Daily archives: August 15, 2010


links for 2010-08-15

  • Lady Clankington, heiress and adventuress, is quite well-known for her appetite for the new and unique. Indeed, she was once the subject of quite a stir, for gentlemen known to be in her employ had been disappearing without a trace and horrors of the most frightening sort were left to the imagination. Upon later investigation, it was discovered that these individuals weren't even men at all!

    Due to her voracious desire for endless…adventure, her husband (an industrialist of some note) expired from exhaustion long ago. In a fit of frustration, Lady Clankington employed the genius of one Dr. Visbaun to create a cadre of strapping automatons that would finally grant her the only company able to keep up with her unending desire…for adventure. As brilliant and well-built as these mechanisms were, even these poor fellows kept wearing out.

    (tags: sex steampunk)
  • Sea water, which is 832 times denser than air, gives a 5 knot ocean current more kinetic energy than a 350 km/h wind; therefore ocean currents have a very high energy density. Hence a smaller device is required to harness tidal current energy than to harness wind energy.
    (tags: tidalpower)
  • "I cannot believe that this has been abandoned in time," said Tom Nardone, founder of the Mower Gang. The small group of volunteers was standing on the Dorais Velodrome in northeast Detroit on Friday. The motto on their shirts said it all, "Winning Detroit's Other Turf War."
    (tags: bike)
  • Evolution isn't generally considered a race, but no matter – the tiny stickleback fish is a clear winner. Faced with suddenly colder water, the species managed to adapt in record time – fast enough to potentially beat climate change.
    (tags: evolution)
  • Until now, RNA was mostly dismissed as DNA's lackey, a messenger and intermediary between DNA's complex instruction manual and the creation of life's essential proteins. But Yale researchers discovered that the pathogenic stomach bacterium Clostridium difficile possesses more complex RNA structures that are able to detect molecules and control the expression of certain genes – abilities previously thought to be the sole domain of DNA and proteins.

1:76th Rover 100 banger

This was the project I set myself after watching all those banger racing videos on Tuesday. Build an old school banger to sit in a corner of some model railway layout just waiting to go out in metal rending glory.

The Base-Toys Rover 100 used in this project

This is what I started with. A 1:76th (OO) Rover 100 by Base-Toys. Their not the most detailed models out there, but the Base-Toys vehicles have the advantage of being held together with screws rather than rivets. This makes taking them apart to work on so much easier. Oxford Diecasts do this as well, and the Corgi Trackside cars I picked up this week, it makes modding them so much easier.

It screws apart easily

See what I mean.

The interior with seats removed and roll bar added

The first job was the interior. Like any racing car the Rover would have had its interior stripped out and a roll cage added. Seats were removed with a saw, though the driver’s was glued back in after having masking tape seatbelts added. In future I’ll use a Sharpie to make the tape black before doing this. The roll cage was made from solder, bent to shape and super-glued down. After this picture was taken I added some more detail, a gear lever and fire extinguisher. Looking at my pictures from the banger racing I should have added a fuel tank. Another thing to remember for next time.

After painting

Before painting I took my rotary tool to the body to remove details like the radiator grille and door handles and also to gouge a few dents and pre-existing bangs. I forgot to take a picture before painting the body. Citadel foundation colours were used, red and blue, whilst the wheels got some matt black.

Finished car number 32

My small selection of transfers supplied variations on number 32, so that’s what the car became.

Finished car number 32 Finished car number 32

Ready to rumble. One day I may make a whole race meeting worth of bangers, but for now this one can be yours.


May Bank Holiday Banger and Stock Car racing

Banger Racing

These pictures have been sitting for a while, but the banger nostalgia post reminded me to get round to uploading them. A bunch of photos taken at the banger racing and stock cars at Belle Vue at the end of May.

We were promised hearses versus limos but ended up getting just two hearses, one of which was slower than the other. So we didn’t get the mayhem we’d hoped for from that race.

For the first time I went for a walk in the pit area and got a few photos between races. The full set is on Flickr.