Hi All.
I've been looking for a 1:12 scale diecast model for some time, but the prices are just plain crazy. Then last month I spotted this eBay ad for a 1:12 scale remote control E85 model:
It's plastic rather than metal, and has no opening doors, bonnet etc, but as it was only Ā£25 I thought I'd buy it and play around with it.
Being plastic, everything came apart really easily. So I removed the dashboard component, and was pleased to see that the steering wheel assembly was separate. So I set about recreating the dashboard in Fusion 360 and converting it to RHD - which turned out to be a big project! It's not immediately obvious, but the brushed aluminium dash panel follows Anders Warming's flame surfacing concept. It looks flat, but it curves out into the cabin, and the front surface is also concave. Modelling a twin-curved surface like this quickly stretched my Fusion 360 skills. But these new skills also came in handy for my next project which was to design a holder to clip a 35mm diameter wifi remote control for my MP3 player over the lower central spoke cover on the steering wheel. The spoke covers actually curve in three directions, so this was an even greater challenge!
I removed the ugly red infrared receiver, and also replaced the auto lever with a manual one, and added carpets!
The end result was this:
In all I spent about two weeks on the design of various prototype dashboards, and as I was 3D printing them at 50 micron (0.05mm) resolution/layer height, each print took 6 - 7 hours! My previous lockdown project was dismantling an e3D BigBox printer and rebuilding it to my own CoreXY deisgn. I'd had success wuth fast printing, and this was a great test of the printer's hi-res printing performance - so overall I was well-chuiffed!
Here's my car:
and here's the "Mini Me" model:
I should have cleaned the dust off the model before taking the photos, but I'm pretty pleased with the result! My car has a grey rather than a black hood, so I think I'll need to take it apart again and spray the rear of the cockpit! Also, the rear lamp clusters are missing the all important French fries!
As an added bonus, I'm guessing this may be the only 1:12 scale model of a RHD E85.
I've always loved the design of the E85, and seeing just how far he extended the flame surfacing concept into all aspects of the car's design has further increased my admiration for Mr Warming!
I've been looking for a 1:12 scale diecast model for some time, but the prices are just plain crazy. Then last month I spotted this eBay ad for a 1:12 scale remote control E85 model:
It's plastic rather than metal, and has no opening doors, bonnet etc, but as it was only Ā£25 I thought I'd buy it and play around with it.
Being plastic, everything came apart really easily. So I removed the dashboard component, and was pleased to see that the steering wheel assembly was separate. So I set about recreating the dashboard in Fusion 360 and converting it to RHD - which turned out to be a big project! It's not immediately obvious, but the brushed aluminium dash panel follows Anders Warming's flame surfacing concept. It looks flat, but it curves out into the cabin, and the front surface is also concave. Modelling a twin-curved surface like this quickly stretched my Fusion 360 skills. But these new skills also came in handy for my next project which was to design a holder to clip a 35mm diameter wifi remote control for my MP3 player over the lower central spoke cover on the steering wheel. The spoke covers actually curve in three directions, so this was an even greater challenge!
I removed the ugly red infrared receiver, and also replaced the auto lever with a manual one, and added carpets!
The end result was this:
In all I spent about two weeks on the design of various prototype dashboards, and as I was 3D printing them at 50 micron (0.05mm) resolution/layer height, each print took 6 - 7 hours! My previous lockdown project was dismantling an e3D BigBox printer and rebuilding it to my own CoreXY deisgn. I'd had success wuth fast printing, and this was a great test of the printer's hi-res printing performance - so overall I was well-chuiffed!
Here's my car:
and here's the "Mini Me" model:
I should have cleaned the dust off the model before taking the photos, but I'm pretty pleased with the result! My car has a grey rather than a black hood, so I think I'll need to take it apart again and spray the rear of the cockpit! Also, the rear lamp clusters are missing the all important French fries!
As an added bonus, I'm guessing this may be the only 1:12 scale model of a RHD E85.
I've always loved the design of the E85, and seeing just how far he extended the flame surfacing concept into all aspects of the car's design has further increased my admiration for Mr Warming!
