Steampunk Harley - Tamiya 1/6 HD FLH Classic 'extreme' kit bash (Very Photo Heavy)

There will be a gent called Tezla along in a few decades....

What scale is this again,1;1 surely.

Nigel - thanks for your kind words and encouragement.    
I believe I've heard mention of that chap Tesla.  He sounds a bit of a quack, if truth be told.  

We're now at mid-August, 2015, in terms of the backlog and it was at this time that I realized I was trying to do too many different things at once - as evidenced by the last few posts.  I'd been thinking about the accessories for the steam cycle for a while and so in order to kind of clear my head and give myself a morale boost by actually completing something I chose to build a 1/6 scale flint sparker.  Looking on the Net only gave me lots of modern versions then I saw that we had an older version at work so I borrowed it for long enough to use it for reference.  Here's the start where I am soldering brass strips together for the handle of the sparker.


The real thing and the little brass version below.  When I saw how simple the construction of the real thing was I chose to follow what was rather than trying to figure out a different way to make it.




Mimicking the striker portion took some thought but I settled on wrapping wire with much thinner wire.  I also drilled out the holes for the striker post to seat into in the handle.




The look of the wire striker was a bit 'clean' for my tastes and after some thought I chose to wrap some FireLine over the existing coil and set it with thin CA.  FireLine is a brand of jewelry cord that is thin but nubbed so that it 'locks' with even a simple tie.  That rough surface should translate as the rough texture of a striker in scale, I hope.


Comparison photo.


The cup and the triangular flint holder, also made from the brass sheet stock I used for the handle.  The post in the flint holder is copper wire.




Comparison photo.


After blackening.


Final comparison photo.  At this point I called it a success and I even took the replica to work to show my mates, not to show off but to ask, "Does this look ok?"  Their votes of approval helped me out my creative slump in the same way that the on-going encouragement from the online community help keep me motivated.

Buck - thanks for the kind encouragement.  

Having gotten out of my slump it became an issue of getting things done and out of the way.  Here's the left handlebar with more added detail in the form of tabs and hex nuts to finalize the clamps.


Affixed the water tank to the head light body with 2 part epoxy.


Test fit and the overall look of the headlight emerges.  The little 'flame' looking water tap handle is a part of a charm bracelet charm with excess stuff cut away.  I believe the original was more Fleur-De-Lys looking.


Adding detail to the reaction chamber.


The setting for the offset water fill.  Most of the carbide lamps I saw incorporated the fill cap with the water tap but I chose to go this route because I thought it would look cool.


The reflector dish for the headlight.  I had originally thought of just using the back of the head light body for this but a separate reflector dish is kind of the norm so here we go.  The black ring is the seat which will be affixed to the reflector dish and the white bit will be affixed to the back of the headlight body.  The putty in the middle of the reflector is to fill the hole I made for cutting the part out of a ping pong ball.


The tail light shroud, reflector dish and parts for body, water tank and reaction chamber.


Reflector dish for the head light set up for easy fitting and removal.


The gas feed tube for the lamp.


A ring around the reflector - this is one of those rare cases where I use CA to affix metal to plastic instead of epoxy.


Added another detail ring in the tail light shroud, just because.


The tail light parts start to take shape.


At this point I'm getting closer to the now, close enough that I can almost see my own behind if I use strong binocs.

Awesome scratch building Kats, I mean that peg!!, it looks exactly like a real one!!
Seriously though, this gets better and better.

I am really enjoying this Kats. Particularly how you are making the bits and using fixtures to achieve you end results, bravo.

Enjoying this build to the MAX!!!! Good stuff you got going on, keep after it. How long have you been working on this build?

Gaz, Curt & Buck - Mille Grazzi for your kind comments and encouragement  
Gaz - that peg took a lot of work, I was 'milling' it from larger stock then it occurred to me that I had stuff the size I needed on hand    

Buck - this build just celebrated it's 2nd birthday on May 29th - soon I will post the Big Test Fit shots.

So, the tail light reflector dish gets a mount point, the rod I was thickening turns out to be a tube and is pretty much ready and the water tank portion gets a square base.


Filling in the voids with styrene bits.


The tail light reaction chamber appears, in pieces, and the base of the water tank gets drilled.  The centre portion of the top piece is the hunk of tube I was working on, set into discs.


And I decided to add even more depth to the headlight body/water tank.  The rough outline is now about right.


It occurred to me that I hadn't taken a photo of the head light since I'd added detail so here it is.


The reaction chamber get widened at the base.


The tail light parts with connecting rod.  Added details to the reaction chamber in the form of rings.


Test fit.


Time to get the shroud onto the body, using the same techniques as the head light.




A different sort of vent.


Jumping to the Head light once more - I bought a discounted PE set (damaged so some of it was unusable) for a 1/350 IJN warship because some of the shapes appealed to me.  Here's the start of adding PE but not in their intended form.


Somewhere along the line I decided to re-think the gas tube flame feed for the lamp.  This might be a bit modern-ish for the whole steampunk thing but I chose to go with centre mounted ones in the wing nut style.  Pictured here is my lucky first attempt and the bits which make it up.  Tube slice over hex rod, drill out end of hex rod and add round rod, make appropriate cuts, shape 'wings' from flat strip, attach.  You may or may not wish to utter repeated profanities during the process, lol.


Test fit with head light reflector.  I filled the previous hole with medium thick gap fill CA.

I really like the way these lights are coming together Kats, they are going to look amazing.

The lamp looks amazing presented up to the forks Kats, and that little wing nut is brilliant!!

Oh my God, that is soooooooooooo impressive, I am full of admiration. I'm gobsmacked, this is just incredible.