Saturday, April 18, 2009

General work

As can be seen in this picture, there is a brown material of some sort at the mounting points of the rear wing.


I painted this with Tamiya metallic brown. I'm a bit disappointed with the results. I think it's a bit too coppery for me. I'll probably wind up repainting this with just plain brown.


Here is a cockpit shot


And my carbon fiber decalling work to date on the cockpit bulkhead


Finally wheels with the typical O.Z. Wheels yellow stripe decal


I already drilled holes for the valve stems, I just needed to poke a hole through the decals in the right spot.


Total: 60 h

How to apply Carbon Fiber decals

As a side note, I finally convinced my girlfriend to let me get a new lamp. She was getting tired of me always stealing her floor standing lamp when she wanted to read.


So, here is my newly developed method for applying Scale Motorsports Carbon Fiber decals to my Jordan 191. I'll be using the front brakeduct/upright component as an example.

First and foremost: know your weave! It's all well and good if you carbon fiber everything, but it you are shooting for accuracy whip out your reference photos. The picture below has been flipped, rotated, and edited, but the point is to show the direction of the carbon fiber weave compared to the part.


Here is the part to which decals are going to be applied. I have already applied cf to the recess as can be seen below.


Measure twice, cut once. These decals are not cheap. Be sure to pay attention to the weave as mentioned above.


Use a pair of sharp scissors to make cutting easier and reduce the risk of error.


Into room temperature water for 30 seconds.


Using a pair of tweezers to remove it from the water, I'm trying to touch the decal with my hands as little as possible.


Ok, throw away any idea you are going to stretch, fold, push on the decal. Think of it like this: you are the decal's manager. You need to give the decal idiot-proof instructions on how to lay. You are not going to do anything yourself, the decal and the setting solution are going to do all the work


Here is my Walthers Solvaset Decal Setting Solution. Don't use the brush attached to the lid in the bottle. Here I'm dipping the tip of a paintbrush into the solution. This stuff is hot. It will destroy the decal nearly on contact. Proceed with caution.


Here I am gently painting the inside of the carbon fiber decal at the edge of the mating surface. One or two brush strokes with a damp brush and that's it!


Don't touch the decal at this point. Let the setting solution soften it up. Quickly wash the brush in water.


The decal should fold itself over in the correct direction. The softening solution should make the decal pull onto itself so that the underside pulls towards the underside. This is why we are not painting the top of the decal with the setting solution. That would make it pull visible surface to visible surface. Once the decal has pulled itself around the edge, use the brush generously dampened with water to gently smooth out any rough edges, wrinkles or bubbles. This is the point where you are most likely to damage the decal. If it rips or distorts, remove the whole decal as fast as possible. It is a lost cause, don't try to save it, it'll only make removing it more difficult later.


Thankfully, it worked for me! Here is my part now in carbon fiber form.




Both sides


Total: 57 h

Carbon Fiber Undertray

Hmm. I have applied Scale Motorsports carbon fiber decal to the underside of the diffuser. Strangely, in my opinion, the pictures look much better than the real thing.


I have to say this has been a 10/10 on the difficultly scale. Not recommended for the faint of heart. Scale Motorsports advertises that their decals are designed to work like heat shrink tubing when combined with setting solution. The problem for me seems to be that my setting solution is too hot, or the decal is too hot. I have on numerous occasions had the decal simply melt away, break, get pulled, bubble, or wrinkle up. I have found that I should not use the brush included in the bottle of Solvaset that I'm using. The only method I found that has increased my success rate is to grab a normal small paint brush, apply a very small amount of decal setting solution locally to a spot I need the decal to settle in, wash the brush in water, wait, and at the very moment when the decals starts to fold/wrinkle/bubble, use the brush to apply lots of water to the decal to smooth it out.


This rear wing, in comparison to the diffuser, is a masterpiece of cf decal.


The cockpit bulkhead is ok. I had to apply probably about 20 small pieces of cf decal like patchwork.


Next comes Bare Metal Foil


Cut out a small piece with a hobby knife.


Pull it off the sheet with a pair of tweezers


Set it in place


Use a toothpick to smooth it out.


Here is my diffuser with exhaust outlets.




Total: 56 h

Friday, April 3, 2009

Spark plug wires

Notice on the Ford HB Engine there were two distributors, each driven off a cam located on either side of the engine where the valve cover matches up with cylinder head. Spark plug wire simply run from the distributor to the top of the valve cover


As far as I'm concerned, the above picture is a great photo of a "generic" Ford Cosworth HB. Here is a picture of the engine in the Jordan 191 in 1991. This is important, because we notice that in the Jordan 191, the spark plug wires used angle boots on the distributor caps.


So, I got some Detail Master wires (http://www.detailmaster.com/)


cut a length of spark plug wire (is it 1:20? 1:24? does it matter that much? it's small)


strip a bit off the end


grab my slightly larger wire and strip a bit off the end as well


Discard the insulation stripped off the smaller wire. Take the insulation stripped off the larger wire.


Slip it on the smaller wire to create a spark plug wire boot.


Bend for an angle boot, don't even bother gluing at this point, it's not coming apart unless you really want it to.


Repeat 10 times. Plug 'em on into your already drilled out distributor caps.


I took 8 small bits of the insulation from the larger wire


And brush painted them white.


All at the same time.


Then, positioned the wire, and cut off what was not needed


Took my painted boot


(Unfortunately it was really difficult to focus the camera on something so small) Stripped a bit of insulation off of the spark plug wire, and slipped my white painted boot on.


Plugged it on in.


And voila!


We are wired.


Happy modelling


Total: 44 h