customline

Dave, I may have chopped it a smidgen too much. I thought the .25 inch cut was, give or take, 4" in 1:1 land. Actually, it's close to 6". But hey, I want it to look like it was done by a punk hot-rodder back around 1960. If it ends up looking decent in black primer, I may leave it that way. I added the front facia and the rear panel tonight and cleaned up the window openings some. The optional kit hood had a twist and wouldn't sit right plus the front right corner featured the mold defect common to both shoebox Ford kits. I played with it but ended up using the stock hood, which I shaved and filled. The grille candidates are the big toothy '53 De Soto grille, the minimalist '55 Plymouth, and the kit's '54 or '55 De Soto grille. There are others but I think a stock Merc unit would be great if I can find one. I need to find wheels and tires that will allow radical lowering (the front inner fenders won't play well with the wide tires in the box.)

You already are! Welcome!

😂

Here's where I'm at so far. The roof was filled in with pieces from a '53 Ford roof, a discard from a previous roof swap, and some scraps. Bondo two part glazing putty followed several times, building up the low spots and getting ready for a quick dusting of primer to see what I need to do next. With Bondo, (and I know there are plenty of you who reject this) you can mix it, slap it on, give it 5 minutes to firm up, shape it with some 220 grit as it is hardening and mix another batch, rinse, repeat and be ready for primer in an hour. Individual results may vary. Then the package shelf had to be extended using some Evergreen sheet.

Bil, I totally mis-read the above and sent you a PM regarding what I thought you wanted to know. Just disregard all that.

The more, the merrier .

Welcome aboard, Paul, hope I won't disappoint.

You really think so? Thank you, Anton! ......(I see it more as hacking and glue-bombing ?)

Looking forward to it?? practice makes perfect. ?

Len, I had to do that on the Edsel. The kit had no provision for the trim on the outside of the grille opening (horse collar) so I just used foil - seemed fine.

You cheated!........? hey, Andy, let's get that one ?? back on the assembly line ?

Greenhouse work on lot of later cars is tricky. Thanks, Topher.

Remember what the minimum wage was back in '67? $1.25/hr? (Nice one, Lenny! ?)

I want it understood that this is not a "how-to" because I'm learning as I go (and this ain't like whacking a Model A.) I started to put the pieces back together in their new locations. It's no surprise my cuts were not terribly accurate. I added small pieces of sheet to the inside of the pillars to make it easy to get the top pieces in place. During this process I used the Testors liquid in the black dispenser because it allows a little "adjustment" time (but not much). I glue a piece of .015 sheet to the inside of a roof pieces and manipulate them into place. You can imagine how that goes but the pictures may help you decide if you want to try this. the .015 evergreen is pliable enough for bending during "adjustments" and it holds it all together. The next step is to fill in the top. I am using the top from the '53 Ford for those filler pieces. The package shelf will need to be extended and the the glass will need to be created and mountings put in place. All of that later. Thanks for looking in and feel free to say I'm nuts. ☺️

Or the trash can.

I'm thinking roadster firewall ?

Absolutely.

He's 94.

Yessssir! The styrene is all up in there now, Boss.

Yeah, man, can't believe Barris would let them put his name on that. I'll bet them shtickers are worth a week's pay by now. Hmmmmm.

Medium radical says it precisely sort of. It will NOT be fun if I can help it! Just you watch! You won't be able to look. It's truly scary.

Remember what I said about the squeamish now..... This is known as "flying by the seat of your pants" and there's turbulence ahead.....

The shoebox Ford. The first car I remember (Dad kept that oil burner for ten years) in my life was a '51 Ford custom tudor, color brown (bronze?) metallic. I heard him say more than once that it burned oil from the day he bought it. (So why didn't he...oh....) The idea of this one is chopping it a very healthy four scale inches and it is because I'm trying to look like a chopped Merc. Can't do that with a coupe. Gotta have a tudor. So....I got it in my head that if I could maybe move the backlight rearward to say...half-way to the trunk opening and lay it way down on a low roof, I could get close to that Merc lead sled feeling. It's a little scary; there's lots of taper, bottom to top, on the greenhouse. This body is an easy section job but the roof is not an easy chop. The early plan was both section and chop but after a week of mental activity the conservative won out. Here's the victim, an eBay find ? This is not an attempt to model any particular car. It's an adventure, an experiment. I've been lusting...well, needing to butcher this one into a sorta "punk" lead sled. Something with a quickie stolen car smell to it. You've seen them. You'd peg it for a novice, which, it so happens, it is! Gotta learn it somehow and this way is fun for me. The following is not for the squeamish. Our victim was given a bath and scrubbed with DAWN ( go away, I'm no good for you....) uh... The shiny black was tough on my eyes for some reason so I dusted it with some light gray primer Check your magazine archives. See any customs with no windshield wipers? Smooth is king here. All you need is Rain-x anyway. And here we go .....don't expect much ?! This is what I would like to say, but without the accent....and lower.....black cherrrrry

I see you have met my little brown buddy, Len. I think of him as my little work-around. ? I love the gen 1 & 2 'vettes and this one should have been the '63. It just makes sense... to me, ? anyway

Thanks, Greg, it was a fairly enjoyable build.