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While woring on the Super Wheelies, the Big Bear body progress by small touches...


The front face is completed, the logo on the side as well. Remains to do : the rear Dastun on the bed, and the windows surrounds...

There is a lot of work, but there is a bit of fun as well...

Here is the new helmet on a driver figure... I can already imagine what it will look like when painted (one remark here : not much sanding is done, as I intend to keep the layers visible, just to highlight it is printed - obviously, one willing to have a perfect finish could work it out)...


I finished the paintjob part for the Big Bear bodyshell, after this, there will be the other elements remaining... I don't think I have any single pictures of that one before I started to work on it : the initial paint was awfully thick and with a lot of dust. Maybe I should have taken one...




I'll take care of the rest in the afternoon or tomorrow... In the meantime, the work started on the Super wheelie driver figures, minus one which has just gone thru primer and will be kept like this until I can get a proper scan (ordered a revopoint pop3 this morning after months of reflexion).

The Stig's helmet was fairly simple to do and is in its final form already...



For the other one, I masked the face of the driver figure and apply the color of the helmet. That said, it becomes much more complex when the head is still on the body of the driver figure... One driver went for the haircut mode and request for a dye (nb : again, the head is not perfect, rational is to keep the history of the driver figure which came from a car which was own by the former president of a rc club nearby since he was a kid, back in the eighties : i'll apply a new paintjob, but some traces of the past will remain)...


More work is ongoing...

There is some progress, although very small, but those small finishing touches are taking a lot of time... No question why so many cars were never finished back in the eighties, as when we were kids, we were all eager to run...

On the Super Wheelie drivers, I still need to work out the safety belt and the eyes, and may want to add some black lines inside the helmet (at least on the orange one, as on the one attached to the body, the access might be too difficult to make it safely...


I have two insides for two of my Big Bears... One was coming with the bodyshell that I painted this week.


The driver is very well glued on his seat... I'm not sure I'll find a way to get him out of his seat... And if I can't do this, there is no way I take the risk of removing the paint as there would be probably no way to paint it properly... I added the black and the face, and will add the eyes at the same time than the Super Wheelie drivers... 

The other Big Bear driver is painted as well... And it's not that bad actually ( have just to add eyes and maybe small touches here and there)... But I may still go for a paint removal attempt for this one, in order to have a chance to get a proper scan (I have a 3rd Big Bear body with the interior but without the driver figure)...


Scanner is supposed to arrive tomorrow, I'll have some test to do for sure, and one of the first test will be to scan a painted pilot (the black may not help, but I may have a solution in mind)...

On the Super Wheelie drivers side, eyes are done... Only left to do is the harness...


The Big Bear driver also got eyes, now...


This means that the only last thing to do on the Big Bear side is the stickers... Once I receive them...





Harness are next, then the target is to complete the Super Wheelie bodyshells with roll cages, and other accessories, and to rebuild a few Super Wheelie chassis to get under the rebuilt bodyshells (have one already built, and 3 more to come)

Printed quite a few parts (and other prints will follow) as I have many bodies to complete. This time the prints are resin, and it's an ABS like resin,and the result is quite nice...


While doing this, I spent some time sorting the parts for the 4 bodies I'm going to build/rebuild now, to make sure I have everything to rebuild each of the cars to a state close to their original state...

Each bodies' parts are in one of the box. Only remaining missing element right now for the 4 bodies is the "glass" for Barbamama. I'll have to cut one with the Silhouette Cameo 4, as the one which came originally with the car was quite damaged... The fact the Silhouette Cameo is next to the resin printer currently working doesn't help. The fact I also need to refactor the cutting bed as it doesn't stick anymore doesn't help either, by the way... Anyway, soon, we'll hit the 13 as we don't need Barbamama for this...

The great advantge of White Nylon PA12 SLS printed parts is that you can easily dye them... And because I do not have a full set of grey parts for the white Land Cruiser, I ordered 3 full set of arms in white PA12 SLS. The overall plan was to make one set grey, and one set red. The last one was planed for my daughter's car (Barbamama). She like the principle, but she said there was not enough pink.

Few minutes in the kitchen with a material purely dedicated to this, and the "not enough pink" is solved...


For those who want to know : Rit Dye, water at 80°C. The more you keep the parts inside the bath, the darker it will be...

Partly assembled 3 of the 4 bodyshell. I have some screws missing for the 4th roll cage because my provider made a mistake and I do not have possible replacement at hand.



All the three bodyshells are missing the spare wheels and jerrycans as again it is a screws issue. The problem should be solved tomorrow, and I'll be able to finish the work on the 4 cars. Stickers for the Toyota are on the way, not sure when they will arrive...

I finaly found some screws of the right dimension to put the last cage of the in progress cars... And Barbamama will look cool . Still have to install the windshield with some specific marking, and to find a way to fix the driver figure...


I put the bodyshells back  in the garage, awaiting for their chassis...

I removed the paint from one of the Big Bear drivers in order to be able to make a scan of it. It's not perfect, but once the primer will be applied, it should be fine...


I also assembled the FDM printed bodyshell... The idea behind is to have a single example of it available to show people on my table during the vintage events starting later this month...


Next : work on the chassis, add last accesories on the bodyshells...

The last set of screws arrived today, and I could complete all bodyshells with their accessories...

I cut some windows using the plotter. Super easy when you have both the plotter and a drawing of the window itself. I just keyed the right dimension in Silhouette Studio to have the right dimensions....


And I added a personnal touch again on Barbamama after adding the window...


I also took pictures of the SLA resin printed Mitsubishi body shell completed. The light covers are also resin printed, while the other accessories are Nylon printed. For the spare wheel, I used an original one (I could have printed one in resin, but I was lazy...


And I can see that the slight warping at the rear right end of the resin printed shell is not really visible once the accessories are present, which was my assumption from the beginning...