A shining example

May 2026

This is my third UGears wooden model kit. Serenity's Yacht and the V8 engine were meant to be the last, primarily because of the space needed to display these things. However the photo of this Roadster was sufficiently enticing for fate to override my plans.

John Lennon may have penned 'Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans', but that sentiment has been around some time. Two centuries earlier, Robert Burns had observed that 'The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley'.

They were both pre-empted by the Syrian writer Publilius Syrus, who wrote 'Man intends one thing, Fate another'. His maxims 'Ignorance is bliss' and 'Least said, soonest mended' have likewise survived a couple of millennia. (His home country also contributed the first alphabet, soap and blown glass, but has no recorded history of wooden kit cars …)

The timing of this project is dictated by another project - our new flooring in the hall, cloakroom and kitchen. Spread over the best part of a week, this causes significant disruption. Model-making on a trestle table in bedroom 2 goes some way to alleviate this inconvenience, for me at least.

This kit has 437 parts and is categorised as Advanced. It's powered by rubber bands and should travel up to 4m on one winding. There is front suspension, a functional steering wheel and 3 transmission modes - Forward, Reverse, and Idle.

Apart from the wooden component sheets the kit contains a large number of cocktail sticks and identical rubber bands, the purposes for which are not yet clear.

The manual runs to 44 pages of instructions, and my first stint covers 9 of these. As before, the build rewards close inspection of the diagrams and attention to wax lubrication instructions.

Today's Stage 2 build is slightly less smooth. My first breakage occurs, with a snapped collar piece. Fortunately there are spares, and the second collar slips on easily - I must have oriented the first one incorrectly.

There is a slight hiatus engaging two sub-assemblies on page 15 of the manual. However after calm reflection the two pieces marry up successfully, and I'm sure they'll get along just fine.

13 May 2026

Today sees a second casualty, this time more problematic. Four arm rests are fitted to the cabin seats, but injudicious  handling (ie carelessness) results in one breaking.

There is no spare and the fragments are too splintered to mend. Time to try out UGears' spares service - an online form generously offers free replacements, so we'll see how well that works.

Subsequent instructions build upon the same assembly, so I skip to page 22 where I can work on a different assembly - the engine.

The engine is a V8, although a far more basic version than the UGears' V8 model I built. When complete, the car should be able to travel up to 4m - about the same range as Serenity's Yacht. However road wheels look more appropriate for a car than a sailboat.

14 May 2026

The V8 engine is now finished, suitably waxed and rotating smoothly. Next up are the wheels, requiring a copious number of cocktail sticks (13 actually) to put them together.

15 May 2026

Complete the road wheels, easing each section over the cocktail sticks. These need trimming as usual, and this time I opt for my craft knife. Obviously this is sharp and caution needs exercising. In the event my finger is not cut too deeply and once dressed progress can continue.

The next standalone assembly is the front grille, and this is completed without further mishap.

16 May 2026

17 May 2026

Our Sapphire Wedding Anniversary duly celebrated, it is now time to work on the remaining standalone piece - the bonnet. This is relatively straight-forward, other than the couple of pieces that need bending to fit - slightly worrying given my recent breakage.

Taken together with the front grille and wheels, the essence of a car is starting to emerge from the woodwork.

2 June 2026

My replacement part 67 arrives today. It has taken a while, but given that it was complimentary and sent from a war-torn city it's pretty impressive. While waiting for the part, we distracted ourselves with Ukrainian chocolates from a Kyiv based seller on Etsy. We found them very tasty - creamy and not too sweet.

The timeline is:

15 May - part ordered via online form;
22 May - posted in Village Horenka, NW of Kyiv;
23 May - processed at the Vyshneve logistics centre, west of Kyiv;
24 May - processed by 03928 Terminal Ukraine in the industrial area of Kyiv;
29 May - processed by HWDC;
30 May - arrives at Bristol Mail Centre;
2 June - delivered to the author;

The new part is carefully pushed into place, and the two sides of the car united.

This looks like progress.

3 June 2026

Today sees the wheels and front steering linkage added, together with the radiator grille - all quite straightforward.

4 June 2026

Now that the body is in one piece, tackle the engine. The car and engine are both powered by 16 elastic bands, which are tightened by rotating the spare wheel against a ratchet.

The instructions show a neat arrangement of bands, which I fail to mirror in practice. This will not be visible in the completed project, and hopefully won't impact the performance figures (expressed by metres per wheel wind).

Part of the mechanism uses a roller bearing comprising 6 small wooden cylinders - these prove to be quite tricky parts to extract and de-burr.

6 June 2026

Today it's bodywork - the tonneau cover, doors and side panels. The addition of a dashboard, steering wheel and seat backs make the cabin more functional.

7 June 2026

Finish the project today - the bonnet is added, together with the lights, mirrors, numberplates and windscreen.

Apart from a motor car, what are we left with?

There is a building tool and a piece of wax, but no sandpaper as this was completely exhausted. There are a range of spare parts and many left-over cocktail sticks and rubber bands (the kit assumes that a fresh stick and band are used each time, whereas many of their offcuts can be re-used).

So what's the verdict?

The instructions are generally clear, although in some cases I found a magnifying lens necessary. There are also a few minor errors - for instance page 32 shows steps 1,2,3,4,5,5,7,8 and the next page has steps 1,2,3,4,4.

The model itself is well-designed and generally easy to assemble. However the plywood parts are quite grainy, far more so than Serenity's Yacht. I may be thin-skinned, but this resulted in a number of fine splinters. Whether this is a material issue or a problem with this particular batch I don't know.

The motor works well - the engine rotates freely and the car drives forward or rearward as required. (The V8 model had been far more difficult to fettle, although to be fair it was a more complex mechanism).

The steering is less effective, and remains 'sticky' despite rebuilding the steering mechanism and adding more lubrication. It is also not stable enough to centre the car when driving.

These are minor issues that do not detract from the aesthetics of effectively an attractive display model.