Alfa Romeo Coupe Elegant 1/8

[Codger]

Excellent work Poul. You've found a great technique the first attempt at upholstery. The key was having control of the glue and the areas to which it adheres. The stretching at corners is very well done too. I use gel CA, which will not bleed through and has excellent control. You will need that for the piping I think. You can, with practice, place small dots of glue where needed.

 

For patina on the seats, I used scuff pads for abrasions and clear shoe polish for sheen on wear areas. I also made the underlying foam (slightly thicker than yours) crushed in the contact areas, (or sanded in dips on the hard resin seats)  like weight has depressed them. Keep it subtle and it's effective.

 

Great job.

[Pouln]

Thanks CC, hmm yes, I'll think about weathering. It can still be done easily, however I'm not confident in my weathering skills yet. If I don't do it, then it is an old car with newly upholstered interior. And high time it was to re-upholster the interior.

 

Next step is to cut the leather to get it ready for the piping. After cutting you need to smear glue on the surfaces where the leather touched the seat, because you will pull the glue away when you remove the excess leather. The piping needs to be smeared with glue too.

After it has dried you can glue the piping easily to the seat, remove the excess glue from the piping and continue the process with the leather that goes around the base.

Since the top of the backrest will be visible through the rear window, I had to put leather there too. I added piping to the backside of the backrest too.

 

All this leads to the following:

 

 

The tube next to the seats is the contact glue I used. It is Bison Kit, transparent contact glue.

[Codger]

Excellent. Seeing them, I would not weather them. It will be dark in the cabin anyway with a full roof. My seat back there looks like darker-colored leather than the fronts, but it's not.

[Pouln]

Thanks Chas, that's true, it will indeed be quite dark inside.

I'm going to try your suggestions on some scrap leather, but I'm not sure I will execute on the real seats. 

[Dr. Fiat]

Wow, the carpeting is just awesome!  The piping really sets it off.

[Pouln]

Thanks, Dr.

 

I will do some more piping along the edges and there is some carpeting to be done around the gear shift shaft.

[rjfk2002]

The leather came out fantastically.  Getting it around the corners is really tough.  I have struggled to do that myself with results no where like your own

[Pouln]

Thanks for the compliments. 

Well, I think that this is one of the big advantages of using the contact glue. You can pull really hard on the leather immediately. If the leather is thin enough, it will stretch around the corners and because of the glue, it is fixated immediately when the surfaces are pushed together. 

Edited December 19, 2016 by Pouln

[Pouln]

Back then I couldn't resist to put the body on. Btw I am not showing all the pictures in the exact order I made them. You might see some items added to the model that seem to be missing later on. This is because I grouped the pictures in a logical form ( e.g all the leatherwork together),.

 

 

This picture painfully shows the necessity to add a floor behind the seats and between the aft crossmember and the petrol tank.

I have done that, using brass as you could have seen in one of the earlier pictures

[Pouln]

I have added the parcel tray. Also done with stretched leather in order to form it neatly around the edges.

 

[Pouln]

I have added the missing pieces of carpet around the shaft of the gearbox

 

 

[Pouln]

If you look at the side of the seats, you'll see that something is missing.

I scratched a cover for the sides

 

 

[Pouln]

On the last picture you may have noticed the dashboard, Below is another picture.

Still missing is the handle at the right side. I will later add it using a borrowed technique (borrowed from Roy: use a hairbrush pin)

I have used thin, real wood for the dash.

 

 

[Pouln]

When the body is placed on the chassis, there is a gap between the seats and the wheel arch in the body.

Pocher did include a piece of plastic to fill this, however I had to modify it because of the changed sides of the seats.

I also added the final piping to the carpets on the outer side of the floor.

 

In this picture you can see that there is space to fill under the rear window. That open area can't stay. I will deal with it later.

 

I hope I'm not boring you guys with all these details. If so let me know.

 

 

Edited December 19, 2016 by Pouln

[Dr. Fiat]

These pictures never grow old!  I can't wait to get my Aventador so that I can inundate everyone with pics!  

 

For that space below the window, how about constructing a little shelf, a place for the young starlets to place their purses and other niceties?

[Pouln]

Yes, that would be an option but there is already a parcel shelf behind the seat backs.

it will need to be something vertical, instead of horizontal.

I will start with a cardboard pattern.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Pouln

[Pouln]

Time to do some trial fittings of the body, including the fenders.

As with other Pocher kits, self tapping screws are delivered which will work 2 or 3 times. After that they will not hold in the plastic.

So I used bolts that can be loosened and fastened many times without damaging the plastic parts.

Unlike other Pocher kits, the Coupe body is a bear perfect fit.

 

 

 

These pictures are taken without doing any modification to the body or the fenders.

Body and fenders do hardly show sink holes. You might say that it is too easy. Hardly any challenge here, but secretly I do not mind

 

After this I started work on the bonnet.

I drilled a small hole in the cowl where the pin of the hinge could fit.

I had to do some tweeking to the position of the radiator to ensure correct distance between de cowl and the radiator.

 

 

I also fitted the doors. As Paul Koo states in the Coupe Elegant document, some work is needed to make sure that the doors can close and open without problems.

Not a big deal, just a bit of skimming the outside of the doors and rounding off the hinge protrusions to ensure that hey can turn freely when the door is opened.

 

The doors appeared to lie flat in the body, no modifications seemed to be needed toward the location and form of the doors.

But..... that was with the body off the chassis.

After all this I fitted the body on the chassis. One thing changed.

The underside of the body needs to be pulled apart a bit to fit it on the rails as the underside of it sirs outside the rails.

The consequence of this is that the doors do not fit correctly anymore.

The top of the doors go to far inward, which will need some work.

 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2016 by Pouln

[Pouln]

The Moore book shows that the doors of the coupe have wood tops on the inside.

I decided to scratch this using real wood.

 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2016 by Pouln

[Roy vd M.]

Nice woodwork, looks true to scale.

[harveyb258]

Beautiful work Poul!

 

4 minutes ago, Pouln said:

De Moore book shows that the door of the coupe have wood tops on the inside.

I decided to scratch this using real wood.

 

It would be rude not to!

 

Cheers, H

[Pouln]

Thanks, guys.

[CrazyCrank]

Excellent work Pouln, It will inspire my proper work on the 'Bug' 

[Jnkm13]

Wow, coming along nicely and the speed you are building is amazing.

 

Regards,

Jeremy

[Pouln]

Thanks for the compliments, guys.

 

Jeremy, I'm just catching up with the current status of the build.

All this happened in about a 6 month period.

 

This report is now quite close to the current status, so from then on, it will go much, much slower.

[Pouln]

Luckiliy there was a picture in the Moore book with the door open, showing how the door looked on the real car.

I tried to replicate the inside as much as possible. Here it comes:

I used two layers of thin foam to ensure that the leather would be depressed around the bezels of the door opener and the window opener.

After that I glued the leather cover, same way as I did on the seats, really hard pulling it around the edges of the doorpanel.