customline

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Yeah, boss, it's good! I had to rip the rear end out of mine. Consider yourself lucky. 🥴

Took it out to the paint shop for some primer. The first two shots are for you. 😯 The other four are for me. Gotta zoom for a look at what I need to do to smooth it out. You may as well see it too. 😕 Taking suggestions on interior colors, y'all. 🤠

I stopped by the body shop for a bit of custom work. It's a little awkward to hold cold-curled 5/64 rod while gluing and kicking but I managed to do so without my fingers becoming part of the fender. Bondo time! My cheese grater 👇 The inside needs some love too. Just some quick work with sanding drums to eliminate the roll-under and make it look like a normal fender. This should make everyone happier now. 😉 Thanks for sticking around if you did. If you didn't, well.....you missed it!

. ...And why can't they all be like that?

WDYT about adding styrene rod to the rear fenders to create a rolled-over lip. This would reduce the radius evenly and shrink that unsightly void over the tire? 😏

Yup, thanks, Bob. I do listen to y'all. Sometimes. 😌

The device is a mini-vise I got from Micro-Mark many moons ago. It helps to cut a square end on small stuff like the driveshaft. In other news.... This is my deuce body with the deuce frame from a '29 or '30 kit snuggled inside like they were made for each other. My firewall is in place, otherwise it would go through at the cowl. Some minor tweaking of the inner fenders might be needed. A deuce frame that's already pinched for a Model A highboy or a channelled deuce. Cool, huh? I love those extra frames. 🙂

After much internal debate, fear, weeping, and denial, I came to the conclusion that I needed to bite the dam bullet (a wad cutter, thankfully) and rip the rear end out and cut those stupid air bags down. You talked me into it, Craig 😪 This could have gone south on me pretty quick but it must be my lucky day. I drilled out the air bag posts from the top side and shaved a few mms off of them. I drilled them for new posts and cleaned up the CA from the contact points. I knew the wheels were not centered and that's what made my mind up. Assembling the rear axle and radius arms without the wheels mounted is to do it blind. That's how I did it. 🥴 now I get to correct it! The thing is, when the wheels are centered, the drive shaft is too long. I had to move it forward to center the wheels and everything should fit, right? Nope. That's why the big fat posts sticking out of the air bags. They fit through the drilled out holes in the floor pan. So with the wheels on, the axle in place, the body in place, I centered the wheels. I then removed the body (very carefully ) and dropped the CA on the posts and kicked it. And this is what she looks like now. 👇 The radius of the fender and that of the tire are equidistant throughout the curve. That's a win. It's not a heck of a lot lower but it's much better to my eye. I will still darken the wells. The big victim in all this is the drive shift. Thank for helping. You know who you are 😉

Ohhhhhhh.......🤣.....hey, maybe...🤔

Great story, sir! Do they still put shingles (shakes?) on sidewalls?

Thanks, Greg, it's okay to be wrong. In order to channel this car, you would need to pinch the frame. I was wondering if the deuce frame from the '29/'30 A kits might let the body fit down over the rails. The highboy frame in those kits, I think, are narrowed to accommodate the A body. I have a few of those hanging around. Then you could probably use the short interior side panels. I will check that in a while, but I have an important (to me 🥴) update to post. As far as the radiator goes, I have been informed that the blower drive is out of scale and the belt isn't on the pullys correctly. I don't want to keep re-doing stuff any more than I already have,and I could be wrong, but your idea is the way to get that issue straight and I appreciate your help.

The blower drive came straight from the kit; it's not my fault 😔. Great idea on the wheel wells! I thought about painting them black, but only for a few seconds. I think some gray primer just under the fenders should darken it without being too obvious. Thanks for the idea, sidcharles!

I got that stuff ( many years ago) because someone on another forum said it wouldn't leave residue. It did. Not sure why I kept it. Has residue ever been an issue for you? I'd be willing to try it again. My big concern about residue these days is Tamiya masking tape ruining my Tamiya lacquer paint jobs but that's for another thread.

Just a word about the grille/radiator assembly. It's a very tight fit. So tight in fact, it must be positioned up hard against the blower drive. The engine is located by a pin-in-hole scheme at the tail shaft which locates it positively. No mistake there. In order to fit the hood correctly, the grille assembly must be hard against the drive pulley. This may make you uncomfortable..... I used 5 minute epoxy for this. I'm certain that I had a good reason 🤔

1.) $180.00 Iwata air brush that I've had almost two years and haven't tried yet. 2.) AK weathering kit 3.) A set of Createx iridescent paints. 4.) A Jimmy Flintstone '53 Ford Country Squire body 5.) Parafilm

I was wondering when you'd stop in, Bill. My first reflex was to just go ahead and do the stuff I did to the '29 roadster/'30 coupe kits to get them lower but I wanted to just build it. The only mods are some engine details,"no outside door handles" and a one piece hood. That's it. A nice fast build with no "creativity" spent on a pretty decent kit. I need to find a pair of '39 taillights, though 😕

Revell is good about replacing bad or missing parts. I did it once a few years ago (the '29 windshield frame). Off-hand, I can't recall how to contact them, sorry; try the website?

The third member is going to stay put, Craig, too much to undo and I'm too far along but tomorrow I'm going to see if Ollie's has any more (Wifey needs coffee pods-good excuse to go 🥴). I figured those Monogram kits were a special deal. I bought a couple of those too. Nowhere near as good as this kit. I'd like to channel it and get it down in the weeds.

You're quite welcome. I like this kit a lot but that may be because I haven't had any disasters yet 😄. There are some things that some might find difficult but not many. Gluing the front fenders raised my BP a little but I got them mounted on the first try. 🙂 This is today's progress

Yeah but then it becomes a whole big thing trying to find wheels and adapting them and all that. I'm just not that ambitious. I listen but I hate buying aftermarket stuff because the added expense makes me unhappy ☹. As far as your suggestions goes, try beginning them with the words "I may be totally wrong but..." if the suggestion causes a disaster, you have an out. 🥴

I did some things today that I've been avoiding. One of those is connecting the headers to the muffled system. I like to handle small parts with my favorite spring-loaded tweezers and occasionally I will inadvertently launch an item into the ether. Such an event occurred today. One of the connectors disappeared as I was about to install it. Luckily, I have solder of the size needed to replace the lost part. I need to stop using those tweezers. Anyway, I bolted on the rear fenders, added the gas cap, installed the steering box (it lined up perfectly with the tie rod) and I glazed the Duval frame. The glass is much thinner than regular kit glass. The frame is pretty thin too. I usually like to scrape the plating in the glue surfaces but not this time. I used clear enamel to bond the glass to the fully plated frame. Wish me luck. I thought it might be difficult to glue the windshield to the painted and polished body so I drilled the frame and the cowl for an .020 pin. Yes, it was dangerous. I was victorious 🥴. The arrow indicates how I totally missed this parting line. 💩 That's the solder job☝ The arrow is for the steering box(which includes the shaft and a u-joint) I may run a pin through it just because 🤓 I installed the coil-overs. Big R could have done better here. The locating pins on the axle are three sizes too small for the holes they mate with........ 😉 Moving along..... I thought it might be cool to do a one piece hood. That was easy 😊 WDYT about 86-ing the headers and doing solid hood sides. Or custom louvered ones. It makes sense with the Duvall. Oh, heck, that's the SO-CAL talking. I'm gonna stick my neck out here and say I don't like all that empty space under the rear fender. And that's a pretty big tire. Should it be bigger? 🤔 I'm having sec....47th thoughts about the color scheme. Thanks! Oh, and........... pre-drilled ET Dragmasters are available with polished centers. 😜

Ohhhhh.....that Alex 😯

Thanks, Carl, those things bother me. If it's an automatic, and the pan isn't a separate part, skinning would fix it, the rest of it I just try to sand out. I don't worry about seams on castings too much because cast components can have mold parting lines. If it's really bad, gotta fill and sand, I guess.

OK, Topher, I'll bite. Who's Alex? The only Alex I know goes in a caulk gun. 😂