some new slot car masters

[Scratchbuilder]

Hi all,

busy with these 1/32nd scale slot car shell masters lately.

Toyota Celica Rally car

Invicta S Type Low chassis

Alfa Romeo 158 Pre-War version

Cooper T81 Maserati F1

Models are better than the photography, which was a bit quickly grabbed. Better ones when they're all painted.

Martin

[triumphfan]

Some great looking work going on there Martin.

I am playing around with doing a Lotus 18 in 1/24 scale. Not sure what I am doing to be honest, just carving a general shape in wood at the moment and not having much fun.

Do you have any advice as to methods. Plans would be helpful too, just doing it from photographs at the moment.

I have wheels and tyres sorted by using the SEF items.

Regards,

Steve.

[Scratchbuilder]

Steve,

ideally you need plans, either trustworthy published ones (few are really worth taking notice of!) or make your own.

Then photocopier them to the right size using the wheelbase measurement. Do a couple of copies each and cut out the side view, stick it to your favoured medium (these were Ureol for the Celica and 158, 60 thou. styrene for the Invicta) and cut out, then glue on the plan view and cut that out. Mark the plan centre line and the wheelbase lines and keep these maintained after every bit of filing, chiselling, sanding. They are your guide through everything.

For the Lotus 18 (a wise choice for a starter carve) you really have to just put some crown in the top surfaces and round off the corners.

If you're going for the open sided version, with Sir Stirling's lallies akimbo, I'd still say start with a full body, then cut out the open section.

Once you have the outside shape, you can either hollow it out, a hell of a faff and not something I'd do, although I did many years ago, or mould it in silicon and do a slush mould in polyurethane resin where you pour a bit into an open mould, slush it around, then a bit more, etc. until all surfaces are covered to the thickness you require. All three of the above masters are slush mouldings. I make solid patterns and then detail the slush, thickening with Milliput and thinning with the minidrill and a grinding bit until it's all about 2mm thick. That gets the chassis mount pillars glued in and once grille, bumpers, lights are made it goes off to a resin caster to be made in a 2 part mould.

Of course, if your model is purely a one-off for you, you only need to hollow the cockpit area and maybe the front radiator inlet.

Here's some early stage carvings to show what I mean:-

That's, as you can see, a drawing I did many years ago of my own Trident Venturer and a balsa wood box made up from which to carve a very lightweight slot shell. I did my first, a Ferrari 158 F1 car when was 12.

I don't recommend balsa wood as filling its open grain is a pain, but there's nothing lighter. Being a very angular car, the Trident is perfect for the "box" method. Here's a Clan Crusader Manx made the same way, this time from the most wonderful steamed pear. Another angular car.

Don't be afraid of using anything suitable, mixing and matching. The Clan has a basic 5 sheet box of pear construction, but has styrene detailing and Milliput headlights and fillings here and there. I always use Green/yellow Milli as it hardens much more reliably than that ghastly white stuff that I always find just crumbles. Green/yellow is as smooth as you could require. Super Smooth is just gilding the Lily.

Here's a Hesketh 308. Because it is seriously boxy, it was done almost entirely in 60 thou. styrene, with the wobbly bits made in Ureol (also known as Renshape in the States)

Some cars are just too smooth and rounded for the box method and then you need to bite the bullet and go for the full carve.

Here's a Huffaker Genie Mk 8. All Ureol

Here's the Celica at an early stage. Crap photo., sorry. I have a new camera now, but you can see where I have made the left hand side first. I always do this.

Once I'm happy with it, I just repeat that all over again on the right hand side, sometimes making templates in card or styrene for the more challenging sections.

Tools.....well, I have a bandsaw and a disc sander, but only fairly recently. I've done dozens with just a junior hacksaw and rasps. I still do a lot of them that way, because you have to get at certain bits with hand tools. Then I'll use high quality chisels and I mean QUALITY. You can always find old Sheffield cast steel chisels at the Sunday market. I bought my 10 a few years back for £14 the lot. I have a selection of sharpening stones with fine slip stones for the final hone. Sharp chisels are far less likely to slip, but still keep your fleshy bits behind the edge!

Then I finish with files, mainly a 3 square saw file, an 8" 2nd cut hand file and some Swiss files by Vallorbe and Stubbs. On top of that, craft knives and my beloved hand made chisels made from worn out or broken Swiss files. I haven't encountered a section I can't handle yet.

Finish of with wet'n'dry down to 400 grit.

Finally, before I had any Ureol or Pear, I did this beauty (still my best, I think) by slarring body filler over a balsa box core, filing the filthy stuff to shape and then digging out the balsa core.

This is a superb build by Dave Wisdom, who makes the most soulful model cars I have ever seen. It is made from the balsa and fillered master used to cast an FPF Models (my old firm) P6 Rover racer in polyurethane resin. Nobody makes my work look as good as Dave!

I hope the above has demystified carving a bit and good luck with the 18.

If you need any help, just ask.

Cheers,

Martin

[wagoneer]

Martin, that's some gorgeous carving you do. It's a joy to see the results of such skills. Your P6 is amazing. Do you sell bodies taken from your bucks?

Wag

[Scratchbuilder]

Thanks, Wag. It's what I do. Nobody wants a 61 year old van driver, good as I am on multi-drop!<G>

All those bodies are available from my various clients. PM me for details.

Martin

[griffsrw]

very inspiring work, i agree with your comments about scratcbuilding, and casting the first 'hollow' body. we both work with the same basic methods. the only thing i could add would be when beginning to create a shell, i use a lego core, skinned with plasticard, the drawings would be used to create a centreline and cross section datums again made from plasticard, fill the rough body, and work at sanding towards these hard points. they will become visible as the filler gets thinner. see photo for 'one i prepared earlier'.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7418/10360941435_ca6ffa5782_c.jpg

Edited October 19, 2013 by griffsrw

[Scratchbuilder]

Griff, that's certainly one way of doing it and I know a few who have largely gone that way. I would worry about the difference in hardnesses of the styrene and filler causing a bit of ridging, but if you then go to a slush, as I did with the Invicta, you can file them down.

When I was clay modelling for the Germans, we used to model the left side of a full sized car, then take "points" with the Stieffelmayer measuring machines and repeat the dimension onto the other side of the clay with a pointer tool in the head of the machine. It took hours! Then e'd fill the little dents with Tip-Ex and then rake the clay down quickly till the Tipp-Ex was just showing. Very similar really, but accurate to 0.1mm, although when the temperature changed it could all go very wrong! We came in one day to find that the heating had failed overnight and you could drop matchsticks into the cracks of a model that was lined up for the big Frankfurt show!

If I find Ureol difficult to get free any more I will go that way! There's only so many companies I can blag off cuts from.

What car and scale is that one?

Cheers,

Martin

[griffsrw]

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7220/7099772905_a8a80a4f28_c.jpg

its a1958 lister jaguar, 1/24 scale. here is an example of the built up kit. the same process was used to make my lola t70, which can be seen on this forum.

[Pete in Lincs]

Nice Celica & Rover.

It's years since I've seen a Clan.

Thanks

Pete

[Scratchbuilder]

Griff,

PM coming.

Pete, glad you like the cars. I'll post a finished Celica pic. once the customer has done his decal magic.

Martin

[zagato]

Not wanting to hi-jack this thread, but rather to keep it going and to encourage more to have a go at scratch building, whether it be cars or aircraft, here's a few shots of some of my projects. Knowing Martin and his work quite well, I can only say that his work has been a source of inspiration for me and no doubt others.

This is a DB4 master made from balsalwood, automotive filler and micro-ply.

DB4 GT Zagato. Using the same methods and materials.

DB5 Convertible.

E Type FHC. The base for this was the old Airfix kit with all the mods in filler. This is still work in progress.

DB4 GT using an old damaged Scalextric shell as a base.

Ferrari 250 LM. Airfix kit base. Anybody who knows this kit will know just how bad it is.

Just a selection to be going on with. I hope this inspires others to have a go. So come on chaps, lets see what you're working on.

Graham.

[Scratchbuilder]

Heyhey, eyup Graham. Good to see you on here.

I can confirm Graham's superb work. Especially considering it's balsa wood! The guy's nuts<G>

Graham and I are both of the view that scratchbuilding is way under-used. We're also both tight wads.

Martin

[zagato]

You speak for yourself young man. I'm just skint.

G.

[triumphfan]

Some fantastic scratchbuilding going on here. I am truly inspired, just need to get some of my current projects finished and really make a start on a scratchbuild of my own, the Lotus 18.

I have some plan drawings but there are no dimensions. I assume that I only need to find the length of the real car to make the plans 1/24 scale.

I love 1/2" to the foot !! lol.

Cheers, Steve.

[Scratchbuilder]

Steve,

just make sure the wheelbase is 95.1mm (for 1/24th scale) and you'll be fine. Check as many drawings as you can find and don't believe any of them unless they make you think to yourself, "Hmm, that looks nice". Then check them against all the period photos you can find.

Don't trust modern restorations or museum exhibits. They are often wrongly done. Donington being a good example of the "be careful" syndrome.

Good luck.

Martin

[triumphfan]

Thanks Martin, that has saved a lot of work. Just need to present my plan and the given dimension to my PC Guru at work and see if he can come up with a correctly sized print out for me. I am a bit of a numpty when it comes to that sort of thing.

I have a nice colour 4 view and a black and white 2 view plan to print out. It will be interesting to see if they match when printed.

Really am getting fired up about this now.

Cheers.

[Scratchbuilder]

It is a bit addictive, once you get cracking, especially if you are in the position of doing it for a hobby and not a living (of sorts!). You'll be blown away by how little it costs compared with kits.

It would be difficult to get a Lotus 18 drawing wrong, there ain't much to it! So you should do fine.

I always use the Post Office photo-copier which has enlarge/reduce facilities. Measure your available drawing wheelbase. Let's say it's 65mm for instance.

You want 95 mm, so divide 95 by 65....1.46307 says the calc. That means round up one for 147% on the machine. Most are accurate, but take a rule and measure the print. Adjust up or down on the machine 1% at a time to get where you want.

Or give it to the PC guru at work<G>

Get at least two copies, too.

Cheers,

Martin

[triumphfan]

Well, that was a nice surprise. I just printed the plan out, to show it to my colleague, and the wheelbase measures 95mm. Happy days.

I will post some pics when (if) I make any progress.

Cheers,

Steve.

[griffsrw]

i agree about it being addictive, cars that are not available become within reach, it takes a lot of thinking, but that's half of the appeal. keep the little grey cells going.

[Scratchbuilder]

It certainly does that.

I've just spent 40 minutes in the workshop, lathing, as I call what I do on the wee Peatol lathe. I now have front suspension parts for an Alfa 158, gauges for its dashboard and lights (4 heads, 4 spots) for the Celica. NOW, I have to work out how to assemble them all into actual components.

But not before a cuppa and a home made scone.

Ah, the sun is out, that means spraying the models with their primer finish finally!

Never a dull moment.

Martin

[Caerbannog]

Nice masters - which reminds me: How is the XJ-13 progressing?

Rene

[Scratchbuilder]

I'm too busy with customer stuff, Rene, but the body's done, now I have to do the cockpit and engine 'ole. But I'm in no rush. I have two companies asking me to let them have it and may well do that with one of them. I never took to production!

Martin

[Scratchbuilder]

The Alfa Romeo Pre-War 158 master.

Unusually I glossed it to soften the louvres a bit and because the self-etch went a bit patchy.

Brass parts will be w/m. And yes, the grilles are made of dozens of tiny separate bits of 20 thou. styrene rod on a Milliput form.

Martin

[Scratchbuilder]

Another couple of masters, though have been many more since the last post, I just didn't take any pics!

Skoda 130 rally car.

Chevy Corvette SS Sebring. The vent details were done as photo-etch from my a/w, then laid into recesses in the surface of the master. And yes, the bonnet bulge should be offset. The grille was made from a LOT of separate bits of styrene!

Cheers,

Martin