1/8 Porsche 935/78 'Moby Dick'

[sky1911]

Ah, another traveler. For us it was a quick 8hr drive to, arriving at dawn and sort of beaching my car in the swamp that was the back of the Beausejour campsite and then back after the race losing 2 hours to Paris. Anyway, while being at the track and finding that you could no longer buy tickets near the entrace to the rear of the pits, we had to make our way around to the main entrance - by which time the race was in full swing, duh...I was also annoyed that you couldn't even get to the Porsche curves without a ticket anymore -unlike 2011. Also the fences are quite bad for taking pics. My cam decided to focus on the fences all the time. In 2011 we got to the press area before the Dunlop bridge and could take pictures from behind the wall where the cars come right at you - awesome.

Aaanyway, we went back to the trackside museum later and I took a boatload of reference images (and videos documenting the car) of the Martini 917 LH - and a few of various assorted other cars. They had a D-Type there as well and ... a 935 ('80 though).
Attached is a resized shot of the rear rim of that car. Probably not 100% head on but maybe it is of some use to you.

Great build, as with all your projects, and after all you got me into fibreglassing which is something I'm currently doing trying to get a feel for it and getting my feet wet - figuratively compared with Le Mans of course.

[lasagna99]

great pictures...of great cars...!
But...There's a "fake" among those cars...
The 962 never raced in Rothmans livery with the "1988" configuration (the shape of the tail is clearly like the 1988 Shell 962)
It's curious...

That 962 was exposed like a factory car?

Alessandro

[ScratchBuilt]

Good spot, Alessandro - I think you're right! It's supposed to be the '87 winner, but the tail (at least) is clearly 88-spec. There was a small information sign with each car - I should have paid more attention to what it said! The official programme had it listed as a 956, but the spacing between the door and the wheelarch is definitely 962. Hmm...it was still good to see it there, anyway!

[cinqster]

Good to meet you again SB and sorry it was so brief! Managed to get to the drivers parade in town for the first time in 20 years - worth a visit if you've not done it before!

Great shame about Simonsen and it left us all feeling subdued over the weekend. That and as you say, the emptiness of Houx (and the poor weather) made the whole event strange.

Still, be back next year, eh!

[icon_modeler]

Originally Posted by ScratchBuilt

Thanks for posting that shot, Ashman - I only found those myself in the last few weeks! Hmm, that 956 was using the same style of BBS rims too...

All the best,

SB

For what it is worth, those are not period correct wheels. Those BBS wheel centers did not exist until the late 90's. The correct wheel center for that 962 would also be the same pattern as the Tamiya 935 BBS wheel center.

Sounds like a nice trip SB, so envious!!! Thanks for the pictures!!

[ScratchBuilt]

Hi Icon,

Who knows: maybe there's a world-wide shortage of the older style BBS centres?! Not as strange as it sounds - even on the FF2000's we run at work we're struggling to source the old-style 4-spoke 'Revolution' rims in the correct sizes. I'm now annoyed that I didn't check the info on the car - it may have given a few more clues. Perhaps it's a 'bitsa' car put together and wheeled out for displays, etc? Mind you, for the 917 on show they had the power shown as something like 'from 580 to 1100 bhp'...which is kinda right, but also slightly misleading when the car is a regular 917K!

Every year at Le Mans I think: 'must take more photos', but it just doesn't happen. There's a few more that I didn't post - I might add them to the thread later; the Mazda does look rather good, for starters. Having the cars out on the track like this was a really good idea, and something that I hope will be repeated in future - the museum is okay, but being able to see them in their 'natural habitat' is even better. And you don't get to walk on-track every day, either...

Now looking forward to listening to the coverage I missed on the RLM website - I can't stay awake for the whole race!

[icon_modeler]

Frankly it is not a surprise that you do not see those wheels around any longer. Though I would think they can be found for a restoration project like the Freisinger 935. Those wheels, in fact all wheels at that level of racing have a "life" and once they reach their expiration date they are only good for show or testing if someone wants to dare take the chance. In the CART Indycar days you had to track with a log book the mileage of a wheel and show that it had been Ziglo checked for cracks at regular intervals predetermined by CART. Once it had reached it's life span you could not race on that wheel any longer. I imagine that is were all the old BBS wheels have gone. They probably retired the wheel centers to holding up post with ribbons attached for crowd control in the pits or paddock

Yes one never seems to take enough pictures. Incidentally that Mazda is very much original. Mazda is very committed to keeping that car just as it finished LeMans.

[RobertJablonski]

And where is your traditional picture, where you are modeling something on the curb in Le Mans?

[lasagna99]

SB,
the "fake" racing cars is a constant,in the historic meetings,around the world..
Often we can see beautiful cars,stunning liveries,etc...but,few minutes after,watching closely the car,we recognize who the things are not like they seems to be....
I saw many times pictures of a Joest New Man 962....but it didn't never raced in Le Mans with that sponsor...
Taka Q,not New Man.....
And it's only an example...
If you have other pictures of that car,of the side,you can immediatly recognize if it is a 956 or a 962...from the space between the turn light and the front wheel arch.
the 962 has a longer wheelbase than the 956....

however they are fantastic racing cars,and my envy for your journey at le mans is big...... :-)

[ScratchBuilt]

Hello again,

The last couple of weeks have been busy at work - as well as taking the FF2000's to Pembrey in Wales last weekend we've got a Chevron B34 Formula Atlantic we're getting ready for the big historic meeting at Brands Hatch next weekend. Needless to say, it's been difficult to get the modelling juices flowing! However, I've booked some holiday for early August, so I've now got a deadline to work to, as you'll see...

I wanted to get some more moulds ready so that I can spend some of my holiday fibreglassing, so I made a start with the nose. As usual I had to spend some time working out the best way to create the shape - the change from the lower airdam area to the upper section over the wheels would make it difficult to cut in one pass. So, I decided to start by cutting two layers of 50mm foam - the profile for these would give me the footprint at the transition from the airdam to the upper wings:



The offcut around the edge would come in useful later on. Next, I used two layers of 10mm foam to bring up the level for the front splitter - for now I'm planning to mould this as one with the main nose:



To create the lower airdam I cut a section from one of the offcut pieces mentioned earlier:




It's a little rough at the edges but the whole lot will need to be filled and smoothed later on anyway. For now this piece has a straight slope from top to bottom - it needs to be shaped by hand to create a concave surface; that's a job for next week!

Next, I turned my attention to the upper wings. The shape itself isn't too complicated - the tricky part is getting it all to fit together with the chassis and the cockpit section I've already made. The first job was to cut a section from the second layer of foam - I don't need to include the bonnet in this mould as it's already been done. I used a saw for this - the hotwire can only cut up to about 80mm wide.



More templates were used to give me the shape for the top surface of the wings:





Again, more subtle shaping by hand is required but it's starting to look like a 935. The ridges were caused by the hot-wire being right at the limit of it's cutting width, but it's nothing that can't be filled.

The next step required a bit of head-scratching - cutting the inner edge to match the angle of the chassis frame. Easy enough, you'd think, but there was a lot of measuring, checking, re-measuring, etc, going on before I positioned the templates:



...and this is what I've ended up with:





I've dropped the bonnet in to tidy things up - I won't be able to check the exact fit until I've made the nose and can try it on the chassis. It could be that I have to re-make the bonnet anyway, but this won't be a disaster.

I now have to make the small pieces which connect the wings at the front of the car, and create a lip around the inner edge for the bonnet to sit on. The top surface of the wings needs to be curved over, and I need to think about positioning the wheelarches - unlike the 908, I'll have to mould a return onto the opening.

The lower airdam will probably be moulded as a solid surface - the brake ducts can be added as separate pieces later on, and the 'boxes' for the headlights can be made from styrene or fibreglass sheet. That just leaves the louvres to worry about - I can't mould them into the wings, so they'll have to be cut out...

So, I'm happy with how it's going - and there's plenty of time to get it finished before the end of the month. Ideally I'd be able to get the tail mould prepared too, but we'll see how the nose works out first. Maybe I should start with the rear window and roof extension rather than the whole tail? Hmm...

As always - have a good week.

SB

[ScratchBuilt]

Evening, all.

The lack of a recent update hasn't been due to a lack of progress - it's more a case of wanting to push on and having something to show for the effort. It hasn't helped that I've only had one 'normal' weekend in the last five - the other four have seen me off to Le Mans, Pembrey, Brands Hatch and Thruxton...

Having said at the end of the last post that I would concentrate on the nose mould first...I've switched to the tail! Again, two layers of 50mm blue foam to give the overall shape, then the top layer split to give the two rear wings:





When you add the nose mould and the roof section, the 'Moby Dick' starts to take shape:



You can also see on this photo where I've taken the corner off the top edge of the rear wings - it'll need more shaping by hand, but the hot-wire can do most of the hard work for me.

The rear bodywork on the '78 is not a single panel - the rear wings are separate from the centre roof extension and engine cover, so I'll try to mould them like this too. However, as the roof extension will overlap the rear wings as you've seen them in the last few photos, this is going to require some interesting cutting to get everything to fit together! I started by adding more sections of foam to the centre of the mould, cut to give me the profile of the roof extension:



The cardboard strip was used to give me the shape for cutting the sides, taking measurements from my drawings:



The tricky part was where the taper of the roof runs into the flat deck - I had to cut the corners out, shape the top surface to match the deck, cut the side chamfer, then re-attach the corner piece:





I've made a start on sanding the surfaces - the roof extension shouldn't need as much filler as the rear wings. To make sure everything stays in place, I've added a few screws through the moulds; the double-sided tape I'd originally used to fix the sections together allowed a little movement.







Unfortunately, I'm not going to know how successful this is until I get it fibreglassed and offered-up to the main roof panel - if the shape is off, I'm going to have fun getting everything back in place! As there's a certain amount of the unknown to all this, I'm leaving the wheelarches, vents, etc until later - they can be moulded separately and added to the core structure. I've already made the patterns for the lower surface of the rear wings, as it was going to be awkward including them in the main tail mould.

So, two weeks from now I'll be starting to lay-up the fibreglass, which means I've got plenty of sanding, filling and generally making a mess before then. There's a bit more to do on the tail, and a lot more on the nose, but I think it's all possible in time. Hopefully you'll see more progress this weekend...

SB

[lovegt40]

I still cant fix the problem when I try lay over the foam my fiberglass. Surely I dont have the correct product to do it, but it always happens it melts or deform the under foam block.
I made some test with nautical fiberglass,also very fine, but with its resin it becomes too warm for the foam I use.

[mike@af]

Great work SB! I have a question about your foam masters. Are you laying the fiberglass directly over the foam masters? If so, how are you sealing the foam and what mold release are you using?

Cheers.

[ScratchBuilt]

Good questions! Yes, I usually lay-up straight onto the foam, using a thin smearing of Vaseline (petroleum jelly) as the release agent. This technique seems to work well enough - the resin doesn't attack the mould, and getting the completed part off is normally straight-forward. There'll be some areas which have had filler applied, obviously, but once it's all sanded and smooth it doesn't cause any problems.

When I first started fibreglassing on the 917-10 and 908-3 I would give the finished mould a coat of paint to seal the surface, but I've not done this on any of the 935 moulds and it hasn't been a problem. The only downside of using vaseline as the release agent is that it's a bit messy to apply, and you have to clean it off the finished parts (and the mould) afterwards! I've been using 'Aeropoxy' resin, mixed 3 parts resin to 2 parts hardener - you can feel it warming up, but I don't think it's ever gotten too hot at this ratio; maybe if I used more hardener this could be an issue...

Hope this helps - I'll post photos of the lay-up in a couple of weeks!

SB

[puffyrs]

Can't wait for the next update.