HRH and his DB6 Volante

I've been asked by a number of people if I have any plans to build a model of the DB6 Volante shown below. I guess this particular Aston is now almost as famous as another Aston driven by a Mr Bond. The simple answer is no. The DB6 in my opinion is where Aston Martin started to lose the spirit, where once they were proper sports cars that eventually were turned into four seater tourers. They're not even proper four seaters. I certainly wouldn't want to travel any distance in the back of one of these.To my eye, the DB6 has some very awkward angles and the wheelbase being four inches longer than the DB5 makes it just not right. The depth of the car from the waistline down was increased so that delicate svelt look has gone. Not for me i'm afraid chaps. It simply does not move me.

Graham.

An unusual one. A Mallock U2 Mk18 by M.R.Field

A while back I wondered about doing a model of a Clubmans' Formula car. I love the idea of a front engined racing car and I'm a complete "clubby" racing fan.

I phoned Mallock asking for leading dimensions of a Mk 18, the most numerous Mk. of U2 and was immediately asked if I'd make a model for Ray Mallock's 60th birthday. I was delighted to help them out.

I made the majority of the master from 60 thou. plasticard given to me by a customer as offcuts.

I then did the usual mouldmaking and moulding in resin, just slush moulding.

The model needed to be a working one so I made a brass chassis for it and used an HO type motor.

I used a Scalextric guide as Ray's track is Scalex in his loft. It seems he's a real slot car nut! Not bad for a Le Mans winner and famed preparer of racing teams.

The final model with special bits added to make it a model of Ray's actual car was collected by Richard Mallock and his wife on two Triumph motorcycles. Now that's style!

I hope this model should encourage people to make unusual stuff. At least it can be run on your home track with nobody telling you otherwise.

Hurg with the right wheels

With the louvres being cut out and refitted four or five times, i'm reasonably happy with them now and the few bubbles that appeared in the first cast have been sorted. So it's ready to go to be vacuum cast.Some weeks ago I was contacted by the editor of the HRG Society gazette who asked me if I could do a little write up on the development of the model. I duly obliged and a copy of the gazette arrived yesterday. They have been most helpful as far as history and detail of the car and one of the questions I asked was the size of the wheels. As i've mentioned in previous posts the wheels fitted were totally incorrect as far as pattern and size went. So just before it goes off to have the two part mould made, I thought i'd fit a set of 18 inchers made by Peter Seager-Thomas.
Apparently both 16 and 18 inch wheels were fitted to the Aero and I must say that the difference in having the right wheels on any model can make a huge difference. Very vintage in appearance and very skinny. Just how they should be.
I hope the next time I show it will be the final version and ready to go on sale. It's certainly looking very much the part. Form an orderly queue here! As ever, by clicking on the photo, you'll get a bigger image. Well worth it.

Graham.

More on the GT

Well i've been offline for around three weeks due to a malware attack on my PC. Twice in seven days! I managed to sort it the first time around but the second attack pretty much wiped out everything. Photographs, artwork for the photo etched parts, documents, the lot. So I had no alternative than to let a specialist have the machine and sort it all out. Luckily he managed to retrieve everything I thought i'd lost which is a huge relief.

The GT is now more or less as I want it although the PC problem has causes a little setback. One more cast part to make then everything can go off to be produced. The bumpers have been re-profiled as the constant polishing had thinned out the lobes at each end. The glazing formers are all done and each window fits very snugly apart from the rear screen. This for some strange reason is coming out with too much of a curve which at the moment i'm struggling to understand why. The dreaded headlamp covers turned out to be fairly easy to make this time round and fitted at the first attempt.

Decals for this one are also proving to be a problem as the guy who's been making them for me up till now has decided he does'nt want to carry on and he's not even answering emails. Oh well

The plan is to produce the kit in two versions. The 1959 Le Mans car which had scoops around the brake cooling ducts and an air inlet on the front offside wing just forward of the door. The other veriosn will be a road/race car with decals for the two Essex Racing Stable cars, 17 and 18 TVX. The colours for all of them of course are a source of mystery as ever, but they will all be varying shades of green. What esle did you expect?

Graham.

Ackermann Steering

The Ackermann steering principal was invented by the German ( no surprise there!) Carriage Company Lankensperger in 1817 and then patented by their agent Rudolph Ackermann in England. Why this system was worked out and applied to a horse and cart, I really have no idea. But the basic principal is that when steering wheels turn, the inner wheel should scribe an arc of a smaller radius than the outer. To achieve this, the steering arms are angled inwards and by projecting a line backwards from both arms, the point where they meet should be dead centre of the rear axle. This creates a differential and causes the inner wheel to turn slightly more than the wheel on the outside. I have endeavoured to produce a unit to fit a slot car chassis. In particular the PCS 32 chassis although I guess it will fit a Slot Classic unit in just the same way. The unit is produced using the trusty photo etching method and is made from .55mm brass. It comprises four parts as shown. The main cross piece which is folded in two planes to form a channel section and carries the four "wishbones". Two uprights are fitted into .55mm holes in the ends of the wishbones, with the whole piece being held together by the tie bar. A tab at each end of the tie bar is bent over to keep everything as one.

The uprights need to have the axle "bearings" soldered in and these will be made up from two 3mm lenghths of 3mm o/d brass tube. The stub axles are being made up from steel.

The complete unit moves very freely. An important point in any trail steer unit, but there is no slack, with the whole piece being quite a precision item.

How it performs, I have yet to find out, but if it works half as good as it looks, i'll be very pleased.

Graham.

Small parts.

The GT is now starting to appear as I want it to. The art that was put into the original car is not easy to replicate. All the major styling points can be included, but without that arty ingredient the model will look almost but not quite there. I've been messing around with this one for getting on for five years now, so I guess it's about time it was finished. As it's my personal favourite of all the DB Astons, there'll be an extra bit of finnessing. The photo above shows the patterns for the rear lamp lenses. I was introduced to pearwood some months ago, but never really did anything with it. But the delights of pearwood are now obvious. It carves easily and has a close and very consistent grain giving a finish way above anything else i've used. The lenses themselves are approximately 7.5 mm high by a shade over 2 mm wide. There is a horizontal cut around halfway up that hopefully will take photo etched trim piece. The particular small part may be pushing things a bit far. We'll see how it turns out.

The glazing formers shown above were made from pearwood too. These have had only handwork with 320 grade wet and dry apart from the single cutline at the B post point. The part on the extreme left is the second of the two tail lamp lenses. The final shaping and detailing takes place before the piece is cut off and trimmed. My next step is to experiment with clear casting resins adding a touch of red pigment. This particular process is very wasteful of materials as the smallest amount of resin I can mix accurately is 25ml. Of this i'll probably use 0.001% and throw the rest away.

The shot above shows just how the GT is now looking. Sometimes when I look at it and see something that just isn't right, I can't quite work out why or where. With everything in place around the front and looking very balanced, from one or two angles it still didn't do it for me. I found it eventually and added 1 mm to the top of the screen extending the headrail forward. The difference is quite amazing.

Graham.

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.