No pressure, ferrariman81!
Hello again, everyone. January was a strange month for me - busy at work, family health issues to push through (not
my health, but someone very close), and yet the time seemed to speed along. Now it's February, so I'd better show what I've been doing!
I said in the last update that I would start the year continuing with detailing the tub, and that's what I've done. I added a chamfer panel across the top of the cockpit lower crossbeam, and fitted some doubler plates over the wishbone rear leg pick-ups:
Of course, this meant that I also had to re-trim the lower edges of the inner styrene panels, so there's been lots of filing, trial-fitting, adjustment, re-fitting, etc going on. That's okay, though - I knew they would need to be refined from the original cut.
The next job has been taking up most of my time during January. And it's riveting...
I couldn't avoid the fact that as the 956 has a folded aluminium tub, it also has a lot of rivet heads all over it. I couldn't leave them off, but how to apply them? There was no need for any of the rivets to be structural, so it was purely a case of how to get the right look. Option 1 was to mark the styrene skin panels and apply rivet detailing to the outer surface. Option 2 was to mark and drill holes, then fit styrene rod to create the rivet heads, glue on the
back of the panel, then trim flush. Yeah...I went for Option 2!
I knew that Option 1 would mean lots of very small pieces of styrene rod pinging out of my tweezers on a regular basis, causing much frustration. I would certainly end up getting glue all over the outside of each panel, causing more frustration when I eventually start spraying. There was also the probability that this method would see the rivets getting out of line, which would be untidy.
Option 2 has been time-consuming, but I'm very pleased with the results. I've used 0.88mm rod for all the rivets - at this scale I'm not trying to show the difference between different sizes of rivet, even if I could be sure of what the sizes actually
were! I started by making a bunch of strips which will eventually be fitted around the interior of the tub, to hide the joints between the vertical inner panels and the sections of floor:
Most of these strips are 2.5mm x 0.5mm; I tried using 0.25mm to get a better scale thickness, but the strips curled up too much, and were very fragile during the drilling process. After this, it was time to start on the various inner and outer skin panels - here's the outer cockpit sides, front sections:
I've used the Freisinger rebuild photos of chassis 956-113 as the main reference for the rivet layout, but when you start looking at all the photos of multiple cars (factory and customer) you notice the small changes here and there. The 962 tub is slightly different again as the years went by, so it's hard to say what's definitive.
Around the front wishbone pick-ups there's a bit of extra angle-section detailing, plus I've made some plates which close-off the very front of the nosebox:
More rivets added to the lower panels, plus the upper nosebox side and top plate:
The rear bulkhead panels needed more work - the holes for the lower A-frame pickups needed to be trimmed out, plus the round holes where various pipes, cables and wiring details will be fitted. The hole for the gear linkage needs to be opened up properly, too...and then more drilling and riveting:
Finally for tonight, the sill upper panels needed a bit of fettling and adjustment to the overall shape, and then more rivets...40 holes in each panel:
There's also been more work on the other outer panels, but - as usual - it's only now that I realise I don't have the photos. Something for next time, then. How many rivets so far? At the last count, it's about
615...and rising!
There's still more to do, but I can't avoid doing it. There's more rivets on the front damper mounting beam, the main dashboard frame, and the rear firewall, but the majority are done. Some will be hidden, many will still be visible at the end, so it's worth the effort. I may have to adjust my method for some of the remaining rivets, as some of these last panels have already been glued to the supporting structure - but I'll find a solution.
Sorry for the lack of variety, but it's certainly been a productive start to 2020!
Have a good week,
SB