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Pocher Rolls Royce Phantom Torpedo


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I experimented with all kinds of paints for the rear wings (fenders)

Alclad is FAR too soft and 'untouchable'.

Humbrol chrome is very good but looks too 'bright' for aluminium.

I tried Humbrol Ally Metalcote - rubbish.

In the end I went with Halford chrome silver over Halfords gloss black.

It's not as reflective as the real car, but it's about the right shade of 'grey' if you know what I mean.

I did 2K clear a trial piece - DISASTER!!!

The parts are now just polished paint. Surprisingly, it buffed up really well with a good old 'yellow' duster!

Roy.

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A bit more today...

Looking at the instructions, I was told to assemble the doors next although I could plainly see the seats need to go in first, as the doors hang on brackets attached to the front seats.

However, I assembled the doors anyway as it appears to be fairly straight forward.

First off though, I had to find the screw holes in the door panels that I had covered when upholstering them. Not a problem.

The hinges are made of six identical metal brackets – three per side – that need to be bent so that they fit, and there isn’t a quarter-inch gap between the front and rear door when they are hung.

This involved a bit of trial and error, and offering the doors up to the main body to see how they would fit. Again, not a major issue.

The hinges were then painted saffron yellow, as they are on the real car. They were then filed and trimmed on the mounting side to get a good tight fit on the doors. The brackets are a tight push fit but I also gave them a good dose of Cyano adhesive for added security.

The next parts to fit were the metal window glass support channels.

There should be two left handed and two right handed….

I had three left and one right.

The channels are made from ‘L’ shaped section where one flat is much wider than the other, with an offset oval at one end which is drilled for fixing purposes so there was no way I could simply ‘turn one part over’ to make it right.

Obviously finding a spare for this obscure small part would be a waste of time even trying so I had no alternative but to ‘bodgellate’ the third left section into a right one.

This involved flattening out the ‘L’ section and folding it back into an ‘L’, but in the opposite direction. Fortunately it proved to be not too difficult using a hefty bench vice, a wide bladed screwdriver, a hammer and a block of wood. The resulting part was ok, but it needed a fair amount of filing, smoothing and polishing to get it looking like the other three supports.

After that, the inner faces of the parts were painted black (well – ‘Sharpied’ actually…) and then they were screwed in place after cutting the required screws 2mm shorter to prevent them protruding from the outside face of the door skin!

Roy.

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Work is progressing...

The next job on the list was to begin assembling the door internals which consists of the working window mechanism and the working spring-latch door handles.

Careful studying of the assembly of the parts is needed here as unfortunately, my amazing DVD does not go into detail at this part. However, it is all pretty straight forward with the majority of pieces being located over pegs or on rods.

I did notice that the door glass would foul against the three locating pegs of the metal door hinges so these were cut short with sprue cutters before further work began.

First off was to fit the outer door handles. This has to be done with care as the handles are pressed steel and have to be force-fitted onto splined metal shafts which have an offset cam in the centre.

The shaft goes through the outer door skin from the inside, and the handle is fitted from the outside. The shaft has to be hammered into the door handle. All this has to be done without damaging the door paintwork, and keeping the inside cam and the outer handle in correct alignment.

The door latch is made from a pressed steel part but it has quite rough edges that need filing smooth otherwise the door latch will bind when open, meaning the door doesn’t close properly.

A small spring goes in place, then the latch, all held in with a force fit washer. (Plus a dot of cyano adhesive) Testing the door handle proved that the mechanism worked fine.
Some twenty minutes later I had four working door handles.

Next – the window mechanism.

The inner winder handles are made of a hard black plastic which was sprayed chrome silver and the main ‘arms’ were also chrome B.M.F’d. These are also a force fit onto a steel shaft but being plastic, they could be fitted without too much bother.

Fitting the inside cog wasn’t quite so easy.

Although still plastic, there were a very tight fit. Using a hammer was out of the question on plastic parts and it was with some difficulty (and sore thumbs) that they were finally pressed into place.

The secondary gearing-down cogs were slipped onto the retaining posts and the ‘glass’ temporarily tried in place.

Then a part of my OCD where models are concerned came into play.

Being such a large scale model, it was obvious (to me, at least) that there were no black window sealing strips along the top edge of the doors…..

The strip had be thin enough to still allow chrome window support channels to fold down so I simply coloured a piece of thin ‘ticket’ card black, cut suitable sized strips and glued them in place.

The windows were then fitted, the retaining plates glued in and then came the fiddly bit – fixing the inner door panels to the outer door.

Unfortunately Pocher didn’t seem to allow for the upholstery materials wrapping around the edges of the door liner panel so the supplied screws are a bit too short as they need to go through the inner panel and into the outer one.

Luckily there was just enough ‘grab’ on the screws to allow a dab of ‘UHU’ on each location hole before screwing the panels together.

All that done, I would say that Pochers’ claim of ‘working windows’ is stretching things a bit.

True, the mechanisms DO work but everything feels a bit delicate. 1/8 scale or not, it’s still only a model so the chances are, mine will have the widows open – maybe closed on one side.

(BTW.... The Persian rug inside the car is my own little addition as the real car has various different rugs in the back, depending on when/where the pictures must have been taken.

It's a genuine woven little rug - for dolls houses! It was just the correct size and cost the huge sum of £2.45 from Evilbay - free postage too.)

I test fitted the doors to the car just to make sure they actually fit, with the hinges in alignment.

Voila! They do!

Seat parts and door hanging next.....

Roy.

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Edited by roymattblack
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The seats need assembling next.

As it turns out, the front seat back needs attention first, as this is the part that has the other end of the door hinges attached to it. It is also one of the parts that need some thoughtful upholstery as Pocher don’t actually provide anything to do this. They just suggest painting it all ‘brown’.

For a Maharaja’s Rolls Royce? – I don’t think so.

Upon close inspection of the Pocher instructions, it also tells you in stage 27 to attach the rear seat back to the inner body tub by way of two bolts/nuts inserted from the outside…..

The inner body tub was fixed to the main body tub some considerable time ago.

Access from the outside of the interior tub is now totally impossible so I will need to ‘invent’ another way of fixing the rear seat back in place.

First, the seats themselves need assembling and upholstering.

The fold-down rear facing seats were attended to first as they are by far the simplest and I want to get a feel for the job before tackling the sprung main seats.

All of the parts were painted gloss black, and then the outer edges and faces of the parts were decaled with Burr Walnut instead of just leaving them black.

Pocher provide ‘leather’ for the facings etc but for some odd reason, it is all pre-cut to exactly the right size to cover the ‘face’ of each seat part. The edges of the panels are left as painted plastic – hence the Walnut decals. If the leather were a bit bigger all round, it could be neatly folded over all of the edges to make a much more satisfactory seat.

Had I known this at the outset I would have invested in a sheet of Cabretta leather and cut my own parts. Something to remember when I build the Mercedes in the future.

I also added piping to the edges of all the leather parts using the same method as I did on the carpet edges. A much more pleasing overall look.

The large back of the front seats also received attention at this time.

I had no intention of just painting it brown!

It was painted gloss black so that the the faces that will show can be treated to Burr Walnut and leather with piped edges. Much more ‘Rolls Royce’.

A sponge pad is provided for the seat squab and this was stuck in place first.

The seat facing was then glued on around the perimeter of the squab, leaving the centre to puff up nicely over the sponge.

The edges of the seat squab has a strip of leather wrapped around it but one edge was folded over and glued to form a bead. Once the strip was glued in place the overall effect was very good. The seat facing was then glued up and over the folding seat back and the edges of the seat back were bound with my home-made dark leather piping.

The seat is a tight fit into the curved base which becomes the visible part once the seat is folded away into the back of the front seats. This part was wrapped in Burr Walnut decal and gloss coated.

The next part to attend to was the large back panel of the front seats. This part has the door hinges fixed to it, and the foldaway seats fit into it from behind.

The part had been gloss coated black and now the wood decals were applied to most of the faces.

The door hinge panels were lightly screwed in place so that they could be adjusted later, once the doors were hung.

BTW... I hope my explanations aren't too 'wordy', but I'm trying to give some detail for any future 'Pocher-ees' out there.

Roy.

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Edited by roymattblack
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As I continued with the seat back panel, I discovered that the little ‘cubby-hole’ doors on each side of the reverse were in fact rather pointless. It was impossible to clip-fit them in place as per the instructions and even if you DID manage it, such was the design that they were impossible to open.

I decided to fix them in place as there was virtually no chance I would ever try to open them anyway.

More matching wood decals were applied, taking care to make each side of the car a mirror of the other.

Next was the actual front seat back cushion.

Pocher supply a grooved plastic seat back so it seemed common sense to me to make use of the grooves.

A bead of cyano was run into each groove in turn, and the leather covering was pressed into the groove with a razor saw. After 20-30 seconds, the saw was removed leaving the leather facing tightly stuck into the groove.

Once all the grooves were attended to, the edges of the leather were glued tightly to the reverse of the seat back. All in all, a nice result.

The arm rest is a simple piece just wrapped in leather at the sides with a long strip that attaches to the lower seat face, under and over the arm rest, into the arm rest recess and up, over the seat back.

This allows the arm rest to open and shut, and leave a leather backed opening when the arm rest is down.

The rear seat back facing was built next in exactly the same way as the front.

The main part of the rear seat back is made from two plastic frames with eight springs sandwiched between so that when the seat is complete it is actually sprung.

A strip of leather was wrapped around the assembled frames and pulled tight on the corners to make a neat fold on the faces. This was held in place with cyano adhesive.

To prevent the ends of the seat edges ‘sinking’ due to tension on the leather strip, I made pads from bubble-wrap to pack the seat back at the sides. This held the leather strip in shape while still allowing the seat to ‘spring’.

Extra flaps of leather were glued inside the seat face so that when the arm rest is down, the seat frames don’t show.

The seat face clips tightly to the assembled main seat frame so no glue was needed here.

Roy.

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Next to be fitted into the car was the main partition ‘wall’ between the front and rear of the interior. This part also serves as the support for the rear part of the front seats, as well as the main frame for hanging the doors.

It is fitted using nuts/bolts/washers through the floor of the car which involved rigging up a kind of mini-hoist so that I could gain access to underneath the car as well as above.

Solution? – Two dining chairs with a space between them.

The car stood on the chairs and I was able to crawl beneath to insert the long bolts up through the floor using needle pliers to get to the holes between the frames and brake rods. (I did try standing the model on one side, but I wasn’t too happy about the creaking sounds from the chassis so it went back on the wheels.) I then stuck masking tape over the bolt heads so they wouldn’t fall out again before the washers/nuts were fitted from above. Once the nuts were fitted and tightened, the tape was removed and the car was put safely back on its shelf with the partition wall in place.

The lower part of the back seat was finished so that was also fitted in place.

After that, the small fold-down child seats were mounted to the floor using a long steel rod that slides through retaining lugs on the seats, into holes on the floor. Fairly straight forward.

I've started on the front seats but the doors need top be hung next so that there will be access to the nuts and bolts on the hinge insides. Once the front seat squabs are in, it will be far more difficult.

Roy.

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Edited by roymattblack
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The front seat bases were built next, in the same way as the rear seat base. The two parts were then fitted (tightly!) into the seat floor base which had been Walnut decaled and chrome finished around the lower section. With the seat back in place, the car now had a full complement of seating!

The next thing I attended to was hanging the doors as it seemed there would be better access to the fiddly little hinge nuts/bolts/washers before the front seat bases were fitted in place.

I made the mistake of fitting the door hinge hanger to the partition wall in the car first, and then trying to hang the doors to it. After half an hour of fiddling, twisting, tweaking and generally faffing about with it, I couldn’t get the doors to hang straight or without a lot of loose play.

It then occurred to me to fit everything together nice and tight OFF the car, and then hang the whole assembly to the partition IN the car. – DOH!!!

Why didn’t I think of that in the first place.

The doors were hung on the central hinge support, adjusted to fit tight and then the whole thing hung on the car. Simple, quick, and it worked although I need to repaint the hinges where the paint has come off during assembly.

The doors on the other side of the car were hung in ten minutes…

However, as with the ‘working windows’, Pocher make great claims about the working door handles and latches. Yes, they work, but bear in mind this is a MODEL. It might be huge, but at the end of the day, much of the body etc is plastic.

You can scale up the size of a plastic kit, but you can’t scale up ‘strength’ unless you go into some very serious metal and mechanical parts.

I’ve read several stories of Pocher door latches failing, leaving the doors stuck shut.

The only solution is complete removal of the doors from the car, dismantling the doors and trying to affect a repair. Much safer to cover over the latch recesses in the body with strong tape.

That way, the latch doesn’t lock, but the tape can still be removed to demonstrate the locks.

The fit of the doors in the body keep them closed in any event.

That is what I’m going to do.

The spare wheel brackets had to be fitted next which was pretty simple although they have to be bent to shape, being supplied as flat pieces. Also the sidelights on the front wings (fenders) had to be assembled and screwed on as they fix from beneath. Once the wings are fitted, fixing the sidelights on later would be almost impossible.

The wings themselves fix fairly easily (if fiddly) with three nuts/bolts/washers per side underneath the running boards, as well as a bolt fixing at the very front. Great care now has to be taken so as not to mark or leave finger marks on the silver paint. I had to upend the model once again onto a pile of cushions to get the running board nuts and bolts in as access any other way is an utter impossibility.

The car is beginning to look close to completion but there is still a surprising amount of work to do.

Roy.

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Edited by roymattblack
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Roy,

Just sat and read the whole thread. Amazing kit and build! I'd love to do one of the more modern kits (Lambo!!) however, I lack the space, cash and time at the moment.

Love the idea of retirement modelling, I tend to spend days at a time when I'm off shift. Only another 44 years till I can knock it on the head.

Look forward to seeing it built.

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Roy,

Just sat and read the whole thread. Amazing kit and build! I'd love to do one of the more modern kits (Lambo!!) however, I lack the space, cash and time at the moment.

Love the idea of retirement modelling, I tend to spend days at a time when I'm off shift. Only another 44 years till I can knock it on the head.

Look forward to seeing it built.

Many thanks for the kind words.

I'm actually writing this with one ear on the doorbell.

My Pocher Aventador was dispatched yesterday and the tracking info now says it's 'out for delivery'......

I'll post a pic of the box when it arrives although I can't open it - it's an Xmas pressie.

Roy.

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Many thanks for the kind words.

I'm actually writing this with one ear on the doorbell.

My Pocher Aventador was dispatched yesterday and the tracking info now says it's 'out for delivery'......

I'll post a pic of the box when it arrives although I can't open it - it's an Xmas pressie.

Roy.

Noooooo don't post a piccie! :winkgrin:

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It's arrived.....

Blimey! It's BIG!!!

The picture doesn't really show the size of the thing. The box is almost the size of a washing machine!
The second pic is the packing box which I thought might be stuffed with polystyrene peanuts etc, with the kit in the middle.

NOPE! The kit box is a tight fit in the packing box.

Whoever suggested smuggling one in with the pretence it's a microwave - forget it! Claim it's a dishwasher, new cooker or tumble dryer!!!

Like I said - it's BIG!

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Edited by roymattblack
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