Jump to content
Model Cars Magazine Forum

1/9 Volkswagen Kübel 'Kubelrod'


Recommended Posts

A while back I purchased this kit in Belgium because I like big scale and it was affordable, due to not building military I soon sold it again. Ever since I kept looking for a decent priced one and not that long ago, I was able to find one for a good price.
I got it by mail and soon came the ideas, I did searched online for some reference material, but there are basically no Kubel hotrods, there is one, but it basically a Kübel without it's fenders. I wanted it a bit more radical, so I had to think something on my own.
I closely looked at the traditional American hotrods and discovered that my Kübel had is needing a major modification on the body, it needed to be shorter, lower and more pronounced.

I started with putting the body pieces together on a modelshow and when home, did some doodling to find a style I liked. Soon the idea's popped in my head and it was time to get the multitool and saw it into pieces.

This is the box, it is released by Revell, but it is an older Esci kit
kubelrod001.jpg

A few views of the original body, just to give an idea of what it should look originally
kubelrod003.jpg

Note the tape on the sides, that will be my reference marks to cut it.
kubelrod004.jpg

kubelrod005.jpg

kubelrod006.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

kubelrod007.jpg

And everything went into pieces after cutting it up, it is a multipiece body and meant to put together throughout the whole build, but I needed it to be a complete assembled body
kubelrod008.jpg

A little leap in time, in the meanwhile I got some wheels from Mspeanut (Thanks!) and got working on putting everything somewhat together. Because I shortened the body, it meant the wheelbase got shorter as well, which is not favourable for a hotrod. So I decided to keep the original floorpan and wheelbase and work my way from there. In this picture the body is as I put it together from the loose pieces and the I assembled quickly the front and rear axle for working on the body
kubelrod009.jpg

A small hint of what it is going to be
kubelrod010.jpg

I think I keep the original front wheel on the front, it is a important design feature of the Kübel and since there is no engine in the front, I need to keep it entertaining with something.
kubelrod011.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Eric; I have built this kit several times over the years....even if you are not into the military models; this one is still a great model for car guys. It is a bit "fiddly" at times; but all in all goes together well, and ends up very nice in the end. I have a couple of these new in the box; and have plans to convert one into a 1970's VW Thing. The body mods are pretty straight forward, and are mostly flat panels, with the raised panels....new fenders are also required; but I am confident that it will convert to a big scale Thing quite readily....can't wait to se what you do with it............Matt

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I drew some lines of the floorpan, that needs to be cut in order to fit the body to the floorpan
kubelrod012.jpg

When the body fits, I made some new bodypanels with white styrene, and it starts to give shape to the body. It does look weird at the moment, but I hope it will work out.
kubelrod013.jpg

Different view
kubelrod014.jpg

Even tough I measure everything a couple times, for some reason it looks odd and warped.
kubelrod015.jpg

Eventually the left doorpillar was 2mm longer than the other side and I must have messed up something somewhere.
kubelrod016.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I changed the 'hood' of the car and made it fit, it now gives a bit better look to the hotrod
kubelrod017.jpg

At this stage, I lowered the left doorpillar and narrowed the top doorpillar frame, it gives a bit sleeker appearance.
kubelrod018.jpg

One of the things I wanted to do, is to convert the Kübel from 5 to 3 doors. I placed them in the new hole, taped them together and cut them at the same line, that way, one can be sure they fit easily to eachother
kubelrod019.jpg

kubelrod022.jpg

For some reason, it still looks warped, but I think there is actually a warp in the floorpan. All the measurements are correct.
kubelrod023.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very original. I'm intensely curious to see this come to life.

Me too :) haha,

There is a lot of work involved in this project, since it isn't a molded body, there is less rigidity and quite quickly panels are out of alignment, only to be noticed when it is basically too late. I worked on it yesterday for a bit, doing nothing more than undoing body panels and reglue them, trying to get everything as straight as possible.

@Mike; I think it is a military scale, Esci had more kits in this scale, all military oriented.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am able to work a little bit on the Kubelrod in the spare moments, progress is slow, but at least there is some progress.
Basically because of the warping of the body I decided to put a cross-brace in the rod, giving the body some strength, but also adds to the looks. I put the original seats together and I think I am going to stick with them, although I might going to lower them a little bit, or tweak them into a bench seat.
kubelrod027.jpg

kubelrod028.jpg

I also added the floorsills, giving the body some hard-needed strength at the mid-body joint. I will let the glue do it's work overnight and work on it in the weekend again. Even though it doesn't look a lot just yet, I think the modifications to the body are close to be done and soon will be able to start doing the prep work and getting the body ready for it's (intricate) paintjob. I am still in doubt of whether of making all the panels smooth, but something tells me I should keep with the original panels.
kubelrod029.jpg

And whilst I am waiting for parts to cure, I work on some small parts that needs to be glued together, gives me something to do.
kubelrod031.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks! It isn't (yet) frustrating, just taking my time and do piece by piece, without rushing it to a finish. It takes time for glue to do its work and I can make progress. So, nothing that frustrates yet, hope to keep it that way too :)

It is not going to be a particular hotrod style to begin with, I am going to try and blend the military rod, ratrod and showrod together in one project and hope I can pull it off. And it will have some Dune-Buggy features as well, mainly engine area.

The wheels will be typical ratrod style, the body will be like a kubel, the interior simple, but with a gloss and wild paintjov, that will get a mixture of camo, skulls and true flames.

I have some idea's in my head, but this is a project where things need to 'flow'.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A tiny update, I've been doing a lot of work to it, but it basically doesn't show. Today I laid a coat of primer on the body, to see how bad the seemlines are and I keep having problems with it. I put back some bondo on it again and I guess I got my work cut out for the weekend.

kubelrod032.jpg

kubelrod033.jpg

kubelrod034.jpg

Edited by The Creative Explorer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

awsome stuff , i love these out of the box build , looking great and well the "problems" you have are just normal i guess everytime you cut something up to create something new out of it ...and in this scale those issues are magnified by xxxx times :)

hang in there its looking awsome already !!!

ps .. when i click on your link to your site firerods ... i get a no show and a maleware alert from avast ?? could you see what is going on with that link

Edited by crazyrichard
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, and I agree, but I just have some more difficulty with jointlines I guess, I just haven't found the right trick for it.

About the website: It was hacked many moons ago, but it is clean and if you check it online through a virusscanner, it should come out as a clean site. It is just annoying that some antivirusthingies, don't refresh and give it a green light.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another tiny update; I started to work on the engine in between the glue and bondo drying times. When browsing through the manual and the parts, I discoverd the Kubel had one tiny carburettor and didn't look all that beefy. Time to dig through the partsboxes and after some thinking and digging, I came up with a carburettor set up of a 1/12 Chevy Bel Air, luckily I have several of these kits, so 2 more carburettors were quite quickly cut out the other Chevy's boxes.
I believe this set up doesn't mismatch the engine and with a nice aircleaner on top, I guess it will fit right in the theme and it sure does will look a whole lot better than the stock part. I already did discover that the airbox on top of the engine needs to be seriously lowered, after the sectioning, it doesn't fit no more :)

Some pictures to give a rough idea:
kubelrod035.jpg

kubelrod036.jpg

kubelrod037.jpg

kubelrod038.jpg

P.s. I can appreciate some feedback, it is nice to know what you think and can use the input in this build.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

cant fault anything , just looks wicked and the carbs are way cool !!

about the join lines .. i think especially with this large body you might want to try this >

when you cut something and want to put it together dont glue the two jointlines together .. best is if you have it to use some styreme from that same body , often you have stuff that is scrap because its left over from cutting and making the body smaller ..

if you dont have that just use some styrene sheet .. inetsed of gluing the joints together (against eitch other) take some stryrene and make like a small strip thats a bit wider then the joint and put it on sideways and glue teh two parts against that flat surface ..

now off course you will have to think about the dimnesions because that will make it wider so the cut will have to incluse the width of the thickness of the styrene .

so when you glu that against the styrene strip and its dry you can file and sand the strip flat with the surface (because you let it stick out a bit out of the seem).

i tries this ounce and it worked good , a read a few times before that this way its stronger ..

also if you do it this wat and let a small piece stick out on the inside , and nothing is in the way on the backside like when you put the body on you could even glue some aditional l shaped strips of styrene to strenghten the seem ..

hope you understand .. if you really dont know what i mean just pm me and i will try to expalain it in dutch , but i think you catch my drift .. its just a case of not cutting and gluing it together bit using additional styrene inbetween the seem

btw what i also tried mysef is > when you have a seem and its like you got a hole of part of the seem isnt closed .. insted of filling that with bondo (what will always be the weakest part when its under pressure (spanning op de body) ) you can take some scrap styrene and light that on fire , blow the flame out and put the still soft burned styrene on the hole in the seem and press untill its hard again .. then sand it down ..

old sprues of the kit work great they are the exact same styrene .. it will give a bit of black smoked gue .. but after sanding and bondo ...

and then the seem is filled with styrene .. you can even put some glue on the seem again that tightens it together

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...