As mentioned previously, the next few instalments will be based on adding various details to the bottom section of the chassis and the next time the upper section appears in the instructions it’s time to screw in the steering frame before the two chassis sections are fixed together. I was able to jump ahead therefore and get that frame fixed in allowing the Fire Suppression system to be completed.
Photo 1 illustrates one of the two screws inserted under the frame bar and screwed home tightly.
As you might remember, I’d created some scratch built fire extinguisher nozzles in resin, a ‘T’ shaped one for the front of the cockpit and a single version for the end of the tube dangling down the driver’s back. I hit a slight problem when trying to fit the translucent white pvc tube into the enlarged hole in the chassis top – the darned thing was overly stiff and didn’t want to bend in the right places! (This meant that whatever I used to form the securing band with would have to be pretty strong as it would be under constant strain.) On a last check of the reference photo, a section of which is shown in
Photo 2, I suddenly realised that the white tube wasn’t actually just a white tube at all – if you look closely at the blown-up
Photo 3, you can just make out that the tube is covered in a woven material – probably the same asbestos material that kitchen fire blankets come in. I fortunately had just the thing to simulate that coarse weave in a tubular form – various diameters of
Mylar ‘tubing’ from an ebay fishing tackle store. At least I thought it was tubing, it turned out it’s actually a solid ‘cord’ with string down the centre! I bought this to simulate the silvery fireproof conduit covers that run down the sides of the car with various tubes and cables inside in some of the reference pics.
Photo 4 shows the roll of Mylar, this was the thinnest one I’d bought and was just right for the diameter of the extinguisher pipe. The one problem with this stuff is that the Mylar isn’t a solid material, its composed of loads of silver filaments wound around that string core and once you try to cut it to length they all start to unravel!
Fortunately the ‘tube’ has to fit inside the resin nozzle, and the solution was to simply paint the Mylar with
Vallejo Matt White acrylic, let it dry completely and
then cut off the length required before gluing it into the nozzle as seen in
Photo 5. The paint made it considerably stiffer than the pliable silver Mylar but at least it didn’t fall to pieces! The hole in the chassis top had already been enlarged to take the pvc tube and the white Mylar fitted down in there fine.
Photo 6 shows the first attempt at securing the fire extinguisher to the steering wheel frame. This was a thin strip of self adhesive aluminium tape wound around the frame with a thicker aluminium strip curled into a three quarter ring glued over the tube (the tube being super-glued to the tape as well). With the naked eye it didn’t look too bad but once I took the close up photo I noticed the torn face on the tape. After two evenings of that niggling at the back of my mind I decided it was going to have to come off – it would annoy me for the rest of the build knowing I should have done it better/neater/right!
The vastly improved version is seen in
Photo 7. Much neater and the right colour as well! This time I cut a tiny slice of Decra Led lead strip, wound it around a dowel the same diameter as the frame and sliced it to size. Then it was painted with
Mig Satin Black acrylic and super-glued around the frame where the tape had been removed from. The aluminium ring around the white Mylar was still stuck in place so that was also painted satin black and once dry the Mylar was glued back in the same position. Both these photos show the nice ‘weave’ effect of the painted Mylar.
While I was checking and double checking back through the reference photos I noticed a couple glimpses of that same turquoise green colour and on closer inspection discovered another two fire suppression nozzles sticking out the back of the fire wall pointing directly over the engine!
Photo 8 shows the pair of them, the top pic is beside the oil expansion tank and the bottom one is to the left of the alternator. There were actually two versions of the bottom one, a simple nozzle sticking out of the firewall and the one shown here which protrudes further out with a connection going off towards the other nozzle – I went for the simple one!
Thankfully I hadn’t yet screwed the firewall to the engine so off it came and the positions of the two nozzles were marked and drilled out as seen in
Photo 9 .
Having recently bought (ebay’ed) a set of styrene tubes coming in a selection of diameters (thought they might come in handy down the line), I selected one that just fitted into the hollowed out back of the nozzles and cut off a couple of short pieces which were glued into the holes in the firewall as shown in
Photo 10. The gluing was not exactly one of my neatest jobs! (
Photo 11) This didn’t matter of course as the rear of the firewall is completely hidden from sight once it is screwed onto the chassis. I simply squirted some tube polystyrene glue into the hole from the back and pushed the two tubes in, ensuring that they stayed level as the glue set. I haven’t used a
tube of poly glue for years! Anyone remember those little aluminium tubes of glue that came with early model kits – was that Airfix? (Or those little clear flexible things that you had to pierce with a pin which then squirted everywhere!) Ah! That was real modelling!
Once the two tubes were set in place the nozzles had a tiny drop of the same poly glue down the back and were pressed into place as seen in
Photos 12 and
13.
One thing that I have been playing around with during the build is how to get a (cheap) method of making scale sized cable ties to put around the various tubes and cables, I think that’s
Zip ties over the other side! The smallest conventional cable ties are 2.5mm across the tail, which is far too big on the model. There is a smaller one yet, at 1.8mm across which I hadn’t tried due to the cost (100 x 2.5mm about £1.99, 100 x 1.8mm – over £8!) In the end I did try a pack but even they were still out of scale. I tried shaving down the ratchet box to see if that would work (
Photo 20) but still not ideal.
When I bought some of the rubber tubing for making the conduits out of, the seller very helpfully added a selection of his other sizes and colours as an advert as shown in
Photo 14. Looking at those I suddenly thought up an idea which, as it turned out is perfect for making up the ties IF that is, you haven’t already fixed the tubes or cables in situ at both ends! For this method, they need to be free at one end.
Photo 15 shows the start of the procedure. A short ring of the rubber tube is sliced off with a safety razor and the tubing threaded through as illustrated in
Photo 16. I struggled with getting the second tube through until I came up with using the thick needle to pass through the ring before sticking it into the end of the second tube and then withdrawing it back through, pulling the tube with it as shown in
Photo 17. This might twist the ring as seen here but teasing it back straight again is easy enough. I put three rings around the pair of fuel lines coming from the instrument panel, two are shown in
Photo 18. Once they were where I wanted them, a little drop of super glue secured them to the top of the chassis. I then cut a thin strip of plasticard and cut off three tiny rectangles which were stuck onto some masking tape to hold them down whilst they were painted matt black. Once dry they were lifted off and super glued on top of the rings to simulate the ratchet parts of the cable tie as seen in
Photo 19.
Finally, in
Photo 21, we have the contents of
Pack 37, which consists of another part of the fire extinguisher system (three parts on the top right) and parts for the brake fluid tanks system. I had been toying with some upgrade ideas for those tanks, which may or may not have come about. However, those upgrades are now definitely ongoing – it’s not obvious in this photo, but two of the parts are actually broken (actually one was broken, the other was miss-formed and wouldn’t have fitted on!
All will be explained in the next instalment!
Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!
Robin.
Plymouth57 attached the following image(s):
First wooden ship:
The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second:
Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third:
HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale
Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault
Index for the Victory diary is on page 1
UK
