klubman01

Thanks Steve. It should have been a potential challenger to the McLaren team but it lacked development. Trevor

Thanks Stu. It is a great looking car. I believe that Hepworth now own the real thing. In guess that's what you saw at Brands Hatch. Trevor

Thanks Chris. I also have a couple more Kaiser kits to build - the Chevron B16S, and a McLaren M1B Can-Am car. Trevor

Cheers Keith. It is a very good looking car - a suitably aggressive wedge shape helps immensely, I think. Trevor

Thanks very much indeed. There were some really good looking cars in addition to the factory McLarens (which I have in the stash, waiting to be built). Other non-McLaren cars are in the pipeline. Trevor

Nothing wrong with a bit of educated "guesstimation"! Trevor

Another recently completed model is this 1/43 BRM P154, as driven by Pedro Rodriguez in the later Can-Am races of 1970. The kit is by Kaiser of Hungary. Beautifully cast, with very little to do in the way of rectification. The only changes I made to the body was the addition of the small tabs on either side of the nose, and the extended, taller, mirror mounts. The cockpit looked a bit spartan, so I added the coolant pipes, and some chassis structural elements. I also substituted the tyres with some Automodelli Studio items, and widened the kit wheels to accommodate them. The biggest challenge was the kit's decals for the red and green Castrol stripes. Great opacity over the white body, but a right pain in the fundament to get them to conform and settle over the various contours. A LOT of Micro-Sol was needed! The sponsor decals came from the ever useful MicroSport decal sheet, with the race numbers and the BRM nose badge coming from my stock of spare decals. A fabulous looking Can-Am car, but it didn't achieve the success it should have. Two third places, one for George Eaton at Mont-Tremblant, and one for Pedro Rodriguez at Riverside, the subject of this model, was all that could be achieved in the championship. Thanks for looking. Trevor

That looks lovely! Great work. Trevor

Looking better at every stage. Love the paintwork on the engine. Trevor

Classy conversion! Nice work, well executed. Trevor

Had to go to Bristol today, and saw plenty of nice vehicles in the Cotswolds. Most notable were a couple of Morgans (in British Racing Green), a Morgan 3-wheeler (!), and a dark blue Jaguar XK120. Sadly, no pictures - sorry. Trevor

Ooh, that looks really nice! Well done with the masking, etc. Never an easy job. It's all taking shape nicely. Trevor

That's turned out really nice. Excellent job! Trevor

W-O-R-K, Yuck! Fancy that getting the way of real stuff! Seriously, starting to look good. Best of luck with the orange paint. Trevor

Well, I never knew that. I've only seen orange Bugs. Trevor

That is an absolute corker! Superb modelling, bravo! Trevor

Thanks very much for the additional information. The waste gate is not dissimilar then to that on a turbo-charged piston engine. Trevor

That looks really good. Hope all the parts turn out OK. Love the rear wheels! Trevor

The car is driven via a "free turbine", i.e. a turbine in the main unit's exhaust duct which is linked to the drive mechanism by an output shaft, and thence to the wheels. The big advantage is that the main unit can be run at its most efficient RPM (typically very high) all the time. As there is no physical connection between the main unit and the output shaft, it is possible to bring the car to a halt on the brakes without stalling the gas turbine engine. In the above diagram, the free turbine is on the right connected to the red output shaft. The main unit, sometimes referred to as the "gas generator" is on the left, with all the components rotating on the blue shaft. The whole thing is called a turbo-shaft engine. Typically used in helicopters, etc. Trevor

Wow! Some good work there. Pity the errors occur in the first place. Still, keep pushing on. Looking better at every step. Trevor

A joy to behold, and looking suitably "used". Bravo! Trevor

Thanks very much. Definitely "old school" technology! Trevor

Great to see you starting the Howmex. Like several others, I didn't realise the differences between the two Le Mans cars. Great job on shortening the chassis, BTW. There are some very good photos of the cars at Le Mans in the Joe Honda Sports Prototype book number 14, (1968 part 2). Trevor

Well, that is disappointing. Looks like you might be carrying out some major surgery. Hope it goes well. Trevor

Thanks Chris, much appreciated! Trevor