Scratch building a classic muscle car.

[fractalign]

Here is how it looked after cutting. The area behind the crossmember has been left untouched because that is providing the extra strength and I will not tackle this part until I work out what I can use for the rest of the transmission tunnel.

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Here are the two joined together.

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Because of the recesses in the floor on either side of the transmission tunnel, these areas are marked for removal.

[fractalign]

The final task was to drill markers on all four corners so that the cut will be the same on both sides. That will be the next task.

[fractalign]

Hey guys.

I cut out the centres of the floor today.

[fractalign]

Here is a basic sketch of what I need to create to fill in the space. This is what I call a roller coaster floorpan because there in no point where there floor is flat, it rises and falls as the arrows show. The other thing I needed to do was work out where the floor sat inhalation to the body. to do this I took measurements from the top of the centre crossmember to the bottom of the window housing.

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With these measurements, I marked out the same for the inside of the body.

[fractalign]

The final image shows how underside. The bottom of floor pan will be parallel with the bottom of the rocker panels at its lowest point. Because there are at least three different levels in this floor area, replicating it will be very tricky. The floor pan and the chassis are effectively the same thing so if the top side is not wrong, the bottom side will be wrong as well. The next task will be to continue to work on the floor pan.

[TFchronos]

Amazing craftsmanship, very nice progress too.

[DynoMight]

This is amazing!

[codea]

I have watched this thread with interest. I've previously attempted to create from scratch a 1/25 gemini and I came to the floor pan and that's where it got me, so I am looking forward to seeing what you do in the hope of being inspired to pick it up again. Thanks for sharing the approach you are taking with this topic. I'm a huge fan of toranas, especially the mount panorama killers, and they always turn heads in the street. Congratulations on your efforts so far, it looks brilliant!

Edited August 14, 2014 by codea

[fractalign]

Hey Christian.

Firstly let me say its good to see you on board the forum, second I followed your Gemini build on the Australian forum with very keenly. I am always interested in scratch building projects, especially automotive ones. I should add that my Torana is the first car I ever bought and at the time I was tossing up between a Gemini coupe and a Torana coupe, so I will be looking forward to you getting back into your build.

Cheers.

[fractalign]

Hey Guys.

I have been busy putting the floor pan together and the first task was to make a cardboard template. While I thought there was no flat surface on the floor between the crossmember and the fire wall, it turns out I was wrong. When I rechecked the floor I found this area was flat so I traced around it to make this template. Here is the actual area in the floor. You will notice a piece of timber in the top right hand corner. That piece of timber is pointing at the area. If you look carefully you will see four holes. These holes are for the seat rails which is why this area is flat.

Edited August 15, 2014 by fractalign

[fractalign]

With the template cut, two sheets of 2 mm were stuck together and cut to the same shape as the template. These were also sanded down to make them at least half a millimetre thinner. The grey area is marked out for removal.

Edited August 15, 2014 by fractalign

[fractalign]

Before I started work on the floor I created a contour gauge out of off cut strips of pine. I was almost not going to use it because it was so flimsy. But once I reinforced it I got to work using it to create this. Once the contour was worked out the gauge was carefully removed and the outline traced. In light pen at first and when I was happy with the line, in full black texta. The upper line is the transmission tunnel the bottom line is the floor pan its self at its deepest part and the middle line, the lighter one is the where the door opening is.

The square at the left is the crossmember. In the middle of the template you will notice a small piece of white styrene, this is scaled down version of the floor, namely the sides that taper down into this area.

[fractalign]

To work out the contour of the side panels that flow down from the doors, I took a much simpler approach in creating this tool. This measures the angle. The numbers are at 5mm intervals so when the tool is placed flat up against the angle the needle points to the number from where the upper part of the tool is leaning. This side is for the more gentle angles.

[fractalign]

This side is the actual side that I used to measure the angles, you will notice the double headed arrow, this was drawn at the the exact angle.

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With that angle locked in, I was able to double check the angle on the sides of the floor before gluing them in.

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Here is how it looks in relation to the body. With the sides done, the next task will be to create the floor itself, starting with the flat panels where the seat rails attach.

[Bennyg]

Great to watch a subject come together like this.

Ben

[w451973]

WOW! Talk about skills. It is so cool to see a project come together from scratch.

[fractalign]

Hey Guys.

Thank you for all the positive comments and sorry there are no photos today. I did get most of the sections for the floor cut but I have not put them together yet. I will need to to measurement for the transmission tunnel before I can start assembling the floor. That will be tomorrows main task.

[fractalign]

Hey Guys.

I spent the evening setting all the pieces of the floor in place after getting some more measurements today. In this image you can see all the different levels of the floor, of course this floor the panel was pressed as a single unit. All these levels I will need to recreate in mine can only be done individually because there would be too much cutting and bending for a single piece of plastic. The flat area where the seat rails attach has two raised creases and as the floor dips down towards the rear the creases become inverted. The raised creases will be created from half round while the inverted creases will need to be scribed in.

Edited August 17, 2014 by fractalign

[fractalign]

I was looking for some scrap paper today to make up another template, this time the template was for the floor surface, not a cut away but a top view. The idea was that I would place the paper over the floor and trace around the creases. This paper template was made up to save me time, by not having to go down to the garage every time I wanted to cross check something. I did not find any scrap paper but i hit the jackpot by finding a whole ream of unused printing paper. Since I no longer run the printer this paper will be put top use from now on.

It looks ugly and its hard to tell whats what but its basically a tracing of the same floor area as above. The raise and inverted seams are all traced and the measurements are all there. Being traced means that i can measure the tracings rather than the actual floor if i need any more measurements.

[fractalign]

I have most of the section cut now, these are the flat panels where the seat attaches the two wedge shaped panels join into the the transmission tunnel.