Thursday, February 23, 2012

Hammering down the Fast FeLion

Introduced in 2009, the Fast FeLion quickly became one of my favorite castings.  With modern styling that heralds the famous Jaguar E-type it is not hard to appreciate the Fast FeLions sleek, aggressive beauty.  Who would expect anything less from designer Fraser Campbell, the man behind other favorites such as Fish'd & Chip'd, La Fasta, and the Fast Fish.

I have always liked road racing, so one day I got the idea that I would try to make a Touring Car version of the Fast FeLion.  The first place I looked to start was a nice big spoiler.  This presented a bit of a problem for me, as I haven't tried anything as ambitious as this before.  And to tell you the truth I was a bit nervous about ruining my casting.  I know they only cost a dollar, but hey, it's my neurosis.  Anyway, after a bit of sifting, I felt I had found a donor car with the perfect wing, the Nerve Hammer.

I quickly set about dissecting both cars.  After sizing up where I wanted the wing located, I took some masking tape and marked off where the holes for the posts would go.  Then came the fun/nerve-racking part.  I unboxed my Dremel, loaded up the 191 High Speed Cutter, donned eye and ear protection and set about cutting away material from the inside of the casting.  I was careful to stay in the area I had masked off, only taking a small amount of material at a time.  It is important to use the top speed on the Dremel to prevent 'zinging' the casting or worse, your hand. 

After a few minutes of patient cutting I began to get small convex divots on the outside of the casting.  At this point I switched over to my hobby knife to perforate the divots and open up the new holes.  After a test fit it was clear that the holes were not quite big enough, which is good because I still needed to square them up.  I went manual with a triangle file to finish up the opening, going slowly, and test fitting frequently.  Once I was done with the casting I made some modifications to the plastic interior to hold the spoiler posts.  I then reassembled the car, added a couple of machine screws and viola!


Phase one is now complete and I could not be more pleased with the result.  Next on the order: a nice big air dam.

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