Radiator part 1

The radiator is kept in place with only two thin plastic parts glued to the front sub frame. So far, no big deal beside the fact that those parts are from the dreaded chromed tree. The assembly is much stiffer than it looks like, but not enough to fight the load created by the tubes connected to the radiator. That is where it gets interesting... Four tubes are expected to be running to and from it: two to the lower section of the body, one from the engine running along the left hand side of the cockpit and one to the oil tank. Dimensions for all four are given in the notice and the user is supposed to play with the soft black tube already used on the engine. I wanted to do something a bit different and a bit more appealing to the eye.
I got a piece of shielded thermocouple cable, which has a diameter perfectly compatible with the model. I cut it a bit longer than required in order to open the braid and allow me to remove the cables inside. Then I cut it to the right length. Without its content, the braid may gain a bit of length, but it is not a really big problem. With rough cut edges, I needed to find something to make the connections to the radiator look good. I used a tiny bit of steel ribbon rolled onto itself (thanks to the round handle of a small brush) and slid over the braid, then squeezed a bit more over the braid in order to make it fit tightly around the end once in the right place. The final view should be available in the next few days.











I spent a lot of time trying to find a way to enhance the look of the tubes and I was really happy when I came across the thermocouple cable. However the material is quite stiff and I was not able to replace every plastic tube by a metallic one unfortunately. I am not saying that it is impossible to do, but I could not find a way to use them and maintain the radiator in its intended place at the same time. I made the choice to use the braid only for the lower tubes and I used the plastic material for the other ones. It will then have a mixed finish despite my efforts. The main difficulty was with the tube which is connected to the side of the car. The braid was too stiff for me to bend it correctly over the oil tank tube and around the oil tank and left front suspension. I could not place the radiator on the miniature tubular frame afterwards. So I replaced them with their plastic equivalent and glued together the front sub-frame, the radiator and the chromed parts. That should give enough strength to the whole thing for me to put the braids in place.