Mr. Metallic

Thanks for sharing these. Fun to watch.

Glad to have been your inspiration. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the 32 Roadster tooling ended up in China since it was reissued within the last 10 years. if that's the case it's not something Atlantis would have. ☹️ But it's fun to daydream

Looking good. I keep forgetting to ask, what is the source for those blower. It looks like a S.C.o.T. style, but looks bigger than the Rep+Min piece.

Very cool build. The color combo is very subtle, and you did a nice job of combining new and traditional design elements. Very nicely done. What did you use for wheels and tires?

That has a nice line to it from front to back. Nice conversion work.

Love this series of kits. I've built 2 Little Deuces so far. I have a couple of these SoF's broken down to build one good one, hopefully this year (the year of the Deuce!) It's cool to see this in an alternative color. Everyone does orange, which is cool. it's just neat to see a different take.

The arms are now slightly outboard of their original mounting point. Holes highlighted in red edit- thank you for mentioning that. I took a pic but forgot to add that step to the front end mods. I have gone back and added it now.

Looking back over all the posts I've made on this project I guess I left out a couple things. So I'll address those before I get into the paint stages. First, the K member. The Model A kit provides a nicely done tubular crossmember to support the tail of the transmission and provide a mounting point for the suspension arms. But it's too modern for this build, so I decided to swap in a modified K member from a Revell 32 kit. The top member in the pic is straight out of the 32 kit. I cut off the suspension bracketry at the back, and slightly opened up the underside to help avoid any clearance issues with the exhaust and trans. Otherwise this member slips right between the frame rails as it should since they are both 32 Ford parts. A critical point to address is the front suspension arm pivot points. I am not a perfect person, and forgot a key issue, so I apologize to anyone following along and actually using this build as a blueprint for their own build. But, being a hot rodder is often about improvisation, so I had to improvise a fix. Despite having performed this alteration a few times before I didn't usually use the molded notches in the frame. When I moved the front axle in front of the spring this made the suspension arms too short to use the molded in notches in the frame that accept the bracket. Unfortunately I thinned my brackets down too much when I molded them into the frame, so salvaging them was not an option. Instead I cut them off and sanded the area smooth in preparation for making my own. I used .030 x .100 Evergreen for the new brackets. First, mock up your front end, including the arms, and mark where you need your new brackets to be. Then take your plastic strip and drill a hole near the end to accept the pin in the arm. Sand a gentle radius in the end, and then cut the strip, leaving it long enough for trimming later. After you let the glue set fully, trim the upper part of the strip flush with the top of the frame. Now we're ready from priming and paint.

I would stack discs of evergreen together to get the stepped profile of the caps. Or you can cut slivers off the end of styrene rod, but can be tricky to get flat slices. You can buy a leather punch that works great for punching out discs of plastic from sheet. It's like a big hole punch that people that do leather work use to make holes. It has a wheel on it with multiple sizes. Should be about $10

Super Clean should cut right through those decals, 91% alcohol should work as well. Mineral spirits can be used to loosen poorly glued joints. Use a small brush and flow it into a joint. Wait a couple minutes and then try gently flexing the parts apart. It may take several applications. Like Ace said, if the parts are glued well there is no solvent that will "break" them apart because they are now one piece. However, builders back then didn't always use plastic glue to put things together. and if they didn't scrape chrome/paint away as they assembled then the glue may not have penetrated. Disassembling a vintage build can take a multitude of techniques. If one thing doesn't work, try another. But in the end it can be quite rewarding.

Very cool, and so much fun. You captured the sense of movement well. Nicely done.

Weathering looks great, not too heavy handed which is easy to do. I love the look of this era car as well. Not much of a modern race car builder myself, but if I can find one of these kits someday I may give it a try.

Stunning paint work on this, and the new top adds a graceful elegance to it.

First, welcome back to the hobby. We must be similar age because I graduated high school in 95. The relief cut method for lowering the front end is a classic mod, and one that I love because it retains the elegant sweep of the Deuce frame. Well done. The way you executed the rear end drop seems to have worked for you. Stance is looking good. As far as glues go, I'll make a couple suggestions. I only use the "cement" type glues when I want something to have structural strength down the road because it takes awhile to cure, like you've done with your frame mods. I'm a little impatient, so I use super glue whenever possible, but I prefer the "thick" glue from Hobby Lobby in the yellow bottle. The regular and thin stuff runs all over too much for me. The thick stuff isn't actually thick, it's just thicker than the regular. If you mess with the accelerator (which I only use occasionally because super glue tends to cure quick enough for me) spraying it is too messy for me. Look in the same area at HL for bottles with a needle applicator and put your kicker in there. Much more precision application that way. Put a drop of glue on one part, and a drop of accelerator on the other and then join them. Near instant cure. If you would like a few more tips on building this kit (I'm building the sister kit, the 30 coupe), check out this thread.

Thank you for the interest. The pins I use are found in the sewing section of any store. They are used to pin pieces of fabric together to hold them while sewing or preparing for alterations. You get a small container of them for less than a couple bucks. I have purchased one size that is just over and inch long for general purpose, and a package of shorter/smaller diameter ones for pinning really small items. Once you buy a package take a few small drill bit s and drill test holes in scrap plastic to find the correct size for the pins to fit in snug. Since i pin stuff constantly I have a dedicated pin vise with the correct size bit in it all the time on my bench so it's ready to go any time I want to pin something. Also, save the pin heads when you cut them off, as they can be used to simulate bolt heads and such. They also make great approximations of the old "drawer pull" type grille inserts for 50s/60s rod and customs.

@Ace-Garageguy, seems like I've seen you do something like this before?

I dig what you've got going on here. I've seen that front end many times before on this vintage Corvette build, but nobody ever shows the back end. I like it a lot. Now I'm going to have to try to find one myself.

Very high praise from someone who has been my teacher many times in the past. Thank you very much sir!

Why completely remove the chrome? Why not simply scuff it and then prime? If you're worried about paint reacting with the chrome try your proposed paint process on a test area or piece of the sprue that has been chromed? You have to do bodywork to fill the extra holes in the body anyway, no?

I am definitely on board with this dragster idea. I'm sure your creative mind will come up with something spectacular. Not to hijack, so feel free to ignore, but any idea where these wheels are from? (not sure if Todd is a member here) Are they the custom wheels from the old Revell 56 Chevy?

I recently had to replace one of my strip tanks. As I started searching i stumbled upon these at WalMart. If you're like me you have your paint striping tanks at your bench and have to carry them to the nearest sink for cleanup. This container has a built in handle for easy transport. And they're a good size, big enough to fit a Buick Riv easily inside.

Tying up loose ends Just a few items remaining to be addressed before we're ready to move on to paint. First, a change to the rear suspension. This change is completely optional and comes down to personal preference. The first pair of suspension arms I made for the rear would work, but I wasn't sold on how they looked. Mounting so far out on the end of the axle, and attaching to the outside of the frame is fine, but not the most aesthetically pleasing. Especially since their mounting point interrupts one of the signature design elements of the 32 Ford frame, the graceful sweep stamped in the side. In the effort to keep the build in the realm of "simple" I decided to modify another item included in the kit to make it more traditional in appearance, the rear suspension arms for the later era engineered coil-sprung suspension. In the top of the pic is the kit supplied part. Depending on which rear axle you chose you may need to enlarge the U shaped area on the bracket as I did here to fit my axle choice. Then go ahead and remove the upper bar and modify the bracket further to reduce it's size until you are happy with the shape. Finally, insert a pin through the former location of the forward mounting bolt and ink mark the point on the frame where you will drill the receiver hole. Now you can see the new arms in their final location. A little more cleanup needs to happen to the arms, but you can see the cleaner and more prototypical arm setup. Now lets make a couple simple shocks to finish up the rear. If you can find something in your parts box or kit stash that fits, by all means use those. But this design of shock allows you to customize the fit for whatever ride height you have ended up with because the length of the piston can be adjusted. The size of the parts is up to you, just as long as the finished items match each other. I cut a couple pieces of tubing for the shock casing, and then a couple lengths of styrene rod that would fit inside the case piece. Take a short length of the same tubing and drill a hole in the side very near the end, the same size as the rod you're using for the piston. Glue a short length of the rod into the hole, and then cut the tubing off. Proceed to then cut 2 more approximately 1mm pieces of tubing and then attach them to the top of the casing pieces. After all your cutting and gluing is done insert your new piston into the end of the case and you have your adjustable shock. Pin the shock to the axle at your desired spot. Just a tip, you can make the shocks out of aluminum or brass instead of plastic if you choose. Lets move on to the floor pan and frame. Now that's you're done with all the frame mods we can permanently attach the floor pan to the frame. In the pic you can see the finished frame on top. This is achieved by removing the section marked in red on the white floor pan. The one in the pic doesn't have any of the mods we completed earlier in the build. Glue the two parts of the floor pan to the frame. With that done, lets take care of the final component of the build, the exhaust. In theory you could just run with the side pipes, but that hot rod is just asking to get pulled over and give a citation for excessive noise. You can use the main exhaust pipe/muffler, but we need to move it more towards the center to avoid the suspension arm and snake through the tight space between the axle/spring (it's not as tight as it looks) Remove the plastic mounting pins on the exhaust and replace with metal pins (before and after in the bottom of the pic). Because we moved the exhaust inboard of the kit intended location we are going to have to fabricate our own pipe to join the header to the muffler. Using the kit supplied pipe as a pattern bend a new piece out of solid core plumbers solder, making the upper part longer to meet the muffler. A roll of solder can be purchased for about 10 dollars and will provide several cars worth of full exhausts. Use a pair of plyers to bend the solder to the desired shape and then trim the ends to fit. You may find it helpful to file the end that meets the header to a point so it slides into the hole in the bottom of the header piece (far right in pic) And here you can see the complete exhaust layout. I am planning to use the kit supplied metal tips for the end. And now, fabrication is complete and you can move on to prepping everything for paint.

To get the front end a little lower you can remove material from inside the crossmember. Since the Revell Model A axle has the spring mounted on top of the axle it's hard to get it much lower without a z in the frame, or moving the spring. I know the z is probably out of the question for this iconic car, and moving the spring behind the axle will probably drop it too much? Here is the mod I performed for my "Simple" Model A else where on this board.

Classy looking roadster you have there. The SCoT-style blower setup is from the 60's vintage AMT 57 Chevy kit

Nice squeaky clean customizing. I really like the subtle scallops. Well done