1/12th Gerhardt F/A (F5000)

[arcticwolf]

It's a fantasy build, out of whatever I have lying around and some homemade resin castings and whatever bits I can scrounge.

Basically a 1969 version for the Canadian Drivers Championship that "could have been".

I've got this far

and the motor is almost done

It'll have my own paint and graphics invention (I hope).

Paul

[drums01]

Looks good so far; like the engine treatment.

[Gary Davis]

That's looking really cool Paul. What body is that?

[arcticwolf]

Oct 16, 2021 14:41:10 GMT -5 Gary Davis said:

That's looking really cool Paul. What body is that?

Gary, it's a Tamiya Honda with a Tamiya Matra front end grafted on, and a highly modified Matra nose cone. Both were old scrap kits - parts mostly - and both were the motorized versions with the battery compartments etc - not very accurate.

I shortened the pontoons to fit the Chevy, built a new floor out of sheet styrene, mixed and matched the front bulkheads and filled in and rounded out the top front with styrene and various fillers. It's been a "work in progress" for a while. I'm still working on making the cockpit interior look reasonably authentic.

I'm using this car as the base to try to replicate:

but converted to the F5000 spec. I'll dig up some other pics.

And thanks for the warm welcome everybody. 

Paul

[indy]

Great project, thank you for showing the WIP pictures. It is hard to understand how much goes into these builds without the WIP documentation.

Jordan

[arcticwolf]

I created my own decals of a sort, cheapie printer produced this decal sheet - doubles as I figured I'd need them (I did):

Very delicate to work with, no setting agents, but this is the end result:

Not bad for my first attempt at this stuff, I'll live with it.

Now it can get put away to cure for a while before I handle it any more.

Paul

[Gary Davis]

That looks GREAT paul. You're decals came out good. They look great on that car.

[indy]

Coming together nicely. Great work so far.

Jordan

[arcticwolf]

I masked it off and painted the chassis an industrial grey, trying to be period correct for 1969 small team budget racing cars:

Now I can maybe build some more of it.

[arcticwolf]

Some pics from building the motor. I took pieces I had, made latex molds, cast some bits, some of which were usable

some machining and CA, some styrene added

some TLC and primer

One basic small block Chevy. I actually made a few copies of these. Intake courtesy of 3D Scale Products. Of course it didn't quote fit the chassis so some more mods, but it became the engine you see above.

Thanks for looking 

Paul

[Gary Davis]

That sure is looking good Paul.

[arcticwolf]

Thanks guys. A little progress, engine/transmission installed, it always seems like something accomplished when the motor is finally in place.

ZF 4 speed box on this one. Amazing how much time you can spend just making a headrest!

[kyledehart5]

Holy cow. This is looking great! Enjoying following the progress. Nice work!

[indy]

Great details and pieces. I am enjoying seeing all you have done. I would hate to change the plugs on this thing hot!

Jordan

[Gary Davis]

Man Paul...that engine looks awesome in there!

Ha....There is a tool for taking the wires off that's too hot. It works pretty good too! Plus...wearing gloves helps.

[arcticwolf]

You think it's hot now, wait till I put the headers on. 

Speaking of headers, they are currently stuck at Canada Customs. 

[Gary Davis]

Man, I hear you on the customs thing...

[arcticwolf]

Some progress. Trying to match the Gerhardt's suspension (or come close) out of my parts bin plus styrene stock. Some of the bits I thought were from a Honda, but they're not a match to my Honda so I have no idea what they are. It worked OK until I proceeded to break half of it.

So it got rebuilt with a lot of aluminum rod this time. It's stronger now! (If you heard a lot of yelling and screaming coming from the north, that was probably me.)

Front is Lotus I think, matches the subject car fairly well. The rack will be hidden by the water tank so it's pretty crude. At least it looks better than the Tamiya system.

I plod onwards. 

Thanks for looking

Paul

[Gary Davis]

Great fab work Paul! I really like what you're doing here...

[arcticwolf]

Thanks Gary.

Lots still to do as I await the headers, which I may never get at this rate. Usually when they get stuck at customs this long it means they lost them. 

A test fit told me the rack is too high (the tie rods interfere with the nose clip) so I removed it - I might build a better one, more will be seen than I thought. I used the rad housing as a buck when I reshaped the nose, so no modifying it any more. This is what I'm working from as a guideline:

So time to scratch a water tank and some cooling line outlets:

A test told me a small spacer would help. To get the alignment right I glued the tank to the rad, pressed the rad into the nose, then CA'd the tank to the chassis. Give it 10 minutes and take the nose off.........

I should have painted the spacer first. 

The moment of truth, does the nose fit OK?

I'm a happy guy.

cheers

[Gary Davis]

Man...that looks good Paul!

[kyledehart5]

It really does look great. Have really enjoyed following along with this one.

[alwaysindy]

Paul:
This started out interesting and keeps getting better!
Tim

[indy]

She is looking good!

Jordan

[arcticwolf]

Thanks for the kind words.

No it's not the prototype for the Mars lander, it's the oil tank and filter:

makes more sense when painted and installed

Cooling system and fuel lines are now complete (and repaired)

That's as far as I can go at the rear end. I need the exhausts before I can locate the oil cooler, roll bar braces etc.

Some front end work to do and then I'm stuck.

Paul

[arcticwolf]

A bit of an experiment. I could have just painted the rad black, but I opted for the copper and brass treatment - I have two pre-war builds to do and copper and brass will probably feature heavily. Open for suggestions as to whether it's too shiny / not shiny enough. I may givethe copper bits another wash of Tamiya Smoke just to darken it a little:

Other than a new rack and some master cylinders, pretty much done up here.

Cheers guys

Paul

[hurtubise56]

Hey Paul, this is coming together nicely, hope your headers show up soon. A little smoke on the copper should do the trick, as-is it's a little too shiny. Maybe wash a little thinned silver into the seams to simulate solder? The screen looks just right.

[indy]

Another great update, Paul. I am enjoying this one. Your work is so seamless, I forget this is a kit bashed build!

Keep it up,
Jordan

[arcticwolf]

Thanks.

The headers finally arrived. Almost worth waiting for. Not quite accurate, but the closest I could find to what I wanted. I am somewhat disappointed in the finish, it's quite a bit rougher than I'd like, and next to impossible to polish any smoother. I'll know next time.

But it enabled me to more or less finish the back end of the car. It's mostly scratch, wire and evergreen rod and tubing, an old Williams radiator became the oil cooler. Still a fair bit left to do, but here's where I'm at:

And the question, to wing or not? I like it the way it is, but by '69 just about everybody in the Canadian F/A series ran a rear wing of some sort. Or they started the race with a wing at least, I know Weitzes had his fall off a couple of times. Brack's Lotus was a bi-plane! So I'll probable make one up for it just to be authentic.

More work to do!

cheers guys.

[Gary Davis]

NO WING!!!! But....do what you want to do.... But..those headers really look good...