Airfix 1/12 Bentley Blower

[François]

Hello, I started building the Bentley blower from Airfix. This kit is very old with moulds dating back to the 70's, so the fit and details are not very good. It will be up to me to improve. In 2020, Bentley decided to build 12 new 'old' Blowers using the original fab drawings. The result is nothing short of amazing. As a reference car,  I decided to go with car 'zero' of this new old series. We usually see these cars in the more traditionnal british green with green interior. The zero car is black with a red interior which is very nice. Here's what I'm hoping the end result will look like.

Here's a quick list of the modification I would like to do to the base kit. 

Fully detailled fuel tank 

Wired wheels

Working brake linkage

Working inner engine parts, 3d modeled and 3d printed

Leather upholstering 

Carpeting as per ref car

Fully detailled engine

Cloth rag top with working top frame

Adding nuts and bolts 

Fabricate the body either from real wood or 3d print it. The kits body is plastic,naturally, but the actual body was a wooden frame with aluminium sheets on certain areas and then covered with a man made material called Rexine. Very cheap at the time but very expensive today. Bentley had to refurbish old machinery to make the material for the 12 new old cars. I'll be using a very thin rubbery material that, I think, will look pretty good.

My first task was to 3d model the body using the kit's body as refenrence to eventually fabricate it out of wood or to print it (or both).

real wood body

Now, that being done, I decided to sleep on it a bit (or a lot) to figure out how to make the thing.

In the meantime,  I started on the fuel tank.  Here's what the kit gives 

And here's what I'm aiming for 

Here are a few pictures of the process 

I hope all of this is to par with what is normaly posted.

more to come 

[Bugatti Fan]

Francois, your Bentley developments look interesting. That old Airfix Bentley kit is showing its age but a good basis to extra detail.

Take a look at Nick Edwards website Unobtainium.

He has been developing quite a lot of 3D printed items for the Airfix Bentley kit. His engine and wire wheels for the Bentley look really good and might save you a lot of work. As you have 3D printed extra things for the Alfa you might be able to collaborate with Nick on some 3D project things.

Nick is doing a lot of upgrade items for the Italeri Bugatti 35B that you might well be interested in looking at. He has pictures posted up on the Britmodeller forum too.

Edited May 24, 2023 by Bugatti Fan

[François]

I've bought Nick's lockwire bolts,  very nice. The Italeri Bugatti might be next or maybe an old motorcycle, haven't decided yet. 

[Pierre Rivard]

Great start on this one. Please share as much as possible on the detailing materials and sources, which helps us understand the process.

That fuel tank is glorious!

[NOBLNG]

Beautiful work!👍

[Beamerman]

Amazing work! I will follow this!

[clipper57]

great start that fuel tank is looking good.

[Mike C]

That's amazing. There's quite a lot of work just on that fuel tank.👍

[François]

Thanks!! Yes, quite a lot of work on just that one component. I'm in for the long haul on this build.

[bisc63]

Fantastic attention to detail, and I really like your choice of reference vehicle; that black and red is wicked!

[charlie8575]

This is going to be something else.

Charlie Larkin

[beeRS]

The fuel tank alone is a masterpiece. If the rest of the build is to be to this standard, this will be an epic model. 

[Bainford]

Francois, that is some mighty fine model work. This is going to be a fantastic build. 

[François]

Did a bit more work on the tank this morning. 

Made the bumper out of a brass strip

made the left and right tank support strut bracket 

And both tank support struts

Still have the fuel hoses, fuel hose clamps,  clamp support bar and tail lights brackets to do. Should eventually look something like this.

 

[Jay Whittaker]

Incredible detail! You are certainly doing this build justice!!

[cifenet]

This WIP feels very luxurious!

Love the progress so far!

 

[François]

Did a trial fit of the hose clamp, pretty satisfied with the result.  The hoses aren't the final ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by François

[jaymcminn]

Excellent work on that fuel tank. It's one of those "make or break" details that can make a huge difference to the final appearance of the model.

[François]

Finaly got all 4 fuel hoses done complete with a better looking petcock than my first try and splicer coupling.

and on tank with hose clamp

only one more detail to add to the tank before primer and paint. The wire mesh on the real tank is held in place with wingnuts screwed thru welded taps. I tried finding 3d printed wingnuts but all l could find came from europe (so very pricey onces delivered) and I really wasn't sure that the size would be ok. So I 3d modeled a properly sized wingnut for my application and will have it printed locally.

Wingnuts on real tank

taps installed

3d modeled wingnut ready for printing

[Straightliner59]

Excellent fabrication work. Will certainly be checking in!

[François]

I hinged the gas cap and added a brass flanged sleeve to act as a filler neck. I'll eventually put wood on the cap handle. Now if I could only figure out how to remove the chrome,  this is no paint, it's very hard. So far, I've tried bleach and draino. Didn't do a thing. The only thing that works seems to be sanding. There are many chrome parts on the car and none are nice enough to keep. Does anyone know a way to do this?

[Bugatti Fan]

This is really taking shape well Francois.

Have a look on the Britmodeller website to see what Nick has just been doing with the Bentley dashboard. You two guys are certainly doing a lot to bring that tired old Bentley kit up to a much higher build standard.

[François]

Bugatti fan, Nickl does some great work.  Althougt I will go the 3D printing route when needed (parts to small or to complicated) I tend to prefer fabricating myself. For me, I find this much more satisfying. That said, I would really like to have my own printer, being a mecanical designer by trade, I've got half the job done!!

[Bugatti Fan]

Francois, I guessed somehow that you were a mechanical design engineer. There is something I agree about making small parts in metal, wood and plastics by hand and using conventional small machines that is very satisfying. My own background is mechanical engineering having started as a a craft apprentice way back in the 1960's.

There was a great engineer model maker the late Gerald A. Wingrove who wrote 2 really good books, The Complete Car Modeller 1 and 2. They have been out of print for some time now and if you have not got them already I think that they will make very interesting reading if you can get hold of them. Gerald describes all his scratch building techniques in the 2 books. I certainly learnt a lot from reading them.

Just out of interest, what 3D Cad program do you use? I know that Nick uses Fusion that I think is an Autodesk Product.

[François]

Yes, I know of Mr Wingrove. Quite an impressif builder. If possible, I will try to get his books.  I use Inventor (also from Autodesk) which is specificaly made for mecanical design.  Oh and by the way, I'm not an engineer, I'm a technician which made my job all the more fun. I would design the machines (the fun part) and let the young engineers do all the sizing (the boring part, at least for me).😉