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Airfix Austin Healey 'Frog Eye' Sprite

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wixwacing
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Posts: 1871
Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:22 am

Airfix Austin Healey 'Frog Eye' Sprite

Post by wixwacing »

Austin Healey
‘Frog Eye’ Sprite


Modelling in miniature has always been a favourite hobby of mine and I have always been amazed at the progression of my own efforts and abilities as the have evolved over the years. Formally being trained as a motor vehicle technician, it wasn’t long before some of my creations had minimum levels of engineering as an integral part.

On getting into slot cars many years ago I was immediately enthralled by the myriad of ways people engineered their scratch built models. Not to be outdone I joined in and needless to say many early efforts bore the marks of partial success and partial failure.

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After discovering the fairer sex and becoming a mature adult and home owner and after slot cars died their inevitable first death in the early seventies, I moved away from the hobby, not to touch it for more than 30 years. A chance encounter on an internet web sight rekindled my curiosity and after making several contacts, I was once again up to my neck in them.

I kick started the scratch building side of things as pulling RTR cars out of the box and racing was leaving a bit of a void in the scheme of things. So, once more I have ventured down that road, picking up vital tips and discarded others. Most of my scratchbuilds are now highly drivable. I concentrate on true scale hard bodies and scale wheels and tyres. Some of the cars, I don’t get right first time and others are flyers off the plan!

But always in each model I try to push back the boundaries and incorporate something new. Tips and ideas from the net are a source of inspiration and sometimes the lack of commercial solutions causes me to be innovative.

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The little “Frog Eye Sprite” of this topic is one more step down that road and the reason for crowing about this model is that it takes me further along the scratchbuilding road.

The first challenge as always was to produce a small model that was realistic in appearance and also a pleasure to drive. With a 62mm wheelbase and a 40mm track, a non magnet car was going to be a challenge, that was for sure. Therefore, the first priority was to make a chassis with a low C of G to reduce the amount of ballast needed and keep the vehicle weight down, Secondly as a non traction magnet car to be used primarily on board, it had to have a tractable motor that would enhance its drivability and not some super whiz, 35,000 rpm device that would destroy all before it in quick smart time, and lastly it had to call to me from my race box every time the lid was opened.

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This is basically what happened. The car is an Airfix kit that was donated to me a long while ago and, knowing the difficulty in getting small cars to work from previous efforts, it was left for future times when I had reached ability to make it. After several very successful model conversions I decided it was time.

First, I glued all the main body bits together, front valance, rear panel etc. I then measured the opening and cut the blank for the chassis from some PCB board. Where to get scale wheels was looking like a problem when I spotted in my spares box a pair of Hornby Camaro front wheels, these are very similar to the ‘Minilites’ used in the ‘60’s. Good friend and forum boss Rob was able to come to the party with four more so that was the wheel problem solved, Tyres were the ground down fronts from a Scaley GT 40 purchased some time back as a job lot from ebay. Axles were made from 3/32 music wire and after the wheel recesses were cut from the chassis, the axle carriers were made up.

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To get the wheels at the right height in the body, I needed to mount the chassis. This was done by gluing a narrow strip of 1 mm polystyrene along both sides of the body. Another couple of pieces laminated where the fixing screws were to go and the holes were bored and tapped. Once the chassis was mounted, the axle heights could be fixed and the axle holders were soldered into place. A Scaley crown wheel was fitted to the rear axle and pressed in place and the motor was positioned on the board and its length etched on the surface.

After contemplating which guide to use I decided that all the commercial options available were not suitable. It would mean cutting huge chunks out of the front valance and having this monstrous device protruding from under the front of the model, NO WAY! So I set about making one. It is similar to the commercial offerings but is made of 2mm polystyrene. I decided to make it a trailing guide and mounted a brass tube in the front of it and epoxied it in place. The turning arc of the guide was marked on the PCB and cut out and filed. Inside the chassis the guide has a small collar over the tube with a grub screw fixing it in place. The guide now sits between the front wheels with its pivot point in front of the axle.

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The hole for the motor was then cut out with a Superworks Dremel and tidied up with a small flat file. The motor was sanded lightly and tinned at the lower edge. The motor was bought from my local ‘Dick Smith’ electronics hobby store, It is rated at 13.000 rpm at 12 volts. It was put in place and soldered down, wires connected and chassis finished!! Initial test runs with the bare body showed this car might fulfil its anticipated requirements.

Feeling a bit more at ease with this unknown quantity I moved on to the bodywork. Firstly a driver’s tray was constructed around the motor to try and allow as much cockpit detail as possible. Still a tight squeeze but I managed to get half a driver in and not just his head! Seat backs were trimmed down and glued and most of the dash and steering wheel could be used. The body was primed in flat blue acrylic and high spots, seams and dimples were removed. Wheels were painted with semi matt black enamel and chrome silver acrylic. The silver had a coat of clear eventually to give it extra shine.

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The grille had a layer of “Bare Metal Foil” applied to it and a couple of coats of clear to bring it up. The lights were painted and the smaller lamps had a coat of clear orange and clear red. The backs of the lamps were counter bored with a very small drill (about 3/64”) and their position on the body was bored too. The driver is a half classic Fly driver and his nether regions were cut to fit him alongside the motor cover in the drivers tray. I like to ‘pose’ my drivers to make them appear a little more dynamic than standard fare. This one was cut to give the impression he was leaning inwards slightly and his head was set to the left as if cornering.

The driver was painted and after several mixes, a nice AH blue was achieved. The body was mounted on a lolly stick by its chassis fixing screws and the body was painted, allowed to set for a day or so then rubbed down with 1200 w+d and resprayed. After another few days of drying, a medium coat of clear was applied.

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Finally, the light fixing points on the body were carefully cleaned, the holes cleaned out and a mix of epoxy resin and silver paint was applied into the holes. The backs of the lamps were coated and the lamps were applied to the body. The reason for doing this is that small lights on construction kits are notoriously difficult to make ‘knock proof’. Also, gluing the lamps to the body make for difficult painting and cloudy lamps that don’t convince. The silver epoxy will bring out the colour in the ‘clear’ colours of the lamps. It will also penetrate holes in the body and the lamp and form quite a strong key, almost like epoxy ‘pinning’! This is not totally fool proof but it has a massive advantage over straightforward styrene glue.

The grille was epoxied from behind and the screen surround was painted with ‘flat aluminium’. Once dry it too was epoxied with a silver mixture of epoxy to the body. The screen holes had been bored through to give it a better chance of fixing. I sometimes wonder if it should have had the soft top fitted!! The headlights were fixed with clear epoxy from behind and once dry the backs were painted with chrome silver acrylic.

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So that’s it! Another model finished, the car weighs in at 52 gms! Drives like it is a lot bigger and heavier and is a joy to ‘throw’ about on the local 21 metre board track. It behaves almost impeccably and it seems a shame that it will pick up a few scratches and maybe lose a light or too but that’s what it was built for. The model was built over a period of about ten weeks, along with other projects.

The motor is very flexible and the acceleration for such a small model is good but not vicious, its low strength motor magnets allow it to coast a little on over run and not slew sideways as do some models. I just can’t help putting it on the track time and time again.

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The main features of improvement for me on this model was the scratch construction of a small trailing guide, the painting and fixing of clear plastic parts and, although you can’t see it very clearly in the photos, after painting the driver I slowly built up layers of clear acrylic on the drivers goggles to give the effect of a clear visor in them.

I now have to look forward to one day soon knocking something off this beautiful model. I promise I won’t cry!
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When I'm not racing slotcars,
I'm out in the back yard, burning food!!

When I win, it's because of my talent, not my car or my controller!
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