Alyn

Charlie, I noticed that too. Seems like a lot of themes come in waves around here. It's good for keeping the ideas flowing. My wrecker boom is primarily Plastruct and Evergreen rod stock, with a bit of brass and aluminum thrown in.for some cross shafts. The main ring gear is nylon, I assume. I'm a little concerned that the nylon won't hold on to paint very well, but we'll see. Thanks,Bill. I grabbed about a dozen reference pics off the internet and liked features from several of them, so this will be a miss-mash of those elements. I've considered branding it a "Weaver", but that's still up in the air. Glad you like the hinges, Jeff. I've done hinges in at least 4 completely different styles and have considered doing a tutorial showing each. I just haven't had the time to put something together. Here's an update on the most recent work on the wrecker boom. I"ve added the winch drum and gears, plus some miscellaneous details. After the boom bracing, crank and pulley system is figured out, the wrecker boom will be done.

thanks for the kind words, guys. Bill, thanks for the tip, although more and more I'm thinking the wood looks good with just the stain and no clear. Thanks for the added info Ken. Glad I didn't do the Canadian version. It would have been twice as difficult. Stephen, the axle is wrapped with some mild steel wire the from floral department at Hobby Lobby or Michaels. It seems to me that wrapping round parts keeps them in alignment better than clamping. And, thanks for the history lesson, Dan. I know I've read similar info somewhere, but the stained wood adds character, so this truck will be built in what I would call "parade style"; artistic license at the expense of accuracy. I've done a couple of pickup beds in basswood with a yellow stain, so this one ended up with the dark stain just to try something different. Not sure how I'll handle the wooden spokes on the wheels yet. Here's a little more progress. The first rendition of the wrecker boom looked a little heavy, so I redid it in the next smaller size angle iron. The end was also curved to match one of my research pictures. Getting the angle to curve without buckling required 6 relief cuts on each piece. Then they were glued with a mixture of Ambroid and styrene shavings. I figured that would be stronger than just glue alone. I sanded off the molded in instrument cluster on the dash and replaced that with a couple of holes for some gauge bezels. I think some decals will look better here than dry brushing the molded in gauge details. Sorry for the lousy focus on this one. Here's the hood with the louvers opened up. It's not too tough to cut them open, but getting the cuts straight and even is another story. Hopefully the paint won't fill these back in. Finally, here's a mock up of how it's progressing. This is exactly the look I wanted, so the motivational juices are starting to flow. now, on to the top bows ...

Great job, Bryan. This one is chocked full of cool details. I'm confused, though. I'm not use to seeing "done" and "Bryan_M" in the same post. What's up this that?

sweet !

I was wondering about the tail lights too, but you're right; they turned out real nice. The whole rollpan/tail light area cleans up the rear of the truck nicely. Great looking interior work; clean cozy and well detailed.

satisfactory, Bill. Please proceed kidding aside, Bill, the wheels look great. I recall discussing wheel designs with yousome weeks ago and these far exceed what I had expected you to come up with. They have a unique look, one that I'll wager to bet required an extremely tight tolerance to avoid life in your scrap barrel. Very impressive [again ]

appreciate your words of support my friends. Here's a little more progress to show. I keep sanding away at this rear axle, trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. it looks a little better with each pass. The snout of the pumpkin is very simplistic and doesn't do a very good job of representing the axles I've seen. I carved away some plastic intil it was much shorter, and then added a collar and ring of bolts. A little more detail was added to the top of the pumpkin as well. If you recall, this area was wide open on the original part. It's still looking rough, so I'll keep sanding and carving. Here's the mounting platform for the wrecker boom. It's made of 1/8th and 5/16th inch styrene angle. Some bolts will be added for attachment through the pickup bed into the frame (or so it will appear). Here's the basic structure for the wrecker boom. Lot's more to add including all kinds of bracing, cable drum and cable, gears, bolts and rivets, etc. Finally, here's some sideboards for the pickup bed. They consist of a basswood rail with 1/6" brass strips for support. The rivets are good old straight pins. The stain is the same as the bed floor; Minwax #211 Provincial. I had planned on clear coating the bed floor and these rails, but at this point that is still under consideration. The reason being, the clear coat can cause the wood to warp, so the question is do I want to deal with that possibility or settle for the current look. Still thinking about it...

Your truck is an awesome choice for a hauler. It has a great period look. By the way, this suspension is not rigid. The diagonal rod connects to a coil spring via bell-crank hidden inside the sheet metal. This helps clean up the air flow around the front end. Since the surface is relatively smooth, you'll find that most salt flats/dry lakes cars don't need much of a suspension. It's not uncommon for rear axles to be welded or bolted directly to the frame.

As soon as I verify this doesn't have those wide front tires like Revell's other 32 kits, I'm in for a couple. Should be a good roadster kit with some good parts for the swap box

thoroughly enjoy watching you work you way though these builds Jon,

Congrats on your win, Cory. It's always nice to get a payoff after putting so much effort into a project.

Beautiful work on the details John; especially the steering wheel. And, as usual, your metalizing is as good as it gets. Inspired work !

Assuming you mean the IPMS KC Con show, I only have one car that's IPMS eligible, but hope to bring it. As far as I know, it's the last show in the area for the year, so I don't want to miss it. I'll be looking out for your Cuda.

Sinister and nasty ! The paint really does it. I wouldn't mind being behind the wheel of this one.

Love the black paint job, Tulio; exceptional !

Thanks for the kick-off comments, guys. Bill, this one will be "as restored", so the paint will be shiny. I may do some minor wear type weathering, but not much. The underside of the fenders had a number of ejector pin marks, so I sanded them down till most disappeared, then added some spot putty to finish up. Once again, this area is more visible than on most other (newer) cars. Hinges consist of short sections of 1/32" brass tube soldered to 1/16" wide brass strips. I built a similar hinge for my 40 Ford rat rod; with two of these mounted to the door and matching ones mounted to the body. The 40 Ford hinges used a slightly larger tube size. The Model-T body is smaller and more delicate, so this part will only be mounted to the door. The body side will consist of a .020" brass wire bent at a 90° angle. Here's the two hinge pieces together which shows how little the wire side adds to the perceived size of the hinge. Here's a shot with the hinge mocked up on the body to show the relative size. In scale, the hinge is about 1 1/2" high, not including the wire section. That sounds about right to me. Either the door or body will get a slight notch so the brass strips don't force the large door gap seen in this picture. As in full size cars, the lower hinge will stick out further from the body to allow the door to swing out in a horizontal plane.

You are really doing this one up proud, John. Beautiful work. That engine is crazy good.

I'll be danged if that don't look like a carburetor !

I have a hard time resisting the urge to buy kits that I built as a kid. The AMT double T kit is one of them. I saw this one on a vendors table recently and had to grab it. Unfortunately, it only had the parts for the stock Model T. That's cool. I'll build it. This will be the pickup version and will also include a wrecker boom. Here's a mock up of the basic parts: Like many other kits, the rear axle is open on the top. On most models however, the axle is tight up against the underside of the car, so you'd never notice. On a Model T, the top of the axle is highly visible. Some plastic tube was cut in half and used to cover up the gap. Some scraps were also added on the top of the differential housing and used to fill in the gaps in the brake backing plates. The axle is not done yet, but starting to look better. Since this truck will support a wrecker boom, I scratch built some heavy duty tires using slices of PVC. I'm using basswood for the bed floor. The wood is stained with Minwax Provincial # 211. This will eventually get a clear coat. You don't usually see the doors opened up on the Model T roadster body. They're so small. The real Model T's I've seen have a passenger side door only. This one will have that door opened up. With such a small door, the challenge will be to make hinges small enough to look in scale. These will be my smallest hinges yet.

Nice to see one of these Big T's being built at such a high level. Fantastic and very instructional work as always, John, but a huge pat on the back for taking on this project in the first place. Who else could accomplish such excellent work at this pace.

It's just the engine, but this pic is so sexy you'd expect to see it in Rodders Journal. Awesome work, buddy!

Very nice !

Thanks for adding your methodology, Bernard. Makes for a very interesting read.

Can't remember seeing so much red without being totally mad at the world. Nice stable! I started the process of picking a favorite, but gave up. I like them all. Cool brick wall for a back drop too.

Thanks for your interest, guys. Your comments are more that generous. Makes me want to get crack'n on my Model T. Thanks a bunch my friend, but I'm still not going to buy you dinner. By the way, did I mention that this car was built entirely in Billuminum? I probably shouldn't have covered it up in paint, but had to do something with all those little Testors bottles laying around.