eajonesgue

My original intent was to paint the flames on the body, using masks printed out by a club member on his Silhouette machine. The reasons I wanted to paint were: - the decals looked like they were going to be difficult to lay down around the compound curves of the fenders - the flame decals don't seem to be the correct colour for the restored truck - they seem more of a reddish brown shade than a bright red - the original sheet has two decals that were damaged (see photo) However, the vinyl masks had a number of tears in them and the vinyl masks did not stick very well. Before looking at the masks, I contacted Bill Brillinger of Precision Design Company (www.pdc.ca) about getting him to make up decals for the dashboard. I sent him the photos I had of the interior and some dimensions. I did a mock up of what the dash would look like using masking tape. Bill mentioned that he had the artwork for the flame decals that he did for a customer in HO (1:87) scale (talk about tiny). I am ordering the dashboard and the flame decals (in a brighter red colour and in 1:25 scale). During our conversation, I wanted to see how the original decals worked. I applied the bed cover mural decal and it worked flawlessly. I will use the kit decal pinstriping and lettering decals.

Ron, thanks for your comments. I don't know how I missed that video on Model Car Muse. Great work on your truck. If only I had seen that video 2 months ago, it might have taken me down a different route. As it is, I have invested too much into the current project to stop, regroup and start over. I am also trying to meet a (self-imposed) deadline of mid-September. That's when a local car model car contest has a "Keep on Truckin'" theme. After cleaning up the windshield opening, I finally got Tamiya white primer on the body parts. There are quite a few parts as you can't really do a lot of assembly and then paint. Here is a picture of the various parts in the spray booth, after first coat of primer. I may have to do the top coats on a couple of parts in two stages (e.g. tailgate and bed cover), because it is difficult to hold them for painting. I was thinking of painting the inside/underside, waiting for that to dry and then painting the outside/topside afterwards.

Not a lot of progress last week. Hopefully, some paint will be put onto the body this week. Inner front fenders were airbrushed decanted Tamiya pure white lacquer, then masked and airbrushed with Tamiya semi-gloss acrylic. The windshield glass had a couple of gaps in the 'weatherstripping'. These were filled in with sheet styrene and once dried, will be sanded down so the windshield fit is better. Also, in the photo, the windshield wipers have been removed and the side vent louvers have been filled in with putty. It just looked like it was too much trouble to try to detail the vent louvers.

Airbrushed Tamiya racing white in seats and door panels. These will be followed by flat clear to down down the shine. These parts don't exactly match the restored truck, so I am using artistic license to modify. Also in the photo are the fender wells in semi-gloss black (foreground) and the steering column in gloss black (right side)

Masked the green on the firewall and airbrushed pure white. Now comes the tricky part - painting the dashboard to replicate the graphics on the real car.

The Revell kit is for a 'four on the floor' stick shift, whereas the restored truck is a 'three on the tree' shifter. The photo shows the steering columns of the AMT '53 Ford F100 (bottom), the Revell kit (middle) and my scratchbuilt version with the shifter from the AMT kit (top) Turn signal stalk is a piece of aluminum wire (20 gauge, 0.8 mm, 0.032" diameter) with a blob of superglue that was then sanded to shape.

I did reach out to Galpin Auto Sports and will see what they respond. The Revell instructions are to build the tailgate and the 'hinges' at the same time. This looked to me to be tricky to smooth the seams and paint. I glued the hinges on the rear of the bed, puttied and sanded smooth. By trimming just a bit of the tailgate, and bending it slightly in the middle, it can slip into the hinge holes. There is a bit of a sink area at the rear of the bed that also needed to be puttied (hard to see in these photos).

Not a lot of work this week, but here it is. Added strip styrene to the right side fender. Once dried, it was sanded down flush and then the gap was made equal. Removed engraved "Thunderbird" on valve covers and then airbrushed with Alclad airframe aluminum were airbrushed. I only found one photo of the engine bay of the restored truck and am trying to recreate that. As noted in the articles cited above, the original truck was painted a light green. Roth then painted the body white, added flames and pinstriping, but some parts were left green. The restoration followed that same pattern. A mixture of Tamiya X-2 white, with just a couple of drops of XS-28 park green was airbrushed on the firewall and some areas under the dashboard on the interior.

The taillights in the kit were chrome plated over white plastic. A mold was made of the pair and then four pieces were cast in clear resin. Once the rears are sanded smooth and polished, they will be painted clear red and mounted on styrene backing plates with bare metal foil.

Here is the rear suspension so far - Meng bolt heads and nuts added to leaf springs, dampers and differential, brake lines added. Front suspension so far.

Drive shaft has been replaced with styrene rod and 3D printed universal joints added. This will be painted in silver metallics to make is stand out a bit. Radiator airbrushed with Tamiya decanted TS-14 gloss black and then a dark grey wash added so that the p/e radiator mesh is more visible. You can also see one of the Meng nuts that are used to add detail to many of the parts.

More updates. There is quite a gap on both sides of the hood. The passenger side was filled with 0.030" (0.75 mm) styrene strip, bent to follow the fender countour. The driver side is not quite as bad and will be 0.020" (0.5 mm) strip and then they will be blended in.

A correction on my previous post - the leaf springs are 0.020" (0.5 mm) x 0.080" (2.0 mm) Hard to see in the photo, but the handles/cranks on the door panels were chiseled off and replaced with resin pieces (before on the right, finished on the left). I believe these are from Replicas and Miniatures. More update tomorrow.

Some work on the suspension. Modified rear dampers. New leaf springs - .020" (0.5 mm) by .060" (1.5 mm) styrene strips, .040" (1 mm diameter rod) and aluminum duct tape. Radiator faces were also updated with some photoetched mesh.

Topher - I did read that the restoration did start by painting the car the original Ford green. I may have a few panels that are green. I will have a few postings of the progress. The one mentioned before is about the exhaust manifold. They are too long to match up with the heads. I found that using a metal hacksaw blade in two cuts, was the perfect distance to shorten them. I also added some aluminum craft wire pins to locate the parts on the heads. Before removing the firewall, fender and front engine cover molded wires and bolt heads, they were marked and photographed. This way, I will know how to add the details back.