloth... ...and the cloth was carefully applied. With contact cement and the fairly fragile roof structure, you get one shot to get the cloth down smoothly. If I messed up, there would be no way to pull the cloth off the roof without destroying the roof itself. I got lucky. Special attention had to be given to the corners, as I didn't want the cloth bunching up and wrinkling there... I wanted smooth, clean corners... Finally, the excess cloth was trimmed off with a sharp X-acto. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobthehobbyguy Posted May 30, 2015 Share Posted May 30, 2015 Nice work on the top. Its amazing how much you gotten done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 30, 2015 Author Share Posted May 30, 2015 I showed you the rear seat under construction before... here's the finished article. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxer Posted May 30, 2015 Share Posted May 30, 2015 That canvas material will be tougher getting it smooth at the corners on the inside .. just guessing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 30, 2015 Author Share Posted May 30, 2015 I'm not using it on the inside. You'd never even see it anyway, once the roof is installed, because the inside will be black. No way you'd ever be able to tell whether or not there was any texture up there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 30, 2015 Author Share Posted May 30, 2015 Speaking of the inside of the roof... here's a shot of the roof structure on a real RR woody. This isn't the only way to do the roof–seems like there are no two woodies exactly alike–but it's one way of doing it, and it's the way I'll be doing mine. But on my model this structure won't be "real," only simulated. This interior roof detail will be just about impossible to see once the model is on display, so no real reason to go nuts here. I'm not going to bother with bending wood to make the curved pieces, I'm just going to simulate the structure with strips of cardstock. It'll look close enough to real for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 30, 2015 Author Share Posted May 30, 2015 First step is to cut a bunch of strips of cardstock for the structure. I'll cut a few extras in case I mess up. Then they get painted "Latte" with acrylic craft paint. No need to paint both sides–you'll only see one! Then a coat of stain to match the color of the rest of the real wood on my woody... And off to the dehydrator. This is oil-based stain, so air drying would take forever. The dehydrator makes short work of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 30, 2015 Author Share Posted May 30, 2015 While my roof strips are drying, let's jump to another aspect of this project. I went with full wheel covers on my woody, because I like the look. I raided one of my Phantom II kits for the wheel covers, but the problem is that there are only four (the Phantom II kit doesn't have side mounts). I figured I could scratchbuild two more wheel covers. I was initially thinking I could use a ping pong ball and cut a circular piece out of it to form the basic wheel cover, but after "doing the math" it became apparent that a ping pong ball's diameter is too small. A circular disk cut out of it would be too convex to make a realistic wheel cover. If I had a lathe I could easily machine the covers out of aluminum... but I don't have a lathe. So now the question is... can I get away with full wheel covers on the road wheels and open, spoked wheels on the side mounts? Or is that weird? Ideas? Suggestions? I'm open to anything... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landman Posted May 30, 2015 Share Posted May 30, 2015 Some cars have their sidemounts fully covered with Leatherette or canvas. You can't see the wheel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cato Posted May 31, 2015 Share Posted May 31, 2015 Source four spoke wheels and keep the unity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 31, 2015 Author Share Posted May 31, 2015 Some cars have their sidemounts fully covered with Leatherette or canvas. You can't see the wheel. Hmmm... there's an idea! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 31, 2015 Author Share Posted May 31, 2015 Here is the inside of the roof and my "fake" structure made of strips of cardstock. Now you can see why I wanted those inside radii to be smooth and clean... so that my fake top pieces can be glued to the surface and have smooth bends, to mimic the look of bent wood top supports. The unpainted edges are on purpose... that's where the glue will go when I glue this top to the framework on the body (seen in an earlier post). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 31, 2015 Author Share Posted May 31, 2015 Rear seat installed. Now you see it... ...and now you don't... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 31, 2015 Author Share Posted May 31, 2015 Big step... the roof is glued into place! There's no going back now... I won't paint the roof yet–the body will still get a lot of handling when I install the doors. I'll save painting the roof for last so the paint doesn't get scuffed or messed up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wayne swayze Posted May 31, 2015 Share Posted May 31, 2015 I just went back to page one to see how far you've progressed. You should be very proud of yourself Harry, and if you're not, then I'll be proud to be a witness to such talent! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 31, 2015 Author Share Posted May 31, 2015 By working carefully, I was able to get a perfect fit between the roof and the door header piece... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southpier Posted May 31, 2015 Share Posted May 31, 2015 (edited) ... scratchbuild two more wheel covers.... Ideas? Suggestions? I'm open to anything... some K & B annealed brass sheet and a dapping block? OR - get friendly with that member who just got his Mattel Vac-U-Form! sorry - http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=102410&hl= Kit Basher .... i am really terrible with names, Sam. Edited May 31, 2015 by southpier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry P. Posted May 31, 2015 Author Share Posted May 31, 2015 I decided to go with covered spares, no wheel showing. The easy way out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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