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A bit of background... I always have had the week between Christmas and New Years off. Either the company shut down or I just took vacation days. I like it as an end of the year unwind. No work, no house projects. Just perfect time to work on a model. So I started my Christmas Model Car Amnesty Project about a dozen years ago. Just as the president pardons a turkey at Thanksgiving, I reach up onto my unfinished project shelf and give amnesty to one of them for Christmas! There are years I've made the deadline. There was the year I finished one on Christmas morning before the family got up. There are years I finish the model a week or two into January and there have been the years where I've failed!
Anyway, here's this year's project. This '34 Ford dates back to 2005 and has been on the bench a couple of times since. I have her out on the bench and the goal is to finish it by New Years Day. I am still working on the Dog House Camper and I have a '51 Chevy custom that someone else built but I'm detailing out on the bench. But at the stage these three projects are at, I alternate while stuff is drying.
Here's where I left off in 2005. The body had been sectioned 6 scale inches at the belt line. The Plymouth flatty six was finished and ready to install. The chassis componets are just posed.
Here's the difference of what I sectioned out of the body. It was really easy, the two remaining pieces just fit right back together.
the good part about revisiting an old project is that you notice things you didn't before. On this one, the car was just sitting up way too high, like a highboy with the chassis showing below the bottom of the body. Back in 2005, I was playing with (and destroying!) chassis and suspension parts. Go to 2012 and I immediately saw my issue... I sectioned 6" out of the body but still had the stock height interior. So per the above photo, I took a second interior tub and cut the corresponding 6" out of it. It was a three part process. I needed the top of the doors since they had detail on them. I needed the lower half of the back for the arm rests. So I cut the floor out, then seperated the doors forward from the back of the tub. I cut 6" from the bottom of the doors, 6" from the top of the tub and then glued it all back together. It worked fairly well.
I did have the seats all done in the taller interior, but I needed to redo the rear one from a fresh part. Here it is completed, it's supposed to look like burlap. In reality it's Taco Bell napkin. I can do a tutorial on how easy this is to do with good results if desired.
and here's the completed interior. The front seat was previously done in 2005 and was made from the two kit bucket seats. Seat belts are ribbon with seat belt buckles cut off those huge seat belts we find in kits. Flooring is old Turkish carpet that I actually printed to use in the camper. It works here. I also thought the interior side panels were too plain and I had sanded off the very light detail to do the resin handles. So I glued some of the Turkish carpet to thin plastic.
Side view as you'd see through the windows. I forgot to thin out the belt buckles so they're a bit thick. Door handles / window cranks are resin from Norm Veber.
I did an 8 ball shifter on another car, so here's a 6 ball shifter because this car has a flat head 6 in it. It's green and the number is one of those little decal numbers you find on decal sheets.
So that's the progress to date. The suspension just needs to be glued to the chassis, engine will drop right in also. The challenge to finish it is the body and the grill / radiator detail up front.
