RSchnell

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.

Wow! That's nuts!

The price of eggs. Stopped at the Groceteria earlier with a list of my normal provisions. Everything's great until I get to the eggs. $6 for a dozen? Really? I know there's some new bird flu or whatever, but Christ! Jesse James used a gun when he robbed people. Ended up going with the cage free 18 count which was a dollar cheaper than the normal dozen. I miss growing up where we had acreage for 5 different types of citrus & watermelon, we had a vegetable garden at the house in town, our neighbor out in the country raised & processed cattle. the local Model T guy hooked us up with eggs from his egg farm. The only thing we bought at the store was stuff like condiments, bread, etc. Henry Ford said it best in 1932 "With one foot in agriculture and foot in industry America is safe".

I think a lot of these youtube "modelers" just love hearing themselves talk. I lurk on the Britmodeller aircraft forum and how those guys do unboxings is doing it right. No video just high quality photos of each sprue and a good discussion follows.

My haul from a local show/swap this morning. Photo thread in Contests & Shows if you're so inclined to look! I went not really needing anything but found some deals. The ancient set of Revell Highway Pioneers was a nice find, some are missing parts but scored the whole lot for $20. The '54 Corvette promos were a good find especially the Pennant Blue one-those are hard to find for some reason. There was a guy with a whole table full of cheap rebuilders. A couple of the '32s, the '56 & 59 will likely get cleaned up and put on the survivor shelf the others are good for parts. All told I spent right around a hundo for everything in these pics including the lot of Speed Age magazines from 1949-1954. Sometimes it's hard to turn down a good deal.

I took these pics at a local show this morning with this thread in mind. I didn't think the prices were too out of line.

Here's a few pics from the swap. I got some great deals and talked to some folks I hadn't seen in a bit. I thought prices on stuff was reasonable for the most part, hindsight being 20/20 I should've bought the Star Truk kit but I'm running out of room. Paired with a Chorizo breakfast sandwich from Wawa & it wasn't a bad way to spend Saturday morning. Even had an international presence with the German police there. 🤔

It's pretty incredible the scope of all the fires going on right now. I ran across these photos while reading up on it this morning.