10-09-2017, 05:45 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-09-2017, 05:46 PM by Mark Atkinson.)
(09-09-2017, 09:10 PM)Ian Williams Wrote: Great stuff Mark, this is going to be a car truly worthy the term replica, one question, with your standards being so admirably high will you try to reproduce the hand beaten appearance of the aluminium skin in detail.
Hello Ian,
You must be reading my thoughts, this has to be about how I interpret the available information and balance that understanding against my personal preferences. A couple of years ago, Octane magazine made much of a Magnesium bodied Bugatti Paris Salon car, which had a modern reproduction of its original body fitted. Which given the difficulties of working that metal was a fabulous piece of work. But, all I could see in the spread of modern pictures was that, when compared to period pictures of the same car, it captured the overall shape of the car quite well, but, it did not replicate the originals finesse of line and had many detail deviations.
I am trying to capture the car as it was in 1925, which was what? Well, I would say that it was a pared down racing car made using the skills of the day, with time and probably tight budget constraints. They probably had little interest in representing it as anything other than a tool to be used on the track. Looking closely at the period pictures, I imagine she was simply thrown together!
I want the car to be durable, its not just for one season of racing and sprints, it needs to last and be consistently reliable with a credible performance. So, as previously discussed on the old forum, I have engineered the wooden frame to be as strong as I can without making it over heavy or looking wrong (to my eye that is). When it comes to the metal body panels I find myself wanting to do a neat and tidy job. But, unlike the woodwork, making the metal body panels 'scruffy' will not impair the cars structural integrity.
To illustrate, I am just about to cut aluminium for the side bonnet on the drivers side of the car, if I follow the following picture, It will look just as bad as the original did, with a radius for the cutout around the body bulge, when in fact it really needs to be an almost straight line. So what what will I do?
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Well, looking ahead a few months, no doubt every time someone speaks to me about the car when its at an event, the conversation will go along the lines of, 'So, you made it yourself, couldn't you make the bits fit properly then?' And to answer your question about the beaten finish on the bulges, If its within my skill set, then yes, a planished finish with visible welds around the radiuses, ripples in the skin etc, just like in the above picture is how I intend to do it.
I guess this prompts the question, what would you, do? Indeed widening the question to all, and I do not think their is a right or wrong answer because it has to be about personal preference; which way would each of you go, as the scruffy original or neat and tidy laser cut perfection?
All the best, Mark.