Onethirtysecond shells - Hillman Hunter - part 2
01/07/04 details on and into the mold
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Hunter
has now had all the details added and is ready to go into the silicone.
Door handles are from my Herald estate and the body moldings are micro
strip. Fuse wire is better for the rain guttering as it is easier to bend
into shape. Since the pictures on page 1 the front wheel arches have been
reshaped and a front bumper made from a modified Avenger one. It's important
to remember that if you intend to cast bumpers as one with the bodyshell
that you fill in any gaps between the bumper and the body otherwise silicone
will wrap around it and you won't get it out without destroying the bumper
and damaging the mold. Door/bonnet etc gaps were created using steel ruler,
scriber and then finishing with Bare Metal Foil panel scriber (highly
recomended).
Rear
end showing recess cut for tail lights. One tailight was carved from plastic
and then copied for the other side.Boot lock is 1mm plastic rod in pre
drilled hole. A neat way of creating the circle for the petrol filler
cap is to use a wad punch of a suitable size and rotate this with moderate
pressure onto the resin. This scribes a neat circle to which a plastic
strip handle is added.
Master has now been molded in silicone. Once the outer mold was made this was used to swirl cast a copy. This copy is then hollowed out and put back into the mold for the inner male part of the mold to be cast. Remember to put a coat of Vaseline onto the outer mold first or you will end up with a bodyshell irretrivably set in a block of silicone (it has happened!)
Next jobs are the making of a plug to vac form the window unit (hardest part I think) and the making of masters for the grills. Three grills are to be made, one with two square headlights for the late 60s Hunter, another with square lights but different grill for the Singer Gazelle and Vogue variants and one with two round lights for the Minx and very early Hunters and was the type used on the London to Sydney Marathon car. On this last type as on the real car the 7" headlights extend outside of the normal grill recess so minor modifications would have to be made by the end user to the bodyshell. The other two types should drop straight in unaltered.
I'm doing lots of things at the moment but provisionaly I'd say it should be finished by later this summer (2004). It should fit on the same Datsun/XR3 size chassis as the Avenger.Now finished - see Hillman Hunter for the finished kit
click here to return to part 1