Citroen 15-Six "Traction Avant" - 1952 - Heller - 1/8

[DominiqueBeerts]

Thank you, I am glad you like it.

for those who want to get their hands on a Traction Avant as well, Heller seems to be re-releasing (already has done so or will be doing in very near future) the kit among other interesting ones, as can be seen in their 2014 catalogue. Have a look here:

http://www.heller.fr/fr/maquettes/66...classique?&p=3

[DominiqueBeerts]

Some progress pictures. This is the status as per tonight. I am really closing in now, it will just be a matter of slamming everything together and the car will be finished.

No problems to report, except for the fact that the supports for the front bumper are too small. They are not deep enough so the bumper touches the bottom lip of the radiator. I already mentioned that there must be something terribly wrong with the way the front of my car has come together, but it is what it is now. I am now making new supports to make the front bumper fit properly.

[ianc911]

Masterpiece!

ianc

[DominiqueBeerts]

Thanks guys.

Status update.

I have been working on the front bumper mainly. Like I said before, the connectors for the front bumper are too short, that makes that the bumper touches the radiator. I have no idea if this is a weak point of the kit, or the incorrect mounting of things by me. Anyway, I have replaced the mounts by brass ones. Nothing fancy, it is just a U-shaped bent piece of brass, cut to size.




At least I have the necessary clearance now, although I think it is still too little. It looks like this after painting:







The wheel covers have been done. I followed the same procedure as for the rest of the chromed parts: removal of all kit provided chrome (just dumped the pieces in bleech water) and then prepared, primed and sprayed them with Motip Chrome spray straight from the spray can.
To stay in line with the rest of model's finish I have added some weathering by dry-brushing some brown color on top of it:





An overall view of today's status:

[DominiqueBeerts]

To protect the plastic suspension from the overall weight of the kit (Heller advices that, but I also added weight myself) I implemented this solution.
I cast 2 blocks of resin (they look like Swiss cheese but that's beause they are not vacuumed while casting) which are mounted under the car.

The front is an easy one, you can place it under the engine cradle right between the wheels. I bored a hole in the engine mount and with a brass pin I secured the resin block in the correct place.



The rear is a bit more complicated because of the available space. The suspension is in the way to do the same thing there. So I added a small brass plate (1mm thick) which is bent to reach to the bottom plate of the car. Then I bolted the brass piece to both the bottom plate and the resin block.





A fit shows it will turn out just fine. It is now a matter of finding a nice setup for the car and then I can bolt the resin blocks to the base plate.





Happy new year to you all !!

[ianc911]

Looks very good. You could drill holes in the bottom of your resin pieces and use a screw from beneath to attach it to a base...

ianc

[DominiqueBeerts]

Originally Posted by ianc911

Looks very good. You could drill holes in the bottom of your resin pieces and use a screw from beneath to attach it to a base...

ianc

that is what I meant. I realise now that bolting is in fact not he same thing as screwing. Writing in a foreign language is not always as evident as it seems apparently.
Thanks, and happy new year.

[corvettekid_7684]

Amazing model! It's been fascinating watching it come together! Thanks for sharing this build

[DominiqueBeerts]

Thanks for the interest in this build. The response keeps me going ;-).

I have been playing with bits and pieces this afternoon. Like I said I am not going to put the hood on the car because:
- it does not fit in length (the hood is too short and I did not bother to adapt it),
- it would hide all the detail in the engine compartment and that would be a shame.

So the hood will be placed beside the car and it would be nice to have some kind of a standard to place it on and secure that to the base plate. A colleague of mine had such a standard for the optional hard top for this BMW convertible and I decided to scratch build a standard using that idea.

I started off in plastic rod and all went very well, except that the assembly was a bit too light. The assembly had trouble keeping the weight of the hood in balance. So I decided to redo the lot in brass. This way my mini-torch got tested as well. It is almost a year ago I bought the thing but I haven't used it yet. In one go it is a general rehearsal for something I want - or have - to do in one of my next projects.

Lots of words maybe, but the pictures speak for themselves. Mission accomplished for what I am concerned. Let's paint the assembly and mount it on the base plate.

[Citroen TA]

Indeed, an interesting implementation.

[DominiqueBeerts]

At last it is finished.

Here is a sneak preview of what you can you can find in this thread.



Thank you for your support and interest. Let's tackle the next one.