The Workbench
A selection of our previous, current, on-going and new projects. Various methods of manufacturing will be shown, and different scales of items. Whatever takes our interest really.
This is a casual look the ''other'' things we do, sometimes with success, and sometimes without, but all still enjoyable just the same.
Scroll down or use the buttons below to have a look.
1/16 AMT Cobra 427
Machined Aluminium Rims
A little experiment to see how the old AMT Cobra would look with deep dish wheels.
Very happy with the result, may hand polish these when the time comes to build the thing! The spoke section required some careful machining to ensure a good fit into the Alloy rim. Perhaps stripping the chrome off the spokes and painting those a dark-iron would look good against the polished Alloy.
1/24 Tamiya Aston Martin DBS
Machined Brass Rims & Exhaust Tips
Being a long time lover of Aston Martin, I couldn't let the release from Tamiya slip past. Then while browsing the internet I came across the German Aston Martin Tuner - DMC and knew that was the look I wanted. For the rims I located a set of aftermarket parts and modified them to suit, much like the AMT Cobra rims. Here are a few pics from start to finish of the exhaust tips and rims.
1/8 Pocher Mercedes-Benz
Machined Brake Drums
We have been making our machined Alloy Brake Drums for the Pocher Alfa Romeo and Rolls Royce for years, and thought we'd have a go at the Pocher Mercedes Brakes. We've only produced one set of these so far as a concept but the results speak for themselves. I think we'll have to add these as a permanent product to our range of parts.
Thanks to Colin from Tamworth, Australia for the pics of the drums installed on his Merc.
1/8 Revell Jaguar E-Type
Machined Alloy Exhausts & Brackets
A little test of concept again. This time the exhausts for the 1/8 Revell Jag. The tricky part is getting the bend in each pipe that is required to follow the contours of the underside of the Jag. At this point have had more failures than success though I think it's worth re-visiting to add these to our range as well.
1/8 Pocher Alfa-Romeo
Machined Brake Drums
Here are our Alfa Brakes. These are fully reverse engineered from the original kit brakes to make sure the associated Pocher kit parts fit perfectly. We make these available from time to time as the machining does take a while, glad we have the lathe CNC'd!
1/8 Pocher Alfa-Romeo
Machined Brake Drums & Wheel Covers
1/8 Pocher Rolls-Royce
Machined Brake Drums
Here are our Rolls Royce brakes. Same concept as the Alfa brakes in that these are fully reverse engineered from the original kit brakes to make sure the associated Pocher kit parts fit perfectly. We make these available from time to time as the machining does take a while, glad we have the lathe CNC'd!
1/10 RC Mini-Truck
Custom IHI Turbo
A very unique customer request that turned out fantastic (as well as giving a few laughs at the comically oversized IHI Turbocharger).
As our customer wanted the inlet side of the turbo to be open, we had to ensure the impeller blades could be seen. We started with our IHI Turbo's for the Pocher F40, enlarged the overall diameter to almost 2 inches (50mm), hollowed out the inlet side, then designed the impeller fins.
The impeller was the trickiest part, as we needed those to print separately, but also had to ensure the blades were realistic, but still had enough thickness to print without breaking, and to also take the odd bit of debris that might fly in to the inlet. Remember, this is an RC Truck so is not like the regular models our parts end up on. We had to consider strength with this one.
Incidentally, 50mm in 1/10 scale works out to be roughly 450mm / 18 inches in 1:1 scale!!
The turbo itself is comprised of 4 separate parts (impeller housing, impeller fin assembly, bearing housing, exhaust housing) and also includes the oil / cooling fittings.
We love how this looks, not to mention the overall style of the truck itself. Also of note is how our customer has integrated the RC electric motor into what would be the engine block, and then is building up the engine around it.. very clever!
1/10 RC Rock Crawler
Sparco Race Seats
Another product that ended up somewhere we didn't expect. These are our SPARCO race seats and bases that were designed specifically for the Pocher F40.
A customer was putting these in an RC Rock Crawler (looks like a 40 Series Landcruiser body). The seats and base are a perfect fit and our customer couldn't be happier! Would love to see this finished and in action.
1/12 Trumpeter Ford GT40
Machined Alloy Exhaust Pipes
The GT40 exhaust pipes are something we thought was just crying out to be made in actual metal!
The outside machining of the tapered / cone shape is easy with CNC late, but the inside presents its own obstacles. The opening is only a few mm but needs to be machined on the same taper as the outside. Some custom ground boring bars made this possible but not without some trials and errors!
These are a prototype set, and have been finished with a hand sanding and polish. The bright white parts on the pipes are from the camera flash... very highly polished. Much brighter in reality than shown in the pics.
