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Tutorial - Tractor style hot rod grill shell


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I saw this on the HAMB hot rod forums done in 1:1 and was kinda keen to try it in scale. I also thought it might be a good tutorial if it came out well so I took several pics to share. Hope you like it.

Step one. Find two pick-up step side fenders. In this case '55 Chevrolet. Glue together with your favorite "this ain't never coming apart" medium.

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Clean up the seams. Less work to do after you have it all cut apart.

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As you can see there are two possibilities now. An angled piece created from the rear of the fenders and a flat section from the front. For the purposes of this tutorial, I decided to do the flat section. The rear piece I may do for a future project.

I reinforced the inside of the shell with some half round stock.

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Draw out your cut line and break out the zona saw.

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Some fine line tape to lay out the grill pattern. Nothing fancy.

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Drill out the end of the grill opening. This will keep each slot more or less the same depth into the shell.

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Once again with razor saw. Take your time and use minimum pressure, letting the blade do the cutting.

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Cleaned up with mini-flies and sand paper wrapped around my machinists ruler.

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Now as you might expect the grill is weak in the areas of the ribs because of the glue joint in the center, so some half round stock adds from strength and some detail.

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In primer. It still needs more clean up before its ready for paint, but that part I'm pretty sure you understand.

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From top to bottom this measures 26 millimeters, so it would be quite short for a Model A or Model B, but it would be right on for a Model T.

I hope you enjoyed this, as I said there's not much to it past the original idea of sandwiching the fenders. I'm not sure what model I'll use this on, but I'm sure I'll come up with something. B)

Edited by Jantrix
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Chuck also did a feature for the magazine showing this exact technique.

Chuck is an excellent builder, I'm sure it was very good.

i think more important than learning how to make a radiator cover is the lesson of "how to look at something and visualize something else". Kudos to both authors for reminding us that we shouldn't be trapped by our own thinking.

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