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1928 Mercedes Benz SS


Harry P.

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A thing of beauty, and a joy forever. If you fix the gauge faces I sent you, both in hard copy and in a digital file, please send me a copy.

I tried to fix them in PS by upping the contrast to get the black blacker and the white whiter, but it doesn't do much good. The bad thing is, the gauge faces are so small at 1/16 scale that you literally need a magnifier to discern what they are. But that's also the good news, because to the naked eye, unless you have eagle vision, they look great!

I'll have pix of the dash all done up with glass, bezels, and gauge faces either later tonite or tomorrow. I'm in the middle of finishing the dash right now. I must say, it's looking pretty cool!

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I took one of the images of the car's gauges that Skip sent me and opened the image in Photoshop. I made several sets, each slightly a different size... that way when I printed them out I'd be sure to have at least one set at exactly the correct size.

dash6_zps9ebb786b.jpg

I scratchbuilt a horn switch using a sewing pin, some aluminum tube for the shaft, and a tiny bit of sheet styrene for the "wing" on the knob:

MB22_zps00c85905.jpg

I stained the dash and "varnished" it with Future. The gauge bezels are rings cut from aluminum tubing. I had to make the holes in the wood dash exactly the right size for the bezels to fit into without any slop. I added clear "glass" by gluing a piece of clear acetate to the back side of the dash, then glued the gauge faces in place. The black switch to the left of the tach (the big gauge right in the center) was cut off the kit dash with a razor saw, painted, and glued in place here. I scratchbuilt the rest of the dash controls using sewing pins and aluminum tube:

dash7_zps71bc89d7.jpg

dash8_zps0bd7b0f5.jpg

I think the end result looks a bit better than what came in the kit.

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That dash is a masterpiece, especially the fuel level tube on the far right. How did you make all the parts that go into it, like the mounts?

As for the fan, it's certainly strange considering the precision of everything else, but Harry is correct that you really can't see it very well in the end.

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That dash is a masterpiece, especially the fuel level tube on the far right. How did you make all the parts that go into it, like the mounts?

I sort of just tried to get "in the ballpark" with that. These things are so small on the model (the camera exaggerates everything 10x)... when you look at it with your own eyes and not the camera's, things look way different. I made the fuel level tube by using a small half-round file and filing the side of some thin aluminum tube until I had opened up that "window" that you see. The upper and lower mounts are just regular old sewing pins. Here's another shot of the dash in natural light, no flash:

dash9_zpse6379166.jpg

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I'm going to customize the interior of the model a bit. Here is an inner door panel from the kit. I want to replace that upper part with real wood (to match the dash):

interior1_zpsafd31611.jpg

The first step is to carefully cut down along the back of the two extensions at the leading and trailing ends of the panel. These extensions are there because there is a space between the inner and outer door panels where the glass goes, so I want to save these extensions and not just cut off the whole top of the inner panel. I cut down to the point where that top part of the inner door trim panel ends:

interior2_zpse179743e.jpg

Now I turned the panel over and used the back side of my X-acto blade to scribe along the seam between that top panel and the rest of the lower panel. I had to be careful at the ends because I didn't want to break off those two extensions. Here, the right panel has been modified:

interior3_zpsaf443920.jpg

And now both are done:

interior4_zpsd8324262.jpg

I also sanded off the molded-in door pulls at the top center of the door panels; I'll replace those later with better, scratchbuilt pulls.

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Good call on the door pulls.

And you mentioned earlier that you're going to add the fuel lines to the intermediate fuel tank on the firewall -- after following builds of this kit for several years, I've never seen anyone attempt that (degree of difficulty: 9.0). It's a signature part of the car, and I can't wait to see it.

Edited by sjordan2
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Good call on the door pulls.

And you mentioned earlier that you're going to add the fuel lines to the intermediate fuel tank on the firewall -- after following builds of this kit for several years, I've never seen anyone attempt that (degree of difficulty: 9.0). It's a signature part of the car, and I can't wait to see it.

Um, yeah... I'm not sure how I'm going to do it yet, exactly... ^_^

But obviously I can't connect the lines between tank and engine until after the tank is solidly in place... and the tank can't be solidly in place until the firewall is in place. I'l have to figure this one out when I get to it.

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Back to the chassis. I made a dumb mistake... I glued the engine and chassis together before I added the road draft tubes (at least that's what I think they are, based on the fact they're connected to the carbs on one end, snake down the side of the block, make a 90 degree bend towards the back of the car, and exit into the open air along the side of the oil pan). They are the two black vertical tubes you see in the photo. I made them by bending aluminum rod to shape, test fitting, re-bending, re-test fitting, etc., until I got them both to fit. It would have been so much easier if I had added these to the engine before I glued the engine into the chassis. :rolleyes:

MB23_zpse76f2c86.jpg

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A correction for you: road draft tubes were usually connected to the intake manifold, valve cover or crankcase itself. They carried off crankcase oil vapor and fumes and released them to the outside air. Today that is verboten and we're blessed with pumps that pull it out and feed it back into the induction system.

I say this because you said 'connected to the carbs' - carbs would not have a vent to outside (cause a vacuum leak) unless they're bringing air into the carbs (unlikely in this case). If they are connected to the intake manifold on the 1:1, it's possible they are pulling crankcase fumes-if that part of the intake has a passage into the block.

Your difficult work is lovely however.

What silver is that you use? Is it a Metalizer? It's very bright and fresh.

EDIT: Another look shows a tube connecting the valve cover to the intake. They may have a passage where manifold vacuum pulls oil fumes then siphons them off to the draft tubes. You never know with those Germans...

Edited by Cato
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You're right, they are connected to the underside of the intake manifold on the horizontal part of the intake tubes above the carbs, not the carbs themselves. My mistake. And they exit into the air... so they have to be draft tubes.

The smaller tubes between the intake and the valve cover is listed as the "vergaserheizung" on my engine diagrams. That translates to "carburetor heater," so they must be some sort of pre-heater tubes... which would explain why in some photos they are wrapped in insulating tape.

The silver I'm using is "Odds 'n' Ends Silver from Hobby Lobby, with a coat of Testors Transparent Black Window Tint over the silver.


You never know with those Germans...

They're a crafty bunch! :P

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Yup-makes sense now.

Junk brand paint looks so good in all your builds! I can't believe it's that bright even muted with transparent black...

I don't know if "junk brand" is fair. They are perfectly good paints... they just aren't specifically sold as "model paint," and so they don't have the insane "model paint" markup. I decided a long time ago that I was not going to spend the $$$ on "model paints" if there was a more sanely-priced alternative. Just today I was at Hobby Lobby picking up a few items I'll need for my model. Tamiya primer was $11 a can. ELEVEN freaking dollars for a tiny can of primer! No way am I going to spend eleven bucks on a can of primer. :rolleyes:

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Agreed 100% and I was not demeaning your choices. After all, your results are great. I should have said 'off-brand' paint - meaning not the conventional KryRustouplicolor household names. I didn't realize such good looking paint was not more widely known.

I know many here use Wally World primer and colors with fine results.

Yes model paint has become an eyedropper-for-your-arm cost proposition. Jameson and the MCW folks are pricey too but they provide a premium with exact match 1:1 colors in ready to shoot form.

I'm doing quite well with parts store auto paint and primers; big can for the same price as Tammy's tiny ones.

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I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one that misses something and them has to find a work around.

I make my share of mistakes. I just don't report them all... ^_^

For example... I put the rear brake rod linkage on upside down. In my defense, I was following the kit instructions. Even though it looked weird to me, and I thought it shouldn't be that way, I checked and double-checked the illustrations and followed them. Sure looked odd. Then I looked at some reference photos of the real car and saw that yes, I had done it wrong (the instructions are wrong). So I undid everything and put it all back together the right way. :D

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Ok... back to the door panels.

I used the upper parts that I removed as templates to make new pieces. I couldn't use the same birch plywood as I used for the dash, because the top edges of these panels are visible, and plywood would show that "plywood" edge... so I used a piece of solid basswood instead:

MB24_zps1749c9c7.jpg

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Fast forward… the upper door panels were sanded, the top edge rounded over, stained, and "varnished" with several coats of Future. The lower panels were painted brown, given a black wash, and finally a shot of matte acrylic. The "chrome" trim is beading wire from Hobby Lobby. I still don't know how the door pulls will look, or exactly where they will be placed. I'll have to think about that...

MB26_zps1658172a.jpg

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