|
Post by David Lawson on Dec 28, 2012 3:46:24 GMT -5
The BRM grand prix story started at the 1950 Pena Rhin Grand Prix at Pedralbes in Spain when for the very first time the team ventured abroad for some competitive motor racing rather than the couple of meaningless sprints they had previously tackled with the car in Britain. Reg Parnell was assigned to No1 and although his race was only to last two laps before supercharger failure, Peter Walker in the sister car managed 33 laps before his gearbox lost its oil. This baptism of fire typified the trials and tribulations that BRM suffered in their early years with poor management, poor suppliers, inexperienced personnel and a highly complex design of car. The British love glorious failure and I have always loved the V16 and the shambolic story of the team so I thought it was about time I built my slot car of Parnell's car as it ran that day in Spain. Just for the record the artist impression at the beginning of this post is the car as it appeared at Silverstone, my car will carry the correct numbers and driver identification colour flashes on the nose and tail. 2012 has been my year for balsa carving and a couple of weeks ago I made a start on my balsa 1950 BRM Mk1 No 1. In Doug Nye's BRM "bible" (as recommended by Mark in the book section) there is a works BRM drawing from 1949 that shows all the curve radii on all the cross sections that the bodyshop used to create the panels. I carefully traced this and then enlarged it to scale. I couldn't take the book to the printers shop as they are not prepared to allow photocopying of copyright material and anyway I enjoyed doing the drawing. I made up all the cross sections from the drawings as well as the side and plan elevations into a balsa "skeleton" which I then infilled with balsa and shaped to the cross sections. I don't normally work this way and just work by eye from photos but thought it would be interesting to try it this way for a change, it also was fun to be working from the original BRM drawings. After a day or two working on the skeleton the shaped bodyshell was complete but before I could continue with detailing it I have been struck down by flu so haven't touched the balsa master for a couple of weeks, hopefully I will carry on next week when I've shifted my chest infection. I will update this thread when progress and shaking off the flu allows. David
|
|
|
Post by Mark Huber on Dec 28, 2012 7:01:19 GMT -5
David,
Your construction method sounds intriguing; I hope you took progress pictures that you will share at a later date.
Get well soon!
|
|
|
Post by David Lawson on Nov 23, 2013 8:14:52 GMT -5
Just 11 months later here is an update to this build. I have resumed working on it as this will be my car for the 10th anniversary Earlybirds meeting at Wolverhampton in March 2014. This is the balsa shell roughed out and primed so that I can look at the flaws in my carving and start to refine the shape. David
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2013 5:01:44 GMT -5
Lovely work David, looking forward to seeing it
|
|
|
Post by Brian on Nov 24, 2013 15:00:41 GMT -5
I'll be watching your build with great interest David. What a wonderful story about your choice of BRM. Fascinating starting with a piece of balsa and carving your car body from scratch, a true scratch build. I am in the process of building a pit lane for my track in balsa (Amongst my other projects, my Matra and detailing my boarded track)and gather from my meager experience it must be a very delicate operation carving the material. Can you use for example, milliput when filling in/modelling the body? Look forward to seeing your progress, can you include some of your sketches and calculations please.
Hope your feeling better soon.
Thank you for sharing.
Brian
|
|
|
Post by Peter Seager-Thomas on Nov 24, 2013 15:59:21 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by David Lawson on Nov 25, 2013 3:27:44 GMT -5
Here is the drawing that I used to make the balsa skeleton for the bodyshell. As I said in my first post this is a tracing from an original BRM works drawing that I rescaled to 1/32nd scale. I cut the profiles out and Pritt Stick them to thin balsa sheet which I cut out and sand to shape and then glue together in a similar manner to building a Keil Kraft balsa wood plane. As Brian has said balsa can be tricky to work with as it is soft, so far the shell is all wood but as I refine the shape I might have to use Isopon body filler for small repairs but you could use Milliput instead. I hadn't seen that Autosport Forum thread on the BRM but I use the Doug Nye trilogy on BRM as my guide for all things Bourne. An expensive set of books but superb in every way. David
|
|
|
Post by Brian on Nov 25, 2013 6:54:18 GMT -5
Awesome, thanks David. Message to self, stick scratch build "Balsa" to Bucket list.
|
|
|
Post by Mark Huber on Nov 25, 2013 9:06:26 GMT -5
Here is the drawing that I used to make the balsa skeleton for the bodyshell. As I said in my first post this is a tracing from an original BRM works drawing that I rescaled to 1/32nd scale. I cut the profiles out and Pritt Stick them to thin balsa sheet which I cut out and sand to shape and then glue together in a similar manner to building a Keil Kraft balsa wood plane. As Brian has said balsa can be tricky to work with as it is soft, so far the shell is all wood but as I refine the shape I might have to use Isopon body filler for small repairs but you could use Milliput instead. I hadn't seen that Autosport Forum thread on the BRM but I use the Doug Nye trilogy on BRM as my guide for all things Bourne. An expensive set of books but superb in every way. David David, Isn't it great that you can work right from the real blue print/drawing for this car? Wonderful! (I suppose I answered my own question).
|
|