[Nuvolare]

I bought quite a while ago the 1933 Penelope Railton Napier full option kit, with the idea of an easy scratch build, but boy, was I into a surprise. Perhaps I'm a little to particular when it comes to details, but that's how I see things. I knew that the driver was attached to the body, and I always had the intention of cutting away this figure. It's always easier for the paint job, and if you put your car on static display, as I do, it's looks much nicer, when the driver is a lose part.
But I than began to compare the body with drawings, and pictures, as I do with every model, and saw that the car needed much more readjusting than I had hoped for, and gone was the idea of an easy build. I was so frustrated with it, that I put it away for quite a while.
Finally I've started to work on it again. The louvre where changed, the bulb behind the driver was reshaped, the most difficult part was the nose, it took a lot of milliput and Tamyia putty, to get it it shape. My inspiration for the nose was this photo:

And this is the car now before it's first ground coat of paint:

Also the exhaust pipes where a problem. First of all, there where the pots behind the collector, way to far in Front. And the second much bigger problem was that 2 out of 3 of the exhaust pipes, where sitting under the rear axle. So ones attached to the finisched model it will become a problem to loosen the body from the chassis. So I came up with the idea of cutting the pipe in two just before the axle. Drill a hole in the 2mm bras pipe and tap M1 wire into it. So now it's possible to unscrew half the exhaust pipe, to lift the body of the chassis whenever needed.

To be continued...

Cheers,
Danny

 

[loosesalute]

That`s going to be a cracker Danny!
BTW. Did you manage to complete your Airfix Mercedes?
Cheers
Kev.

 

[Nuvolare]

QUOTE (loosesalute @ 14 Dec 2011, 15:17) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>...BTW. Did you manage to complete your Airfix Mercedes?...
Don't worry Kev It's coming up real soon. I also need to go to work and my wife is telling me that I spent to much time on scratch building, as probably all wife's do.

 

[nino barlini]

Ual Danny! It seems that a loooot of work has been done so far. It is great! Please, keep us posted on this!

Cheers!

Ricardo Bifulco

 

[superhornets]

Hi Danny
dont be too critical of the penelope pitlane kits,as I know steve well enough to know that he has a good eye and a flare for making these pre war leviathons

What you have to remember with all racing cars especially those with such a long and varied career as the napier railton is that it would have been modified from season to season and sometimes during the season .so it is very difficult when you a making a mould for a car to work out what could be the definative version of the car
Whereas modellers like you will tend to make a car that took part in a certain race and copy the louvre patterns, body quirks etc for that paticular race
Nothing wrong with that at all and what you will have at the end is a unique model that looks the way you want it to
Look forward to seeing the finished article

cheers tony

 

[Nuvolare]

@ Tony
I'm not criticizing anyone at all, and like I sad, "I'm a little to particular when it comes to details". Perhaps I'm always a little direct and hard on my choice of words, I apologise for that. And I'm convinced that his models are a good concept, and they are ready to paint and use as they come, for someone who doesn't care for detail or a starter just perfect.
But on the other hand I see nothing wrong in improving things, and I think sharing it here on the Forum is the whole idea behind it, if not I stop right away with showing what I've done, and trying to explain what or why I've done it. My main reason perhaps, is to see someone come along, give him ideas and let him challenge in a positive way, and improve even more. I've seen Maserati's produced this week, and a lot of other cars, of superb quality, I even would like to see more of their technique, that, to me, is the hole point of this forum. That's why I always plea, show us what you're doing so we can interact and improve.
And I agree with you, a lot of these cars under went big changes, and even with a good recorded history, there are still open questions.
Cheers,
Danny

 

[EJI]

Hi Danny,

I built Steve Ward's excellent model and found the Profile Publications Number 28 an excellent reference source.
The above are the centre colour pages.
If you have not got a copy you can usually find one on the internet auction site,
It is interesting to see the different approaches to adding detail. One area I worked on was the exhaust brackets
on the right hand side and I built these from scrap brass strip.
I wish you luck with your detailed build and look forward to seeing it develop.

Cheers
Eric

 

[EJI]

Hi Danny,

Any updates on the build??

Cheers
Eric

 

[Nuvolare]

@ Erik
Thanks for pointing out the colored 3d drawing, but I've got them already.
Perhaps you know it already, but I found this footage yesterday on Youtube: Link: Railton at Brooklands
The short film points out that the Railton that I'm building didn't have any decals. So I'm only going to applier the union jack at its the tail.
The model is now in it's stage of it's general silver coat. It under went a Humbrol Nr1 under coat, a Humbrol gloss black second coat, a Alclad chrome coat, and a Humbrol gloss varnish.

Next step are the decals, and a final Humbrol varnish gloss coat. Than the chassis beams get a olive drab green Matt color and all the small details like springs etc... also needed to be painted. So there's still a lot of work to do.
Cheers,
Danny

 

[nino barlini]

Uau Danny! I liked the chrome finish!!!!!! Please,let me know, this humbrol clear coat finish is resistant? I mean, it does not leave "fingers" marks when we touch the car? I'm asking you this cause, I always use automotive paints and varnish and, in the past I made some tests with automotive varnish over the alclad and the final result is good, however, part of that "metal shine" or "chrome appearance" went away... but, looking at your pictures, the result is stunning, even after clear coat applied.

Cheers!

Ricardo Bifulco

 

[Nuvolare]

@ Nino,
Humbrol gloss varnish is finger mark free when dry-ed out. It's important with Humbrol that first of all, your paints and also varnish is stirred very well before use. Only thin your paint with Humbrol thinner, my experience with universal thinners, is that they are good for cleaning your material but not for thinning Humbrol Paint, this is very important.
My experience is to work with one brand of paint together with Alclad. First apply a ground coat of Humbrol Nr 1, let it harden in a dust free space for at least 24H. Than sand the ground coat with waterproof 2000 sandpaper and water. Clean it under running water, from this stage don't touch the surface with you fingers, you can dry it natural or forced with a hairdryer, but never dry it with paper tissue or cloth, it leaves to many dust particles. Than apply Humbrol Nr 21 Black Gloss, leave it to dry for at least 48H dust free. I than use tamiya polish, to polisch up the black layer, clean it up with a soap water and a very soft brush. Clean it again under running water, same conditions to let it dry.
Apply the Alclad Chrome paint strait out of the bottle. Only 15 minutes later apply the Humbrol Nr 35 Gloss Varnish put it away for a 12H drying, dust free. Apply decals and a final layer of varnish. For every humbrol paint I advice a 60% paint or Varnish and 40% Humbrol thinner mixture for airbrushing. When airbrushing apply in thin layers and allow dry times of 5 to 10 minutes in between.
Most important is to take you time and allow the paint coats to dry out, and you'll have a good chrome result without a problem.

Cheers,
Danny

 

[PeterSussex]

Hi Danny.

All is looking pretty good so far, I like to watch your builds taking place and note that you take care over these builds and endeavour to maintain your own standards, improving those standards with each car

I note the comment made by Tony, and must disagree. Steve was of course one of those who broke new grounds with both the models he introduced, and to a degree, the standards he set. For the racer, the bodies are perfect, they are of minimal weight and a recogniseable 'representation' of the original car.

Criticism is due. The bodies I have seen, and indeed bought, would be great to race, but pretty poor if I wanted an accurate model of the original. A good starting point, but no more.

Unfortunately, I would guess that the same applies to most bodies for both resin kits and mass produced RTR slot cars.

If enthusiasts do not make known the errors in models, the maker will naturally assume the product is fine.

Peter.

 

[Screwneck]

I've got one of these on the go. It's been a fine build so far. The resin's had some minor bubbles and marks in it but a couple of light sprays of primer and a good wire woolling fills up the imperfections. The exhaust anchors do not fit the cast body holes and they need a bit of manifold trimming, but otherwise these are fantastic kits.

The model is not really that much off the original car. C'mon

 

[anddelanyno20]

coming on nicely ,im sure that the early colour of this car was flat/matt silver,its polished alloy now ,but was not back then so id check before u go any further,mind u thats good chrome paint,i tried to bare metal foil mine first but that was a disaster so went with matt silver,lookin forward to the progress cheers

 

[Nuvolare]

QUOTE (Screwneck @ 19 Dec 2011, 18:39) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>...The model is not really that much off the original car...
Yes it is much off
@anddelanyno20
Thanks for the tip on the color, I was doubting if the finish was Matt or Gloss, always hard to say with old pictures, where did you get that information from?
If I look at following Images I would say it was a gloss metal shine

Cheers,
Danny

 

[anddelanyno20]

i cant remember exactly where i found the info as it was quite a while ago that i biult my car but i remember it saying that initialy the car was painted in a flat silver colour then the paint was subsequently removed ,i belive to make it lighter will post a link if i can remember where i found the info cheers

 

[David Lawson]

In 2007 I had the pleasure of exchanging some emails with William Boddy, THE Brooklands expert and author of the Profile Publications No 28 referred to earlier in this thread, regarding this very subject of the body finish of the Napier Railton. Although he told me some interesting information about the car having seen it run many times at Brooklands he couldn't recall the exact colour scheme so I doubt we will ever settle this discussion.

David

 

[PeterSussex]

David, I think you are right, there are many matters of detail, such as colour, where I feel it is not so much a lack of information, but contradictions which cloud the issue. Two similar matters spring to mind.

a/ The original colour of the helmet worn by Mike Hawthorn. eye witnesses say black, other eye witnesses say very dark blue.

b/ Mercedes. Same again, all agree that the white paint came off the W25 to get the weight below spec, some say the cars ran in bare aluminium, others say they had a light coat of silver.

We will not ever know for sure.

I like the Napier Railton as Danny has done it. I think it was Frank T who originally explained his use of Alclad? Thanks to Danny for his explanation as to how his car was done. I was going to go back to the airbrush anyway as my venture into rattle cans has not proven successful....

So, did Freddie Dixon paint his Rileys?

Peter

 

[300SLR]

QUOTE (PeterSussex @ 19 Dec 2011, 23:00) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>b/ Mercedes. Same again, all agree that the white paint came off the W25 to get the weight below spec,
That's certainly a widespread story, I've read several accounts that say its not true.
One alternative version is that Mercedes saw the Auto Unions in silver, thought it looked much better and had their cars in silver as well.
Apparently the race at which this cleaning the paint off to save weight was supposed to have happened wasn't run to the 750kg rule anyway, so there would have been no reason to remove the paint.

In all probability we will never know for sure which version is correct.

That's just a small example of the problem others have mentioned, that we don't know enough about the cars from that era to make the definitive replica. Where the original car doesn't survive in unmolested form, there are just the photos taken in period + whatever survives of the original car and original records to guide the modeller. The photos often don't show the body shape with much clarity. Yes plans are published but many of them are not accurate. Even where the original factory drawings survive, the cars were often modified. The modeller can just do the best they can with what information is available.

 

[superhornets]

Hi Guys
bit puzzled about this thread and the colours ,I always thought the dispute over helmet colour was the jim clark one where scalex had painted it black instead of the correct dark blue colour
personally I believed that hawthorns helmet was dark green !
Re the silver arrows ,their was a long thread about this ,and the story originally came from team manager alfred neubauers biography ,when it was HIS brilliant idea to to get the weight down to 750kgs by removing the paint
However the flaw in this piece of literary self aggrandismnet is as marlon foakes pointed out, the race in question was the effelrennen and it was run to Formula libre regaulations not the Championship 750 KG formula

Cheers tony