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799 - 1/8 Citroën 15 Six Traction Avant


Bengalensis

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2 hours ago, TonyW said:

Very nice work indeed. The finish is quite stunningly realistic.

Thanks a lot Tony, glad you think so.

 

16 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

Lovely work! I hope the kit has an option for opening the bonnet..

 

Thanks a lot Adrian. It does indeed have opening bonnets, albeit with somewhat problematic vinyl hinges. I'm hoping to make something better when I get there, I'm dreaming of finding some sub-miniature piano hinges or something. I should probably spend some time looking more seriously at that...

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23 minutes ago, Bengalensis said:

sub-miniature piano hinges

I think I’ve seen someone making them out of thick tinfoil and wire somewhere on a forum...

 

Edit: can’t find the link to the home made one. And FWIW I’m sure you have probably found these.

 

Adrian

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1 hour ago, AdrianMF said:

I think I’ve seen someone making them out of thick tinfoil and wire somewhere on a forum...

 

Edit: can’t find the link to the home made one. And FWIW I’m sure you have probably found these.

I had not seen those, thanks! I will have to do some measuring of the bonnet parts to see what approx size will be needed...

 

To be able to fit the drive belts with reasonable tension they had to be shortened. In the end I removed 2-3 mm from them.

 

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Here they are installed; the joints are hidden at the bottom of the drive pulleys. Not perfect, but better than I hoped from the soft vinyl parts.

 

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The condenser with wire part in soft vinyl looks very suspicious to me. The wire is way too thick and there are actually two condensers. This might be an after fitted radio interference protection on the odd vehicle, but not typical. I found some scratch building called for in the form of a new condenser.

 

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This is more to my liking. I also fitted the breaker points wiring stud to the distributor, from which I can continue the wiring to the ignition coil later on. When it comes to the colour of the condenser wire it might not look typical for 1948, but I'm now very much looking at this model as a restored car owned, driven and cared for by an enthusiast in later years, much as I do with my own cars. The oil pipe from the back of the cylinder head is also a vinyl part. It should have been fitted before spraying green, but I managed to touch it up ok.

 

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After finishing the manifolds to head joint I added some discoloration above the exhaust ports, as often becomes the case on a newly painted cast iron head. The fit of the carburetor and heat shield is very iffy and I have also read it's easy to end up with it sitting too high, interfering with the bonnet. I had to do a little trimming of the manifold to make the fit as low as possible.

 

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There is no good glue joint, so here some 5 min epoxy is currently curing.

 

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Seeing a distributor cap and condenser, sat there all easy to get at and simple as a rock took me back to much simpler times.

I like to think there are a set of points under that cap.

Is there a spring clip in its future? You might be wondering why it won't start later in the build without one.

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Fabulous engine. I know that one of these cars (not sure which year though) is in a garage in Boston.

I saw it outside & running in the summer. It had primer around the edges so hopefully it's being restored.

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2 hours ago, TonyW said:

Seeing a distributor cap and condenser, sat there all easy to get at and simple as a rock took me back to much simpler times.

I like to think there are a set of points under that cap.

Is there a spring clip in its future? You might be wondering why it won't start later in the build without one.

Simple times, in my world better times. I still run breaker points in my old cars that had them originally, works like a charm, just keep them maintained.

So yes, there is a set of points inside.

I will add thin strips for the spring clips.

 

1 hour ago, fightersweep said:

That engine looks stunningly realistic. Fantastic work! This looks like such a good kit. You've really inspired me to pick one up myself.

 

Thanks a lot. The kits is really impressive, especially keeping the age of the moulds in mind. Worth getting one just to browse through the parts...

 

1 hour ago, rob Lyttle said:

Bonnet hinges might have been me, with the Delahaye 135.

 

Thanks, I will check it out again.  It's a problem I will have to solve.

 

1 hour ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Fabulous engine. I know that one of these cars (not sure which year though) is in a garage in Boston.

I saw it outside & running in the summer. It had primer around the edges so hopefully it's being restored.

Thanks a lot. I hope that car is still undergoing work, or is already back on the road.

 

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Another soft vinyl squid problem is the fuel line between the pump and carburetor. It's just not possible to route it well, it will just form the smoothest curve possible. I wanted to make a copper fuel line with short connecting hoses in each end. I found a suitable piece of wire inside a coaxial cable that I annealed with a miniature torch to make it as soft as possible. I cut the ends from the kit's vinyl line and drilled them out to thread them onto the wire.

 

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After some faffing around to find the shape and using some thin vinyl hoses and Baremetal foil strips I had a fuel line I was quite happy with.

 

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Heller makes you wind your own springs. You do get the wire supplied, and some very thorough drawings and descriptions to get the correct dimensions. These two are for the clutch linkage.

 

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Here we have the springs installed.

 

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More vinyl squid problems; the ignition wires. Hopeless to drape well, not to mention cleaning up mould lines. A product of their time. I cut off the ends representing the spark plug and the boot. As the plugs are deep down in the head they will do fine.

 

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I then drilled their ends so they could be pushed onto the brownish wires I found inside an old telephone cable. Some other black wire insulation I found will form the boots for the distributor cap.

 

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Carefully wired up, pretty much ready for a test start before being fitted into its chassis.

 

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The connector on top of the carburetor for the air cleaner is only tacked in place using Kristal Klear as it might have to be adjusted when time comes for engine installation.

 

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With this done I think I have a complete engine and gearbox built up to the stage where I would lift it into the chassis working in my 1/1 scale shop.

 

If nothing else I could possibly put the finished engine in the gallery to at least have something there when I miss the GB finish date...

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9 hours ago, rob Lyttle said:

Out of interest, just how long is the bonnet and the hinges required, on a Citroën at this scale? 

The hinge part in the kit is about 137 mm long.

 

However, studying the real bonnet hinges a little closer it seems a piano type hinge at each side of the center chrome strip, which is just 3 mm wide, might not be very suitable. The construction is quite different, and the look from the outside completely smooth. Here are two photos linked:

 

https://www.citroen-traction-avant.com/Uploads/_Grp/Motorkap-jambonneau/TA - MOTORKAP JAMBONNEAU 300.jpg

 

https://www.artmajeur.com/medias/hd/d/o/dominique-goujard/artwork/10554904_dsc-5541.jpg

 

Perhaps I can enclose a thin steel wire along the edges of each bonnet and hinge them at the front and rear ends? More thinking needed...

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14 hours ago, rob Lyttle said:

This really is a model within a model. 

A great kit to start with and the improvements are working well! 

👍

 

13 hours ago, Moa said:

Unbelievable, Jörgen.

A real pleasure to watch your work. So realistic and detailed.

 

Thanks a lot guys for your kind comments. The kit is worthwhile to put some extra work on.

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Work continued with the front cradle. The parts for the basic structure were cleaned up. Quite a number of ejector pin marks, but mostly easy to sand off. In most cases not very necessary either, but I just have to.

 

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The structure was glued together without too much trouble, taking care to make it straight. With the two upper parts joined to their respective outer point I got a 0,75 mm gap at the center. I glued in some pieces of Evergreen strips to fill that.

 

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With all glue fully dried I sanded all joints smooth.

 

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Then more parts were added as far as I think I can before painting it. I want to use shades of black with a little contrast between the cradle and the suspension parts.

 

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A test fit of the engine and gearbox.

 

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Clean up work of the parts for the lower suspension arms. I'm going to modify the build sequence a little here and there, which means some alterations to some parts. The reason is that I really dislike having to glue half-parts around painted and finished parts, having then to deal with glue joint cleaning and painting within an otherwise finished assembly.

 

First parts affected are the tubes in the foreground, going inside the assembled suspension arms. Their inner diameter will need enlarging after the glue in the half-part joints has firmly dried.

 

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Beautiful work - I am green with envy. The nearest I have ever come to something as detailed as this is the metre long Billings Boats Cutty Sark which I bought nearly 40 years ago, complete with all the metal fittings, plastic pulley blocks and cloth sails.  Unfortuntely, every time I got it out to start work on it - I decided it was too complicated and put it away again. If it had been plastic, not wood I might just have built it by now, but my woodworking skills are probably not quite good enough so I may end up selling it.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

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On 28/10/2020 at 00:30, wimbledon99 said:

I'm completely in awe! This is such a pleasure to watch and it's only really just begun!!

Thanks, and yes, I'm afraid we are still scraping at the beginning, so much to do...

 

On 28/10/2020 at 12:27, PeterB said:

Beautiful work - I am green with envy. The nearest I have ever come to something as detailed as this is the metre long Billings Boats Cutty Sark which I bought nearly 40 years ago, complete with all the metal fittings, plastic pulley blocks and cloth sails.  Unfortuntely, every time I got it out to start work on it - I decided it was too complicated and put it away again. If it had been plastic, not wood I might just have built it by now, but my woodworking skills are probably not quite good enough so I may end up selling it.

Thanks a lot Pete. You know, sometimes dreams must be tackled. Maybe it will be time to build that kit, for the sake of having enjoyed it, even if everything perhaps will not be perfect. I'd say go for it, and don't wait too long.

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I've managed to survive, barely, another work week from hell. It's putting strains and having effects on me now, but this must be pulled through. I managed very little quality time at the workbench, something I do need now. Maybe later.

 

I managed, using some serious perseverance, to drill out the two tubes for the lower suspension arms. Yes, they cracked more than once, but I won.

 

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The lower suspension arms could then be assembled, except the ball joints, which I also wanted to assemble now.

 

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The problem was another of those half-parts that must be glued around other parts, in this case the uprights and the ball joints, the latter that I want to fit after taking care of glue joints and painting. The ball joints are moulded in nylon though, and not that well suited to gluing if I modify them.

 

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That needed some serious thinking, so I started preparing the upper suspension arms. The problem with the ball joints is the same again.

 

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Yesterday I assembled the upper suspension arms and then decided that I will be in command of the build sequence when in doubt, no matter what. So I glued the uprights together. We'll see if it comes back to haunt me later. Today I finished them for paint and sanded off material from the ball joint ends to make them fit through the holes with some force. Hopefully the mechanical fit and CA-glue will be enough when the time comes.

 

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Another little quirk from Heller. The cross member where the torsion bar ends are fixed is built up from five parts, where the top section should be curved, but is made straight.

 

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Some gentle bending sorting it.

 

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Suspension parts ready for paint.

 

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A spraying session later with some different black shades. Using white support blocks for black parts is not good for photos

 

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Time for the first seriously large parts. Suddenly I need most of the cutting mat for parts and not for a mess of tools and stuff.

 

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Every time I read about a build of this kit the term "serious warping" is mentioned when these parts are reached. Not without reason. No exception in this case...

 

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However, the plastic is very good to work with. It glues well, it sands well, and also with some serious massaging it will allow to be beaten into submission when it comes to warping as well.

 

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Some serious sanding and cleaning later we are ready for glue.

 

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That's 100 photos. What happened?

 

I tacked the parts with CA from the engine side to get them sitting correctly, than a full join of CA was run from the same side, and a bead of classic styrene cement was run from the inside.

 

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This will now be left overnight to harden, and hopefully I can clean up the joints then. Again I think I must alter the build sequence from Heller's instructions to fit more parts to this assembly, before spraying engine compartment, interior and underside colours. The perfect solution is impossible though, I know that much...

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