Scratch Build of 1951 Pullman Carriage

[Bandsaw Steve]

I’m sorry Heather but Hendie must take this opportunity to confront his fears. 😱

 

He knows what I’m talking about

and knows that it’s for his own good! 

[bentwaters81tfw]

1 hour ago, Heather Kay said:

No need. 
 

https://www.modelu3d.co.uk/product-category/finescale-figures/town-and-country/1998-present-tc/seated-people-1998-present-tc/

 

I use figures from this company and they are superbly rendered and realistic. Well, they would be, as they’re scanned from real living humans.

Do they make them with masks? Asking for a friend.

[Heather Kay]

Just now, bentwaters81tfw said:

Do they make them with masks? Asking for a friend.

Tell your friend to talk to the proprietor, and I’m sure he’ll oblige. 😷

[gunzo]

"Les, I'm based in the US so it's very unlikely that it will ever be seen at any of the shows"

 

Wot?!!!  No shows in the Land of Las Vegas?!!! Tweet Trump & he'll get it sorted.

 

Les

 

[gunzo]

Not forgetting the US is the Spiritual Home of Pullman

 

Les

[hendie]

once again folks, thank you for all the wonderful comments. It makes working on this project a lot easier knowing the support you're all providing.

 

 

On 7/19/2020 at 10:55 AM, Brandy said:

Ps what's next? We're dying to know! 

 

Well Ian, the immediate "what's next" is the roof.   I want to get this done before the mojo goes AWOL which is always a danger when the exciting stuff is done and it's only boring little odd-jobs that are left.

 

Yes, that little matter of the roof. 

Supplies arrived this week so there was no point in putting it off and I decided to jump right in and see what happens.  As has been my modus operandi throughout this build, I tend not to think about things too much and make things up as I go along - for better or worse. 

For Pullman roof building you will need:  Various strips of basswood, some 3D printed bulkheads, and my old fallback, the piece of granite which is great for building things on when you want things to stay flat. You'll also need some superglue gel, some wood glue, and a plan.  I forgot to stock up on the plan.  Live life on the edge, that's what I say.

 

 

The two bulkheads with the holes in them were my first idea for the roof from a few weeks back.  They were going to have brass tubes inserted through them but that was before I decided I wanted to see the inside of the roof/ceiling.  I kept them just in case...

Bulkheads were positioned after some careful measuring (multiples of) and the first spars laid down.  As soon as I had glued these in position I realized that I should have chamfered the edge to accept the next layer. Oh well.  They're in place now.

 

 

Subsequent planks had one edge tapered to try and close up the gaps as it was laid against it's predecessor.  It doesn't have to be too tidy here as I know I'm going to have to fill and sand and sand and fill and sand and sand and fill some more, but at least I made an effort.

I started from both outside edge sand worked my way in to the center and not surprisingly when I got to top dead center I was left with a bit of a gap.  SG Gel was used at each plank end to adhere to the plastic bulkhead and wood glue was used between the planks to glue the wood to wood.

 

 

Easily enough sorted - I had to taper another strip and got it wedged in there with some wood glue.

 

 

Once I got into the rhythm of things it went pretty fast - at least the first two sections did.

 

 

Wait a minute... I did all that measuring but did I check it?  I've picked up a horrible habit of misreading rules these days. For example - on a dimension of 67, I'll often read it as 62.  I think it's because I'm wearing those magnifying lenses and I'm so close to the rule that I mistake the 5mm mark for the 10 mm mark.  That's my excuse anyway.

Luckily my measure 32 times before cutting appeared to work and a quick check shows that the bulkheads are in the correct relative positions.

 

 

Looks not to bad at all.  This working without a plan seems to be the way to go

The plan that I don't have was to glue all the wooden strips in place then sand back until I hit plastic.  That way I know I have the roof profile correct.

 

 

However there is one slight issue that you may have spotted in the above photo. When I designed the bulkheads, I placed a small ridge on either side to provide a small ledge to provide support for the wooden planks.  Great huh?

I created the outer profile of the bulkhead as per the roof skin profile and set the ledge back by 1.25mm.  Those wooden strips are 3mm thick!

This image shows the problem more clearly.  All the wood sticking out past the plastic needs to be sanded away. That's a lot of wood.  That's a LOT of sanding!!!!

 

 

Before anyone asks - I chose 3mm thick strips as it gave enough beef to the strips so they wouldn't flex while being glued in position. - It also gave me 3mm of edge to apply glue with.  Anyway, I'll deal with that later... he says with all the confidence of someone who doesn't know what they've gotten themselves into.

As we approach the end of the roof,  I didn't want to just print off a plastic end cap - that felt like cheating for some unknown reason and I felt I had to do some of that old fashioned scratch building with an attempt at skill there somewhere.

So I printed off an end section of roof that would allow me to infill with wood yet still provide the profile that I needed to sand back to. Did I mention that there's going to be LOTS of sanding?

 

 

So far so good.  At least it's all holding together (I only broke it once before getting to this stage)

 

 

Initial shaping begins... with LOTS of sanding.

For some obscure reason, while I chose nice and easy to sand basswood for the roof strips, when it came to the end caps, I used some unknown wood that is incredibly hard and difficult to sand.

I wore out my last solitary sanding drum on this end so had to order more.

 

 

Now if any of you observant folks out there have been thinking ahead you'll have spotted the elephant in my plan.  I have a roof made out of 3 mm basswood strips, but I'm going to sand that back to approximately 1.25 mm thick - and this roof is about two foot long - about 610 mm in new money.

It's going to be awfully thin and flexible innit?  Not to mention weak and likely to break even while sanding.

Aha!  That's where this stuff comes in

 

 

I really don't like fiberglass. I really don't like fiberglass resin.  I've never had much luck with it and always ended up in a complete mess, but since I've used pretty much every other material available at some point during this build, I may as well add fiberglass to the list.

The interior of the roof was liberally coated with resin (hopefully mixed properly), followed my the mat, and stippled into place with more resin. The incredibly helpful folks at Bondo provided typical American units of measurement - Use 6 oz of resin and 10 drops of hardener, or alternately 2 Tablespoons of resin and 1/4 teaspoon of hardener. Along with that came all sorts of warnings about not getting the mix right and it'll dissolve your car.

I took a chance and converted to ml - but you never know if Google is using American ounces or Barleycorns in the conversion. Who knows.  Anyway...

 

 

Luckily for me, that all seemed to go to my non-existent plan of a plan. When the resin set up, the whole roof was remarkably solid - and flat. Well, the bottom of the roof was flat. The top was curved. Just saying.

Two days of sanding later and I thought I'd throw some paint on it just for giggles. I know I'm a long way from the final shape but I wanted a gut check on overall look, which was difficult with light colored wood.

 

 

I guess we're not doing too badly here. At least it sort of looks like what it's supposed to be... sort of.

 

 

But as you can see, after two days of sanding I still have a LONG way to go to remove all that excess roof wood. I reckon I've taken just about a millimetre off the overall thickness

 

 

which means that I still have a LOT of sanding to do.  Thinking back, I really should have recessed that ledge further, but I wanted to keep as close as possible to the original plans, and I wanted that depth of curvature inside the roof.

I'll persevere with the sanding for the moment but depending on how things go, I may fill in the gaps that you can see above and just make sure everything is smooth on the outer surface and call it a day at that.  

 

until next time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pouln]

Looking great but you managed to get tasked with quite a job. 
Ok, way too late but wouldn’t it have been easier to redraw and reprint the bulkheads allowing for 3mm wood? 

[bentwaters81tfw]

42 minutes ago, Pouln said:

 
Ok, way too late but wouldn’t it have been easier to redraw and reprint the bulkheads allowing for 3mm wood? 

You haven't quite got the hang of this yet, have you? Alan always does this the hard way - he's a bit of a masochist really.

[gunzo]

Hi Hendie

 

On a serious point regarding resin, in the few years or so I have taken to exclusively using clear epoxy (Epolam 2017 in my case 'cos I can get it locally). It has plenty of pot life and gel time, can be used as a thin glue, for layups, for clear casting, for large shrink-freeish castings (I use carbon fibre reinforcements) and best of all, it is odourless and keeps me in my wifes reasonably good books. I've recently been casting from 2 year old part used bottles with no problems.

 

I was put on to its merits by some of the  static aircraft scratchbuilders.

 

Les

 

 

[Bandsaw Steve]

Watching with great interest. There might be some work like this in my foreseeable future.

[Brandy]

Slowly, slowly, sandee roofee

 

or something.

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who misreads the ruler markings. I've lost count of the number of times I've measured, even 2 or 3 times to be sure, and STILL misread it every time!

 

Ian

[CedB]

Great progress hendie - looking very roofie.

 

It means what? Uh… sorry… no wonder I feel sleepy  

[giemme]

Impressive job on the roof, Hendie

 

Ciao

[Fritag]

On 7/19/2020 at 11:55 AM, TheBaron said:

Stunning Alan, simply stunning.

The daylight loves it.

As does I. 👏👏👏👏

And so do I Alan.  Bit tardy in saying so, but what Tony says sums it up for me.  Thanks for the ride.

[Pete in Lincs]

So it isn't just me that misreads the ruler?

BTW, when do you want me to send this trained woodpecker over? 🐦

[hendie]

On 7/21/2020 at 6:58 PM, Pouln said:

Looking great but you managed to get tasked with quite a job. 
Ok, way too late but wouldn’t it have been easier to redraw and reprint the bulkheads allowing for 3mm wood? 

 

It certainly would have but by the time I realized that I already had most of the roof done. Another, and probably more important reason was that from the cant rail level to top dead center on the roof is only about 18 mm. I still have to put the ceiling panels in and add lighting etc. so that it can be seen in the mirror.   Taking 3 mm away from that 18 mm would make the ceiling curve appear very shallow.

 

 

On 7/21/2020 at 7:43 PM, bentwaters81tfw said:

You haven't quite got the hang of this yet, have you? Alan always does this the hard way - he's a bit of a masochist really.

 

Oh yeah.... and did it again this post too!

 

On 7/21/2020 at 9:21 PM, gunzo said:

Hi Hendie

 

On a serious point regarding resin, in the few years or so I have taken to exclusively using clear epoxy (Epolam 2017 in my case 'cos I can get it locally). It has plenty of pot life and gel time, can be used as a thin glue, for layups, for clear casting, for large shrink-freeish castings (I use carbon fibre reinforcements) and best of all, it is odourless and keeps me in my wifes reasonably good books. I've recently been casting from 2 year old part used bottles with no problems.

 

I was put on to its merits by some of the  static aircraft scratchbuilders.

 

Les

 

 

 

Thanks Les. I'll keep that in mind for future builds

 

On 7/21/2020 at 9:28 PM, Bandsaw Steve said:

Watching with great interest. There might be some work like this in my foreseeable future.

 

you be as daft as me then Steve?

 

On 7/22/2020 at 1:34 AM, Brandy said:

Slowly, slowly, sandee roofee

 

or something.

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who misreads the ruler markings. I've lost count of the number of times I've measured, even 2 or 3 times to be sure, and STILL misread it every time!

 

Ian

 

oh, I can measure way more times than that and still get it wrong!

 

On 7/22/2020 at 4:29 AM, CedB said:

Great progress hendie - looking very roofie.

 

It means what? Uh… sorry… no wonder I feel sleepy  

 

Thanks Ced

 

On 7/22/2020 at 5:45 AM, giemme said:

Impressive job on the roof, Hendie

 

Ciao

 

Thanks G

 

On 7/22/2020 at 4:50 PM, Fritag said:

And so do I Alan.  Bit tardy in saying so, but what Tony says sums it up for me.  Thanks for the ride.

 

Thanks Steve.  

 

On 7/23/2020 at 2:33 PM, Pete in Lincs said:

So it isn't just me that misreads the ruler?

BTW, when do you want me to send this trained woodpecker over? 🐦

 

Trained woodpecker eh.  Can they cook and do the housework?

 

 

50 attempts at the same shade of Grey.  

After some severe sanding the roof started to look a bit better.  I probably spent an hour or two over two or three nights making sawdust. 

Eventually I tired of tasting the stuff and decided enough was enough.  I still had just under 1 mm to remove from the roof, but then sanity took over and convinced me that 1 mm oversize equated to roughly 25 - 30 mm or so.  Would anyone ever notice, particularly as the roof will never be fitted to the main body?     I'm calling it making a concession to scale effect! 

Once I had reached that point it was a case of filling the gaps using epoxy... followed by more sanding.  Then I hit the beast with some primer.  Overall, not too bad though you can still see the seams that were filled with epoxy, and the 3D printed parts at each end.

 

 

The worst offender was this nasty gap - which was then filled with ca. Then sanded.  Did I mention sanding yet?

 

 

Groundhog day started with fill, then sand, then prime, then wait for primer to dry.  I needed the primer on there as it was the only way I could see the actual finish on the roof, especially the compound curves at each end.

Then go back to square one and fill, sand, wash, rinse, and repeat... time and time again

 

With all this sanding one thing I was cognizant of was keeping the roof straight and true so frequent checks were called for. Around iteration 5 or 6 I had a small hump, but just barely discernible.  By the time I got to iteration eleventy seven, the roof was in pretty good shape.

 

 

I was still seeing some rough patches here and there

 

 

with this being about the worst. Overall, I was reasonably pleased with the progress.

 

 

Then I had a complete and utter brain fart and decided to coat the rood with fiberglass resin. Why? I'm not sure.  I think I was thinking of sealing the grain etc and filling up some small holes in the epoxy that I couldn't seem to get rid of - but why I just didn't use ordinary wood varnish as a sealer, I have no idea.  Guess how much sanding that took to get smooth again?

 

 

I guess one benefit is that the roof is now very strong - surprisingly strong.

I have even managed to keep the long edges straight while doing all this sanding malarkey.

 

 

After another few groundhog days my brain needed something else to fixate upon. I decided it was time to fit some greeblies.  Greeblies are always good.  For whatever reason, greeblies always come with a sense of satisfaction  and achievement once they've been fitted - just the thing for a mojo lift.

Now, in order to greeblify the roof I need to find the center-line.  Ordinarily that could have been a difficult job what with those tapered ends and compound curves and all, but would you believe I had planned ahead for this?  No?

You're right.  I didn't, but in a stroke of good fortune, the printed parts I used at the ends were symmetrical had a center section 8 mm wide. Using that as my datum it was easy to mark off the center at each end.

 

 

Then string some thread between the ends and tape it in place.  Perfecto!

 

 

A little while later and I had all the locations of the roof greeblies marked out and pilot drilled - taking care (wot! me?) to identify what type of fitting was used at each location.

 

 

of course I couldn't resist test fitting a few of the greebles

 

 

These were the vents I had produced at Shapeways before I got my own printer, and as always, the surface is quite grainy as Shapeways cleaners never do a decent job, and by the time I receive the parts it is very difficult to remove that grainy finish.  The rotating vent is one I printed, but I've learned a lot about printing since then and I think I will try and redo all the vents to see if I can get them any better.

 

 

Iin between bouts of watching paint dry I fidgeted, footered , and fettled some other bits. Mounted on the ceiling are some nice brass domed vents.  Easy enough to print but I opted to go back old school this time and turned these on the lathe.  Each one will have a 0.3mm rod protruding from the center which will then have a small handle mounted on the end of the rod.  I haven't figured that part out yet as I am still making this up as I go along.

 

 

While I was at the lathe I also turned these small fitting for the overflow pipes

 

 

along with a domed vent fitted over the kitchen area.

By the way - did anyone notice I'd been sanding again?

 

 

An overall view of the roof

 

 

and if you use your imagination here you can almost visualize what it would look like had I gone with plan A, revision 1 and actually fitted the roof

 

 

So where are we now?   Well, all the greeblies have been put in the greeblie box for safe keeping.  The roof has been given yet another coat of primer - this time to be followed by some wet sanding, and if the result is anywhere near acceptable I may even try to throw some white paint at it

 

 

until next time comrades

[TheBaron]

3 minutes ago, hendie said:

Greeblies are always good.

Yes. Yes they are! 😁

Sometimes the endless open savannahs of large parts become too much and we need to retreat to something small and comforting. 

Or something.

Anyways, I knows what you mean!

 

Admirable interplay of materials on this last swathe of roofing Alan. I remain in awe at your casual production of brass gems. 👏

 

Btw: our garden shed roof needs replacing - I don't suppose you're passing through Shannon any time soon?

[Pete in Lincs]

10 minutes ago, hendie said:

Around iteration 5 or 6 I had a small hump,

 

Looks pretty darn smooth to me, and I still love those rotating vents (flying sub, anyone?).

I'd have thought the conical vents would go the other way around (turned by 90 degrees) but who am I to argue with Pullman designers.

[hendie]

2 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Btw: our garden shed roof needs replacing - I don't suppose you're passing through Shannon any time soon?

 

if I was... I'm not any more!  

 

2 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

I'd have thought the conical vents would go the other way around (turned by 90 degrees) but who am I to argue with Pullman designers.

 

yeah, that made me do a double take as well Pete.  I have plenty of photo's and all the torpedo vents are at 90° to the airflow

 

 

[gunzo]

Not sure but I'm told the 'torpedo vent' cones produce some sort of venturi effect which aids carriage interior airflow. Other designs such as the 'clamshell' sought a similar effect.

 

les

[CedB]

Is the sanding finished yet? Is it Dad?  

 

Nice greeblies there hendie… but you know you're going to reprint those vents don't you?

 

Looking forward to the next instalment, maybe with paint?

[heloman1]

Just picking up on your build again Alan. Excellent work with the roof, yes vanish or fibreglass. It comes down to what you were thinking at the time!

 

Keep at it, you are almost there...

 

Colin

[Noel Smith]

Looking at this thread reminded me that just recently I was looking at Amati the wooden boat kit makers website and came across a new kit for a Venice Simplon Orient Express Sleeper Car.

[hendie]

 

On 7/26/2020 at 8:09 PM, gunzo said:

Not sure but I'm told the 'torpedo vent' cones produce some sort of venturi effect which aids carriage interior airflow. Other designs such as the 'clamshell' sought a similar effect.

 

 

The question is are they for letting air in or sucking air out?  I assume placing them perpendicular to the airflow causes some magic to slow the air down so that it doesn't rush into the compartment at a gazillion miles per hour. 

 

On 7/27/2020 at 1:29 AM, CedB said:

Is the sanding finished yet? Is it Dad?  

 

NO! no it isn't.  You know it isn't.  

 

On 7/27/2020 at 1:29 AM, CedB said:

Nice greeblies there hendie… but you know you're going to reprint those vents don't you?

 

Yes!  yes I did. You knew I was going to!

 

On 7/27/2020 at 1:29 AM, CedB said:

Looking forward to the next instalment, maybe with paint?

 

Paint! Yes, but still primer (again!)

 

On 7/27/2020 at 8:23 AM, heloman1 said:

Just picking up on your build again Alan. Excellent work with the roof, yes vanish or fibreglass. It comes down to what you were thinking at the time!

Keep at it, you are almost there...

 

or NOT thinking as the case may be.

 

On 7/27/2020 at 2:38 PM, Noel Smith said:

Looking at this thread reminded me that just recently I was looking at Amati the wooden boat kit makers website and came across a new kit for a Venice Simplon Orient Express Sleeper Car.

 

That is a lovely model.  It's almost tempting, but at $1000 just for the kit.  There are some really nice features, but I'm not sure about all those decals

 

 

 

Now. What have I been up to over the last few days and nights. Well, sanding mostly, and a little bit of painting but really, just more sanding, with some extra sanding thrown in just for fun.  I think I'm nearly halfway there now - just a bit more sanding to do. 

I found a tin of white primer under my bench so thought I'd give the roof a squirt as I was getting fed up with fifty sprays of grey.  It's starting to look like the Pullman roof but there's still a ways to go yet.

 

 

Like more sanding!  By this time I had run out of white primer and it was back to the grey yet again.

However there is a slight piece of forward progress in this shot - see the white strip along the side edge?  I glued lengths of .25 mm styrene along the side, then just for kicks, sanded most of it away.

 

 

But it does make a decent rain strip though.  It is called a rain strip isn't it?  If not, it should be.  No ambiguity calling it a rain strip is there? and a lot more concise than the strip at the roof that stops the rain falling down the sides strip

 

 

With the rain strip in place I could start on the internal gubbinses for the roof.  First up were the ceiling panels in the vestibule ends. I thought I was done with all that staining and varnishing when I finished the interior paneling, but t'was not to be.

 

 

I went to all the trouble of shaping those panels to fit the contour and match up with inside edge of the styrene strip before I remembered that the doors were inset and it would actually be a straight line from front to back so I'll need to mask those off and paint part of them white later. Oh well, why do things the easy way eh?

In the vestibule ends there is a raised center portion. It's probably not as high a step as I have it here, but I thought it would make the end of the roof look a bit weird so I'm claiming artistic licence here. Throw accuracy to the wind I say

 

 

Kitchen end ceiling panel.  The PE grill I repurposed from some leftover photo etch on my Wessex build.  The ceiling light is a piece of aluminum rod I turned and drilled on the lathe and the "glass" shade is a piece of clear styrene runner cut, slightly domed and polished back.   Not too polished mind - otherwise you might see all the crap hiding in the ceiling void

 

 

At the opposite end, we have a longer section of corridor leading from the vestibule, past the dinette, and leading to the dining area.

This may not look pretty but it's robust and that's all that matters when this won't be seen. - When this lot goes together it's never coming apart again (I hope). Belt and braces approach.

 

 

For the ceiling panels I am using 0.25 mm sheet styrene. There's a lot of trimming and fine adjustments before the panel can get glued into position. Especially when you misread the rule and cut the ceiling panel to the wrong length - I managed yet again to misread the same measurement at least 4 times before I cut the blooming thing wrong!  2nd attempt is a goer!

 

 

... and we eventually get there.  The dinette is a bit weird in that it has the curved ceiling but since there's a corridor running alongside the dinette there has to be a vertical cut-off at the partition.

 

 

Aandddddd another PE grill, again leftover from the Wessex.  There are some small gaps around the ceiling panels, but nothing to get concerned over. Since the ceiling panels on the 1:1 were made up of a number of individual panels, the joins were covered with a wooden strip - and I'll be using the same method to cover up my inaccuracies and bodges here - just like a real wood butcher

 

 

When it came to the main compartments of the dining area and the bar I realized I had given myself a lot of unnecessary additional work by slapping the fiberglass resin all over the place a few weeks ago. It tended to gather at the ceiling partitions roof interface and I had to spend a happy hour or two scraping the resin back to try and get an even curvature around the interior. It's not perfect, but since this will only ever be seen via a mirror, and it will all be white, I don't think my laziness and ineptitude will be discovered

 

 

In between bouts of scraping and sanding, I turned some more aluminum on the lathe - this time for the mounting plates for the rotating vents

 

 

and yes, I reprinted the vents after getting some more information which showed me that I had got a few things incorrect first time around on the originals. The vents are now slightly longer and I think they look a lot better for it

 

 

I also printed the torpedo vents.  Home printed left and right, and Shapweways expensive print at center. To be honest, I think my own prints have come out better than Shapeways.  They're a lot smoother and don't have all that powdery crud that's embedded on the Shapeways part. Those are without any cleanup whatsoever. (could you tell?)

 

 

hours and hours later we are getting slowly further and further forward with the main ceiling panels all in place now.  The ceiling partitions have still to be added though. Since I made a real bodge of the fiberglass job, the curvature at the ceiling level is slightly different on each partition, which means I need to cut and shape each one individually.  That'll teach me for not planning ahead.

 

 

While the glue was drying on the ceiling panels it was back to the lathe again, this time to turn 9 brass light fittings for the corridors. (The bubbly wet stuff is Mr Metal primer.)

I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of that lathe thing - I managed to produce 10 of these little blighters in less than an hour - and that doesn't count the other two I dropped and couldn't find again.

In a weird moment of cognitive awakening , I've found that paying attention to the dials on the lathe and actually writing the numbers down so I can repeat the settings makes a big difference when I'm trying to make the same thing more than once.  Hoodathunkit eh?

 

 

A piece of clear runner was turned down and inserted into the fitting to pretend to be a glass bulb/shade/cover thing

 

 

Then more aluminum was turned - this time it's 4 speakers for the PA system - to be painted black later

 

 

Kitchen/Corridor ceiling panel painted white and dry fitted, and 4 brass lamps fitted in the corridor/vestibule

 

 

At t'other end, more brass lamps fitted, along with the toilet ceiling light, grill and the PA speaker.  I did consider painting the speakers white, but there's already so much white I thought it would break up some of the blandness.  I could change my mind but since it's now glued in place I don't think that's going to happen, so there!

 

 

Then to finish up this weeks episode, we have the current state of play shown here.  On the interior, there's still vents, ceiling lamps and a few other bits and bobs to be fitted, then some general tidying up to hide my bodge jobs.

 

 

after which, it will be back on to the exterior and the last few laps to the finish line.  This time I've made a mental note to myself NOT to look at the roof exterior with the bloomin magnifier all the time otherwise I'll be here til doomsday picking up small imperfections and sanding and sanding and sanding until the roof is paper thin. 

I must go and check on the display case when I remember - stay safe and ... well, just stay safe

 

until next time

 

 

 

 

 

[gunzo]

The question is are they for letting air in or sucking air out?  I assume placing them perpendicular to the airflow causes some magic to slow the air down so that it doesn't rush into the compartment at a gazillion miles per hour. 

 

 

I wouldn't have thought  you'd want to be directly sucking in the the less than fragrant fumes from the engine. As far as I know they act as extractors when external air flows across them- ie as in when on the move.

 

Love your 3D prints , Shapeways really do have to look at their quality vs price model. They seem to be forgetting the competition.