My concern is snipping the grill, is going to distort and bend the mesh.

maybe sandwich the grill between two cards and drill the holes?

I'd use a cutting wheel on a dremel outside of where I wanted it and then a sanding wheel to bring it down.

I used by belt sander for most of the fine trimming and coping of the aluminum tubing and gussets on my airplane, after all.

Falstar, my thoughts also.

Dart, I have access to a Dremel with drill press attachment, and a full size drill press. I will consider some testing with these, when I'm able, before going further.

Be sure to watch the heat! I'm starting to like the idea of gluing them to the front and back. Like I have any vested investment in your project. LOL


What have other modelers done in the past?

Making a few of the last parts for under the hood. The kit included no horns, not even anything molded into the radiator wall to give a hint of the horns. So I built these from sheet styrene, metal wire, and some Testors Contour Putty.

The base pieces I cut to shape.


Glued up, and with the coiled wire superglued in place.


Here they test fit:


And the final mounting. I've stretched the shadows a bit to help show them better.


A higher view, showing their depth and mounting brackets.


Now only the hood latch pins remain, and everything under the hood should be done. Oh, and you may notice that the right inboard headlight lens isn't installed. That's because I dropped it into the carpet of mystery, beneath my workbench. Spent more than an hour searching, still no luck finding it. I'll search again later.

I also have spent a few evenings working on a few new test windshields. Built what seems like a dozen, each not *quite* right.

Also will check into buying a display case and a mirror for the floor. Aside from the hood pin mounts, windshield wipers, driver's door mirror, radio antenna, front bumper skirt brackets, and trunk latch catch... It's about ready for the display case. Oh, and I may scratch build some aftermarket traction bars for the rear suspension.

"Mirror for the floor" of the display case is genius.

In fact I'd probably have a clear floor for the car to sit on and an angled piece of mirror below it, so that all that work could be easily seen without having to crane about to pick out details.

I wanted to improve the windshield I made a few months ago, which meant cutting and heat bending a new one.

Here are the failed parts I made this weekend. Each has a small defect at some point. And there were a couple more that went in the trash already.



But one good piece was made, heat bent, and installed! Yay! Pics of the good one to come soon...

Made a first attempt at cutting those holes in the grille. Using the Dremel was not working, even with the tiny rotary cutter head, it would tend to grab on the metal and want to either tweak it or even spin it. I wasn't going to let it get that far, and switched to hand tools.

Cut these out while experimenting with scissors, chisel (yes, a 1/8" wood chisel), and side cutters. Rough, but still in the realm of workable. Bending did happen, but seems so far easily straightened out.

A basic fit test.

That amount of small detail work is just mind boggling.

+1


Wheels

Still no further progress. I was feeling a bit off the mark the last couple weeks, and figured it was best not to risk messing up something, if I wasn't feeling up to it.

This week and weekend, I should be back on it, though.

[evil grin]

You're going to put in a little speaker in the case with a button that makes a starting and revving sound of the engine, right?

[/evil grin]

The grille work is finally (I hope) complete. Just a few final touch ups remain. A few rough photos (please excuse the dust!):

First, the near-complete dual layer grille, glued together with CA. The black areas are Sharpie, which had been used for various guides during construction.

Notice that the vertical spacing is wrong between the headlights. In between each of those center horizontal bars, I had to cut individual bits of the PE metal, and CA glue them in between those shown here.

Also... A *bunch* of straightening and tweaking with tweezers and needle nose pliars to get all the bent up parts as straight as possible!


After enamel primer, acrylic paint, and assembly with the headlight mount. Also mounted the GT350 emblem with CA glue.


From the top. A decent scale effect. I'll add better photos later. These were taken in evening sun through the window.

Amazing!

Looking down on the grille I realized how thin it is!

Truly Great work man.

I'm on the home stretch. Aside from just a few little touches, I really think it's completed.

Here are some photos of the build up parts from the last week or so.

The same type of grille work for the opening below the bumper:


As you may recall, I lost the driver's door mirror part months ago (as well as one headlight lens). Never did find either of them. The kit included a passenger door mirror (which most GT350's don't seem to have). So I cut the mirror part away, and used the base along with new mirror parts I scratch built.


The parts in the mirror. Drilled holes with the pin vise, and used fine coated wire for mounting pegs. The mirror part is actually cut from a piece of real "replacement" car mirror (the larger part of which will be used for the display case's floor). A very thin plastic sheeting, with excellent reflectivity. Cuts easily with scissors. The squar-ish part with the hole drilled in it is for the rear of the mirror body.


All assembled and finished in Bare Metal Foil. The mirror reflectivity is excellent.


Parts for windshield wipers:


Parts for some aftermarket traction bars. Given the supercharger, these could be useful!


Brackets for the hood pins. These had to be mounted after the body was fitted for the final time, as otherwise they were in the way!


And after some test fitting, I felt the wipers shown above were a bit bulky looking. So I built a second, lower profile set. Much better scale effect.


Where things sit as I type this... All of the above works in progress are completed and installed. The body and chassis have been joined for the final time. The last details, which had to wait for those two major assemblies to join, are completed. The suspension and wheels are glued in place. It sits now in it's near complete display case. Just a few bits of paint and touch-up remain, along with installing the last remaining part... The steering linkage bar connecting both front wheels.

The display case took a few tries. The first two attempts to mail-order one, both arrived with defects I couldn't overlook (and shouldn't have to overlook, at $30). After returning the both of them, I went to a hobby store in person and bought a case off the shelf by Pioneer Plastics. It cost less than $10, but has fantastic clarity and quality. The size was a touch large for this model, but it works. I used that replacement auto mirror on the floor, plus a few touches more that need to be finished.

This next week, these last touches should be in place. Then I need to do some serious photography. I plan to do some indoor, and some outdoor, trying for a scale effect. So some fun ahead.

I'll post those photos as soon as I have them, hopefully next weekend.

A few more bits getting finished up.

Created the chrome exhaust tips from styrene tubing. Covered in Bare Metal Foil.


Added the front brake lines using metal wire. (Sorry for missing the focus here.)


There were a few goofed up things when making the final fitting on the front suspension arms and tie rods. First, when I test fitted the wheels using the pegs and holes molded in the kit, it was all OK. But when I turned the wheels to one side, the tires swung *way* fore and aft, even to the point of impacting the fender edges.

This was probably because the real car has the pivot point much closer to the rear of the tire than the model kit. So the model kit wheel movement is exaggerated.

To solve this, I cut away the pegs from the steering blocks, and shifted one significantly forward, the other significantly aft. This let the tires stay more nicely centered in the fender cutouts with the wheels turned. But this cause major issues elsewhere. The tie rod part no longer would fit/reach both wheels (2 which was extended to reach, and 3 which was cut about 1/16th inch shorter in the photo). And of course now there were big holes where the lower suspension arms were molded to receive pegs that no longer exist (1s, covered with styrene and coated wire in the photo).

The white plastic areas are my glued on fix-ups for these issues. The steering bearing is also better represented with these fixes, than without, anyway.


And after final painting.


Rear suspension after final glue and paint. You can see the aftermarket traction bars, and the shocks mounted through the mounting plates I built way back.


Lower view of the entire model. I think everything under here is complete.


Since test fitting the car on the mirrored display base floor, I discovered (saw in the reflection, lol) that the bottoms of the doors have never been painted. So that's being done. And a couple of detail parts inside the trunk still to go...

Wow

That is a lovely model, you must be pretty proud of it?

Those two wires going toward the back wheels, are those brake cables, maybe handbrake cable?

Awesome build though, well done.

Mick.