Post by richardh on Mar 27, 2017 23:07:09 GMT -5
04 August 2017 : Have reposted photos using imgbb.com as host - made some changes and cut out some of the stuff which I don't think needed.
ITALIAN FACE-OFF
Building the Ferrari 246 and Maserati 250F in wood
Seeing some excellent and inspiring builds on this forum has prompted me to move further back into an era of racing of the 50's. Yes - those were amazing machines of the day. I have been trying to figure out a simple way of building a chassis in wood to house the running gear of F1 cars of the 1950's so that the motor is at the front in order to get a fuller driver figure into the cockpit. I have never got on well with the "springy" driveshaft in commercial front engined cars and often wondered why we could not do this with a half shaft and simple pinions.
Ferrari 246 (1959)
One of the problems I have encountered in building this car is lack of decent drawings. Importing the "blueprints" that are available on the web I find there are quite a number of inconsistencies. The plans do not actually line up with the side views and even the lengths of the side views are different to the plans! Maybe it is just me but I decided to use what I could and improvise where I thought areas could be improved. Looking at photos of the real cars very closely I also determined that some of the available drawings dod not seem to capture the true nose shapes - which I consider so important in trying to get that realism into the model.
I am enclosing an image of the three cars I want to build for the Ferrari part of this exercise - including the somewhat ugly duckling short nose that was raced at Monaco - it was too interesting to ignore! However - I would like to ask some advice from the experts please - given there are two conflicting wheelbases I have found - and would like to have a simple guide to the following please:
Wheelbase - is it 2160mm or 2220mm (67.5mm or 69.4mm at 1/32 scale) ?
What height should the car be from the ground ?
What size wheels ? (I have 20x6mm and 22x6mm spoked coming in from Pendles)
Using the available plans and illustrations I modified what I thought needed modifications and created my own profiles and outlines for the scratch build. Also I find useful in planning the wood components, sizes and how it all fits together. Of course quite a few on the fly revisions are made as we go along. I have cheated a bit with the short nose - and pushed the nose out a bit from the real car to help get that guide to sit behind - which will need a different guide holder to the other cars as the nose is still really short. The blue shaded areas indicate the wood that forms part of the running chassis and the lighter tan colour is part of the body. These are shaped together and the blue part will eventually be sprayed along with the top part thus forming a part of the "chassis". I hope that all the suspension items can be mounted onto the "blue" section of the wood components.
The plans above show what dimensions I am currently using. It also shows in profile #2 if the motor is tilted up a true 1mm offset can be achieved using a white Slot.it gear. The position of the shaft allows quite a bit extra for the body and legs of the driver to be seen.
Some current photos of the build:-
The aluminium channel is very useful - 16mm and just wider than the 050 motor. Really useful for making guides and motor support. Alongside are the two side components that will form the main top body. Before gluing the central wood section the nose is fromed and shaped then the top 16mm wide strip is glued between and then all of it is shaped on the grinder before fine tuning with hand sanding. With the shape of the nose already in place it is easier to start getting the final 3d of the car to work. Would love to figure out how to do rivets and body panel lines....
angles not set yet - will be done when sides are glued
The half-shaft assembly. It is adjustable for height via the two front screws.
The shaft carrier is split in two otherwise you can't get the pinions off (or rather I can't see how you get them off!) The shaft is from an old motor that I found if you take a big enough hammer the guts of the old motor come off quite easily.
04 August 2017
A long delay in getting this posted - work was done months ago but got interrupted by my real day job.
Completing the bodywork
Now the bodies starting to take shape. All holes for suspension are ready.
Underside view of bodies.
Now things are getting down to detail level. Suspension parts made (paper clips, flattened at ends), springs are bolts shaped and drilled, mirrors are aluminium rod drilled first then shaped, cut and the face sanded. Works quite well. Unable to make my own steering wheels despite several attempts.
Primer coat done. All of what you see is shaped from beech including the little air scoops which I do admit are a bit oversized!
Final coat on the short nose Monaco body. Immense Miniatures now has a Phil Hill head which is great!
Thanks for viewing,
Richard
ITALIAN FACE-OFF
Building the Ferrari 246 and Maserati 250F in wood
Seeing some excellent and inspiring builds on this forum has prompted me to move further back into an era of racing of the 50's. Yes - those were amazing machines of the day. I have been trying to figure out a simple way of building a chassis in wood to house the running gear of F1 cars of the 1950's so that the motor is at the front in order to get a fuller driver figure into the cockpit. I have never got on well with the "springy" driveshaft in commercial front engined cars and often wondered why we could not do this with a half shaft and simple pinions.
Ferrari 246 (1959)
One of the problems I have encountered in building this car is lack of decent drawings. Importing the "blueprints" that are available on the web I find there are quite a number of inconsistencies. The plans do not actually line up with the side views and even the lengths of the side views are different to the plans! Maybe it is just me but I decided to use what I could and improvise where I thought areas could be improved. Looking at photos of the real cars very closely I also determined that some of the available drawings dod not seem to capture the true nose shapes - which I consider so important in trying to get that realism into the model.
I am enclosing an image of the three cars I want to build for the Ferrari part of this exercise - including the somewhat ugly duckling short nose that was raced at Monaco - it was too interesting to ignore! However - I would like to ask some advice from the experts please - given there are two conflicting wheelbases I have found - and would like to have a simple guide to the following please:
Wheelbase - is it 2160mm or 2220mm (67.5mm or 69.4mm at 1/32 scale) ?
What height should the car be from the ground ?
What size wheels ? (I have 20x6mm and 22x6mm spoked coming in from Pendles)
Using the available plans and illustrations I modified what I thought needed modifications and created my own profiles and outlines for the scratch build. Also I find useful in planning the wood components, sizes and how it all fits together. Of course quite a few on the fly revisions are made as we go along. I have cheated a bit with the short nose - and pushed the nose out a bit from the real car to help get that guide to sit behind - which will need a different guide holder to the other cars as the nose is still really short. The blue shaded areas indicate the wood that forms part of the running chassis and the lighter tan colour is part of the body. These are shaped together and the blue part will eventually be sprayed along with the top part thus forming a part of the "chassis". I hope that all the suspension items can be mounted onto the "blue" section of the wood components.
The plans above show what dimensions I am currently using. It also shows in profile #2 if the motor is tilted up a true 1mm offset can be achieved using a white Slot.it gear. The position of the shaft allows quite a bit extra for the body and legs of the driver to be seen.
Some current photos of the build:-
The aluminium channel is very useful - 16mm and just wider than the 050 motor. Really useful for making guides and motor support. Alongside are the two side components that will form the main top body. Before gluing the central wood section the nose is fromed and shaped then the top 16mm wide strip is glued between and then all of it is shaped on the grinder before fine tuning with hand sanding. With the shape of the nose already in place it is easier to start getting the final 3d of the car to work. Would love to figure out how to do rivets and body panel lines....
angles not set yet - will be done when sides are glued
The half-shaft assembly. It is adjustable for height via the two front screws.
The shaft carrier is split in two otherwise you can't get the pinions off (or rather I can't see how you get them off!) The shaft is from an old motor that I found if you take a big enough hammer the guts of the old motor come off quite easily.
04 August 2017
A long delay in getting this posted - work was done months ago but got interrupted by my real day job.
Completing the bodywork
Now the bodies starting to take shape. All holes for suspension are ready.
Underside view of bodies.
Now things are getting down to detail level. Suspension parts made (paper clips, flattened at ends), springs are bolts shaped and drilled, mirrors are aluminium rod drilled first then shaped, cut and the face sanded. Works quite well. Unable to make my own steering wheels despite several attempts.
Primer coat done. All of what you see is shaped from beech including the little air scoops which I do admit are a bit oversized!
Final coat on the short nose Monaco body. Immense Miniatures now has a Phil Hill head which is great!
Thanks for viewing,
Richard