Progress report - I got the new scoop arrangement all smooth and blended in to the bonnet and sprayed it with etch primer by Friday afternoon. It's great this retired business, I actually have the time to get on with stuff!
Next step was to give it a coat of rattle can paint followed by a dozen coats of mould release wax polish then take a splash mould ( I think that's what it's called) of the whole centre section of the bonnet. But...
Before applying the paint I stood back and took a long look at the new scoop arrangement and there was just
something that didn't look quite right.
It took me ages but it slowly dawned on me that there was a slight, but annoying mismatch, side to side, in the height of the edges of the raised section ahead of and alongside the new centre scoop.
After a lot of checking with a spirit level and steel measure, I worked out that it was down to the curvature of the original bonnet not being even between the wings, and the width of the raised section exaggerated what is a relatively small difference into something noticeable.
So, I cut the centre section out and started again. It's still a work in progress but it now looks 'right' to me from all angles, which it just never has done before - my original wide scoop sort of evolved as it went along and even though the perfectionist in me wanted to cut it out and start again, the realist in me said if I did that with everything I wasn't 100% happy with I'd never get the car on the road.
So, it now looks like this -
It's definitely going to stay that way once it's had a bit more work and I've moulded and bonded in the complete new centre section, and there's the added bonus that I'll now be able to have a roundel on the nose just like the original -
The donwside is that I'm no longer on schedule to finish the current revamp before Stoneleigh, so I'll be driving over in my modern tin-top
