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55 D-Jaguar Scratch build in Ebony


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Me again.   Now that I've cleared the bench I've been scouring the image bank trying to decide what I'd like to tackle and I've settled on a LeMans D-type.   Don't know if I'm quite up to the task of shaping this beautiful machine especially since I plan to do it entirely of black ebony.   Might require a few attempts to get it right.

 

I don't have the wood yet but will get it tomorrow.    In the meantime I've got a set of plans stretched to my size (9 1/2 inches), printed, cut out and glued to a sacrificed LP cover of my wife's that I detested!

 

While waiting for the wood however I've been trying a few different methods of making those unique Dunlop wheels.

 

First attempt was to machine one as a single piece.   This came out OK but I soon realised I couldn't drillo those 15 holes without trashing the rims!

 

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To make that rounded face I shaped a special tool bit because I'm not good enough to do it any other way.   This worked a treat by the way.

 

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So, next I trimmed off the outer rim and had a practice run at marking off the 15 required holes ... man, that takes a lot of tries ... everything from 13 to 17.

 

Once I had the locations fixed I marked a starter hole with a tiny Dremel bit and we're ready to drill.

 

43895901631_5c5f127240.jpg

 

Let's just say the results were not as advertised.   I'll spare you the ugly results.

 

So I decided to split the wheel into a central hub and a rim.  

 

Turned a cylinder that'll be long enough to do 4 hubs and marked off the 15 holes.   I only have a mini drill press that holds a Dremel and I didn't want to hold the aluminum while I drilled it out so I machined a perfect size hole in a scrap of Renshape and sank my block into it ... nice tight fit.   Drilled a pilot hole at each location with a very fine drill.

 

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After that it went into the lathe for the roundy bit to be machined then ...

 

back into the block to have the correct size holes drilled and that came out well.

 

42087070760_790dc8bac2_z.jpg

 

Last step was to machine an outer rim (no photo sorry).

 

Polished both parts and finally have a wheel I'm happy with.

 

Hope it looks like a Dunlop D-type Jaguar wheel to you!    By the way, this rim is exactly 1" diameter.

 

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Other scratch builds:    Maserati 250F     Lancia D50    Ferrari 375 MM      Ferrari TestaRossa     Flying Scotsman A3    Alberg 37 sailboat     Trojan 36 Sport Fisherman      Triumph TR-6

 

Edited by albergman
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Nice to see you getting stuck in to another project. I will be following this, for sure!!

 

Ebony????? Boy, oh boy, that's hard stuff.... you've got your work cut out for you there, matey!! Happy carving!:D

 

Cheers, H

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On 8/7/2018 at 5:33 AM, harveyb258 said:

Nice to see you getting stuck in to another project. I will be following this, for sure!!

 

Ebony????? Boy, oh boy, that's hard stuff.... you've got your work cut out for you there, matey!! Happy carving!:D

 

Cheers, H

You're absolutely right Harvey but I've worked a lot with it and know what I'm in for!

On 8/7/2018 at 12:25 PM, Pete in Lincs said:

A beautiful wheel. Looks good to me.

I actually saw a D type replica on the road yesterday!

Good luck with the carving

Thanks Pete.   D-types on the road eh?    Imagine.    Back in the 50's in my small town here in Canada there was a chap who drove an XK-SS and a mechanic who owned a gull-wing 300SL.    They were expensive but still affordable if you wanted one bad enough.

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Time for an update.   OK all 4 wheels (hubs and rims) are done but tires still to do.

 

Today I stuck my cardboard profile panels onto the ebony I bought and bandsawed out the rough shapes.   Just took it close to the lines.   Poor old saw was wheezing trying to get through 2" of ebony and I had to keep spraying water on the blade to cool it.

 

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Once both sides were rough cut profile and plan view I fired up my belt sanding machine and easily took the wood right down to the lines.

 

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The sander makes quick work of this rough shaping and soon I have both sides"sort of" done.   

 

42159399600_6c6c075b92_z.jpg

 

Tomorrow I'll get them locked onto a working board and start the shaping.

 

Cheers

 

Frank

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 Having quite a time shaping the sides of this car with its endless series of curves.   Decided to take a break from it and do some more work on the wheels and tires.

I make my tires from the synthetic material called Renshape and I thought that I'd give more of a detailed description of how I make them in case someone thinks it might be useful.   I've covered parts of this process on different cars but never all the steps in one place.

 

I'm going to turn all 4 tires at once as they're the same diameter front and back on a D-type.

 

First I slice off an appropriate hunk of Renshape (Ren) in my bandsaw.

 

44100051071_68032b1290_z.jpg

 

Next I draw on a suitable circle traced from a small bottle and rough shape it on the saw.

 

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Next it gets mounted in the chuck and secured at both ends

 

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It's an easy job to turn the whole block down to my size

 

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While I have it securely fastened I'm now going to use my knurling tool to impress a tire pattern onto the tread surface.   This device uses a pair of wheels each with a different diagonal pattern to emboss a diamond shaped "tread" into the Ren.   Not exactly a real tread pattern but it suits my purposes!

 

44100031901_cb285681e2_z.jpg

 

Next I use an inside boring tool to ream out the precise diameter to fit the rims I made (above).

 

44100035271_40c811547d_z.jpg

 

I shape the cross-section profile of the tire now by free-handing an Exacto blade into the cavity while the lathe turns it.

 

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Here's something I hadn't done before.   I wanted to try to emboss those little radial marks around the sidewall and got an idea when I noticed the adjustment knob on my knurler tool ... it has straight cut grooves!   A rummage in my bolts bin found a suitable sized bolt and I locked it into my tool holder.

 

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Careful placement against the wheel rim allowed me to press it into the Ren and give me the required look.

 

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Next step is to take one of the rims and test fit it injto the tire.

 

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Decided to insert the hub section  to see how the package will look

 

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I blackened the Ren with a big black marker

 

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Next I sawed off the tire and the job's nearly done ... just repeat 3 more times!

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Here's the four rims in readiness.  Still have to make the knock-off hubs for them.   One of them has a trial version but will be replaced.

 

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Thanks for looking in ... I hope it was useful to some  of you.

 

Frank

 

 

 

 

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Mate! That’s just awesome! 👍 Have only just caught up with this - great to see you back.

D type Jag. Great subject. Cars aren’t really my thing generally, but even I know about D types.

 

Really looking forward to seeing more. 😀

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Time for a bit more progress, such as it is.   Not only is this a difficult shape (for me anyway) ebony is also a challengingly hard medium.   Said it before but most of the shaping is done on my vertical belt sander.  I use a very worn out belt and shape the wood gently and slowly.   Also use a coarse rasp (flat one side, rounded on 'tother) and for small parts I like  Dremel sanding drums always mounted on a flex shaft.

 

OK, first ... I recently bought a better quality particle mask than what I'd been using.   The dust from this wood is very invasive and a mouthful of paper towels just wasn't up to the task.

 

This looks better doesn't it?    My wife says it's quite an improvement but ... I'm not sure.

 

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Now to the car!

 

Sides were cut previously and now they're shaped and fastened (screws) onto a working board.

 

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You'll notice I've already worked on the driver side and have the fin and headrest shaped.   Things always look rough at these early stages as many small pieces get cut/shaped/glued together before sanding to shape.

 

42398245210_47f5c4375b_z.jpg

 

Now that I have the sides oriented I can start to shape a hood.   I trim the inside of both front fenders to identical shapes (basically where their downturn ends) then make a template out of something firm ... in this case a nice sample of vinyl house-siding kindly provided by a local building supply outlet.

 

43300135875_d662d68373_z.jpg

 

I mark off 1" measurements and draw a line that is close to what I need.   Often takes a few tries but eventually I have a shape that is a good fit between the wings.   

 

This now gets placed on to the block which will form the hood/bonnet and traced before cutting it out on the bandsaw.   

Lots of care taken to get this as fine a fit as possible.  

 

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Once I'm happy with the fit it gets taken out and shaped ... lengthwise and transversely.   Most of this is done on my belt sander.

 

Next it gets glued between the fenders and a new round of shaping starts.   

 

42398275530_8d032c3012_z.jpg

 

I'm trying something different this time, since I found that my sander produces copious amounts of fine black dust, I've collected at  tub of it and I'm mixing it with epoxy to form a paste that I use as a fairing compound.   Fortunately it takes the identical black colour as the raw ebony when it gets wet.   This is not something I've ever been able to do with any other wood.

 

So, here is the front end in a semi finished state.    I'm really happy to (in my opinion) have captured the D-types flowing lines and this step has definitely "broken the back" of this project.   Everything else will be much easier from now on.

 

44157868762_b9eac090c1_z.jpg

 

Still a long way to go.

 

As an afterthought I took a picture of the undersides so you can get an idea of how many pieces are used to get the shape ... it's not just 2 sides and a hood!   Quite a mess under there.

 

29270719177_998761a5b2_z.jpg

 

Thanks for looking in.

 

Frank

Edited by albergman
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3 hours ago, JeroenS said:

A very interesting process!

 

1 hour ago, kpnuts said:

Nice to see the master at work again.

 

59 minutes ago, NickD said:

Love the results so far.

 

8 minutes ago, Spiny said:

While it's not something which I would ever have the skill or inclination to try myself, it's fascinating so see how you create these works of art. Thank you for sharing:goodjob:

Thanks guys.   Master?   Not quite 🤨   It is VERY satisfying to see a shape you know/love coming from rough blocks of wood.   Love to see someone else try it ...  choose a simple car shape maybe like the Maserati 250F, lots of plans on the web, scale them to a large size, duplicate my build method and see how you do.   Might end up as a nice wooden car toy for a grandson (or kindling!).    I only started doing these a few years ago.

 

Cheers

 

Frank

 

Other natural finish wooden cars:   57 Ferrari TestaRossa   54 Ferrari 375MM   Misc Wooden cars

 

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3 hours ago, albergman said:

 

  It is VERY satisfying to see a shape you know/love coming from rough blocks of wood.   

 

Hi Albergman,

 

For me that’s it in a nutshell. That is exactly why I like scratchbuilding. 

That and the fact there’s an endless number of techniques, materials and tools to learn and apply.

The idea of assembling parts by screwing them into a working board is one I might be copying one day.

Have never thought about mixing sawdust with epoxy but can see uses for that too.

 

Keep going with this excellent project!

👍

 

 

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On 8/23/2018 at 6:42 PM, Bandsaw Steve said:

Hi Albergman,

 

For me that’s it in a nutshell. That is exactly why I like scratchbuilding. 

That and the fact there’s an endless number of techniques, materials and tools to learn and apply.

The idea of assembling parts by screwing them into a working board is one I might be copying one day.

Have never thought about mixing sawdust with epoxy but can see uses for that too.

 

Keep going with this excellent project!

👍

 

 

Steve.   Glad to hear you share the same excitement.    I'm sure it's the same for a kit builder to replicate a car they really like ... I don't know.

 

Frank

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Brief update ... managed a few hours in my shed and tackled the rear of the car ... boot deck I suppose it's called.    Won't bore you with the details of how I made this because it's basically the same as how I described the bonnet above.    That is ... made a plastic template that fit between the fender and the fin structure, copied the shape to a piece of ebony, bandsawed it out, fine fit, glue.

 

OK, I did take 1 picture of this step ... here's the plastic template in place.

 

44268910831_e77d7d84af_z.jpg

 

Once the deck was glued in then much fairing takes place with rasp, files and sandpaper..   

 

A weird shaped piece had to be made to represent the aerodynamic headrest (passenger side) ... same amount of fairing in.

 

Once this was done I was able to rough shape the entire back of the car.

 

Last job today was to fabricate more of the cockpit.   Pretty straightforward stuff now.

 

Everything is still a bit rough but getting close to doing a good final sanding.    That will be after I tackle the nose of the car and hope to get that iconic opening correct.

 

So here's how she looks today.

 

29332600897_6a8df3df75_z.jpg

 

29332597577_7039c0a3cd_z.jpg

 

Thanks for looking

 

Frank

Edited by albergman
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  • 3 weeks later...

Thanks guys.   Appreciate the interest.   Afraid I've kinda run out of steam on this one as summer chores out in the gardens and lawns have taken priority.   Cooler weather is on the way though and I hope to get back to it .... although, to be honest, I've already set my sights on a new car project and I might just make a start on that!    Surely I'm allowed to have two projects on the go at once??

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On 26/08/2018 at 03:17, albergman said:

Brief update ... managed a few hours in my shed and tackled the rear of the car ... boot deck I suppose it's called.    Won't bore you with the details of how I made this because it's basically the same as how I described the bonnet above.    That is ... made a plastic template that fit between the fender and the fin structure, copied the shape to a piece of ebony, bandsawed it out, fine fit, glue.

 

OK, I did take 1 picture of this step ... here's the plastic template in place.

 

44268910831_e77d7d84af_z.jpg

 

Once the deck was glued in then much fairing takes place with rasp, files and sandpaper..   

 

A weird shaped piece had to be made to represent the aerodynamic headrest (passenger side) ... same amount of fairing in.

 

Once this was done I was able to rough shape the entire back of the car.

 

Last job today was to fabricate more of the cockpit.   Pretty straightforward stuff now.

 

Everything is still a bit rough but getting close to doing a good final sanding.    That will be after I tackle the nose of the car and hope to get that iconic opening correct.

 

So here's how she looks today.

 

29332600897_6a8df3df75_z.jpg

 

29332597577_7039c0a3cd_z.jpg

 

Thanks for looking

 

Frank

I'd be happy with that as it is: beautiful!

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