Mr. Metallic

Just to clarify, you're talking about the Revell kit that has the option to build either the closed cab pickup or roadster pickup, not the Monogram kit, which has never had stock parts? I thought the Revell kit had all the stock items, but I could be wrong.

What stock parts are missing from the revell 29 pickup?

In the same vein as my little Big Deuce, here is the (hopefully short) buildup of my little Big T. While the Little Deuce has many differences between it and its 1/8 counterpart, the Little T and Big T have fewer differences. or at least that's what I thought. Once I got looking closer at vintage Big T builds and mint kits I realized there are several small differences between the kits. And since there are so many Little T builds out there I can use these differences to make my build unique. Starting with a minty Little T kit. Well, I thought it was minty but turned out to have a couple issues. Nothing insurmountable, but still annoying. The turtle deck is missing, and it appears someone sprayed clear on the chrome trees, possibly to preserve the chrome, so many of the parts have a slight yellow/brown tint to them. Unfortunately it was not sprayed evenly so it collected in some places. So I'll be stripping and using Revell Chrom on many of them. First order of business was defining all the differences between the Big and Little T's and gathering/modifying parts to mimic the Big. The Big comes with display accessories like a fire extinguished, first aid kit and some tools. I found those items. After some digging I did eventually find a source for the jack stands, the AMT 63 Ford Galaxie. But since they only included one in that kit, and I only have one of those kits in my stash I'm on the hunt for more. First up was creating the chopped 32 ford shell. I grabbed the molded in red shell from the Monogram "little deuce coupe" version The one with the poorly proportioned 3window body. I removed the spring mounting flange from the T radiator and grafted it onto the cut down 32 shell. Then I grabbed the custom grill insert from the AMT 64 Merc and cut it down to fit the shell. Above you can also see the nearly finished bed assembly as well. I thought a good way to present the display items would naturally be in the bed of the pickup. However, the Little T bed is not finished on the inside. It doesn't even have a bed front where it meets the cab as in the 1:1 world the bed was usually welded to the back of the body. So, first I made a bed front. I had an extra tailgate from a gluebomb that I was able to cut down and massage into place. Then I needed to make a bed floor. A bump for the rear crossmember protrudes into the bed, so I needed to make a false floor. I was going to use a gluebomb bed cover but by the time I trimmed away the glue damage it was too small. It needed to be from the original issue because as you can see the later issues "white" plastic is quite a bit different. Unfortunately I was unable to find a vintage piece. I know you're probably thinking just paint it, but my builds of these Monogram hot rod kits are mostly paint-less. Thanks to a suggestion from Randfink (Randy Meyer)I tracked down a paint that will hopefully match the old plastic color, Tamiya racing white. So, I set about modifying the new issue cover to fit in the bed, and added a couple supports made from .125 square Evergreen. Next up I worked on adding mounting flanges to the exhaust headers. I think this was something that Dennis Lacy did when he built one of these T's awhile back. It's a simple procedure that really adds a little accuracy. I took a piece of .015x.100 Evergreen and marked where the outside pipes would land since those are the ones that actually attach to the block. I drilled the appropriate size hole. You then need to sand the inner siamesed tubes a bit so the new flange slides over the outside tubes and allows them to feed into the block again. Then you trim it and glue it into place. I was hoping to just hit the flanges with Molotow, but I got a little liquid cement on the good chrome so into the stripper it went. At least that little flub allowed me to then address the mold lines too. Last item to get you all caught up is I decided to go ahead and try to turn the slicks into cheaters like Bob Spedding @TooOld has done on his builds of these Monogram kits. We discussed the process and it's pretty straightforward. I took a stack of Post-Its and peeled some off until I got the desired height of my cheater "tread". Then I laid the saw on the stack and dragged the tire along the blade as I rotated the tire. Don't try to do too much at once. Just a little at a time several times around the tire. Then I performed my usual scuffing of the tire with a sanding stick and presto! Cheater slicks. I use these Monogram slicks quite often, so here's a couple of little tricks I use to make them looks better. First, sand the back of the outer rim of the wheel until you see evidence that you have touched that inner circle with the sanding stock. Then you know that you have taken enough off. This allows the rim to sit down a little more into the tire. Also, sand the backside of the whitewall just a little bit, then test fit it to the wheel. You may need to remove a little material on the inside of the whitewall because it is usually a very tight fit on the wheel (so tight that often on old builds you will see the whitewall broke due to stress. Once that is done put the assembly together and you'll see the difference. Note in the pic how the whitewall is slightly above the surface of the tire on the unmodified part (on the right)

So Bil, since I'm late to the party I'm really hoping you will get back to this one soon.

Aww man, that's a bummer. The passenger side looks great!

Yes, I now have 2 rolls royce kits that I don't need. But I should look them over to see if there's any usable parts in them ?

Clean build as always from your bench. I've always overlooked that kit in the past but you have given me a new appreciation for it.

I would put a want ad down on this board. Those wheels are included in so many kits most guys would probably give them away.

The Atlantis Facebook update recently said they would be having some product hit the shelves at Ollies, so this makes sense.

Most of you are probably familiar with the Monogram hot rod series containing the Little T, Little Deuce, Blue Beetle and the Woody Wagon. Monogram may have had plans to extend that series further, and here is what one of the design proposals may have looked like. The Little A Here it is pictured with the 6 in 1 box that the Monogram design team may have decided to turn into the actual kit. Ok. This is actually another entry in my vintage "What If" series of phantom Monogram designed kits. If you are familiar with Monogram kits at all you would know that every issue of the Monogram Model A Coupe has featured black fenders with a different colors body, except for one. The rare Untouchable themed double kit from the 80's featured the A coupe all molded in black. A perfect starting point for a vintage hot rod. Yes, this is polished plastic, not paint. The only paint on the model is the engine block, carbs and roof panel/running boards. Parts were sourced from various other early Monogram kits with the exception of the exhaust (which came from the newest version of the Monogram A phaeton). Thanks to @68shortfleet for his resin whitewalls for the slicks that replicate the original ones that had the lettering on the sidewall, just to sell that this could have been built in the 60's. I did scratchbuild the interior side panels from Evergreen, but used a trimmed down Little Deuce seat.The intake and headers are from the original 6 in 1 version of the A coupe. Here you can see it pictured with one of my other What If builds, the little Big Deuce (also polished plastic) Thanks to @TooOld for the vintage MNOGR4M license plates that I now put on these builds, and his inspirational polished plastic vintage Monogram builds, and also to @Don Sikora II and @alan barton and Chuck Darnell for inspiration as well More in this series to come. Thanks for looking

Oh man. I'm trying to get caught up after not being around here much lately. I was excited to see this back on your bench, but since I hadn't seen it on Insta lately I should have known.

Man oh man that came out great. Very clean build, and the wood grain decals look wonderful.

Thanks for sharing. I was hoping at least the carb dropdown pieces were in there. Oh well.

Which blower parts were included in the last issue?

I was going to join in on this late in the game, but when I opened my Orange Crate kit I found that the body was trashed. Anyone have an extra?