I have almost completed my circus car model. I imagine this car as purchased 'used' by a circus. It was modified a little and used for parades and advertising.
I started building on Dec.15, 2015 with an old 1/16 Entex 1910 Thomas Flyer kit. My brother gave it to me since he was not going to build it. I still need to add fenders, add lights, install wheels and add a few other items. I may add working lights.
Entex kits are rather difficult due to poor fit and very few locator pins. The header pipe and tailpipe are split with no locator pins. I assembled both using a little liquid cement. Then I squeezed some more liquid cement in the ends of the each pipe. A week later I tried to install them in the muffler. When I did the pipes lost their hardness and drooped rather comically. Oops! Guess I used a little too much glue! So I scratchbuilt exhaust pipes out of 3/16in plastic rod and a soda straw. The new tailpipe is a little longer than the original.
The kit also has 12 tiny valve springs made from extremely thin wire. At first some appeared to be missing. But when I examined them closely I found some of the springs had twisted themselves together. They appeared to be 1 spring but were really 2 or 3 springs melded together. Question: How did they do that? When I tried to separate them some distorted so much they were unusable. So I scratchbuilt springs out of slightly thicker wire.
My additions:
1. Framework made from wood strips.
2. Windshield made green translucent plastic sheet.
3. Windshield frame made from Plastruct strips.
4. Computer generated paper signs
5. More to come
