THE CHESSINGTON POST (memories of a Brabham builder)

[JamesB]

Great craftsmanship!

Thanks!!!

Well, have I been Idle?
Nooooope.... stay tuned for big new stuff (wll, not that big, I meant great)
Today or tomorrow, you'll like.

[Racing1]

Very good job James..and in 1/43... ....

[daveyman]

Looking forward to the update.

[JamesB]

Thanks guys, I was posting while you did
Here I go.
The three protos kept evolving. How hard is to be accurate and smooth at this scale...

Just case I did nt say, these are :
Mk1: big radiator exits, early season
Mk2: Smaller vents, little gills at rear sidpod at right. No front radiator yet. Monaco....
Mk3: The late season car. No radiator exits on sidepods, small nose radiator. Add teh protruding engine inlet and ypu get the Detroit/Canada car.






Internal walls...




Comparing with the Tameo. Nice model, but nose and cockpit were way too big.



The final cut...

And getting them ready to make moulds...

Time to pour....


And then the joy to see them out of the mould...











The available gearboxes were nt great, so I made my own one.










Also rims and wheel uprights.



So that's it so far, soon, painting of the samples. I'll post a pic of the protos and the siblings later.
It's nice to know that the proto, you no longer need to keep as gold. I broke the rear corners of the Mk3... three times!!! and did not find the bits so had to cut from another one, to repair.
Thanks for watching mates
J

[daveyman]

Nice work James, resin casting looks very clean. I like it.

[Steffen_T]

1/43 is a really difficult scale to work with.
I am looking forward to see how your 3 BT53's will look once they are finished.

[JamesB]

Thanks mates
Things should evolve quite quickly now...
Also loking fwd to see an accurate BT53. A car always obsessed me, I must admit!

[Jeff]

Great scrachbuilding James

[JamesB]

Hi. I am conscious that "quite quicly now" in my case seems to be longer than for rest of mortals.
Ahem, my apollogies.
No time for updates, then no time to post updates.
But well, at last we have some stuff to show.
Well, some replicas in resin of my masters, then some repairs (ocasional bubbles) and then some chosen ones to prime and paint.
I tried Zero for first time. Nice, but don't suit my needs at this scale. I find the need of clear coating before decals a bit annoying.
So I went againt back to trusty Tamiya Acrylics with lacquer thinner.
For the record,I used again the old spraywork Tamiya airbrush, the plastic one!!
Unfortunately, I did not take care of taking pics of the masked stuff.
Masking is a nightmare. Then you may do the white with ust decals, OK. But on this car, either you have sculpted radiator outlets on the sidpods or the nose. So unless it's a flat thing, no decals please. And not quite sure of combinig the two options.
That said, I went for decal for the windshield.
Pics come along
The masking went not that bad!
Meanwhile, some PC work for decals...




Yes, putting all those pinstripes on is tricky. But you learn with experience. The second one went easier.








I like the result. At last the car looks as in the real pic. Can't wait to see it fully finished...









Thanks for looking!
J

[Jeff]

Brabham beauties - great work James