Ah, that's better....

Well all is well, the Invicta is coming back for any mods. necessary and it IS to be produced as originally intended.

I hate bad feeling and it seems we can avoid it after all.  Always best to talk.

And an hour or so later....

There we are.  The basic essentials of the C6 Amilcar are all there....grille shaped and recessesed, panel lines and exhaust outlet done, cockpit dug out and seat backs done.
Next is the chassis work, forward of the  grille, then the louvres and that'll be that.

I heard from the Swiss geezer for whom I made the Invicta master in, believe it or not 2013.  he still hasn't done anything with it and now claims there are problems with the model "according to an expert".  Ha!  Oldest trick in the book.  He's obviously run out of money and is looking for a face saver.  Well he's picked the wrong guy.  Why, pray, would he tell me he was happy with the model in September 2013 in a mail if there was something wrong with it.  He whinged about the front axle after a while without ever explaining what he wanted done. Now he's offering the master back for the same he paid for it!  Cheeky sod!  A second hand master goes, at best, for half price, used or not.
I am so keen to see an Invicta in the world of slot cars that I will make another one! double quick and offer it to a friend to produce.  Let the Swissman go mend a cuckoo clock!  Damned fool!

                                                          See?  Nothing wrong with it!

Everything comes to he who waits.....

                                                He just may have to wait too bloody long!

Here you see a view of me by the time I can afford an Amilcar!

So, today I made one in 1/32nd scale.  Couldn't believe how quick it was.  This was after half an hour

and another half hour...

half an hour later it was done all bar the shouting.  Pics of the shouting later.  This, in the same week that I also made this:-

A V-16 BRM. 

I might have a break next week!  The Northern bit of the family are due for a visit as it's half term for the wee horrors.

Busier than ever!...

I know I'm supposed to be taking it easy after a heart attack, but I have friends all asking me to knock out a model or three for them for their slot racing habits.  And doing so, makes me think of what I want for me, too.

So I find myself Delaying the Capri I was doing for one chap, because he suddenly wants a V-16 BRM!

Here's both of them.  This was taken at about 2 pm. yesterday.  At 12-30 I was still trying to find a suitable photo-copier to do my drawings to size.  I can still get a wiggle on when I want to!  Today, at 2pm., it's finish-shaped, but needs all the details done, like a LOT of louvres.

Of course I've also been busy on my Bloody Mary model, but have had to stop to do these other shells.

And because I can never get anyone interested in my kind of cars, I may just have to make these for myself in the hope that when someone sees them done they'll want to produce a few as shells.

These in particular:-

My Trident Venturer V6

or

the beautiful Morgan SLR

or

the simply stunning Rejo-Climax, a car which makes even the pretty Lola Mk 1 look like a pram!

There are so many others too, but these'll do for the time being.

Progress...

The Bloody Mary model now has a front axle and some front dampers.  The two Mashima tiny motors are screwed in and some pulleys made and fitted for the belt drive.

Meanwhile, having made a Capri that was 1/2" too small thanks to a dodgy drawing, we have the new one, or at least the right hand half of it.

A fella has to keep busy.

I was required to go to what is called Cardiac Rehab yesterday.  I had to get up while it was still night time, drive 40 miles in traffic and park out of sight of the hospital for 3 quid in a machine that wouldn't work, just to sit in a tiny gym and be preached at by a woman who really should have taken her own dietary advice, along with her three staff, then do a series of physical jerks like school PE.

NOT A BLOODY CHANCE!  

She seemed to read the mood very quickly and couldn't get rid of us quick enough. 

I will, of course, do as she asks and build up to a daily 30 minute session of exercise, even though to walk round here for 30 minutes is to die another death, that of sheer boredom!

What I will not do twice a week for three hours, over 4 weeks, is all the above plus pretend to be enjoying it like all the other old farts present, who all wore sports clothes and a coloured sash.  Oh my sweet Heavens, whatever next?  I do not, never have, nor ever will possess any item of apparel which could, by any stretch of the imagination, be mistaken for sports clothing.

If you ever see me in trousers displaying a stripe up the leg, or a pair of training shoes...shoot me!

The right crowd...

I shouldn't steal the old Brooklands saying really, but it seems as apt at a hillclimb as any meeting at the famous egg oval pre-War.

I love hillclimbing.  Speed Hillclimbing that is.  Man against clock for rarely more than half a minute or so up an English hill of maybe 1000 yards, flat out, reaching, these days, maybe 145 mph on a course no more than 12 feet wide.  Now THAT will sort the men from the spotty Corsa modders!
Some of the strangest cars have appeared on British Hills over the years and many still compete 80, 90 years after they first saw the light of day.

I have been making a model of one of the most famous hillclimb Specials, Bloody Mary and was considering making a suitable track to run my hillclimbers on.
Prescott Park initially.  It seems the perfect hill with its big swoop round before the climb up to Pardon Hairpin.

But then Shelsley Walsh has the most wonderful Start line of them all.  Apart from being the World's oldest competitive motor sport venue, Shelsley is a time capsule anyway. Part farm, part village. The ancient buildings are all still there as is the iron fence that accompanies the start line. There's even an ancient water mill and a village church BEHIND the hill's gates!

Then again, the first hillclimb I ever went to was Wiscombe Park in Devon.  I cannot forget standing amongst the rhododendrons whilst 500 horsepower monsters screamed past me only a few feet away, only to brake and slew round Sawbench Hairpin, then reverberate back up through the rhododendron bushes to Martini and the finish.

Damn, what to do?  .......A bit of each!  Shelsley's start, Prescott's middle and Wiscombe's finish.
Presleycombe Park!
1/43rd scale to get as much in as possible and make use of all the thousands of diecast models for the car park AND the fact that I already have buildings in that scale for my model railway that I'll never build.  1/32nd scale slot cars can still run on the track if a little squeezed.  Some of the Specials I love can't be made in 43rd scale as there'd be no space for a motor, so 1/32nd it is for some and 1/43rd for most.

Well, hursh mah mouth....

I knew it was a mistake.  Trying to take part in a forum from which I've been hounded more than once.
My oldest friend found me on it and after 48 years PM'd me through Slot Forum. I had to rejoin to read his message.  Sure enough it was he and once I had his e-mail address I should have bowed out of the forum as before.  But no, out of a lack of anything much to do while recovering I joined in again...and got the same old characters willfully misunderstanding me as ever.  Pushing their cock-eyed views as truth, poo-pooing my experience of decades as a professional, blah, blah.
The nonsense that a scratchbuilt model is more expensive than a Ready to Run one, etc.
Bloody fools.  I am as tight as a duck's arse. If making was more expensive than buying, would I really have been a maker of things all these years!
Of course if you MUST have 80 pound Dremels and 600 pound Chinese lathes or buy everything off the overpriced Slot.it catalogue when building a slot car, then yes, you will have spent all your pocket money and more, but I don't even get pocket money, so I don't buy any of it for full price and neither should you.
Please don't look for me on Slot Forum any more.  I'm gone, man...solid gone....for good.