DB4 GT

Being the shortest of all the road cars, with five inches missing from the mid section of the chassis and body, the GT isn't the easiest of shapes to capture.

The standard DB4 in it's early form was probably the most balanced and elegant of all the Touring bodied cars.

The GT by comparison is a little stunted and doesn't quite have the flow of the longer bodies. But it's still a stunning shape.

Rear three quarter views are very pleasing but the frontal treatment is giving me a hard time.
The original shape has something of a sweptback look, no doubt to exagerate it's performance.

I think that look is now starting to appear, but it needs patience and constant minor changes to extract it.

Other little changes required include the lobes on the ends of each bumper. A little too bulbous in length, but due to continual polishing they've lost a bit in depth. I'll re-profile these with the addition of a little milliput and a jewellers file before they go for re-casting.

It's close! Graham.

Hurg first cast.

The first cast of the HRG came out a few days ago and it needs more work. The side louvres have moved at some point. Probably the fact that I didn't cement them in place prior to filling with modelling paste and constant handling caused the lower louvre on each side to be pushed in a few thou. Not a lot but enough to spoil the thing some what. No doubt this has caused a few bubbles on the upper edges of the louvres. The only way to rectify this is to cut them out and refit them. The tile spacers that make up the louvres are made of a hardish plastic and seem a little tricky to shape. I'll be taking a mould of some of these spacers with a view to re-producing them in resin which will be much easier to shape and trim.

Overal the shape of the car is very pleasing. Panel lines have turned out nice and sharp and most of the detail is good. The spats also need a little work allowing them to fit with a much closer gap.

Graham.

Gathering of the Clans

I was running this build in the Slot forum, but putting pictures up there is a pain and all the backslapping can get a bit tiresome, so I thought I'd join in with the other proper scratchbuilders on here.The roof had been glued on last time on SF and since then I have filled the windscreen and side window apertures with Milliput and shaped the glass areas up. Unless I do this I can't be sure the final aperture shape will be right when I come to make the vac-form patterns for the glass areas.

I also couldn't resist cutting out those weird dips where the Clan's headlights go.

I still need to shorten the roof slightly which will also enable the b-pillars to be fined down a bit.

The value of pear wood is shown here by the very sharp edges that can be held and the fact that the panel lines have been cut in exactly the same way I would engrave CIBATool/Renshape carving block, which I will use next time to show it's use. Pity CIBATool is a bit pricey, though.

Only once the main body is finally shaped and its typical GRP edges radii put on can I put on a pre-made back window area because it is equally recessed all the way round and it would be very difficult to carve in a recess, when it could just be prefabricated, set in and just cleaned up.

More on the Aero

Well a slight delay in taking the mould of the Hurg has resulted in a little bit of history popping up from no less than the HRG Society. Don Courtney, the editor of the HRG Gazette, contacted me requesting a little feature on the model for their magazine, which i'm more than happy to do. There's no better people to talk to than those who have an intimate knowledge of any subject, and in the case of the Aero, Don and a gentleman by the name of Ian Dussek have been very helpful. A request for any information regarding colours, details and any available competition history has been met with quite a lot of enthusiasm and the recent email recieved from Ian threw up a lot of interesting points. The fact that the competition cars were all painted a shade of British Racing Green comes as no real surprise but some of the details i'd added to the model proved to be incorrect. Seperate side lights for example just never happened and the boot lid handle was never on the car either. The boot release mechanism was an internal afair. So some very slight mods to make before I take a mould, but nothing major. The photographs show the model painted up in what I thought it might be. More of a Moss green than BRG, but it shows the shape well. The aluminium strip has been added to the hood to give the impression of the stitching and once a rough coat of paint has been applied, hopefully it should have the fabric look and I can take a mould of that too.

In the next day or so, i'm hoping that the quarter bumpers have been cast and that I can make some headway with production.

Graham.

A quandary

Some on here know that my passion in cars is for some vintage and the wonderfully eclectic sports/ racing cars of the 50s and 60s.

As I've owned a few in my time, I thought it was about time I made some.
Now I like to make masters from which kits are made, but I can hardly dictate what my clients do, so the quandary is...do I get all mucked up with the rubber and resin and all that stinking frantic process or make one-offs?
Well a one off has to be in balsa or vac form otherwise it's too heavy. I hate balsa wood for all the normal reasons. And I don't know of a vac former round here, so it looks like resin is the only answer, dammit!

Anyway, in the meantime, I still have to make the masters. I AM doing a balsa Trident, but I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that it is NOT viable as the glass area is too big for a fragile balsa model. I'll soldier on with it just to see if an aluminium top half might be possible as a strengthener.
For the other models I plan, it will be masters all the way.


My own Trident Venturer V6

An Elva Mk III in bare aluminium



The very cute Unipower GT, Mini powered from the back
The absolutely gorgeous Rejo Mk 3/4 of 1959. EVEN prettier than a Lola Mk1


That should keep me busy and I'll probably document the builds on here, with Graham's permission.


Martin