The past few months I've been spending my time with a few side projects...everything from resin casting 1:87 scale rail road car parts clear up to an 1/8th scale behemoth.
On Sept. 19th of 2017 fellow modeler and scratch builder Bob Hayes suffered a stroke at home and 2 more the next day in ICU which has left him with limited use of his Right hand. At the time of his strokes, he was scratch building an 1/8th scale '56 Ford pick up........Bob has asked me to help him finish up this build, which I consider to be an honor.
For those of you who are not familiar with Bob, he scratch builds street -n- strip vehicles, mostly of the 60's era, in 1/8th scale. He's also a contributor to Alumilte resin and fellow resident of Topeka, Ks. Bob more or less told me that everything I knew about resin pouring was wrong and proceeded to teach me the right way.....its still a learning process.
There is very little, if anything at all in 1/8th scale out there market wise or after market wise....thus every thing has to be scratch built. This build includes products from Aluilite ,K&S Metals and Evergreen Plastics as well as 3-D printed parts.
The fallowing pictures are from Bob's Fotki acct. as it appeared while he was working on it prior to his stroke.
Resin cast 427 Ford ...Bob created the master
The pulleys Bob cut on his lathe.
Interior floor is K&S Brass ....transmission hump soldered in place.
A real rubber shifter boot made of Alumilite Flex soft urethane casting rubber.
Functional 4 link rear suspension made from K&S Brass...resin cast Ford 9" rear axle....K&S Brass frame.
This is how I received it a couple of months ago......
Everything you see in Red is 3-D printed.....Bob worked with someone else who does 3-D Printing. From what I recall in a conversation with Bob, to get the 3-D printed interior and body parts delivered to his front door was just North of $1000.00 ...and you thought some of the 1:25th scale stuff that we deal with can get expensive. I'm pretty sure that Bob had something to do with creating the master for this body.
The tires where molded and cast by Bob using Alumilite Flex soft urethane casting rubber. Combination resin cast and K&S Brass front axle and its components.
Real wood was used for the bed floor along with K&S Brass...it even has working gate clasp and chain in the rubber hose.
Does this door make my hand look small??? This gives you an idea of just how large 1/8th scale is.
Bob wants working door hinges ...he had just started marking things on the doors when he had the stroke...this is where I pick up this project. This picture shows the pockets that the door half of the hinges will fit into. I am using a combination of Evergreen Plastics ,K&S Brass and Hillman Brass ornamental hinges to create the working door hinges. I am using actual pictures of the door hinges that where used in the 1956 Ford Pickups as a guide in building the hinges.
Don't know the K&S Brass piece #...all I can tell you is that it's 1.57mm. thick and 6.35 mm. wide. I had to take the width down some so as to be able to fit inside the Evergreen rectangle tube nice and tight. Instead of using the Dremel tool, I just used my regular grinder to remove the Brass, something that I am not accustomed to scratch building in 1:25th scale. The Brass piece is the door half of the hinge.