XE Falcon S-Pack ** so anyway 8 years later- **

That's simply amazing Shawn , what type of glue are you using for this and how long do you have to leave it before you can cut/file/sand/whatever ?

that is some very clever work mate ,you really know your stuff

Awesome work buddy, good to see a Ford being scratchbuilt.
As a Ford man i love it

Looking great Shawn. Ill be watching this one very closely

Fascinating stuff - keep up the great work!

This modeling caper is very new to me but I`m hooked, its very fascinating and interesting to watch.The detail with the progress pics is outstanding.Its a great insight to what goes on with a scratch build,thanks for posting.Its a big help to my learning in this area of modeling also.

tezza43 wrote:Truly I am gobsmacked Shawn. This is wonderful stuff, watching a model being scratch-built this way. This forum thing is great and more people my age should be joining in IMO. I hope you don't mind, but I am collecting your information for a future story in ModelArt Australia (with your permission of course). I reckon there will be many who would be interested to see it's not only military models that are scratch-built. Thanks for your updates - go get 'em mate.

Hi Terry, I don't mind in fact I think you just gave me a reason to finish the thing.

sports850 wrote:That's simply amazing Shawn , what type of glue are you using for this and how long do you have to leave it before you can cut/file/sand/whatever ?

Hi Ian, These are the glues I am using for this project. Two solvent glues and a bottle of CA.

Not through any real personal choice but thats pretty much all my LHS had at the time. When I'm using solvent glue I leave it overnight to dry otherwise the plastic is just too soft to work with. The plastruct glue can be a bit of a cow to work with because it evaporates quickly so you have to act fast.

Alright everyone, the first big problem has arisen. When I was starting to built the rear I thought something wasn't right but I just couldn't put my finger on it. I compared my progress with a picture of the rear of the real car and have discovered that I haven't put enough of a kink on the top half of the car.

You can see on the pic that it's a bit too straight compared to the real thing. So it looks like I may have to rescribe that body line and bend it in a bit more. I will remove the boot at the panel lines and hack off the bonnet (which I'm not happy with anyway) If it doesn't work I'll have to start again for the 4th time.
Fingers crossed it won't come to that.

CheersSS

watching this is just jaw droping,had a XD ford sorry I sold it, you get there with in the end there are a lot of Ford fans dribbling on the key boards watching this one,

tezza43 wrote:I reckon there will be many who would be interested to see it's not only military models that are scratch-built.

Gees Tezza thats a big call mate considering the company your in on this forum.

That is amazing work. It's interesting to see the way you are tackling it, from the plan view like that.

Oh, please, please, do mould it in resin when it's finished

Wow Shawn, this is amazing work.
I'll just pull up a seat, with the rest of AMCC and watch you do your thing.

Actually , before you go and cut the fillet to lay the C pillars further down go have a search through your local shopping center carpark ( "honest officer , I'm not wanting to steal this falcon , I just want to look at the angle of the C pillars ....") . I was looking at an XF today and I think it looks closer to what you've already built than what's in the brochure (creative editing in the brochure ???) .

could be somethin in that, when u look at the front on pic in the left of the brochure the slope doesnt seem to b as exreme as the rear view

They were nowhere near the angle in the brochure, much closer to what you've done, i think.

I Agree, find yourself one in a supermarket car park somewhere and snap a few pic's that you know aren't altered or shot with funny lenses, even the manufacturers do that in the brochures to make the product appeal to differnt audiences.


Compare the shot on the left page to the car on the right, the same car showing two completely different angles?
Don't alter anything until your sure, it looks to good to stuff up now.

Hi guys, Thanks for your points of view on the subject of the angle. I have decided that it just isn't right on my model. and I will be re-doing the whole thing. The main reason is that when I was drawing the boot lines, there just wasn't enough of an obvious angular look to it.

I have modified the picture to give you an idea what I'm talking about. Look at the boot panel gap line, you can see on the model that the angle on the outside of the model is just too straight compared to the triangular look of the real car. The pics in the brochure are actually pretty good and it's just the angle of my photo and the red car on the red background that seems to distort it.
I would have let it go if there were no other reasons to rework it but there were a couple of other things that bothered me such as my really dodgy scribing on the door panel lines and the way I attached the bonnet to the front panels which was going to lead to way too much work to get it right. I am slightly annoyed about starting again but I will not let it bother me the slightest bit. I'll post pics soon of the redo.

Don't worry guys, I'm with this one till it's done. I don't give up that easy.
CheersSS

very inspiring work youre doing mate, cant wait to see more!

I found this image which might help - the front view appears a bit distorted though. Also the top view shows a bit of curve going through the sides.

Ok I've started again from scratch. Same story as last time. Draw, cut, shape and then add layers.

You can see that the top section is bent inwards but straight, the centre section is flat and the bottom section is curved in to get the basis for the body shape.


With this version I have added a thicker spine onto the inside to help keep it straight.


The front 1/4 panels are bent inwards. Before.

After.

I have also slightly bent in the rear 1/4's as well. The thick spine is bent to match the shape of the panels before glueing with CA. That means there is no chance of the panels straightening themselves over time.
I am starting to add layers to the inside to help thicken it for the casting later.

Looking better so far. Better angles, better scribe lines cleaner all around.

Here is the hall of fame. I suppose you could call them the "proof of concepts".

The top was the last version.
The middle two were the first serious ones. I abandoned those for a few reasons. They weren't even close to identical, one side warped and flexed and they were way too messy. In the end they were going to be too much work to get right.
The bottom one was the test run that got me thinking out loud about how I would go about it.

More updates soon,
CheersSS

looking great, cant wait for more insane scratchbuilding skill in picture form! very inspiring stuff!

Lookin good but please get more reference pics, cause i still recon that pic has been retouched and the boot is squarer. Sorry but it just dont look right, wish i had some pics to help out. Only going from memory, which is suss at the best of times, just ask the missus, whatshername.

What about finnding a car and take photos of it,just a thought.

Bear wrote:Lookin good but please get more reference pics, cause i still recon that pic has been retouched and the boot is squarer. Sorry but it just dont look right, wish i had some pics to help out. Only going from memory, which is suss at the best of times, just ask the missus, whatshername.

I'm fully sorted for reference pics Bear, I've got it covered from every angle and more. Trust me, it just wasn't right.

Ok, I had a half work day today so that allowed me to get some more bench time.
Started the door handles by marking out where they were to go.

Scribed them out.

I used a blade to gently scrape out the recesses.


After all of the block sanding has been done I'll add strips of evergreen for the tops of the door handles.
I have also sanded a more rounded contour onto the bottom of the sides of the body and rear panel.


and I ground out the inside of the wheel arches with the dremel.
Before.

After.


Still a bit of work to do before I reach the same stage as the previous version but it's a lot better than any version before it.

Thanks for looking.
More updates soon.
CheersSS

Your mad mate, but great work nonetheless.

Kane wrote:Your mad mate, but great work nonetheless.

I have to agree with my esteemed colleague, and my curiosity and fascination with this build is at a high, so keep the posts coming mate.


Tezza