Okrasa Special

BAHumbug · Post by **BAHumbug** » Thu Apr 28, 2011 3:41 am

Just thinking out loud based on Bruce's (the other one) comments-
What about the boot lid top having a bit of curve to match the line of the top of the rear window? I agree with his idea that the rear quarter panel should visually be a continuation of the roof line. Thanks for letting us (me) yap on as if I had anything to do with it. It's going to be fantastic.

steve wright · Post by **steve wright** » Thu Apr 28, 2011 10:06 am

Thanks guys, all useful, and great to be able to share the highs and lows of the build. Great suggestions from everyone - the raising of the rear definitely makes a big difference doesn't it, as does the rounding of the Kamm tail sides. I debated with Barry about dropping the bootlid where it joins the windscreen but I realise that was a mistake now: it needs to be a continuation of the roof as much as possible to avoid it looking like the Karmann roof has just been "plonked" on. Not sure about extending the rear length as the proportions look right from every other angle. Interestingly I added a very small lip (spoiler) to the top edge of the Kamm tail in cardboard yesterday and that seems to have made a big difference as well.

It will be interesting to see what it looks like with an ally bootlid - Barry has definitely had enough of this monkeying around with paper! When I dropped in to the workshop last week I though, "hello, Barry has painted the paper" then thought, "no, maybe he's used grey gaffer tape", then I realised he had done it in ally, woah!

anyway, hopefully this will be the last installment in this phase of design - we both want it to be over now so the metalwork can begin

911hillclimber · Post by **911hillclimber** » Thu Apr 28, 2011 5:10 pm

'Roll-on' the next phase...sorry.

I am sure you have both done enough of the Planning Phase and read for action.

Do you have a plan of attack?
Wings then bonnet/boot then doors etc?

steve wright · Post by **steve wright** » Sat Apr 30, 2011 7:24 pm

sigh not a good day yesterday unfortunately, we knew there would be difficult days and Friday was one of them. While two billion people watched a wedding Barry spent the entire day re-making the rear hammerform (rather than making up a new wireform only to then have to cover it in paper, then make a hammerform from that). He remade it larger all round and softened the curves as Bruce suggested, lifting the whole of the rear as well which all helped, but we're still not quite there and can't figure out why. Which is really annoying. I suspect it might be in the 250LM style rear, rather than Porsche 904 (i.e. we should go with what Bruce suggested which was a larger radius plus a taper down to the rear: we've done the former but not the latter). Getting the thing out in daylight and viewing it up the road makes a difference - at least it does when you're not lying in the road trying to get a different perspective and some woman comes along in her Toyota eurobox, wondering what on earth is going on. I'm annoyed with myself for not having got the thing out last year when we thought the rear was done. Never mind, all part of the learning process and we'll know for next time.

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Sun May 01, 2011 2:50 pm

Well, to take some positives:

i) Had we realised that the rear wasn't as good as we first thought, I don't think we'd have got as far as sticking with the front end as we did. I think it was only the thought that we were 'nearly there' that made us persevere with the nose. We could have easily given up at that stage I suspect. As it happened the fact that we were so positive about the rear buoyed us up during the front end resolution.

ii) The new hammerform has enough meat on it to make the latest attempt just the same as Bruce's design if Steve elects to go that way.

iii) The new, very much increased crown (top curve) and height of the top edge of the kamm is a huge improvement, and definitely blends far, far better with the rest of the car. Amazingly, even after I increased the size of the hammerform by 3/4 in all round (i.e. so it's basic shape is bigger by 1 1/2 inches), I also added a further 3/4in over the top curve. Even with these changes, there is a fall of a good four inches from front to rear of 'boot', which is still very much 'there', but has removed the hint of broken back to things.

iv) I think that we are actually 'onto something' with the rear, and that we are getting quite close, especially with the upper half: i.e. from say, two or three inches up from the kamm base, even if we do have to work on the top curves a bit.

v) The wheel has turned out to be everything I hoped, and knocking up panels is very controlled. The bootlid looks terrible, but I was on my own and the panel was 1 1/2 times the usual maximum size one person can wheel, as you simply can't support it evenly. We've always known that the larger panels will be two-man stuff, so I'm happy. I was particularly pleased to see how very controlled the Hoosier wheels make forming very low crowned panels: absolutely brilliant, and very much worth the wait.

I have to say, for the first time up there, I was not feeling the love at all: once again it was a fantastic blue-skied day with everyone off and having fun (Good Friday, and then Wedding Bank Holiday). I knew that the existing attempt wasn't right, that there was a good chance that not only that much of the previous efforts would end up in the bin, but much of that day's output could as well.

We've established that for the critical areas the only way of really, really assessing how things are going, that the only way is to make it in metal. Trouble is, do you rush it, knowing there's a good chance it won't be used anyway, but then the act of rushing it means it looks very rough, which in turns means it's more likely to be rejected. On the other hand, do you spend literally a couple of days making a much better hammerform, and subsequent test peice, only to not use it.

Very tricky stuff, with no right or wrong answers. No one's fault either: I think Steve would agree that it's very, very tricky to approve a design until you've seen something pretty close to the real thing in the flesh. As the builder it's very hard to spend 1, 2 or 300 of hours on a phase where you don't really know where you're going until you've got a very real mock-up, and only then can you make the buck to make the skin.

On the whole it's been a positive experience, and frankly there's very little we could change even with the benefit of hindsight.

The other thing of course, is that we could have just said 'sod it, it's close enough' some time ago, but I for one won't rest until we've got the shape as good as we possibily can: for David, for Steve, for the car, and frankly, for me. I want to look at the thing from afar at a show or where-ever, and get that flutter at the pit of my stomach where you think 'bloody hell, we actually made that, and it looks great'.

Frankly I think we're well past the point where we might glance back at it and think 'oh dear', we just need to dig deep and get past the last few design hurdles and get it as good as possible.

After that it'll just be down to taste, and we're never going to please everyone with that one. After all, someone signed off the Granada Scorpio, and it wasn't me

.

I'll upload some pics during the week (sun's out, and I'm off to play at boats now: no cars until tuesday

).

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Sun May 01, 2011 2:58 pm

By the way, one thing that has come out of the last few weeks is just how quick it is to rough out a panel and get it on the car. In the same vein, when we know where we are heading, the actual buck forming happens quite quickly.

Therefore I think (hope) that once we 'get there' on the design, the actual physical forming of the remains of the buck, and then the 'real' outer skin (Phase II) should progress quite quickly.

Bruce M · Post by **Bruce M** » Sun May 01, 2011 3:20 pm

You have to accept and embrace the "80-20" rule. There is no way to avoid it.

Luckily you both have an excellent eye and know when the look is right or not quite right.

Macaulay · Post by **Macaulay** » Sun May 01, 2011 9:44 pm

I think your latest photos of the tail in metal look great Barry.

I wish I had checked the thread before I started working on this,
as I can read you have come a bit further ahead on decicions and
also a lot of good suggestions here, I like Bruce M's suggestions on
the tail especially.

Anyway, my ideas are very small changes to the way it looked in paper.
I lowered the back (tucked the wheels into the wheel arches) a bit.
Chopped the bottom lip/edge a little and made the top of the arches
a bit more pronounced/curvy.
Diddn't do a lot to the back plate itself but made it taper out slightly at
the bottom part and tilted the whole thing inn at the bottom to.
(Bad at explaining stuff I know.)
I don't know if it's made it any better but it looks a bit more "tight" I think.

All in all let's not too carried away focusing on just one aeria,
I think the car has a "complete" look as it is and playing around too much
could loose that. After all it's not like this is made in clay,
changes is not that easy to make.
The way this is beeing made constricts the "play" you can have with
the shape.

You've captured the sole of this mean little thing now set it free!

Pandora · Post by **Pandora** » Sun May 01, 2011 10:08 pm

that cleans everything up a lot. the crown on the edges works well too.

One final thought from me.......

putting an oblong rather than square plate on the back might work better on the panel, and it might be interesting to put a tape line on to look at the shape of the bootlid opening. If you took the bootlid down into the back panel far enough that the number plate was on it (say the bootlid came down approx 2/3 of the way down the Kamm tail) it might break up the expanse of the panel nicely

It's amazing the effect that shut lines have on large expanses of flat panels - look at the side of the car without the door aperture to give it a bit of definition compared with even just the finest suggestion as on the pic above.

a bit like this:

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=h ... 80&bih=639

I'll shut up now! too many cooks and all that.

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Mon May 02, 2011 1:47 pm

Thanks for all of the input once again everyone, it's been very helpful indeed.

Thanks Macaulay for the latest rendering, certainly makes a huge difference over and above having just paper

.

Anyway, a few things have changed since the last pictures went up. As it happens, the pictures I was going to post got lost (corrupted card, or possibly corrupted camera

). As a result I spoke to Steve earlier today with the idea of asking him to rattle off some shots. Turned out he was up there and pondering on design issues. Therefore I joined him and we ended up progressing things a long way.

Before this point though, I had made up rear hammerform number two, which had a couple of main changes from MKII:

1) Wider overall by 1 1/2 inches.
2) Taller by a basic 1 1/2 inches, plus:
3) A much more pronounced crown over the top, which links into the the rear window and roof curves very much better.
4) Made up a 'bootlid' (I say ' ', because we are still going the clamshell route).
5) New treatment to the shape of the ends of the hammerform. Initially a Ferrari 250LM look.

The 250LM tail really didn't work, despite the 'spec' sounding right: it came from a pretty car with a small boot and very curvy rear wings, right period etc. Nevertheless, it still gave the car a very apologetic look to the rear, not aggresive at all, and somehow didn't work with the rest of the car.

So, we decided to embrace 'The Bruce', and go for the much more 904 tail. TBH we've been very wary of being accused of building a baby 904, and all of the way through have tried to avoid direct design references in this direction. I think as a consequence, we'd developed something of a 904 allergy, rejecting straight away anything that headed us in that direction.

Anyway, with 'The Bruce' drawn out over shape MKII on one end, and a dust sheet over the other side (which worked very well, your mind just fills in the missing areas, or at least, assumes the covered area is the same as the visible one), a very well resolved shape has started to emerge.

There's some fine tuning to be done with the final shape, which Steve will firm up this week. We have come up with some rules though:

1) The base of the kamm tail before it starts it's return, and becoming the rear valance, will be in line with, or no lower than the centre-line of the rear wheel.
2) The outer edge of the tail will slope in towards the top of the panel, and at no point start to curve back into the car until it has been blended out in the valance. This seems to be the key to keeping the rear end agressive enough.
3) We have found that the way to blend the return lip of the kamm away is to have a triangle of sorts meeting at a point where the valence starts, rather than keeping the same width between the inner line (formed by the hammerform), and the outside edge, and simply making the area flatter and flatter until it has gone (hopefully this will become clearer when it's in the metal).

Again, thank you everyone for the input, it is valuable beyond words.

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Mon May 02, 2011 1:51 pm

Another attempt at the rear corner, showing the principle of how we might blend it out: this is the area that Steve's hoping to firm up this week, so that I can produce the final hammerform once and foreall, and also the outer shape to the 5/16th wire so that I can redo the offside rear wing's wire form.

All being well, we can then return to the actual buck itself, and get back on track ....

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Mon May 02, 2011 1:56 pm

Finally, it's amazing how far we've been able to lift the 'bootlid', which has removed the broken back look of things, and still have a very noticable and pleasing slope to it.

One thing is that the current rear panel (kamm) is sitting an inch or so to the rear, as the existing (smaller) shape is still underneath in wire. Therefore the rear will be shortened a very small amount, but an inch over that area isn't going to be noticed, and certainly won't hurt.

Overall, I think we're both much happier now, and we've got a similar feeling to that which we had on the front: the rear now feels 'right', and we're pretty sure it's just down to detailing now.

Pandora · Post by **Pandora** » Mon May 02, 2011 3:26 pm

looking good.

I see you are using a black pen to sketch out your ideas - you should get hold of some styling tape as it helps you draw out smooth lines cleanly and quickly, and you can simply peel it off if you don't like it.

If you do like it but aren't 100% sure, you can trace it in Pencil before you peel it off to try another....... (this happens a lot!)

It's really just thin rolls of black masking tape (I mostly use in the range from 2-5 mm), but it's a bit stretchy so that you can form quite tight curves with it. It is invaluable for things like door appertures etc, especially once you are puting them onto 3D buck

I got mine in a range of thicknesses from these guys:
http://www.styling-clay.co.uk/accessori ... ting-tapes

I did all of the full size 2D and 3D work on 'Pandora' with it.

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Mon May 02, 2011 3:50 pm

Very useful, thank you: I can see that this will be invaluable when we come to placing all of the shut lines, in addition to the application above.

We'd better get some ordered

.

Pandora · Post by **Pandora** » Mon May 02, 2011 4:36 pm

Tape in use:

Working in 2D to develop the shapes which were transfered onto plywood

& 3D - the racing stripe (not much in this one, but it was the only photo I could find on my computer) but the 'nostril' shape was sketched out in tape too.