CA Bedford - 1/24 [Resin Kit].

[Andi Little]

Okie-Cokie then ..............I'm updating a new board so I thought I might as well post it here too, not meaning to sound dismissive, because I rather feel more like I'm throwing myself to the Lions here!! - I know a few of you might be familiar with the build so please forgive me - witnessing the resulting dismemberment of my fragile confidence should make up for it. I'm still building this little monster so whilst updates should be swift initially they'll slow down to a snails pace as you catch up with me!!

Right first official post, update, or WIP, or SBS ............... take your pick.

To my mind the first glaring anomaly in this body shell is the front screens. They're just so terribly wrong, now I'd decided not to do a Factory stock build but rather what's known as Rep' stock [Replica]. This gives one the latitude of being able to stray or deviate from the Factory spec's and produce a rendition that copies a "living" example. Actually it's a bit of a get-out clause to stop the nasal rivet counters giving you a hard time!!

So here's a pic' of the real item [courtesy of Andrew Milner]................ as a kid/youth I wouldn't have given them a second glance - but in hindsight they're pretty cute and funky looking.


Notice how they have a "raised eyebrow" look to them...............

........... and that this has a distinct - "furrowed brow" look to it. The tops of the screens are just too flat, or level.


The window bead is waaay to thick and clumsy looking - and although a difficult thing to replicate this has got to go.

Which leads us to our first serious problem...............................


See that little bit of grey above the offside window beading? That is transparent resin - the whole of that top portion is wafer thin and is going to collapse as soon as I try and work the new shape of the windows - Grrrrr..already.


Anyhoo ..................... here's the other side cut out and put into something more sympathetic to its natural shape............


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It can be seen that I've managed to recover some panel work under the screen and used that"shift" to take the aperture higher into the roof-line.

Here's a pic of the dodgy side now out and with a bit of styrene infill bonded into the aperture. the windows just simply do not fit into the body equally and so I've had to try and build up the outside a bit in order to centralise them - not successfully it transpires but it is starting to "taste" like a Bedford CA now....................




I've realised that I'm only going to be able to replicate the essence of this build at best ............. more a case of refining what's already here rather than trying to remodel every single anomaly.

This is how I intend to replace the glazing beads. It's a fussy little process but yields good results if you can persevere................



Here's an example from a million years ago........
   
This was quite complex - especially the rear window - but it does go to show how versatile the technique is?

Meanwhile back on-topic...................... this is how simple the procedure is.................



Just florists wire - thin cyno and blu-tac .......... Oh and a goodly dollop of patience.


Here she is replete..........................



Notice that I've placed a thinner wire around the inside of the side windows ready to receive the glasswork. Perhaps other things to note are new dentals, the originals were lost when I opened the grill up - Oh, and the grills been opened up. It looks appalling in this shot, they're not quite as bad as they look here, as most of the discrepancy's are because of the wavering state of the interior. The grill has had a lot of work done do it. The slots are now level on the outside and not angled, the inside edges are square and not round and the upper slots have their single downward slope to them - I'm still very unhappy with the grille seeing as it's such an important part of the "look". But I've also got to be realistic in what I can expect from this build.
The front vents have been engraved, as has the rain gutter around the roof, the slider capping has been replaced with something just a tiny bit more prototypical and wire beading has been placed into the engraved lines to represent panel gaskets.
Absolute loads of panel sanding to try and bring things just a little more in line with what one expects to see, and I suspect there's a lot more fiddling to do yet.................

See you in a bit.................

[Gordon Ferguson]

Having been the kind and generous "friend" who sold this pup to you this post serves to rekindle my guilt !

I have been fortunate enough to see more progress on this build, I can tell you its well worth waiting for them  .............."ugly duckling into swan" comes to mind.


just wanted to ratchet up the pressure a tad on you Andi 

[JESTER]

Looks good!

[Andi Little]

The original time point of this post was Christmas Day;- I really need to get a hobby!

So, how sad is this? .......... A Christmas day update!!




Really just a continuation of the work being done to try and make sense of this kit.
Here you can see a more forward view revealing noticeably more wire work. Mainly this is done to represent the "pinch seams" that form the edges of certain panels. The door being an obvious one, hopefully it can be seen that the wire is left unfilled as it meets the body panel but yet filled in as it meets the door - I'm envisaging that when painted the resultant gap should provide a better illusion.
The other obvious use is in the seam that runs along the bottom of the van itself, this is complicated by the deviation as it runs up and around the wheel spats - also the door had to be lowered in order that it could appear to run under and behind it.
Two not so obvious additions are the increased width of the door pillar and the very subtle "flat spot" at the top of the front wheel arch.

I'll be working my way around the back soon and then a repeat on the other side [I always find that the tedious part - duplicating work already done]........... anyhoo ......... onwards and upwards

Merry Christmas everyone. - [belatedly of course].

[finescalerr]

Isn't it rewarding to find such a delightfully crude and frustrating kit? That is why I so often wonder about kit modification when scratchbuilding requires little more time and delivers a far better end product. Thank goodness 3D printing is becoming more affordable. Very nice job on the windows and trim; vast improvements. -- Russ

[Andi Little]

Hello Russ'................

There is a lot of truth in your statement - sometimes [as in this instance] I begin to wonder whether I would of been better building from scratch?? But, perhaps I wouldn't of chosen this particular vehicle - and there's the rub - to my mind it's a very familiar and charming subject, and one that I'm looking forward to seeing in my own dioramic setting.
I'm still working on this project and quite quickly the updates will appear in real time [which actually means slowly].
I think it's sheer bloody mindedness that's keeping me going on this because one solution just highlights the next problem - and in truth I'm not good enough anymore to deal with them ............... but I'll be buggered if I'll be beaten by a lump of plastic.

So stand by for a marked increase in tears and whimpering.

[Malachi Constant]

There's a resin vehicle kit here that needs similar "correction" ... not looking forward to that too much ... but certainly encouraged by your progress and fixes.  And, regarding Russ' point ... it's one of those bodies that has loads of complex shapes ... and though it will take some work to fix it, still seems like a substantial head start compared to building from scratch.

Nice work!
Dallas

[Ray Dunakin]

Wow, that is one weird looking vehicle! Very interesting to see your build.

[Ken Hamilton]

- and in truth I'm not good enough anymore to deal with them ...............

Not true...and I can't wait to see what you do with it.  Have fun and don't
stress out over every little flaw.  It's good to see a 1/25th scale car around here!

[Andi Little]

Hey All............

....... Perhaps it's not for me to criticize or endorse this kit - at least that's not my intention. But rather just to chronicle the build, its successes and then - less so.
I think it's fairly obvious, or will become so, where the shortcomings are; and you might even hear me whinge on occasion. But I think the fact will always remain that this is the only game in town if you want to get a head start in building an example of this pugnacious little character.
I think if pushed I would state the obvious ...... this is not a kit for a beginner - nor even the faint hearted.

And all ......... many thanks for comments - it pleases me to think you're following along.




So, without any further ado ....................this as a reminder of where we started.......



And moving on a little................................



Perhaps the main things of note here are:- The straightening of the rear "van-body" panels, the building up of the rear wheel spats - the whole thing is so far out that to try and build it as per the prototype would require just too much work that would just result in throwing another measurement out - so with some judicious "pushing and pulling" I've managed to create the illusion of what I'm after if not museum accuracy.
I've created the "flat-top" effect to the front wheel arch, built up the froward and rear edges of same and re-profiled them to something more akin to the vehicle itself. Re-scribed the door and engraved it to get a better feel for the notion that it is a sliding assembly, and also built the base of the door up ready to create the running seam against it. Filled the completely wrong fuel filler door and filled the spat to "proud"! as I want this to appear slightly "ill-fitting" ready for distressing when it comes time to decorate it.
But just look!! - at the "HUGE" droop in the rain gutter and door valance - Oh groan - one repair just throws into view - yet another problem!!!




So, what's going on here then? - well you can see more modelling around the front wheel arch, more subtlety and a softer feel to to look of it, a deeper shut line" for the door with the leading edge lowered below the level of the front wing - again to give the feel of being two separate items as opposed to just a single adjoining surface. There has been a lot of scraping and modelling of the front wing where it meets the A post and makes the transition around from the bonnet to the side of the vehicle - nothing outrageous just enough to take the "Die-cast toy" look off of it.
The body panel has been shortened awaiting the rear door seem. And obviously a new door valance and rain gutter - still awaiting a little more reducing and shaping but I think already looking a whole lot better?
Final shaping of the rear wheel spat and now waiting for it's "wire" seam, plus a newly scribed fuel filler door, although I think the "finger pull" is a bit big and will need "knocking back" a touch.




A quick look around the front - mainly to allow us to see that all the judicious scraping a sanding is beginning to result in a much "sharper" look to the front and it's starting to really carry that "pugnacious" quality of the original. Only real work of note is the "line" placed between the screens and through to the roof this will form the spine of the subtle "V" that's again a distinctive styling cue of the MkI version of the original. The later Mk's carrying a shallow and then much deeper panoramic single piece screen.

More soon hopefully.............

[Malachi Constant]

Appreciate all the details of the trials & tribulations here ... as mentioned previously, it's encouraging for one or more of those "yet to 'inish" projects!    -- Dallas

[Andi Little]

Well - Earwig-Ho.............another back dated update - apologies to those that know where the latest ones are being posted - [there is no real rhyme or reason] - it must seem terribly disjointed?



So, an apology before the pic's - this ones all about the windows, and they're pretty grimy! I've fixed them in temporarily with Blu-tac and Pratt stick - and this has left them looking a bit second hand - this will be either addressed at final assembly - or I'll hide it with some judicious road-dirt over the glazing.


On then........................



How disgusting is this? - It's a bliddy mess in here, and folk wondered why I wasn't prepared to open the doors - I'd still be in the "clean-up" stage.
Main thing to note though is the rebate that I've cut around the inside of the glazing wires - bit difficult to see but should be apparent if you squint hard enough. This did take a long time because of the disparity between the "chalky" nature of the resin and the "diamond hard" dry cyano. Blew one set of wire surrounds out and had to redo them once - couple of three repairs too.



Here's the inside of the side windows - you really are going to have to forgive me the state of the interior here. But you can see from the pic' a new set of "frames", these work better from the outside and look a bit more authentic than the wires I moulded in originally........... again with the rebate.




And now from the outside ........... the frame even in the raw looks a lot better to my eye, and I've cracked open the sliding window for a more "lived in" effect - the drivers [other] side more so!




And from the front ............... because I've got to take the screens out again they're not pressed "home" but you can see how they fit closer to the surface of the steelwork ridding the model of that horrible tunnel effect you get from kits/diecasts etc.
You can probably also see the "yellow" milliput that I've used to flush the surrounding steelwork to the wire frames and also build up the "widows peak" or "Vee" into the screen, this is subtle but definitely there on the early "splitscreen" CA's. More work to do around the wheel arch but some of that texture is being kept for R&R [Rot and Rust] later in the build.


I'm glad this bits over as I had convinced myself it was going to be a kill-or-cure part of the build - and so it was. But glad that it's over as I'm a bit more confident - enough even to continue ........... although now I've got those ruddy awful back doors to sort out.

[Ray Dunakin]

Looking good! What are you using for the glass?

[Gordon Ferguson]

Looking good Andi, but come on share with these good people the work you have done on the rest of the van and especially the rear doors!

You won't be disappointed folks

[finescalerr]

What an unforgivably difficult upgrade! -- Russ