Car Reconstruction Project

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Session Eight
Been a while since my last update. However, lots of progress has been made. The yellow car is very near to completion, while the grey car still taunts me with it's complicated rear engines. My plan is to make a mold of the engine parts so that I can have them for reference, then just sand the whole thing down prior to molding. I'll cast the engine details as separate pieces, and let the builder install them.

Lots of work has been done on the grey car, though it's not immediately obvious. Notice the areas around the wings, and the wings themselves. All cleaned up, and smoothed down.

Here's another shot of the grey car, showing the clean up. The canopy is pretty much done, as is the bulk of the carriage. The only significant work remaining on this car is the reconstruction of the engines in the back and the underside detail. Now that I think about it, that's actually a lot of work. However, the body work is mostly done. I'm really happy with the way the body turned out. Very clean and pretty.

This picture shows how much of the undercarriage detail for the yellow car is finished. At the top is the machined disk that was made for me by a super talented machinist. He also made the square core rod pieces in the picture. They're made out of aluminum. There are only two details remaining for the undercarriage; a strip of styrene, and a weird little greeblie. I'm probably going to end up molding it without the greeblie, then adding it in later... if I ever find it.

This is a shot of the pump assemblies that I'm working on. I've used Bondo spot putty to fill in the hollow areas. This is really just a first pass. Gotta go in and smooth things out next.

Underside of the yellow car, all done. No more boogers around the edges, or underneath the intake in the front. The curves are all pretty symmetric. There's a few minor bumps around the curves, but I'm going to leave them. Let the builder worry about those.

This picture didn't really come out to well, but the important thing to notice is that the headlights are all fixed. I was going to leave them alone, because I figured "why bother", but a sudden burst of energy got me working on them. The drivers side lamp needed some serious work, as it was pretty lumpy and uneven. After a few dabs of bondo, a few coats of paint, and a lot of sanding, they turned out pretty well. I also did some touch up work on the trunk and hood. Other than that, the only thing that remains for this chassis is a good wetsanding.

I had a real stroke of good luck recently when a friend of mine stumbled on a bunch of car parts at a Hollywood effects shop. One of the pieces he discovered was another casting of the undercarriage of the "winged" car. While the white casting is also in pretty bad shape, it is a bit better than my original. Namely, there are significantly less bubbles in the transmission halves that are seen adjacent to the cars "engines". I'm going to either mold these pristine transmissions, or just cut them out of this casting and incorporate them into my new master.

This is a closer shot of the new transmissions.

Session Eight Been a while since my last update. However, lots of progress has been made. The yellow car is very near to completion, while the grey car still taunts me with it's complicated rear engines. My plan is to make a mold of the engine parts so that I can have them for reference, then just sand the whole thing down prior to molding. I'll cast the engine details as separate pieces, and let the builder install them.
	Lots of work has been done on the grey car, though it's not immediately obvious. Notice the areas around the wings, and the wings themselves. All cleaned up, and smoothed down.
	Here's another shot of the grey car, showing the clean up. The canopy is pretty much done, as is the bulk of the carriage. The only significant work remaining on this car is the reconstruction of the engines in the back and the underside detail. Now that I think about it, that's actually a lot of work. However, the body work is mostly done. I'm really happy with the way the body turned out. Very clean and pretty.
	This picture shows how much of the undercarriage detail for the yellow car is finished. At the top is the machined disk that was made for me by a super talented machinist. He also made the square core rod pieces in the picture. They're made out of aluminum. There are only two details remaining for the undercarriage; a strip of styrene, and a weird little greeblie. I'm probably going to end up molding it without the greeblie, then adding it in later... if I ever find it.
	This is a shot of the pump assemblies that I'm working on. I've used Bondo spot putty to fill in the hollow areas. This is really just a first pass. Gotta go in and smooth things out next.
	Underside of the yellow car, all done. No more boogers around the edges, or underneath the intake in the front. The curves are all pretty symmetric. There's a few minor bumps around the curves, but I'm going to leave them. Let the builder worry about those.
	This picture didn't really come out to well, but the important thing to notice is that the headlights are all fixed. I was going to leave them alone, because I figured "why bother", but a sudden burst of energy got me working on them. The drivers side lamp needed some serious work, as it was pretty lumpy and uneven. After a few dabs of bondo, a few coats of paint, and a lot of sanding, they turned out pretty well. I also did some touch up work on the trunk and hood. Other than that, the only thing that remains for this chassis is a good wetsanding.
	I had a real stroke of good luck recently when a friend of mine stumbled on a bunch of car parts at a Hollywood effects shop. One of the pieces he discovered was another casting of the undercarriage of the "winged" car. While the white casting is also in pretty bad shape, it is a bit better than my original. Namely, there are significantly less bubbles in the transmission halves that are seen adjacent to the cars "engines". I'm going to either mold these pristine transmissions, or just cut them out of this casting and incorporate them into my new master.
	This is a closer shot of the new transmissions.