"Buffalo Bob"
Casale's Corner

 I was born in England and trained as a draughtsman, having always had a pencil in my hand. I later re-trained as a Technology teacher and emigrated out here to New Zealand. Here I carried on teaching and pursuing my interest in competition model aircraft, classic cars, and bikes. When I was 40 years old I started to play the electric bass and joined a local band for more than 12 years. This led me to change from model aeroplanes to designing and building electric stringed instruments. It had been my intention to retire from teaching and carry on full time as a luthier.

Unfortunately, I had an accident on the bike that shattered my left wrist. This required reconstructive surgery, 4 plates, 8 screws, and a bone graft off the hip, to fix it. The great news is that I can still ride the bike and do stuff like that. The not so great news is that I have lost the sensitivity, fine control, and strength that was there previously. No more working with woodworking power tools! No more sensitive bass riffs!

While I was off work recovering from the accident I picked up the drawing instruments and started taking a serious look at the Coruba and Cola cans that I had held back from the recycler. I have seen pictures of some very fine model aircraft made from drinks cans but they had the plain aluminum from the inside of the cans on the outside of the model. This defeats the purpose of using the drinks can as far as I am concerned. You want everyone who looks to be able to see instantly what your basic resource was. Celebrate the fact, don't hide it!

Having finished the Coruba Climax, and evaluated what I had done, I realised that changes would have to be made to the next one to make the build easier and the finished model better looking. Indeed, each subsequent car has been an improvement upon the last, and until that stops happening, I'll keep going.

I hope you get a little something out of looking at my CanCars and perhaps give building one a go!
Sandy