Car Reconstruction Project

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Session Fifteen

This is a comparison shot showing the restored/recreated version of the two engine modules for the grey car with castings of the way they looked originally.
One thing I forgot to do was account for shrinkage! Halfway through the project, I noticed that the rod was MUCH thinner on the castings. While I'm 100% sure that I got the same rod that was used in the master, I did not scale it accordingly. Oh well. Probably won't be noticeable at all.

This is a close up comparison shot of the bottom engine plate module. I salvaged the kit bashed part on the left hand side from a resin casting I made of the original. I cleaned it up a lot, sanded a few parts smooth, but tried to retain as much of the original piece as possible. The quarter dome on top looks like it was originally just a chunk of clay thrown on the master. I puttied it up, sanded it smooth, and put a reinforcing plate of styrene behind it.
The tubing is all plastruct parts, as is the wedge shape. The grill is a modified casting of a kit bash part. I got that from a pal in Denmark.

This is the most radically rebuilt part on the car so far. I salvaged a couple of pieces from the casting, namely the conical shape over on the right hand side.
The most time consuming part on this panel was that pyramid shaped piece in the middle. i tried extracting it from the casting, but it was really badly warped, and in pretty bad shape. I ended up sanding down the casting, then rebuilding the sides with shims of styrene to get a perfect, smooth side. It then took a few rounds of putty and primer to hide the seam lines.
Once the Pyramid was rebuilt, I added on all the strip styrene. for the sake of time and sanity, I sacrificed a bit in accuracy. A lot of the strips were cut, sanded, and reshaped as closely as I could get it, and others were just stock strip styrene cut to the proper length.
A couple of tasks remain on this part. I still have to finish the putty on the ends of the rod, and I have to add a couple of kit bash greeblies to the pyramid. I'm just going to use some nondescript parts from any old kit I can find. I don't hold any hope of finding the original pieces used.

Here's the knob from the grey car all cleaned up and mounted for molding. This goes in between the two transmission/turbine modules on the underside.

These are the transmission/turbine modules that will go under the winged car. I ended up extracting the pieces from the original grey undercarriage also, just to make sure I had my bases covered. I realized that a lot of the bubbles in the castings can be fixed in the molds, simply by pulling out the blobs in the mold with tweezers. With both of these sets molded, I'll be able to cherry pick the best pieces.

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Session Fifteen
	This is a comparison shot showing the restored/recreated version of the two engine modules for the grey car with castings of the way they looked originally. One thing I forgot to do was account for shrinkage! Halfway through the project, I noticed that the rod was MUCH thinner on the castings. While I'm 100% sure that I got the same rod that was used in the master, I did not scale it accordingly. Oh well. Probably won't be noticeable at all.
	This is a close up comparison shot of the bottom engine plate module. I salvaged the kit bashed part on the left hand side from a resin casting I made of the original. I cleaned it up a lot, sanded a few parts smooth, but tried to retain as much of the original piece as possible. The quarter dome on top looks like it was originally just a chunk of clay thrown on the master. I puttied it up, sanded it smooth, and put a reinforcing plate of styrene behind it. The tubing is all plastruct parts, as is the wedge shape. The grill is a modified casting of a kit bash part. I got that from a pal in Denmark.
	This is the most radically rebuilt part on the car so far. I salvaged a couple of pieces from the casting, namely the conical shape over on the right hand side. The most time consuming part on this panel was that pyramid shaped piece in the middle. i tried extracting it from the casting, but it was really badly warped, and in pretty bad shape. I ended up sanding down the casting, then rebuilding the sides with shims of styrene to get a perfect, smooth side. It then took a few rounds of putty and primer to hide the seam lines. Once the Pyramid was rebuilt, I added on all the strip styrene. for the sake of time and sanity, I sacrificed a bit in accuracy. A lot of the strips were cut, sanded, and reshaped as closely as I could get it, and others were just stock strip styrene cut to the proper length. A couple of tasks remain on this part. I still have to finish the putty on the ends of the rod, and I have to add a couple of kit bash greeblies to the pyramid. I'm just going to use some nondescript parts from any old kit I can find. I don't hold any hope of finding the original pieces used.
	Here's the knob from the grey car all cleaned up and mounted for molding. This goes in between the two transmission/turbine modules on the underside.
	These are the transmission/turbine modules that will go under the winged car. I ended up extracting the pieces from the original grey undercarriage also, just to make sure I had my bases covered. I realized that a lot of the bubbles in the castings can be fixed in the molds, simply by pulling out the blobs in the mold with tweezers. With both of these sets molded, I'll be able to cherry pick the best pieces.