CrazyCrank Posted June 12, 2024 Author Posted June 12, 2024 On 1/11/2024 at 10:38 AM, Neddy said: There's just no stopping you, is there? No, indeed, @Neddy 🤭
CrazyCrank Posted June 16, 2024 Author Posted June 16, 2024 Morning all 🙂 "Sun day, fun day", says the slogan, so I don't know about you, but here it's been raining since yesterday 🙄 My BMW is almost finished and I have a lot of downtime between the different stages of making the soft-top cover, so I've decided to work a bit on the 300SLR Uhlenhaut ! If you have read the previous posts in this thread, you already know that I've cut off the boot lid, in order to make it openable, to make visible the gas tank, the spare wheels, a small part of the tubular chassis, and different organs such as the primary fuel pump I've fabricated a ledge on the boot aperture, in order to retain the lid when it's closed First I made a paper template, which I glued on the plastic board (0,3 mm thick) I've removed by sanding the Mercedes Benz Star, the inscriptons "300 SLR" and "D" of the boot lid, because I'll re-made them with 3D printing, as I did for Stirling Moss's 300 SLR Mille Miglia I've begun to fabricate the boot lid hinges, using 1.0 x 0.5 mm brass strips, and 1.3/1,0 brass tube, assembled by soldering And, on the underside of the body, at boot level, I've marked with a red marker the area that will be occupied by the rear deck of the passenger compartment, just to remind myself that I could only use the remaining space, actually almost nothing, to install the hinge mechanism. It's ridiculously small, but my drawings and measurements show that it can be done. You'll see later 😉 I've fabricated and installed reinforcement panels on the lower face of the boot lid I't's not very visible, but I've filled the 2 gaps on the junctions between the two parts with Tamiya Light curing putty, and sanded it smooth. I've worked several hours on the bodywork to remove the moulding lines, some injection moulding marks, a loooooot of flash, and I've thinned the plastic at wheel arches level. No photos there ! I've re-opened the louvres in the ventilation grille in front of the windscreen, which were almost all clogged. I've also opened the two louvres situated at the rear of the roof, which allow to evacuate the heat in the cabin.(I already did the same job on my two Mercedes Benz 300 SL) I've cut off the Inspection hatch panel situated on the right front fender, and fabricated a ledge on its aperture, in order to maintain it when it's in place I'll likely use small magnets to attach the panel to the body I've cleaned, improved and glued in place the engine compartment air outlet vents, situated on the front fenders And drilled on them the holes which are visible on all reference photos....Actually, I don't even know what they're used for ! If anybody knows?.... I've drilled a 1 mm hole on the body, under the chrome horizontal ornament placed under the right door, s on the real car In fact, I don't know what this hole is for either I've noticed that, as usual on Revell car kits, the bonnet is a bit twisted and do not close correctly,. It bulges slightly, revealing a gap between its edge and the edge of the bonnet opening. I intended to fix this issue, sinking the bonnet in warm water and pressing it, and it worked, but only partially . After several tries, I've stopped doing that, for fear of weakening the part, or worst, breaking it. But I'll tried another method later. I've also noticed it is the same problem with the doors, but it seems that the defect disappear when the inside door panel is attached to it...I've to check that another time I'm going to repeat myself again (some mischievous minds will say I'm rambling), but this REVELL kit is of very poor build quality, both in terms of the quality of the plastic used (quite soft and flexible for certain parts, like the tubular chassis, or on the contrary very brittle), and the quality of the moulding. In fact, it was the REVELL standard in the 1990s. Strangely enough, this is no longer the case for their Mercedes SLS AMG kit, which dates from 2010 and was sold, in my case, in the same package as the Mercedes 300 SLR Uhlenhaut. One would have thought that REVELL would have made the effort to remake a more recent and improved moulding for this one! After the right-hand door slipped out of my hand and fell 60 cm onto the parquet floor, I was unpleasantly surprised to find the front pillar of the window broken. I've repaired it, but it's still very fragile, because the plastic at this point is very thin (0.8 mm max). So there's still a lot of work to be done to prepare the bodywork for painting.🙄 11
Neddy Posted June 16, 2024 Posted June 16, 2024 Amazing craftsmanship as usual on the boot lid and aperture(s). I feel your pain regarding Revell's parts quality - the more I work on Tweedy Pie the worse things get. Nothing fits or aligns correctly at all! 1
CrazyCrank Posted June 24, 2024 Author Posted June 24, 2024 Evening gentlemen Still working on the bodywork, a little bit of progress today. I've finished cleaning , filling the gaps and surface irregularities, and finally sanding the bodywork, bonnet and boot lid. The bonnet was a bit distorted, and I've managed to almost entirely fix this, heating the plastic in warm water and bending it. It's not perfect, but far better than before. I've also finished to fabricate the boot lid hinges, which I've installed on the body, but obviously not yet attached to the lid, because nothing's painted ! Once the hinges have been definitively fixed to the boot lid, it will unfortunately not be possible to open it completely, as the front edge will hit the bodywork about halfway. I've tried to solve the problem by making several types of hinges and testing them, but to no avail. The problem is that there's very little space to fit these hinges, which have to be aligned, and have their axes of rotation perfectly horizontal. However, in the only places where I can fit them, the body is curved, and so, since the axes have to be horizontal, the inner ends of the two hinges are quite far from the edge of the boot. And it's exactly this arrangement that means that when opening the boot, the front edge of the lid gets too close to the body, limiting the opening. I could have made a system that would allow full opening, but then the hinge pins would never have been positioned where they are on a real car, and that would have been visually shocking. Modelling at this scale is subject to many compromises, and you have to make choices, sometimes frustrating ones, like here! At last, I've fabricated the boot lid retaining system , which is a compass on the real car To make this, I've 3D designed and printed the mounting plates which go under the trunk aperture on the front side and on the trunk lid underside on the rear. And I've scratched the 2 branches of the compass, using 1.0 mm wide, 0,4 lmm thick Nickel-silver strips. I've cut the 2 needed lengths and drilled 0.4 mm holes at each ends. The branches are linked to each other with a Nickel-Chrome 0.4 mm rod, and hinged with the mounting plates with the same kind of rods. I took inspiration of the two photos below. The first one is the opened boot of the real car, and the second is the interpretation of CMC 1/18 Mercedes Benz 300 SLR Hereunder my building process: I 3D designed and printed the mounting plates, the same for the lid and for the boot aperture I fabricated the 2 branches of the compass and linked them with a .4 mm rod And then, I articulated the branches with two 3D printed mounting plates: I also decided to modify the bodywork a bit more: Indeed, on the REVELL kit part, the area where you normally fit the front lights is blocked, instead of being opened in order to make room for the lights shell! Worse, the parts supplied in the kit to represent the front lights, is not a clear part but a chromed part ! So, I've drilled and cleaned this area, and I'll make a whole light, with its shell and its glass, which I'll fabricate with UV resin Now, the bodywork's parts are ready to receive their first layer of grey primer/filler, what will allow to track the defaults and to fix them. Stay tuned if you like 😉 14
othertales Posted June 25, 2024 Posted June 25, 2024 Following this assembly will be a real treat — thank you for sharing it 🤩 1
Neddy Posted June 25, 2024 Posted June 25, 2024 I just love following your builds, apart from the craftsmanship the sheer inventiveness amazes me. Great work with the hinges and boot stay, now how about the boot lock mechanism? 1
CrazyCrank Posted June 25, 2024 Author Posted June 25, 2024 10 minutes ago, Neddy said: I just love following your builds, apart from the craftsmanship the sheer inventiveness amazes me. Great work with the hinges and boot stay, now how about the boot lock mechanism? I'm throwing in the towel ! it would be rather difficult no represent it the right way, not theoretically but technically at this scale. And furthermore because there is another difficulty : the handle of the boot lock mechanism is on this car the letter "D" (for Deutschland) But I could consider to make a moving "D" to simulate a working handle 2
keefr22 Posted June 25, 2024 Posted June 25, 2024 11 hours ago, CrazyCrank said: Stay tuned if you like 😉 I'd like to ! Marvellous micro engineering you're doing here, great to watch even if way above my kit assembling 'skills' ! Keith 1
CrazyCrank Posted June 25, 2024 Author Posted June 25, 2024 Afternoon guys Taking advantage of the good weather here, I've sprayed the first layer of grey primer over the bonnet, the hood and the bodyshell. Great outcome, and It already allowed me to notice some minor defects which will be easy to fix. I've not primed the doors which need a little work before. The chassis has been cleaned and prepared. I've also improved it, adding the traction arms on the spindles and suspensions cradle. They are made of 0.6 mm aluminium tube which pass through holes I drilled in the two transversal structs of the middle of the chassis. At last, I've added on the front stand, (which will receive later the top suspension triangles and the steering box) , two curved struts which retain it firmly on the chassis. Later on, these structs will be completed by two bars which connect on the rear top of the radiators, maintaining them vertical. And then, the chassis has been primed as well. That's all for now, folks 6
othertales Posted June 25, 2024 Posted June 25, 2024 Great internal engineering! There's something so satisfying about seeing a kit get that grey primer and it's even more special with your craftsmanship. 1
Neddy Posted June 25, 2024 Posted June 25, 2024 6 hours ago, CrazyCrank said: I'm throwing in the towel ! it would be rather difficult no represent it the right way, not theoretically but technically at this scale. And furthermore because there is another difficulty : the handle of the boot lock mechanism is on this car the letter "D" (for Deutschland) But I could consider to make a moving "D" to simulate a working handle Me and my mouth... 🤐 1
CrazyCrank Posted June 25, 2024 Author Posted June 25, 2024 7 hours ago, othertales said: Great internal engineering! There's something so satisfying about seeing a kit get that grey primer and it's even more special with your craftsmanship. Thank you so much for this nice compliment You're absolutely right about the grey primer step 😎 1
Spiny Posted June 25, 2024 Posted June 25, 2024 Looking really good already. Fantastic work in getting the boot opening, even if it's turning out not to be posisble to get it to play ball. Just a thought on the bonnet being a little warped - is there scope to use some 1mm magnets to pull it straight when closed, or is that going to be a little too much? 1
CrazyCrank Posted June 25, 2024 Author Posted June 25, 2024 2 hours ago, Spiny said: Looking really good already. Fantastic work in getting the boot opening, even if it's turning out not to be posisble to get it to play ball. Just a thought on the bonnet being a little warped - is there scope to use some 1mm magnets to pull it straight when closed, or is that going to be a little too much? Thanks Spiny. To answer you question: no, unfortunately. There is room to use them but they won't be strong enough to bend the bonnet 1
CrazyCrank Posted June 26, 2024 Author Posted June 26, 2024 Evening chaps The Vallejo grey primer, in cans, doesn't dry quickly and 24 hours after spraying it, it is always a bit tacky ! SO, while it is drying, I've switched my interest on the dashboard building. The kit's dash is very basic and disappointing: - the different knobs, buttons and pull tabs are just represented by a small plastic relief - And no difference between the pull tabs, the joystick which controls the direction indicators, or the ignition key slot ! - The dials are engraved, as if there was no decals to improve the realism. - The decals are too large and they incorporate a silvered peripheral crown, which is supposed to cover the bezels which are already engraved on the dash arounds the dias In brief, it's terrible ! look, if you're brave enough 🤣 As I do love improving the kits and detailing them, I've made a bit of surgery: - First, I cut out all the plastic stuffs which represent the knobs etc. - And I drilled 0.5 mm on the scars, in order to place here later, scratched and/or 3D printed replacement parts. - Then I spent some hours in my garage, turning on the lathe new bezels, in a 8.0 mm aluminum bar. The bezels are 5.0 / 4.0 mm for the 2 larger, and 2.6/ 2.0 mm for the 3 others. I fabricated a lot of them, api just never know ! - I drilled and filed the 5 dials, bezels included, to get the same dimensions, in order to be able to fit easily, later on, the aluminium bezels into the holes. - The decals will be placed later on a plastic plate, that I'll install behind the dash (in fact, in front of it), and will be visible through the holes I've drilled - And a glass will be fabricated for each of the 5 dials, probably using disks of transparent thin plastic This miserable job took me over 8 hours, but it was worth the efforts 😲 9
Anteater Posted June 26, 2024 Posted June 26, 2024 Good to see another of your builds gathering pace. Thanks for taking the time to explain all of your techniques, it's a great education from a technical perspective. Just shows what can be achieved with mainstream kits, assuming the small matter of thousands of hours and the necessary skills of course... What do you do with all of your finished builds? They should be on display somewhere. 1
CrazyCrank Posted June 27, 2024 Author Posted June 27, 2024 8 hours ago, Anteater said: Good to see another of your builds gathering pace. Thanks for taking the time to explain all of your techniques, it's a great education from a technical perspective. Just shows what can be achieved with mainstream kits, assuming the small matter of thousands of hours and the necessary skills of course... What do you do with all of your finished builds? They should be on display somewhere. Thanks a lot, Anteater, for your great compliment, much appreciated 😎 All my finished builds (7 at the moment) take place in quality individual showcases (each one cost about the price of the kit) and the showcases are displayed in my living room, until I find a better place, or rather a large display case, incorporating lighting etc., to show off my scale models better 2
CrazyCrank Posted June 27, 2024 Author Posted June 27, 2024 Afternoon, chaps I've slightly enhanced and modified the dash, after I look again at the reference photos. First, you've to know that on the 3 Coupé Uhlenhaut, at least one has its upholstery blue, and this is this one, which is exhibited in Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart, I'm intending to reproduce. The goal is to display side by side the SLR n° 722 Mille Miglia and the Coupé Uhlenhaut, with the same upholstery. The decals REVELL supplies with this kit allow to cover the seats with the famous tartan fabric, but in RED, when I ant it BLUE ! So, I've ordered a set of 300 SLR Mille Millie decals at Indycals.net, which will do the job ! On this basis, I had to modify the dash, because, on the Coupé Uhlenhaut with the red tartan fabric, there is, as on the REVELL kit, between the dials, 2 warning lights, and on either side of the large dials, 2 pull tabs. BUT, on the "blue upholstery" Coupé Uhlenhaut, there's only 1 pull tab in this area, and its places at the right of the large right dial. So, I've had to fill the hole I drilled on the left of the left large dial, and to re-drill 0.8 mm the 2 holes for the warning lights Then, as there is, between the top of the large dials, another small warning light, I drilled a 0.5 mm hole at this place, and the warning light will labe made with a short section of 0.5 mm brass tube, nickel plated, and a droplet of Tamiya red clear in the hole of the tube. Then, I've planed to add another pull tab, placed under the lower edge of the dash, at the left small dial level. This pull tab exist on the 3 Coupé Uhlenhaut. So, I've fabricated the mounting plate which hold the pull tab. I've used a 1,0 mm square rod of styrene, that I've drilled 0.3 mm at an end, hen I've sanded this end to reduce its width from 1.0 to about 0.7 mm, and I've cut this end at 1.2 mm. And I've stuck this plastic stuff at the right place. Later, I'll fabricate the pull tab with 0.3 mm steel rod and a 3D printed knob . At last, I've worked on the dashboard "cap": I've re-scribed the engraving of the glove box on the right of the cap. And fabricated the small relief at the middle of the aperture edge of the glove box, which acts as a handle: I made it with a droplet of transparent nail UV resin. Once painted, it will do the job ! The two parts of the dash are now ready to be primed See you soon or much more later 😉 7
keefr22 Posted June 27, 2024 Posted June 27, 2024 That's some very neat work on a pretty small part - it's going to look brilliant when finished! Keith 1
CrazyCrank Posted June 27, 2024 Author Posted June 27, 2024 12 minutes ago, keefr22 said: That's some very neat work on a pretty small part - it's going to look brilliant when finished! Keith Thank you so much Keefr22. Fingers crossed for the final result 🤞 1
CrazyCrank Posted June 27, 2024 Author Posted June 27, 2024 Evening gentlemen , sorry to disturb you during the dinner 🙏 I was about priming the two parts of the dash, when I noticed a detail that I wasn't aware before ! It's a chrome plated bead that follows the contours of the dash cap, as you can see on the photos below: I decided to reproduce it, of course ! My first idea was to use 0,4 mm Nickel-chrome rod, which is rather flexible, and very shiny, but the curvatures of the dash cap were difficult to follow and I was unable to get a satisfactory outcome. It's a shame, because, once the dash is painted and cleared, it would have been very easy to scratch the bead to remove the paint and reveal the chrome aspect. Consequently I opted for semi-rigid 0.35mm cable, which is easy to bend and glue with cyanoacrylate glue. Once the dashboard has been painted, you'll need to touch it up carefully with Molotov Liquid Chrome, for example. Then, I primed with Vallejo grey primer/filler the two parts, in order to reveal the potential defects, and I got that: Which showed me that I did a little mistake, at both ends of the chromed bead, which, normally, must follow the contours of the dash cap, but also create a kind of seal between the dash cap and the dash per se. So I fixed that, cleaned and sanded the dash cap, and sprayed another coat of primer on it. There's now a thorough and deep cleaning to do on the two parts, before painting them ! See you later 8
CrazyCrank Posted June 28, 2024 Author Posted June 28, 2024 Afternoon, chaps A bit of progress today First,my (mis)adventures with the bonnet hinge: REVELL supplies two parts which, when assembled, will grip the bonnet's rotation shaft, moulded with it: a chrome grille, and a grey plastic hinge part, which is glued to the rear of the grill Based on the experience of another modeler friend of mine, who had problems with the engine bonnet hinge, I did a blank assembly and indeed, when you fit at the rear of the grill the part that will hold the bonnet rotation axis from the rear, as indicated in the assembly instructions, and you place the whole thing on the bodyshell, the bonnet moves backwards, and a gap appears at the front, at the opening on the bodyshell. The problem was that the rear of the chrome grille, which receives the front of the bonnet axle, has a quarter-moon-shaped groove for this purpose, but it's not deep enough, and also that the part that grips the axle from the rear, once glued to the rear of the grille, also has a rounded groove, but it's not deep enough either. So I did a bit of surgery, and everything improved. The worst part was when I opened the bonnet, the rear of which deviated to the right as I lifted it. After checking, the 2 centring pins on the rear of the grille, which are used to fix the aforementioned hinge part, were not aligned vertically. As a result, the rotation was on a non-horizontal axis. You can see on this photo that the horizontal part of the grey piece is a bit higher on the right than on the left. So I un-glued the two pieces, cut off the top centring pin, re-glued the grille and hinge piece together, aligning them correctly, to get perfectly horizontal the part of this latter which enclose the bonnet axle. And during subsequent tests, everything went back to normal. Small illustration: Sorry for the somewhat convoluted explanations, but they're interesting for those of you who own this kit and intend to assemble it one day! Once that was done, I looked at that chrome grille, full of unsightly flash, moulding lines and so on. And I scratched all that off before de-chroming it later with 'Destop'. But it also has another problem, which is that the spaces between the 3 branches of the Mercedes star, instead of being free as on the real thing, are clogged ! This is understandable, as the bonnet hinge system devised by REVELL includes a part to be glued precisely to the rear of the grille, right in the area of the star! The company's "ingenious" designers must have thought that the bond would be too weak, so they designed a solid area! IT'S NOT BEAUTIFUL and they could have done better! After studying the gizmo, I decided that I could carry out a surgical operation to free it up, and although it took me a few hours because the grille is delicate and I didn't want to damage it, I succeeded! And I can assure you that the grey part, although I amputated several small parts during the operation, still fits very well on the back of the grille. I still have to enhance this part, cleaning it thoroughly after I remove the chromeI Second: making a system to retain the inspection panel on the vertical side of the right front fender I dug two grooves on the top and bottom edges inside the panel, 0.5-0.6 mm depth, and I've glued in the grooves two short sections of 0.4 mm steel wire. Then I've glued micro magnets on the inside of the bodywork, on top and bottom edges of the ledge I made for the aperture....and that's it, it works ! The panel don't fall down when I incline the bodywork on its side (Fortunately, it was my purpose ) I still have to fill the grooves with putty, to hide the steel wires and to glue more firmly the magnets, my next job tonight Stay tuned if you like 😎 7
Neddy Posted June 29, 2024 Posted June 29, 2024 Great work on the bonnet hinge (works perfectly) and especially on the grille. That must have needed some nerve and a VERY steady hand. 1
CrazyCrank Posted June 30, 2024 Author Posted June 30, 2024 7 hours ago, Neddy said: Great work on the bonnet hinge (works perfectly) and especially on the grille. That must have needed some nerve and a VERY steady hand. Thank you very much @Neddy , glad you appreciate my (hard) work 😎 I wasn't excessively anxious during this surgery on the grille, but VERY careful and delicate. I was lucky, because for once, my iatrogenic tremor hadn't shown up; otherwise, I would have postponed the operation. 🙄
FunkyChiken Posted June 30, 2024 Posted June 30, 2024 Amazing detailing of these mercs, great build, enjoying all your scratch building! 1
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now