Art Anderson

I've been doing some research into early tires, and have found some interesting stuff:  Early on, automobile tires, indeed rubber products of all sorts, came in a variety of colors, back in the years before the First World War!  Straight gum rubber, of course, had poor wearing characteristics, and it was also very subject to deterioration from ultraviolet light, along with the pollutants stemming from automotive use (grease, oil, even gasoline).  Very early on, additives were used to extend the useful life of gum rubber in automobile tires, including zinc oxide, which of course is stark white in color.  Zinc oxide gave hardness and durability to gum rubber, in much the same manner as carbon black, and even iron oxide was used.  Automobile tires in those early years apparently could be rather colorful--Goodyear Tire & Rubber made their first "Blue Streak" tires (blue sidewalls!) in 1916, along with red sidewall tires as well.  Red rubber was, of course, quite common, well into the 1920's (Model A Fords used red rubber for radiator hoses and fan belts straight from the assembly line!), and even the new, 1928 Model A used red hard rubber in their molded steering wheels (keep that in mind should Round2 follow up on a reissue of the AMT 1928 Model A Tudor--they have found the tooling, and have run test shots of it, I was told at NNL East by their representative!!!).

However, regardless of the type of material mixed in gum rubber to extend its serviceable life, carbon black was by far and away the most popular, being the most plentiful and least expensive--it was a common industrial byproduct, as opposed to specially made pigments having other colors.  Additionally, by 1910, there were at least one million automobiles and trucks in use in the US, a number that would increase dramatically over the next few years, as Ford was attaining production numbers equal to the entire rest of the auto industry by 1913--with a resulting demand for tires that could be produced quickly and inexpensively.

Another thing I found, which reduces to a myth, is the notion that Ford Motor Company used Firestone tires exclusively--apparently they did not.  It sort of makes sense, given the massive production numbers achieved by Ford even by 1914 (when they produced over 400,000 Model T's) that Ford had to source tires and other rubber products wherever they could find them.  While I haven't seen them, I read that photo's do exist of Model T's and Model A's coming off assembly lines at times, with tires of different brands ON THE SAME CAR.  

So, there is a lot more to the story of tire colors than even I would have imagined.  But one thing stands out:  There seems to be no definitive date or time when Fords ceased coming with "white" or very light colored tires and settled on black rubber.  But then, the concept of annual model or styling changes didn't come about at Ford until 1933, most all changes coming as new parts were designed, and added to the mix on the assembly line, as "running changes".

Art

I got intrigued by this version of the '37 Ford pickup when I found a small black & white picture of one in the section on '37 Ford trucks in the excellent Crestline book "Ford Trucks Since 1905" about 20 years ago or so.  It got me to thinking:  AMT added a platform stake body to their '34 pickup kit back in the 1970's (I built one for the box art for their 1976 reissue with that bed), but Ford didn't offer such a body for a pickup until 1937, even though the bed will fit any Ford light truck chassis 1933-40.  However, when Ford did introduce it as a production line option in '37, it came equipped with modified pickup rear fenders (in 1937 only), which made for a very classy looking little stake truck.

When Revell introduced the '37 Ford pickup kit in the 1990's, I did master one and cast it in resin, all based on that very small black & white picture.  Fast forward to August 2012:  Vintage Truck magazine had a very nice color photograph of a restored one, with an excellent feature article inside on this rather rare little truck.  I was hooked.

First up was to scale out everything, based on the Revell kit, and the truck in that article.  The process of interpolation gave me what I believe are correct dimensions for the platform bed, which is built using Evergreen styrene strip stock to build the steel parts of the bed floor, and 1/16" basswood for the oak planks.  Skid strips are something I have made before, using .015" X .100" strip styrene, and homemade .020" half round styrene strips (I have a brass tool I use to lay .020" round styrene stock in, and scrape that down to half-round with an Xacto knife--works very well).  The stake pockets surrounding the bed in the "steel" framing were done by laminating bits of Evergreen to create them.  Here's the bed floor:

The stake fences required not only some precision, but also absolute uniformity, so that they are interchangeable side to side, front to rear, and have to match the stake pockets exactly in order to be easily installed and removeable.  I built a simple jig on a sheet of thick Evergreen styrene (for stability), with strip stock to make the guides to hold the stakes and the fence "boards":  Here's thei tool, with a couple of fences in their respective jigs (the empty jig at the top was the first attempt, it came out very wrong!):

These beds were mounted to the pickup truck chassis on very large oak planks set on edge, cut to match the shape of the tops of the frame rails (bear in mind, Ford, just like almost every other carmaker of the era, used passenger car chassis for their early pickup trucks).  That made for some carving, starting with 1/8" X 3/4" basswood strip--this took two attempts to get them right!).  Here's the bed, test fitted to the frame, with cab and front fenders included.  Some adjustment will be needed, as I was guessing at the final height of the wood beams, they are a bit too tall.  The tops of the pickup truck rear fenders were "notched out" in production to clear the side rails of the bed floor:

Art

Addendum!  In checking reference pics, and doing some measurements based on those--the wooden support beams for the stake platform are surprisingly the correct height!  There is, however, a bit of incorrect dimension to the pickup rear fenders as Revell molded them:  They are approximately 2 scale inches too low at the front, and on the real trucks, the fenders were mounted with a bit of upward "angle" toward the rear, making the rear bottom edge of the fenders a good 3" higher than the line of the running boards and lower edge of the front fender--adding .080" to the front edges of the fenders, then angling them upward toward the rear will make them correct.  In addition, Revell molded the rear fenders far too narrow, which was probably done for parts fit, seeing as the pickup box is a bit too wide as well, and the running board unit having its valance panels spaced out too far from the frame rails.  On the real trucks, that valance panel (splash apron if you will) is of course, 20'gauge mild steel sheet, and is fixed very close to the frame rails.  Of course, on this truck, the splash aprons don't extend past the rear corners of the cab, which makes for a serious gap between the kit fenders and the frame and wood beams--they will need to be split down the middle, and widened out approximately .100", which will give them a very correct cross-section as well.

Art

Here it is, at last!

Art

Round2 has purchased Lindberg.  Finally, the AMT '34 Ford pickup comes back home, after 32 years.  This "merger" if you will, should be a very good thing, I believe!

Art

Finally got the interior parts painted and foiled!   Those raised moldings on the interior side panels were chrome trim on the real cars, so foil got the call--hadda use Microscale Metal Foil adhesive due to the flat finish paint though.  Colors are, based on a couple of decent reference pics found online:  Light grey is Modelmaster Light Sea Gray enamel, the dark grey is ModelMaster Gunship Grey enamel--same colors on the seats.  The molding along the top of the side panels is painted sheet metal on the real car, so that got painted Modelmaster Metallic Grey spray enamel (decanted, shot through an airbrush) and the same color used as the main, lighter color on the dashboard.  The darker, inset panel on the dash is Modelmaster Charcoal Metallic lacquer, also decanted and sprayed through the airbrush:

Art