Harry P. Posted January 11, 2015 Author Posted January 11, 2015 Nice work. How did you do the plug boots? Sorry about the long delay answering your post. I've been super busy putting together the contest issue of the magazine. so my forum and building time have been severely cut back. Anywho... here's how I made the plug boots. I took a length of styrene tubing of the appropriate diameter and drilled a hole into the side of it (to eventually receive the ignition wire). Then I cut off the tube at the desired length. Then I again drilled a hole into the side of the tube and cut off the desired length. I did that until I had eight short pieces of tubing, each with a hole in the side. Then I super glued a short length of wire into the end of each of the eight short sections of tubing, and then glued each of the short lengths of styrene tube into the cylinder head, using the wire as a "pin" to fit into the holes in the cylinder head. Then I super glued the ignition wires into the holes in the sides of the styrene tubes (those holes that I had drilled earlier). So now I had eight short lengths of tubing glued into the cylinder head, and eight ignition wires glued into those short lengths of tubing. But because I used tubing for the plug boots, obviously the ends were "open." So I used some 5-minute epoxy and added a small blob of epoxy onto the open ends of each of the eight plug boots... and once the epoxy had set up, I used a small brush and painted the eight boots flat black.
Harry P. Posted January 11, 2015 Author Posted January 11, 2015 How has your experience with your superb 1/8 Pocher 540k affected this build? Did it help to make this better, or has it decreased your satisfaction with building at half the scale and a fraction of the detail? Having built this same car in 1/8 scale (and super-detailed)... there's no comparison with this kit. It's like comparing a five star restaurant to Taco Bell. I really prefer 1/8 scale, but the reality is, there are only so many Pocher kits out there, and what is out there that I haven't built yet (Bugatti) is so freaking expensive that I may never snag one. So I have to make do with these little kits and their limitations. There's only so much detail you can put into a 1/16 scale kit...
Harry P. Posted January 11, 2015 Author Posted January 11, 2015 I've been busy with "real work" lately, so updates to this thread have been few and far between... but I actually do have some progress to report. The basic chassis is done: The wheels in this kit are molded in gray plastic. I want chromed wheels, so I ordered a can of Spaz Stix from ebay, but it hasn't come yet... so I'm skipping around and working on other parts until the paint arrives. It was a real PITA to attach the chrome trim to the sides of the fenders without any glue showing, and it was even more of a PITA to foil the ribs on the running boards. Man, I do not want to have to do that ever again!
bbowser Posted January 11, 2015 Posted January 11, 2015 Looking good Harry. The chassis / engine look very realistic.
sjordan2 Posted January 11, 2015 Posted January 11, 2015 Seems like you're actually making good progress. I have the Entex boxing of the kit, which has nicely chromed wheels, but I think your spray chrome will look more realistic.
Twokidsnosleep Posted January 11, 2015 Posted January 11, 2015 This will look much better than the box art when done!
Harry P. Posted January 12, 2015 Author Posted January 12, 2015 This will look much better than the box art when done! The box art kit is pretty bad. And the actual kit itself is pretty bad. In fact, if I had known beforehand what a lousy kit this is, I would not have bought it. But I did. And by golly, I'm gonna try and make something out of it! I actually have more progress, but no time yet to do any photos... so maybe new updates early next week.
Harry P. Posted January 14, 2015 Author Posted January 14, 2015 The kit has the option of building it with either exposed spare tires on the rear deck, or a smooth deck with fender-mounted spares, so there are two different rear decks. The joint between the body sides and the rear deck piece will eventually be hidden under a long thin chromed trim strip, but at the back end of the car, near the rear bumper, those trim strips take a turn inward, and would partially expose that seam between the body sides and the rear deck piece. Don't know why they didn't enginner the pieces so that seam mimics the shape of the trim piece all the way to the back, but they didn't. So I had to Bondo the seams near the back end and smooth out the fender tips:
Harry P. Posted January 14, 2015 Author Posted January 14, 2015 I also started work on the inner door panels. I'm going to do a custom interior, and I want real wood trim along the door tops... so step one is doing the trusty old "back side of the blade" thing and removing the tops of the inner door panels, following along a molded-in groove (which makes the job super easy). Here are panels as they come in the box: And after surgery: And then, using the cut off pieces as templates, I cut new pieces from basswood, which will eventually be stained and varnished:
Harry P. Posted January 14, 2015 Author Posted January 14, 2015 My can of Spaz Stik finally came. I have never used it (or Alclad) before, and I was sort of skeptical about how "chrome" it would actually look. Wow! This stuff is amazing! It's about as close to chrome plated parts as you can get out of a spray can. I'd say it's about 90-95% there, visually, as far as looking like "chrome." The stuff's not cheap... I paid $14.25 for a 3.5 oz. can, but man, the results are spectacular! This isn't the best photo, and not the best part to see the effect on, but the wire wheels in the kit are molded in gray plastic. I sprayed them gloss black, then hit them with a light coat of the Spaz Stik. Amazing! And the stuff is dry almost instantly... 5-10 minutes and it's rock hard and can be handled with absolutely no problem. If you saw these wheels in person, I bet you would never know they were painted and not actually chrome plated: I'll get some better photos posted tomorrow.
Cato Posted January 14, 2015 Posted January 14, 2015 Beautiful. Now you can do the polished ally hood on the Shooting Brake with that.
Harry P. Posted January 14, 2015 Author Posted January 14, 2015 Beautiful. Now you can do the polished ally hood on the Shooting Brake with that. So far I've only tried it on the wire wheels. I wonder how it looks on a large, smooth area? I'll have to give it a try.
Cato Posted January 14, 2015 Posted January 14, 2015 So far I've only tried it on the wire wheels. I wonder how it looks on a large, smooth area? I'll have to give it a try. And while your testing that, try buffing (and or polishing) adjacent areas. If it's durable, that may truly give you 'chrome'.
Harry P. Posted January 17, 2015 Author Posted January 17, 2015 And here's a better idea of how that Spaz Stix worked on the wheels. Compare to the hubcaps that came off one of the chrome trees of the kit. The hardest part of building this kit is applying those thin, long chrome trim strips without any glue showing on the paint. It's a pretty tense process, lemme tell ya!
Cato Posted January 18, 2015 Posted January 18, 2015 What was the 'tensest' part - not snapping the thin strips or getting glue smears? And BTW, why not clear enamel or Future as adhesive? How did your fav liquid cement stick to the red paint? I'm sure you didn't scrape or sand gluing areas.........
imatt88 Posted January 18, 2015 Posted January 18, 2015 Harry, That chrome spray looks so good, I actually went out and bought a can... Great build....
Harry P. Posted January 18, 2015 Author Posted January 18, 2015 What was the 'tensest' part - not snapping the thin strips or getting glue smears? And BTW, why not clear enamel or Future as adhesive? How did your fav liquid cement stick to the red paint? I'm sure you didn't scrape or sand gluing areas......... Couldn't use Future because the trim strips didn't follow the curves and shapes of the body very well. I needed something that would really hold well so that I could force the trim strips to follow the curves on the fenders and body... so I used liquid cement (and yes, I scraped the paint).
Twokidsnosleep Posted January 18, 2015 Posted January 18, 2015 (edited) Does Future alter the chrome foil?? Can you clear the paint and chrome foil with future at the same time or will the chrome yellow? ps rolling chassis is looking very sleek and gorgeous Edited January 18, 2015 by Twokidsnosleep
Harry P. Posted January 18, 2015 Author Posted January 18, 2015 Future is clear acrylic. It won't turn yellow like enamel does, you can clear right over foil.
Cato Posted January 18, 2015 Posted January 18, 2015 (edited) I needed something that would really hold well so that I could force the trim strips to follow the curves on the fenders and body... so I used liquid cement (and yes, I scraped the paint). You are a (much) better man than I.... Edited January 18, 2015 by Cato
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now