Twice is one too many....

I'm big on "mockups".....Whether its a simple cardboard cutout, or a complex design. A pattern is a little more work up front, but saves a lot time and work in the long run........

I hate doing things TWICE!!!

I had several scale related issues using the Revell kit as a reference. The most obvious being the tires and wheels. While some of it was certainly my own calculations, I'll lay most of the blame on the source.

I was never completely happy with the size of the tires on the dragster, but I could live with it, and never gave it much more thought after it was done. When I started on the wheels for the F/C, I built some mockups to eyeball the overall look and size, and this also allowed me to join all the major components together for the first time. Everything looked fine........kinda...



I had actually made the mockups slightly larger than the finished size. When I laidout the size for the final cut, I was using the tires from the kit for the overall dimensions.

Fast forward.....cut, turn, sand...............these are looking good!!!!!

The first time I put it all together I new something wasn't right. After some pretty simple calculations, I realized they were just too small, and there wasn't much I could do about it other than make another set.....damn...

I also started doing some more research on this era F/C, and found out they were still a year or so away from running a much larger tire. Seems that it was a major modification to the frame and cage to get a bigger tire in there. That didn't make me feel any better about it though.

As a side note....A good friend and fellow model builder talked me into using a different substrate called HDU. High Density Urethane Foam. I was against the idea from the very beginning.........

"I'm a woodworker for Christ sakes"

just think of the time you will save.......

" I don't care about time"

just think how light they will be......

"I don't care about weight, it don't have to fly!!"

here's a bunch of free stock, in case you change your mind......

"Hmmmm....okay, I'll try it"

Never again.....My shop looked like Daytona Beach by the time I was done turning them. When HDU is cut or sanded it's not sawdust its sand, and sand has a way of getting into everything! It also had some kind of weird reaction to the automotive primer that i used on them. It wasn't a chemical reaction, but the foam soaked in the solvents and bubbled up and did some weird stuff for quite a while.
It's not a complete loss though. I've got another project that just waiting for some oversized tires and wheels......I guess in the end I did save some time, and just think how light they'll be!!!!