Okie-Cokie then ..............I'm updating a new board so I thought I might as well post it here too, not meaning to sound dismissive, because I rather feel more like I'm throwing myself to the Lions here!! - I know a few of you might be familiar with the build so please forgive me - witnessing the resulting dismemberment of my fragile confidence should make up for it. I'm still building this little monster so whilst updates should be swift initially they'll slow down to a snails pace as you catch up with me!!
Right first official post, update, or WIP, or SBS ............... take your pick.
To my mind the first glaring anomaly in this body shell is the front screens. They're just so terribly wrong, now I'd decided not to do a Factory stock build but rather what's known as Rep' stock [Replica]. This gives one the latitude of being able to stray or deviate from the Factory spec's and produce a rendition that copies a "living" example. Actually it's a bit of a get-out clause to stop the nasal rivet counters giving you a hard time!!
So here's a pic' of the real item [courtesy of Andrew Milner]................ as a kid/youth I wouldn't have given them a second glance - but in hindsight they're pretty cute and funky looking.
Notice how they have a "raised eyebrow" look to them...............
........... and that this has a distinct - "furrowed brow" look to it. The tops of the screens are just too flat, or level.
The window bead is waaay to thick and clumsy looking - and although a difficult thing to replicate this has got to go.
Which leads us to our first serious problem...............................
See that little bit of grey above the offside window beading? That is transparent resin - the whole of that top portion is wafer thin and is going to collapse as soon as I try and work the new shape of the windows - Grrrrr..already.
Anyhoo ..................... here's the other side cut out and put into something more sympathetic to its natural shape............
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It can be seen that I've managed to recover some panel work under the screen and used that"shift" to take the aperture higher into the roof-line.
Here's a pic of the dodgy side now out and with a bit of styrene infill bonded into the aperture. the windows just simply do not fit into the body equally and so I've had to try and build up the outside a bit in order to centralise them - not successfully it transpires but it is starting to "taste" like a Bedford CA now....................
I've realised that I'm only going to be able to replicate the essence of this build at best ............. more a case of refining what's already here rather than trying to remodel every single anomaly.
This is how I intend to replace the glazing beads. It's a fussy little process but yields good results if you can persevere................
Here's an example from a million years ago........
This was quite complex - especially the rear window - but it does go to show how versatile the technique is?
Meanwhile back on-topic...................... this is how simple the procedure is.................
Just florists wire - thin cyno and blu-tac .......... Oh and a goodly dollop of patience.
Here she is replete..........................
Notice that I've placed a thinner wire around the inside of the side windows ready to receive the glasswork. Perhaps other things to note are new dentals, the originals were lost when I opened the grill up - Oh, and the grills been opened up. It looks appalling in this shot, they're not quite as bad as they look here, as most of the discrepancy's are because of the wavering state of the interior. The grill has had a lot of work done do it. The slots are now level on the outside and not angled, the inside edges are square and not round and the upper slots have their single downward slope to them - I'm still very unhappy with the grille seeing as it's such an important part of the "look". But I've also got to be realistic in what I can expect from this build.
The front vents have been engraved, as has the rain gutter around the roof, the slider capping has been replaced with something just a tiny bit more prototypical and wire beading has been placed into the engraved lines to represent panel gaskets.
Absolute loads of panel sanding to try and bring things just a little more in line with what one expects to see, and I suspect there's a lot more fiddling to do yet.................
See you in a bit.................
