Hello again,
I always find the best thing about modelling while on holiday from work is that I can tackle certain jobs that would be a major pain to do during a normal week, a couple of hours each night. With this in mind, I made sure that everything was in place and prepared so that I could dive straight in last weekend.
First up, here's the headlight bowls and filler neck collars being laid-up with fibreglass:
No problems with the resin / hardener mix this time, everything went off as planned and I only needed to use four layers of the thinnest cloth. They didn't even fight me when I tried to remove the parts from the moulds:
I'll return to the headlight bowls another time, but the filler neck collars were easy to trim to size:
I just need to add a couple of small overflow lines to these and they're ready for painting.
Staying in the front under-bonnet area, I've trimmed the Mk2 bonnet panel (made some time ago) and added the holes for the oil and fuel fillers:
In each corner of the bonnet I've added a small 2mm diameter magnet, with matching magnets hidden under the edging of the nose section. It's not a super-strong attraction, but it's enough that it does a good job of locating the panel in place. There's some styrene strip and panelling added around the edge of the bonnet opening, so it's all looking tidier. The bonnet itself now needs some major rubbing-down before it's ready for filler and painting.
In the front two corners you can just about see that I've also added a pair of locating pins. These go through the bonnet and are glued into the chassis X-frame. Eventually there'll be a couple more at the top corners too. To go with these, there should also be some removable bonnet clips, right? Something like these:
These will be tethered to the bonnet panel and left to hang free - I am not even considering making them functional!
Next up, the steering wheel. A different technique for this one - normally I curve a piece of plastic hose over a wire core, but this never results in a nice round wheel. So, this time I cut five rings from 0.75mm styrene sheet, glued two pairs together to make the front and back for the rim, and cut notches in the fifth to locate the centre spokes:
This lot was glued together and left under a heavy weight for a few days - I will be very annoyed if it starts to warp out of shape! The next step was to start shaping the rim, so I fitted it to my small modelling lathe and gently attacked it with emery cloth:
The three-spoke centre was also marked and trimmed from 0.75mm sheet, making sure that the spokes lined-up with the notches in the rim:
The upper part of the steering column was made from various pieces of aluminium tube and styrene. Small hex-nut detailing was added to the back, and some 'capscrew heads' added to the front (two of which allow me to pin the centre to the column. Greenstuff was added around the outside and inside of the rim to smooth everything off, and some small holes added for stitching detail. It's now pretty much ready for painting:
Finally for tonight, I've made a start on the components for the seatbelts. I want to make these even more detailed than the ones on the 908-03, but they're always a fiddly job. I still have to make the release buckle for the lap-straps, but all the other plates and mountings are well underway:
I'll continue to work on these during the next few days, and hopefully by next weekend they'll be ready to fit into the car. Time for some needle-work!
In amongst all this I've been doing a little priming and painting too, but this can wait until the next update when things are finished. There's a few other jobs I'd pencilled-in for my holiday - headlights, re-making the tyres, making some more decals, etc - but I don't think it's all going to fit in! Still, it won't be too long until Christmas...
That's it for tonight. Not heavy on the technical detail, but I think by now you know how I do what I do! Hopefully next weekends update will have the same variety - and some finished parts.
SB