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1950 Chevy Pickup - A Detail Freak's Dream Truck!


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Here we go with the latest "quick" build for me, AMT's nicely done 1950 Chevy Pickup. This one is supposed to be a street machine, but it comes with a straight 6... :huh: So it's being shown here and on the Straight Six Community build, go check that one out for some really cool work on other 6-banger builds, you'll be impressed with 'em!

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=59517

After gawking at the kit for a while, I decided I wanted to build the straight six, it's a really nicely done engine, and I've never built one either. I bought this one at a contest for $5 because it was a "bagged" kit, so no box pics. I got it last August with the intention of having it done for last year's contest in Fayetteville...yeah, sure that was gonna happen, right? I started out wanting simple, and went downhill from there, I may get it done in time for this years contest in November!

Where do we start....by the way, simple went out the window real quick-like. Now, the plan is to load it up with details, which does not mean I'll be 100% accurate or better than the next guy's detailing. I just think this kit begs for some added stuff, and I'm gonna cram as much as I can into it for fun!

I started with the bed, I decided that I didn't like the kit's plastic "wood" bed, and decided to make my own "real" wood bed, something I've never done, but always wanted to try!

I started out by cutting a piece of basswood out to match the kit piece, tabs and all...
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Then I cut the piece of plastic that goes at the tailgate end off the kit piece and mocked it up with the wooden floor...

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I decided to drill out the "rolled" edges of the bed sides while I was at it, looks much better than a flat piece of plastic, doesn't it?
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The bed floor mocked-up with the rest of the bed, so far, so good...
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Next, more Basswood was cut into strips for the top half of the bed, along with some straps from some c-channel plastic I got from somewhere years ago.
50ChevyPU005-vi.jpg

Edited by Custom Mike
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Thanks Virgil, I'm liking this kit so far! Having decided I wanted a real wood bed, I decided I wanted more detail! So I drilled out the fender bolts on the inside of the bed, and will replace them with straight pins!

Neatly drilled holes, what have I gotten myself into this time???
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A quick mock-up to see how they'll look when they're in place...
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Trust me, they'll be straight once they're clipped and glued down!
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I scribed planks into the underside of the bed floor, this part will be visible from the bottom of the model...
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The underside of the floor and the planks for the inside of the bed, all stained and ready for some glue!
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At this point, I've added some angle styrene to the sides of the bed to hold the new wooden floor in place, and started gluing the basswood strips to the bed floor...

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And all the strips glued down. The straps are held in place without any glue, the strips are so tight that glue wasn't needed!

50ChevyPU014-vi.jpg

Edited by Custom Mike
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Almost done with the bed.... The straps have been trimmed up, and we're looking good so far!

50ChevyPU025-vi.jpg

Now I need to remove the attachment points from the kit bed, and attach them to the new wood bed, this looks like a job for my Trumpeter Panel Scriber!

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I slowly started cutting the attachments loose..

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Both attachments free and cleaned up for installation on the wooden bed...

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Mocked-up on the wooden bed, along with another piece of the c-channel styrene for the stiffener between the attachments...

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Here's the forward attachment epoxied in place in it's new home...

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The stiffener epoxied down...

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And the rear attachment epoxied down. The marks on the edges of the bed were slightly off, so I used the frame to line them up in the proper locations.

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The straps were painted with Alclad Aluminum, I thought I had some Chrome, but noooo...

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And a bit of touch-up painting of the attachment points and stiffener, the new wooden bed is now completed!

50ChevyPU041-vi.jpg

Edited by Custom Mike
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With a bed that nice, the body will HAVE to be SHINY :) :) :) . That's one of the best looking beds I've ever seen. I like you idea of the fender bolts too. If you'rre going that far into detail, how about adding bolt heads to the bed slats? Monoped (Brian Fowler) did a tutorial about them a while back.

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Very nicely done, Mike. Good call on drilling out the ends of the bed rails.You've put a ton (or 1/2 ton) of work into a pretty basic part of the truck. I think this says a lot about how the rest of the truck is gonna look.

cool stuff

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Thanks guys, and to whichever Mod moved me to the correct forum. Sorry I put this in the wrong one to start with, but no one has ever called me a genius!

Jim, it will be SHINY, I don't do dirty because I can do shiny so well! As far as the bolt heads, they'd have to be some really tiny bolt heads to fit in those slats, I've got some PE ones here, I'll see if any of 'em are small enough.

Alyn, I plan on blowing this thing up with detail, I already have the chains for the tailgate, and some heat-shrink tubing small enough for the covers too!

Everyone else, stay tuned, this is just the tip of the iceberg! B)

Edited by Custom Mike
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Thanks guys, it's rolling along nicely so far! Jim, I looked at my PE bolt heads, looked at the straps, and decided real quick that I wasn't even gonna try that, the ones that would fit are way too small for me to work with! Call me a wuss, but I hate losing super tiny PE parts, those babies are expensive! I'll use 'em on a flat surface, but I couldn't even imagine trying to get 'em in those straps!

Next up are the tail lights. For some reason, the Corvette ZR-1 style tail lights were nowhere near big enough for the tail light panel in this kit. No problem, I just added a strip of .010 styrene around the edges, and they're a much better fit. I also didn't like the fact that the attachment pins made them look bad, so I drilled them out to accept more...straight pins! They'll get a dab of Clear Blue to make 'em look like the old "Blue-Dots" once it's all done!

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Next up is a minor body mod, I removed the filler neck for the gas tank, it was basically just a tiny stump sitting there. I'm making my own filler neck and gas cap from Aluminum tubing and a bit of sprue!

Begone tiny stump!
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Big tube with little tube inside, big tube with some sprue shoved into it, ready to be cut into a cap!
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The gas cap has been made, polished, and is ready to go!
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Gas cap in place on the filler neck...
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And the filler neck in place on the cab!
50ChevyPU027-vi.jpg

Edited by Custom Mike
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Since I decided after painting the cab to add the gas filler neck and cap (Heck, after painting everything I decided to go back and get crazy with details), I needed to repaint the cab. Dupli-Color Ultra Silver base coat anyone?

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And three coats of VHT Engine paint, color name is Red Fire!

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Now onto a modification for the interior. This is me bringing the dash into the current century! I sanded off the kit speedometer, and dug out some PE gauge sets I had for my '32 Ford 5-Window that never got used due to time constraints. I traced the shape of the new gauge cluster on the dash, broke out the Dremel, and carefully removed enough to get the gauges flush. I had to add some filler since I screwed up a bit on the top edge, but it looks fine now, trust me!

Now if I could only find my PE radio faces, I could have some killer tunes in this baby!

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Edited by Custom Mike
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Thanks guys, it's rolling along nicely so far! Jim, I looked at my PE bolt heads, looked at the straps, and decided real quick that I wasn't even gonna try that, the ones that would fit are way too small for me to work with! Call me a wuss, but I hate losing super tiny PE parts, those babies are expensive! I'll use 'em on a flat surface, but I couldn't even imagine trying to get 'em in those straps!

Next up are the tail lights. For some reason, the Corvette ZR-1 style tail lights were nowhere near big enough for the tail light panel in this kit. No problem, I just added a strip of .010 styrene around the edges, and they're a much better fit. I also didn't like the fact that the attachment pins made them look bad, so I drilled them out to accept more...straight pins! They'll get a dab of Clear Blue to make 'em look like the old "Blue-Dots" once it's all done!

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I like your idea with the straight pins for the blue dots ,I've always used the little blue circles from the bag of sequins.
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