Alyn

I thought the "alien" thing was just a joke, but now, well, I'm not so sure. That is one ambitious piece of modeling my friend.

Great job on the flames, John. Love how well the pink and green work together. me thinks you're about due to do something ratty after all these glossy gems

Love these old Chevy trucks. Great choice going with the stock color scheme.

Tom, your results look great. My pretzel sticks are definitely missing the darker shades shown on your work. I added a layer of semi-gloss dull coat on mine and it seemed to hide much of the color variations. Certainly a step backwards. I'd love to get the tutorial. I'll send you my email. thanks !

Thank you, Mr Bill. I touched up the bottom cushion with some streaks of black here and there, then topped that with some dull coat. I'll probably lightly sand it again and add some oil from my fingers to get a semi-gloss patina. It is nice to move into the paint phase. Scratch building is fun, but you never know how well the scratch built parts are gonna do their job until the paint starts laying down. Thanks for stopping by

Love the beer mug, John. perfect color, and the foam worked out great. Makes me thirsty looking at it.

Thanks, Randy. The seat's just a basic application of two colors, followed up with some artificial wear. After primer, I painted the seat a base color of Tamiya XF-15 to represent raw leather. This was followed with 2 or 3 coats of acrylic clear and them matte black. I used a straight pin to scratch through the black to simulate cracks in the leather, then sanded a few wear spots with some 400 grit. Like I said, the cracks look overdone, so I need to work on them somemore, or start over. Thanks for your interest.

Beautiful work, Chris. Every update is like opening a Christmas present.

dude, just clear it and call it done. Top notch all the way Bill

slow but sure progress. I've been practicing with some scrap sprue on a technique to get a wood grain effect on the wheels. Not ready for prime time yet. My wife says the practice bits looks like a pretzel. The seat is painted. I like the way the back rest turned out, but may have overdone the bottom cushion. Besides creating the look of the black leather dye wearing off, I also wanted to duplicate some leather age cracking. It looks pretty good to the naked eye, but no so much under the camera lens. It may get repainted if I can't tone it down a bit. The battery and starter cable and battery ground strap, exhaust, pedals, etc are fixed in their final position. I know the cable doesn't go directly from the battery to the starter; in the Model-T, it routes up to the starter switch on the dash. Once the body is on, only the cable connected to the starter will be seen.

Man oh Man, if I ever wanted to paint something pink, this would be the color. Your painting skills are overshadowed by the details, but they are every bit the equal. The color could not have turned out nicer.

Much thanks, Randy, As always, your interest and comments are highly valued.

Who else could make the un-cool so cool. Great project, Chuck

Man, I just love this truck, Randy. The variations in raw metal work so well together. Topped off with your skill and workmanship, it's just an unbelievable feast for the eyes. I picked up some similar glass a while back for my Model-T. I found a 100 piece pack, slightly thinner at .005" for a pretty decent price at a local school science store. I broke several pieces trying to cut them with a traditional glass cutting wheel. Then, with some googling, I found that the trick is the carbide tipped scribe. That works quite well. The diamond wheel sounds like a good idea for smoothing the edges. Thanks for sharing. Every part on this truck is a modeling lesson on it's own.

Bill? are you fabbing up some mini body hammers ???

Super Freaky

Thanks, Ed. I was lucky and only had one slip that amounted to much; a small scratch that was easy to fill with glazing putty and primer. Looking at it now, it would have been easy and wise to run a layer or two of masking tape above and below the louvers while cutting them open. That would catch a "blade gone wild" to minimize the damage.

Brilliant solution, Bill. Looks like you've got the creativity dial turned up to 11 keep feeding us

Thanks, Richard. I only wish the battery detail would still be visible once the body is in place. No such luck. Thanks for the link, Joe. I think I may have stumbled upon that sight while looking for some rear fender detail.Great reference. Lots of detail there. Regarding your hood louver question, I didn't thin the hood panel, although I did consider doing so. What I did do was to cut into the louver openings on an angle so that the cut would help thin the louver edge. I then spent considerable time cleaning up each cut with saws, files and sandpaper to make them look as even as possible. BIll, always appreciate your blessings, almost as much as I enjoy studying your own updates. Thanks the stopping by.

Great work, Mark. I love the depth of the details on the tire. Taking the extra effort to mold the tire hollow is just another factor in the extraodrinary results you achieve. class continues ...

Excellent !

John, given that those are what you had to work with, turning them upside down clearly made them look more like the early covers. But nevermind that, I'm diggin' them battery clamps. They're about as good as it gets in this scale. I may have to try making a battery clamp extrusion and see how that turns out. Thanks for the idea

Thanks for stopping by again, Joe. Glad you're going to stay tuned Chris, having seen your icon before, I figured you'd drop by, thanks. Mike, unfortunately (for him), Bill lives in Missouri, not Kansas. You know Missouri; the state with higher murder rate, higher unemployment, higher cost of living, and no Jay-Hawks! Appreciate your interest and the nice comment, Andy Thanks, Dan. If you keep coming around, I may have to start feeding you Gaurav, I've seen some pretty cool examples of the Model T including one scratch built entirely of brass, so I wouldn't classify mine as Spectacular, but I do appreciate the sentiment. Bill, you slobbered on my quickie promo build, and Ellis said you slobbered on his shoes. We need to have you checked out! Thanks again, Richard. Keep it up, the checks in the mail Thanks for the compliment, Dan. By the way, the tailgate hook isn't an original. That's how they were back in the day. Since posting, I snipped a little off the hook and re-bent it to make it a bit smaller. Here's the latest progress. I covered the gas tank in .005" aluminum with some simulated rivets, and then added the brass hold-down straps. The gas cap is made from a couple of different diameters of styrene rod with ears made from flat styrene. I cut the tank out of the seat bottom so I could use it for some chassis photo's. The real tank would have a round bottom as well, but I wanted this part to fit back into the seat where it came from so I left it flat. As you can see, the chassis is almost done.

He's probably referring to the valve covers which should have the corners with the pronounced notch towards the intake. They are up side down, but only something you'd notice while counting rivets. The engine is yet another example of Johns skill with Alclad. Beauttifule and ultra impressive. This would be a tough build for anyone to pull off, but we all know John will do it again. thanks for sharing, John

Thanks, Derick. I'm holding off on the "wishbone" until the engine is in permanently as the rear attaches to the bottom just in front of the bell housing. I've trimmed the old, molded in drag link and tie rod off it, but still need to paint. Joe, after all the research, I'm starting to appreciate the magic of the Model-T more and more myself. It's a pretty unique car with tons of character. Here's the latest update on the build. This is a shot of the 1:1 muffler with the unusual outlet. The kit supplied part had a short tailpipe extending from the rear of the muffler. Here's my scratch built replacement. another angle showing the riveted seam. Here's a shot of the kit supplied steering column; somewhat of a blob part. my scratch built upgrade The column consists of an aluminum tube with a brass steering shaft inside. At the bottom, the pitman arm is soldered to the end of the brass shaft. At the top, a short section of brass tube is soldered to the shaft. With parts soldered on both ends, the shaft is captured in the aluminum tube, but turns freely. Throttle and spark control rods and levers are .020" brass rod held in position by a brass spacer at the lower end, and a styrene block at the steering wheel end. Once the aluminum tube column is glued in place, the steering wheel will be attached to the top end and will operate the pitman arm below the steering box.