1951 Chevy Bel Air

[Andy Oldenburg]

I´m getting on with the doors. Trying to avoid the mistakes I made with my last build. One of them was not cutting the indoor panels small enough so the doors close neatly. Second to make sure that the rear seat panels are mounted far back enough.

The bottom of the panels are a bit too long and would hit the rocker, so I shortened them.

The empty spaces are filled/covered with 1mm sheet. Then I sanded the edges round and filled the few gaps with putty.

Sanding the edges is almost done, now I´ve started the first steps of painting the interior. The panel details are quite good and crisp, so I won´t need to enhance them.

Started with the dash and steering wheel and column. I did choose the sport wheel, although I going stock, because the stock wheel in the kit is junk. I will add a few details to the wheel next. I have added proper knobs to the dash. The kit has not dash decals at all😒 It might be a micro "paint job" for the gauges in the end.

This is what the floorboard looks like😲 I carefully treated it with a heat gun and was able to bend it into shape, hope it will fit later when connecting the big parts.

 

[slusher]

Coming along nicely..

[bluestringer]

Your 51 Bel Air is looking great. I just started this kit, but yours will have much more detail than mine. I'm almost done with the engine, going to try and dirty it up a little.

[dino246gt]

Nice project and great work! Keep going and keep posting, I love seeing this one come together!

 

[Andy Oldenburg]

Got the interior finished. The dashboard out of the box was a bit too simple. I had to deepen the slots in the middle part. I´m not sure, but I guess that behind it the loudspeaker is hidden. This I covered with bare metal in matt aluminum and treated the slots with a wash and added the lever buttons. There were no decals in the kit so I did my best drawing the gauges with a fine gel pen, covered it with clear enamel. Same with the clock. The round knobs I cut off from 1mm styrene rod and the glove box button is the head of a sewing pin. The rings around the clock and gauges are photo etched parts. Still have to get some keys for the ring.

The steering wheel is not quite stock. I took the sport wheel and pimped it. Drilled holes in the spokes, added a wire ring and enhanced the center with a ring. It looks fine and fits well with the dash.

I tried to stay close to the original scheme of the bench upholstery. They were mostly dark with a white or light seat surface. I switched that though to make the interior less dark. Same with the door panels. The fine lines are bare metal aluminum. I don´t cut them on the parts, but cut 1mm strips on the sheet and apply them carefully with fingers, tweezers, toothpick. The cranks and levers are painted with Molotow chrome. I´v gotten tired of accidentally messing the bare metal while handling the parts so I covered the panels with a semi gloss coat. The messy parts at the back and bottom of the rear panels will be hidden after assembly.

The panels and the benches received a mild treatment of smudge with a grey/brown wash. After all, it is an old car. The floor is flocked and the drivers floor has a rubber dirt mat. Last I added some rails for the back passengers.

So the interior is done. Next comes the undercarriage. Thanks for watching!

[Zippi]

That interior is really looking nice.  

[NOBLNG]

Yes, nice work on it. The dash looks great.

[Andy Oldenburg]

I´m finished with the frame and undercarriage now. I like to add brake and fuel lines and, if possible, also the cables for the parking brakes. Trouble was that there are quite a lot of images of the ´51 Bel Air in the net, but getting reasonably good pics of the bottom side was almost impossible. I did realise that the brake and fuel lines are connected to the frame. For this I was able to use a connecting technique I "developed" a while ago (probably might be others out there with the same idea, but I haven´t seen it yet...). I drill pairs of 0.4mm holes along the frame and thread an loop of 0.3mm wire through them. Pull them tight and bend the ends inside the frame. Works well on the flat undercarriage too, but check out that the wires end up under the seats.

After attaching the interior board I could move on with a first step of weathering. My favorite tool for rough weathering is a ripped piece of pillow foam. I can use a flat or a more pointed side, squish it to match my needs, whatever. Just take a small amount of matt paint off the lid and tip it on the surfaces. Have to work fast, because the enamel paint drys quickly with this method. I got the parking brake lines as close to original as I was able. Mostly the setup on cars of this age seem to be the same. I this case I found out where the lever is connected to the frame.

Next I finally attached the engine and gave the pan an extra amount of grime. Thanks for the advise guys! I wasn´t finished yet with the weathering though. The undercarriage still looked too clean, so I covered the wheels and gave it a careful work over with my airbrush.

One last thing to do was to attach the return spring for the parking brake. Now comes the engine bay. Thanks for watching!

 

[David G.]

The engine, interior and chassis all look great!

I like the idea you came up with for attaching the brake and fuel lines to the chassis. I plan on using that some day. Thanks for sharing it with us.

David G.

 

[Andy Oldenburg]

I´m moving on and slowly coming to see the finish line. After getting the undercarriage done I had to get all those loose lines, wires and hoses unraveled and into their final place. A shame that soon much of the engine will be hidden away forever...

As I mentioned earlier, some of the bigger parts of this kit are not correctly in shape. I was able to heat treat the floor board flat again, but the inner fenders a crooked too. Oh well, it will turn out fine in the end. But as you can see, the radiator board dosn´t match to the fenders. fortunately this will be hidden when the body drops down.

The trunk is flocked like a loose carpet and the spare wheel I cut down to fit and look real.

I had a spontaneous fun idea to make sun visors. The visors are 1.5mm sheet and the wires are bent from 0.5mm brass wire.

As I expected and experienced before, the rear panel parts would be too long for the doorway. Last time I noticed this AFTER I had glued all the interior parts together. Won´t happen again, so I attached these panels after cutting off the necessary length.

The gaps on the rockers and to the back panels are filled and painted to match.

Not much left to do now but to attach the doors and trunk. I already know that I will have to do a bit of bending to make them fit correctly. I will introduce the finished ´51 Bel Air on a new "under glass" topic. Hope you liked it so far and thanks for watching!

 

[David G.]

Well Done!

Thanks for taking the time to share it.

I built one of these a couple of years ago, the Sun Cruiser version. I did a custom interior on mine, nothing as involved as your mods. Quite impressive.

David G.