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Patina’d 34 Pick Up


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Been looking forward to building one of these for ages - and there’s a decent-sized 34 Pick Up build off on Instagram right now so it seemed a good time...picked up this old body from eBay, and a new kit from Hobby Lobby and I’m all set to see what the fuss is about

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Aside from wanting to build one of these I’ve been wanting to do a cool hot rod shop truck for a while, and I felt like doing some weathering and something with a little rust and patina - so combine the three and I can mark three things off my 2020 to-build list in one hit ?.

The body I’m starting with is actually pretty straight and clean despite some glue-splodges, just a couple of little spots that will need some attention.  Filled the holes in the cowl that I won’t be needing:

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I decided to keep the optional smooth sidewall, but added a styrene bead around the edge to make it look a little less flat:

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Added the coachbolts to the rear panel that the 1:1s have:

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The pins I used were a little large, so I’ve since sanded them down and flattened them out a little to get them closer to scale...and whilst I was working on the back of the cab I added the recesses that a stock 34 truck has on the lower panel there:

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The other side of those recesses is (just) visible in the interior of these trucks from what I can tell, so I added the opposite detail to the inside too, along with the factory wooden bracing...the bracing is moulded into the body already in the kit but it’s pretty soft and flat so this will add a little 3D-ness to the interior once it’s got some paint on it:

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And as you might notice from the bottom of the doors on that pic above I’ve added a little rust damage.  I don’t want this thing to look full-rat-rod, all falling apart and full of holes, but a LITTLE rot and some dings and marks from 80+ years of service seemed appropriate.  I looked up a bunch of photos of unrestored 34 cabs and tried to hit the spots where these rust and get damaged the most...weirdly a bunch of pics I saw had more rust damage to the passenger side of cab than the other, although I can’t think why that would be?*

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More soon, soon as I’ve done more!

Edited by CabDriver
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* My wife, a true-crime fan and all round smart gal/wannabe-detective thought about this after I showed her and theorised that a working truck such as this would likely have less traffic thru the passenger door than the driver’s door.  

As such, rain water might be trapped in between the bottom of the door and the floor on that side more often than the other side, where the driver getting in and out of the truck frequently would stop that build up, and thus the driver’s side wouldn’t suffer rust damage as much over a long period of time.

Plausible?  Maybe ?‍♂️?

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11 hours ago, espo said:

Smart lady. With that same idea in mind the door hinges and handle on the driver's side may also show more signs of wear. Are you going to keep the right front fender spare mount or fill the fender ? 

I think keep it for this one!  I’ve got an idea for what to do with it, maybe...we’ll see if it works ?

6 hours ago, Tom Geiger said:

Pretty typical that right side rusted more than left side since streets are usually pitched down towards the curb. That right door becomes the low point where water could sit

AHHHH, yeah!  That also makes sense!  Good thinking!

1 hour ago, Brizio said:

Looks a good start!

Thank you sir!

Got some paint on the body today...well, paint, pastels, watercolor pencils, regular pencils, a little of everything ?

First up, primer - this stuff’s pretty good for a buck a can!

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Then, a brown base to get us rolling;

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Add salt, to season;

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Then some black, followed by dark blue;

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Followed by some light blue (there IS a reason for all this, honest ?)

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Starting to look like I imagined it in my head...remove the salt with a soft toothbrush:

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Then, I buffed back through some of the light blue:

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Added rust streaks with watercolors from the places I figure water would drop and run down the body, including these rivets on the back:

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Then masked you some vintage hand-painted lettering on the side (I know, using a mask to paint hand lettering is cheating) then buffed back through it and gave it some more weathering and rust streaks to make it look like it has been there all along:

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And that’s enough ruining things for one day I think ?

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More soon!

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Since you follow me on IG I don’t have to tell you how much I dig 32-34 Ford Pickups (I mean, I daily drive a 32!) I know these trucks like the back of my hand and I love the details you’ve added to the cab, especially the stamping reliefs on the lower back panel - that’s RAD! I also really like the weathered look you’ve achieved. And this is just the cab. I can’t wait to see the rest of the project unfold!

Are you gonna have a bed? Because just like the full scale versions the front of the bed completely hides those reliefs in the cab back. Would be a shame to cover that detail up!

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Thanks everyone!!  
 

13 hours ago, espo said:

I like your aging process on the paint. The light blue now looks like an oxidized dark blue. What did you use to hold the salt in place at the start ?  

I’m so glad you said that about the oxidized paint - I was trying to hit that effect!  Like when a shiny red paintjob ends up a powdery looking pink over time.  Appreciate you spotting that that’s roughly what I was trying to do!!  Just used some water to hold the salt in place - used a fine brush to get the water where I wanted it then shook a little salt on there and then moved it around with a toothpick to get it just how I wanted it ??
 

7 hours ago, Dennis Lacy said:

Since you follow me on IG I don’t have to tell you how much I dig 32-34 Ford Pickups (I mean, I daily drive a 32!) I know these trucks like the back of my hand and I love the details you’ve added to the cab, especially the stamping reliefs on the lower back panel - that’s RAD! I also really like the weathered look you’ve achieved. And this is just the cab. I can’t wait to see the rest of the project unfold!

Are you gonna have a bed? Because just like the full scale versions the front of the bed completely hides those reliefs in the cab back. Would be a shame to cover that detail up!

Thanks Dennis!  As a builder that I admire, and someone who knows these things inside out I’m glad I hit the mark with those couple of bits anyway.  I am going to run a bed on there, so that effort might all have been pointless ?.  I found a couple of reference pics where it looked like those ribs were JUST visible over the top of the bed in those couple of examples (although I’m guessing that’s not how Henry had them...) so I made mine just visible over the bed too.  

That said, a rusty old bed would reveal a little of them I guess, so we’ll see.

Today’s progress was minor (although somehow I spent 8 hours messing with these two parts) ??...wanted to add some inner door detail seeing as the detail on the body is pretty soft and flat.  Scratchbuilt some new panels:

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I found some pics of these trucks with the inspection panels missing, and some with them present and correct so I did one with and one without - added the internal crank rods to the one where you can see them with the panel removed to match a reference pic I found:

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Shot them with a rust base:

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And whilst I was looking for reference pics I came across a pair of 1:1 doors for sale, one with a kinda salmon pink patina’d paintjob and one in dirty white.  They looked like an odd pair but just mismatched enough to be cool and catch my eye...and if I was building this thing for real and needed those parts I would’ve got those for it!  So, one white inner door, one salmon pink and black and white inner door:

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More detailing to come on these tomorrow, but ran out of time today - scratchbuilt some replicas of the 1:1 door and window cranks and got them in Alclad ready for them to be ruined tomorrow along with some PE bolts and whatever else I can find to add.  Not that they’re super visible through the sides anyway, but better than what WAS there...

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More soon!

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Jim you make me drooling on my computer's keyboard!  This weathering job (and the technique) is simply fantastic!   Keep these doors (and the whole cabin) well hidden in your basement as Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz from American Pickers will come to your area and try to buy them, they can't resist to this kind of stuff!!!

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10 hours ago, Plowboy said:

Excellent weathering and scratch work Jim! I wish I had the eye and talent to do weathering like this! But, it's like a black art to me that just doesn't sink in. 

Oh man, I’m no good at this stuff, I never quite nail it how I want - but I found that looking for reference pics and kinda copying the finish and colors and textures is helping me with this one

9 hours ago, AmericanMuscleFan said:

Jim you make me drooling on my computer's keyboard!  This weathering job (and the technique) is simply fantastic!   Keep these doors (and the whole cabin) well hidden in your basement as Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz from American Pickers will come to your area and try to buy them, they can't resist to this kind of stuff!!!

Haha!  And you KNOW they’d try and lowball me and then make a killing on it ??. Thanks buddy!

9 hours ago, gman said:

Two words- tetanus shot ?

In all seriousness, that weathering job is looking very believable. Nice work so far.

Thank you! ?

8 hours ago, Quiet Eric said:

Killer job on the weathering and door innards! Hot Rods for life.

Hot rods for life indeed!!! 

Tiny bit of progress today - stoopid cat woke me up at four am for nothing in particular so I wasn’t very productive.  A three hour nap helped but by then it was dinner time and I still hadn’t done much ??.  Still...

Added window cranks and door handles to the inner door panels, along with a half-wound-down (half-wound-up?) yellowed old window on the passenger side for an extra bit of interest....

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I figure this being a hot rod shop truck they had to do some maintenance on it at some point so there’s some shiny new bolts in there along with some weathered ones. 

Also added some of the wood braces to the interior - there’s actually more that should be in there than I’ve done so far but I’m not sure if they’ll be visible with the seats in - need to check:

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The backstory for this truck is maybe that it’s a current working shop truck for a modern day hot rod shop who can’t bring themselves to mess with that hard-earned patina too much...not really a barn find, kind of a “still working and looks cool” kinda aged build.  Pieced together and rough, but not neglected either.  I figured that the 80-something-year-old wood braces would be pretty rotten by now, so they made some replacements with nice clean new wood:

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I like the idea of having some REALLY ratty bits on this truck, but still having it look like it’s cared for and works and runs - a bit of a mishmash of new and old parts, so not everything is going to be quite as ‘tired’ looking as the bits I’ve done so far.  That’s the plan anyway!

Thanks for looking, more tomorrow if the cat doesn’t keep me up all night with his nonsense ??

Edited by CabDriver
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Hi Jim, I love following your builds! Very entertaining. As I have said before, your quality of builds is just fantastic. However, your sense of humour, and enjoyment of creating masterpieces, makes it even more enjoyable to follow along. Thanks for sharing. I now feel brave enough to try the salt technique for weathering! 
 

Cheers, Steve

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10 hours ago, CabDriver said:

Oh man, I’m no good at this stuff, I never quite nail it how I want - but I found that looking for reference pics and kinda copying the finish and colors and textures is helping me with this one

 

 

To me, it looks perfect. At least to my taste. I suppose you're using an airbrush for the paint?

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On 10/15/2020 at 9:40 PM, CabDriver said:

Add salt, to season;

Sorry to the dumb question Jim (this information has probably been shared thousands of times...), but what is your choice of adhesive to temporarily glue the grains of salt in place?

I am not yet brave enough to embark on this process but would be interested in testing the technique in an old body, the effect is so convincing and realistic!

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20 hours ago, Steve H said:

Hi Jim, I love following your builds! Very entertaining. As I have said before, your quality of builds is just fantastic. However, your sense of humour, and enjoyment of creating masterpieces, makes it even more enjoyable to follow along. Thanks for sharing. I now feel brave enough to try the salt technique for weathering! 
 

Cheers, Steve

Thanks Steve!  I definitely recommend it for a change of pace compared to painting stuff shiny!  It’s fun!

16 hours ago, slusher said:

Great weathering Jim, looking forward to more!

Thank you!! ❤️

9 hours ago, Plowboy said:

To me, it looks perfect. At least to my taste. I suppose you're using an airbrush for the paint?

Yes sir - although you could do this with rattle cans too, and plenty of people do it better than me without an airbrush.  A lot of the gradients and subtle color changes on this one actually come from cheap artist’s pastels ground up and brushed on rather than the airbrush achieving the same thing, so it’s definitely doable with just rattle cans, yeah!

6 hours ago, AmericanMuscleFan said:

Sorry to the dumb question Jim (this information has probably been shared thousands of times...), but what is your choice of adhesive to temporarily glue the grains of salt in place?

I am not yet brave enough to embark on this process but would be interested in testing the technique in an old body, the effect is so convincing and realistic!

Not a dumb question at all! I just use water - brush it onto the spots where I want the ‘rust’ to show through and sprinkle salt on top!  Once it’s dried the crusty salt makes the mask and you’re all set!  I’ll typically move the wet salt around with a brush a little to get it to ‘clump’ exactly where I want it to, but nothing fancier than that.  


Taking a break from the bench - had a solid 4 hours of messing with the dash today ??.

Drilled out the moulded-in switches and rivets, primed and then shot with Createx brown:

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Again, add salt, and shot with a variation of the light blue that I used already on the body:

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Remove salt:

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Add a decal, because why not, and some BMF for the gauge cluster:

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And then I finished it off with some brass rivets, metal rings around the gauges and a little keychain with a NYC tourist “I ❤️ NY” heart shaped keychain and a photoetched key:

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Hardest part was that stupid keychain - took forever to loop the keys onto the chain ???

A fun little detail tho!  More soon, soon as my eyes recover ??

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Edited by CabDriver
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Great stuff here. Very readable and inspiring to follow. I am looking for a cab for a vintage tanker truck and hadn't thought about using the '34 Ford. Thanks for sharing your techniques and high res photos with us. The pictures you posted of the real door inner panels are the type of thing that are invaluable to us all for adding accurate and seldom seen details to our models. I'll be following along closely and will mimic many of the details.

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