RSchnell

I was unaware he had a '32 Wagon body. I shall have to order one. I've got several of his bodies like the '53, '57 & '59 Ford wagons and those are great. I was just a bit let down with the B-400 for what I had in mind.

1933-34 commercial rad shells don't interchange with a '32, not to mention 33-34 shells have a slight slant to the rear of the truck, the '32 is straight. This is a '32 commercial shell. Note there's no removable insert like passenger cars and the top part is shaped a bit differently than the car version.

Was going through some photos here on the laptop- The first pic is my Dad's '41 Continental that he bought when I was 6. We took a road trip just outside of Marietta Ga to go pick it up. He never did anything with this car as one of his friends pestered him to death to sell it to him. The second is me & my sister in the back seat of my Dad's '55 Ford Sunliner with my mother driving. It was some parade but I don't remember the details- that was 40+ years ago!

Ordered some paint from Scale Hobbyist, figured I may as well grab a few more of the ICM Ford kits. Henry Ford was back in stock so he's now living in Cocoa Beach. As an aside I emailed ICM about how badly we need a good 30-31 Model A Roadster kit on the market, haven't heard back from them yet.

Not so much pleased as it amused me more- Went to Harbor Freight earlier to pick up a couple things and there was a British couple doing a video tour of Harbor Freight. "Clive show the people back home all the great kit they have here" That ranks second to the Walmart on Saturday when all the cruise ship staff is in there trying to buy stuff with pesos. Living next to one of the largest cruise ship terminals in the US definitely provides moments of amusement.

I dunno how I missed this before, but awesome work!

Did you use a Model A station wagon body to start with? I'd think that and the cowl from an AMT '34 Ford Pickup would get you in the ballpark. The '32 Commercial radiator shell would be the other problem!

This body along with a good 30-31 Model A Roadster body have been on my list for a good while. I was really hoping the Flintstone body would've been better than it was. Projects like this are good for shaking cobwebs loose anyways!

I thought something looked off with the cowl, figuring I'd cross the bridge when I got there. I plan to either scratch a new firewall or use one of the resin ones available as the kit firewall ain't gonna get it, it's not even close to being correct. My ideal plan is to drop the body over the firewall like you do the 1:1 car.

Tonight I rough sanded the Milliput. Got the windows roughed in. I made a couple contour gauges from thin styrene so I had a uniform shape from side to side. I'll fine tune this tomorrow evening and start laying in the styrene strip for above the windows. On the 1:1 car this is the part that the top would snap onto when raised. Sorry for the abbreviated posts, the forum won't let me post anything over a couple paragraphs!

On my lunch break Wednesday(my build desk is next to my work desk so only a 2 second commute) I epoxied some piano wire to the body in the rough shape of the windows to act as an armature for the Milliput that I'll use.

I thought how I wanted to go about the windshield. Finding a windshield frame in my junk box from the AMT '36 Ford kit that had a groove on the backside for the clear plastic made this an easy choice compared to building one from scratch. I started by sanding down the thickness, cut the frame into 4 pieces and sectioned each piece. I framed it up on a 123 block with magnets & set it aside for the glue to dry. I'll fine tune it after I let it set a day or two.

See if this will post! I had some time this evening to work a bit more on this project. I started by adding a bead of styrene around the rad shell to duplicate the stainless trim found on passenger cars. I'll sand it down to get it more to scale.

I just had the same problem when I went to update my '32 B-400 WIP thread.

It's funny you mention a Panel Delivery, It's on my list along with the Roadster Pickup. I'll probably do the Roadster Pickup first-it's easier!

Looks like an original '32 Body Parts List! I've got most of the Model A Body Parts & Parts Price Lists, but an original '32 has eluded me so far.

Biggest car I owned had to be the '62 Galaxie convertible 390/401hp tri-power 4spd car I had. It wouldn't fit in the barn-when my grandfather designed the shop he built it for Model A's, not 60's tanks. I could pull the car in but wasn't able to shut the garage door as it hung out the door opening about a foot. LOL Had to keep it up at my grandmother's house where the garage was big enough to park it. Runner up would be the '77 Caprice 4dr I drove to high school. The 305 laid an egg and my dad & I slid in a 327 & 4spd. I put a set of those 80s Cadillac wire wheel covers on it and lost more than one giving the 5.0 Mustang boys a fit. This was back in the mid 90s when it seemed like everyone had a 5.0 fox body Mustang.

Tonight's work ends with reworking the windshield opening and making a header for the convertible top. Even though I plan on having the top down, this area is still visible and want to make it look right. The B-400 uses the same windshield & frame as the '32 Cabriolet and this windshield is not like any other '32 passenger car. It is more Model A like in design with it's square corners & tube hinge. The windshield pillars are different between the two body styles as well so I fitted some .040 square Evergreen into the pillars and laid a piece of Plastruct channel to serve as the basis for the header. The kit windshield frame ain't gonna get it so I will scratch a new windshield frame to fit the corrected windshield opening.

Some .020 styrene strip fishplated to the body where it meets the rear section & the Tudor half pieces. I went a bit overboard with the fishplate because I figure I'm going to be doing a lot of handling during the rest of the bodywork and didn't want any structural failure by skimping on materials!

Started making some rough cuts. My trusty razor saw made short work of taking the top & bustle off the Victoria body & the rear section out of the Tudor body. You can see where the Tudor body section is wider than the Victoria body so I cut the Tudor section in half and sanded some off each side.

The Victoria has a bustle back where the B-400 has a curved back like the sedans. My plan is to use the rear of the sedan body on the Vicky body and scratch the quarter windows and rework the rear beltline as it's unique to the B-400.

Here's what I'm starting with. This particular boxing of the kit is my favorite as it's the same one I bought as a kid in Kmart all those years ago. Nostalgia is a powerful thing. The aforementioned Jimmy Flintstone body, a set of '32 18" wheels from 3D Scale Parts-very nice parts! Also a donor body from Revell '32 Tudor kit. Not shown is the usual stash of Plastruct & Evergreen styrene we all have kicking around on our build desks. You can see the issues with the top and I also didn't like the curvature of the rear panel on the resin body.

Here's my build thread on converting an AMT '32 Ford Vicky into a B-400. This is part of my quest to have one of every '32 body style my collection. The only models I'm aware of are the Franklin Mint Diecast and the Jimmy Flintstone Resin body. Both have their issues. I initially bought a Flintstone body for this conversion, but upon receiving it, it's easier to convert a styrene body. Not only are the quarter windows off in shape, the top is just rough as a cob no matter how you cut it. On the 1:1 car the top is flush with the body and the rear window (curtain light in Ford parlance) isn't even close to being correct. Having restored a 1:1 '31 Model A A-400 I'm familiar with this body style as lots of parts carried over into the '32 model year. I dug around in my '32 literature collection and made a copy of the body in white drawing & side view and scaled it to 1/25. In addition to this drawing I also printed out some photos I saved online.

This is fantastic news! Even though I'm a diehard Ford guy several of these will find their way into the stash.

This swap has become one of my favorites. In each of the 5 years I've been going I've always gotten some really good deals. Not to mention it's laid back and very casual.