colin artus
September 5th, 2002, 03:56 PM
Looking at the recently uploaded pics of Paul Hassels Alitalia liveried car I noticed something of possible interest to the more
obssesive types (anally retentive?) amongst you. On the Transformer/Hawk kit there is a vertical strip right at the bottom of the tub sill where the body moulding is mated to the chassis.
This strip, which runs along the length of the tub, is about 5 cm high whereas on the original car it is only some 1 cm.
The reason for the extra depth is that this is the place on the chassis that affords vertical alignment of the tub and by making it bigger there is a greater surface area for bonding, but also some degree of adjustment in fit to take account of variation in chassis dimensions, especially around the roll cage.
When the car is painted in a light colour this difference, between the replica and the original, becomes rather more noticeable.
On my car I actually trimmed this strip by about 1.5 cm (to just below the rivets). However the main, and most easy fix, is to paint this area matt black which effectively makes it visually disappear into the shadow thrown by the tumblehome of the sill above. For best effect you should leave 1 cm of this area in body colour as this will imitate the seam on the original car where the outer skin was welded to the sill. In fact the line between body colour and the black should be slightly uneven to get that blobby welded effect!
colin
obssesive types (anally retentive?) amongst you. On the Transformer/Hawk kit there is a vertical strip right at the bottom of the tub sill where the body moulding is mated to the chassis.
This strip, which runs along the length of the tub, is about 5 cm high whereas on the original car it is only some 1 cm.
The reason for the extra depth is that this is the place on the chassis that affords vertical alignment of the tub and by making it bigger there is a greater surface area for bonding, but also some degree of adjustment in fit to take account of variation in chassis dimensions, especially around the roll cage.
When the car is painted in a light colour this difference, between the replica and the original, becomes rather more noticeable.
On my car I actually trimmed this strip by about 1.5 cm (to just below the rivets). However the main, and most easy fix, is to paint this area matt black which effectively makes it visually disappear into the shadow thrown by the tumblehome of the sill above. For best effect you should leave 1 cm of this area in body colour as this will imitate the seam on the original car where the outer skin was welded to the sill. In fact the line between body colour and the black should be slightly uneven to get that blobby welded effect!
colin