Now we're cookin' with gas...

After the almost interminable Audi, I seem to have gone into overdrive.

Firstly, a Triumph TR2 for the same gent as the Audi, another for his SlotRally GB range.
That has now gone off to my chum, Steve Francis, in London to be slush moulded, the easiest way to get a hollow body from a solid master.

Somehow, I missed taking a picture of this with the turned brass headlight pods fitted, but this is the body pattern ready for slush moulding.

What happens next is I get from Steve a number of slushes, from which I can make a finished TR2, then later, a TR3 and TR3A, all, essentially from one master.  Once I get the first slush, I'll detail that and make bumpers, dashboard, hard and soft tops and hood folded , so SRGB has the option of which versions to do, all rally cars.

At the same time I was asked to do a Spitfire Mk 3.  Now I had one of these started purely as a personal project for my son, who has a passion for the American racing team, Group 44, the distinctive white and 2 tone green cars, all Triumphs, run by Bob Tullius in the SCCA series for production sports cars.  They were successful with all the cars over the years.  I mentioned I had a Spit. "half done" and was commissioned to finish it for the Manx outfit SMK, for whom I have made a number of sports, vintage and F1 cars already.

Now I think I must have done the first work on the model by eye, but I then got some good looking drawings and sized them down to 1/32nd scale on the Post Office photo-copier.  But somewhere along the line, wires must have got crossed, because not only was the original resin body I started with horribly wrong as I expected, but for some reason I got the wheelbase wrong too!  Should be 66mm, but when I checked, because I just thought something was not looking right, I'd got a drawing which showed a 72mm wheelbase.  I have no idea how this happened, because the length was almost right and the width was bang on.  The draughtsman as so often had just drawn it wrong.  Having already cut the body in half twice I had to do it again!

You can see where I'd cut and lengthened it earlier, yet here we are cutting that much out again!  AND the front wheelarch needed moving back to get the wheelbase right.  Now it's nearly done, I can see a big improvement in proportions.  The drawings also showed completely wrong lines for the boot lid.  Sometimes I wonder how draughtsmen get jobs at all!

Here's the front arch ground back and filled at the front edge.

And in the picture, the errant drawings, which will be dumped as soon as the model's done.

So after seeming to never finish that ugly Audi, I've knocked out  2 more models to near completion and there's a Ferrari 312B started too, AND that hideous UFO car is a lot more advanced.

If I can get all three done by the end of May, I'll be ready for my week's break up North with family!