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Pocher Rolls Royce Phantom Torpedo


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Roy,

there was a Triumph colour called Saffron, my first GT6 was this colour. The Triumph Sports Six Club sell touch up bottles of Cellulose paint or perhaps a local automotive paint supplier could mix it up.

This is the colour.... http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1yJpaLLNJsw/UEj4JDgpufI/AAAAAAAAATg/_Wb4TV5le5E/s760/P1000206%2Bv2.jpg

The Triumph paint code is 54 - Saffron Yellow PPG mix code 81913

I think the colour looks pretty close to the Rolls personally.

Hope this helps,

Steve.

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Roy,

there was a Triumph colour called Saffron, my first GT6 was this colour. The Triumph Sports Six Club sell touch up bottles of Cellulose paint or perhaps a local automotive paint supplier could mix it up.

This is the colour.... http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1yJpaLLNJsw/UEj4JDgpufI/AAAAAAAAATg/_Wb4TV5le5E/s760/P1000206%2Bv2.jpg

The Triumph paint code is 54 - Saffron Yellow PPG mix code 81913

I think the colour looks pretty close to the Rolls personally.

Hope this helps,

Steve.

Actually that colour looks pretty good....

My local giant Halfords mixes colours - I'll give it a shot tomorrow.

For the price of a can of paint, it's worth it.

Many thanks, Roy.

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GGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously annoyed this morning!!!!

I telephoned my local Halfords who do paint mixing, to try to get the colour Steve quoted.

They rang me back half an hour later to say they can't mix it, as one of the ingredients - chrome yellow - is now banned. However, if I take piece of the kit bodywork (It's moulded in a pretty good Saffron yellow) I could go through their 45,000 colour paint chart to find a match.

Down to Halfords I duly went - about 4 miles away - and spent an hour going through colours, only to be told continually 'We can't do that one...'

EVENTUALLY..... I found a Peugeot Citroen colour 'Jaune Anas' (?) that was a good match, that they COULD make!

YAHOO......

I wandered the store for ten minutes whilst they mixed my required 2 spray cans.

THEN..... A light tap on the shoulder, the paint-mixing guy holding a plastic cup of paint for me to look at.

All in all, a really good match.

Off he trotted.

Fifteen minutes later - another tap.

Red faced assistant.....

"Er, sorry, but we don't have any cans to put it in... We'll have some in a week....."

I stared, blinked, did my goldfish mouth impression.....

Then left before saying (or doing) something that would get me:

a: thrown out

b: arrested

c: banned forever

2 HOURS AND 8 MILES OF PETROL UTTERLY WASTED!!!!!!!

Well done Hellfords.....

Oh well.... Orange over grey primer it will be.

Edited by roymattblack
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Hi Roy

I have built the italeri model of the same car and found that the Revell Lufthansa Yellow is a very good colour match for the saffron.

I have also got a can of spray of an auto colour that is close match but as I'm out and about I can't tell you at this moment in time which one it is. As soon as I get home I'll dig it out and let you know. If you send me your email address I can send photo of my completed italeri model so that you can see the colour.

Bap

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Hi Steve.

Many thanks for the links.

Rolls shouldn't call the Star of India car 'saffron yellow' as all the saffron's I've seen are far too yellow.

I found the Triumph colour you quoted in the Halfords sample book, but again, far too yellow.

The kit body is actually moulded in a pretty accurate colour plastic (according to Google pics of the real car) so I took a door panel with me to match.

I even looked at the Rolls Royce colours (they are in the Halfords sample books too...) and the Rolls Saffron is banana yellow.

I've done a test piece in grey primer with light orange over the top and it looks pretty good. The grey tones it down to a darker mustard-ish shade.

I'm tempted to go with it.

Roy.

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To assemble the brake controls etc, it seems that the chassis really needs assembling first, along with the rear axle – which means the leaf springs need assembling…..

“The leg bone’s connected to the – jaw bone…” etc……

Rear axle it is then.

All of the major differential parts were cleaned up, flash removed, sink holes filled, sprue joins attended to.

The parts actually fit together extremely well but the rear axle holes had to be enlarged slightly as the metal axle wouldn’t go through.

Again, there are umpteen bolt heads to paint but it is worth the effort to do it.

I didn’t strictly follow the assembly/paint guide on the DVD as it seems everything under the car is just black, which it probably really was back in 1934. I went with a dark metallic gunmetal, if only to give a bit of variety once the car is finished, as I intend standing it on a mirror base – no point in all that detail underneath if it’s never seen.

Once the major rear axle parts were assembled it was time to start on the linkages.

Again I have to mention the assembly photo’s on the DVD. Remarkable!

Without the nut-by-nut photo guide, parts highlighted, numbered, even which bag they are in ….. assembly would be a nightmare. The actual Pocher instructions really are extremely basic and heaven only knows how anyone follows them without making umpteen mistakes.

There are dozens of tiny rods, arms, metal sleeves, nuts, different bolts etc to the linkages.

There are 32 tiny metal parts PER SIDE, just for the attachment of the brake links, and that’s only the bits on the BACK of the brake drum!

Each side takes around two hours to assemble – not including the 20 minutes I spent cutting off a tiny bolt (yes, I had thread-locked it!) where I had fitted a short link rod instead of the correct long one.

Onwards and upwards…..

Roy.

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Edited by roymattblack
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An update on yesterday....

The next job was the assembly of the leaf springs, fitting them and adding the dampers.

The springs are assembled from 6 separate leaves for the rear and 5 leaves for the front.

Each leaf needs to be bent into a curve to match a template in the instructions, before being threaded into soft rubber gaiters that are a very good representation of the leather gaiters on the real car. Getting the leaves into the gaiters is no easy task as they are a tight fit but once in, really look the part. The leaves are then held in alignment with a central screw.

The spring mounting blocks on the axle need the shackle holes enlarging and the nut recesses adjusting as the fixing nuts will not fit otherwise, and then comes the fitting of the springs to the axles.

There was a fair amount of cursing at this point, as the ‘U’ shaped steel shackles are a tight and awkward fit to the axle blocks and once in place need securing with 4 tiny nuts.

The task would be easier if I had fingers the length of lolly sticks and the thickness of toothpicks!

Access to the shackles and nuts is very limited and it took me an hour to fit the 8 small nuts – 2 per shackle, 2 shackles per spring.

Great care has to be taken when assembling the brakes/axle/springs etc to make sure that everything is the correct way up and on the correct side. An error here would mean a huge amount of disassembly to correct it. Even the tiny nuts and bolts have to be fitted the right way round so they don’t foul other parts later.

The dampers fitted in place easily but the locating screws had to be cut 1.5mm shorter so they don’t foul the shock absorbers and brake linkages later – another valuable tip from the DVD.

This part of the build really is more like miniature engineering than kit building.

Almost all of the metal parts need cleaning up, etch ‘pips’ filing off and locating holes cleaning out before assembly. The parts also need to be fitted tight, yet free to move.

The next task is to assemble the rear brakes.

Roy.

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No other news except to say....

I'VE GOT THE CORRECT COLOUR SAFFRON YELLOW PAINT!!!

Hellfords (at last) came up with some spray cans to put the paint in.

Tested a small piece - excellent colour.

I've added a picture to show the difference between the 'dull orange' I was going to use, and the proper Saffron colour on the frame cross members...

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Roy.

Edited by roymattblack
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Once I had obtained the correct Saffron yellow – a mission in itself – all of the chassis parts were painted. Location holes for the cross-members had to be enlarged because as usual with Pocher parts, they don’t fit. The lower brass cant rails have to be bent into shape before fitting and the front brake cylinders have to be fitted before the chassis is assembled as it’s impossible to fit them later, when Pocher say to do so.

All of the chassis parts assemble fairly easily and fortunately for a kit of this enormity, straight and true. A twisted chassis at this scale would be a nightmare.

Once the chassis is assembled with the lower battery box and rear exhaust in place, it starts to become really apparent just how huge this model is going to be….

As a point of interest, the red Aston Martin on the shelf below the chassis is a 1/18 Burago model.

Roy.

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Edited by roymattblack
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It's a 1998 Citroen colour - 'Jaune Anas' code EHY.

The Hellfors colour samples have a small round hole in the centre. I took a kit part that is moulded in the correct colour, and held it under the paint sample, so the part was visible through the hole. It's an extremely close match.

Mind you - TWO spray cans cost me £28!!!! Hopefully it will be enough.

Roy.

Edited by roymattblack
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There are 4 rear brake shoes per side on the model and they are different shapes and sizes so great care is needed to fit them all in the correct order and position. They needed a fair bit of cleaning up and then painting. Fitting the shoes entails making the springs that hold them all in place, via small angled levers.

The kit provides one ‘long’ spring that has to be cut to individual length, and the ends forming into locating loops. Not difficult, but time consuming.

Once the shoes, cams, springs and control rods were fitted, the whole real axle assembly was put to one side out of harm’s way….. I could imagine knocking it, and all the little brake bits going into orbit.

The rear axle will be fitted to the chassis later on.

Roy.

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Another update as I've spent a few hours on the Rolls over the weekend:

The fuel tank was assembled next, again using a fair bit of filler and sanding down. The location pips were all cut off the parts as they don’t line up at all well, meaning the assembled tank would have been very crooked. It was primed and given a coat of Humbrol aluminium and the two tank ends were covered with BMF, just to add a bit of variety. One of the tank pipes was gold BMF’d and the other two were made from supplied copper wire. The fuel filler pipe was sanded and painted Saffron. The pipe is a push-fit into the tank using no glue, so that it can be moved into the correct position once the body and rear wings are fitted. All in all, an easy assembly and quite a nice result.

The tank then fixes to the chassis using metal brackets and screws.

Unfortunately, none of the pipework and upper detail is visible once the car is built, as the tank is underneath the rear luggage trunk and back seat….

Next was fitting the rear axle assembly to the chassis.

There were four more brake rods/shackles/bolts to fit to the brakes that would then be attached to the linkages on the chassis. All straightforward.

The ends of the leaf springs have very small steel bushes and rubber grommets fitted and although very small, went together easily.

The chassis was inverted, the axle assembly placed making sure all the brake rods etc were in the correct position, and the leaf spring end shackles bolted up using very small steel coach bolts and nuts. After that, the brake rods were connected and the dampers screwed to the insides of the chassis frames. All of this was quite simple, but the miniscule nuts and bolts, and the need for miniaturised hands made it into an hour long job.

All sorted now but I added strips of masking tape to the brake assemblies to keep everything in place until the outer drums are fitted later in the build.

Roy.

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Edited by roymattblack
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That is soooo nice, but I'd have trouble resisting the natural urge to weather it ! Lovely work.

Steve

I take your point, but in this particular case, I doubt if the Maharaja's car has ever been anything less than concourse....

Many thanks for the kind comments everyone though.

Roy.

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