alan barton

Maybe I can help with a suggestion for the woof? I found this in the scrap booking section of a local craft shop only last Saturday. It is self adhesive, ultra thin but more importantly, it has a a very fine grain. Best I can tell it is real wood, comes three A5 sheets to a pack and even with the South Pacific peso ( Aussie Dollar) being valued so low at the moment, it cost be only $5 on clearance. Cutting it to fit in those small panels could be challenging but seeing what you have achieved so far it shouldn't be a problem! Cheers Alan

You have created a fantastic atmosphere there, Patrick. The way you have composed the scene, and used realistically posed figures in believable groupings is a credit to you. The accolades are well- deserved. Cheers Alan

I went digging, Jim, and found these. The Thames is the one with my tin hunt Bakelite dash inside it ( and the Cosworth) and the Anglia coupe utility, or Ute, was at the same event, just in case you needed a distraction! I reckon you could build one from a van! Cheers Alan

Looks sweet, Bernard. You've got all the right elements on that one. The fuel lines out of the fuel block look excellent. Like the padded steering wheel cover, maybe you need a club jacket on the back seat? Cheers Alan

You know David, when you explore the tensile and elastic limits of material science and hope that you don't do something unspeakable in the process! Cheers Alan

The frame uses the chromed drop front axle from the kit with a chromed banjo rear axle from the Ala Kart with the airbag mounts removed and the radius rods shortened to attach to scratchbuilt brackets. I wasn't sure what I would do with the rear spring at this stage so I left it out - with their flat crowned fenders, Model Ts can be tricky to nail the stance so I put this challenge off til later. I sawed the in-out box off the Offy and replaced it with an aluminium cased four speed from an unknown MPC kit -I'm guessing MPC because of the shade of red plastic.. I made up mounting plates, race-car style, for the front and rear of the engine. As usual, filed as much away as possible from the front crossmember in an attempt to get it out of the clouds. I am trying two wheel styles - AMT 40 Ford rims with stock caps as well as Monogram wires, the rears form the Pie Wagon, the fronts from the yellow version 32 roadster. All painted in Testor's light ivory. The front hairpin style radius rods are from the MPC Switchers 32 kit. They really are awful but are not objectionable on this full fendered build. I have a small stash of good hairpins and would rather use them on open wheeled cars where they can be appreciated.

This one is a case of tail wagging the dog - i had wanted to build an Offy powered rod as soon as the Revell midget kits came out and finally decided a full fendered early T would be just the wheelbarrow to carry it around. The Kit is the AMT 23 Ford T. This kit came out as a street rod only unlike the multi-optioned 25 T . My example is a first issue and was moulded in the infamous milk bottle plastic. This plastic accepted paint and glue just fine so there is no need to be fearful of it - it is simply a part of modelling history. While the parts look in many ways identical to the AMT 25 T. there are slight detail and dimensional differences through out although put two built-ups side by side and you would be struggling to tell the difference. Up front, I would say the 25 is the better kit - you get way more optional parts and you don't have to deal with a multi -piece frame and a multi-piece fender unit. My example was compounded by having very warped frame rails which for some inexplicable reason I decided to deal with rather than swap out. for something straighter. On top of that, I fist started building this in the early eighties and it was one of my first ever Testors spray can paint jobs. What a mess - I had no idea and it ran and bubbled and pooled all over the place. It was also my second effort at paint stripping ( funny that) and it didn't work that well either so I put it away for nearly forty years .before dragging it out during the COVID lockdown. Here's what I started with. I tried the sun, hot water and even gentle violence to straighten the frame rails but in the ned used my home made magnetic frame jig to clamp it in the correct alignment, glue it altogether and then leave it all in the sun for about a week to "normalise" it. It's still holding together so I wil call that a fix! Cheers Alan

Just wow! To cram ten pounds of potatoes into a five pound bag with such precision and cleanliness is breathtaking. To be able to produce such deep smooth flawless paint on such a small body covered in numerous body lines and swage marks is incredible. And to top it off, it is such a unique interpretation of a full fendered T. We have seen some awesome hot rods on the forum this year but this would be up in my top 3! What's more, I should finish my AMT 23 T tonight, which, on the shelf, would look like an identical kit even though there are some significant differences. I look at what I have achieved and then what you have achieved and I don't know how I could get there from here! Just maybe the best Model T hot rod we've ever seen here? Cheers Alan

Hi Jim, I dug out the 1/32nd scale Pyro Plymouth wheels today but unfortunately they are not even close! Blame it on a failing memory! Sorry to get your hopes up. Meanwhile, I must concur with Tom, the seats are looking fantastic. The dash is great as well - many years ago while looking for vintage tin in the outback, I cam across a seriously squashed Thames that still had it's dashboard intact. Being made of Bakelite and exposed to the Austrlaian sun for who knows how many years, it retained its beautiful walnut swirly colour. I rescued it and it now sits inside a street rod running an English Cosworth engine. Cheers Alan

Paul, for wheel openings, how about a tightly wrapped circumference around the front 180 degrees of the tyre, sweeping into a flowing teardrop shaped opening to the rear, and a significantly lower version of the same shape over the rear tyres. Cheers Alan

I think you have created your own genre - space hot rods! And you are the master of them! The weathering leaves me envious but the creativity is off the charts. These models make no sense and yet at the same time they are utterly believable! I am in awe! Cheers Alan

There's always one!

It's a tough car to get looking cool but it looks like you are well on your way. A little black wash, or better still, Black Magic ink, will make those grille inserts pop. Cheers Alan

Just went back and had another look at your reworked Revell axle - yeah, I would go with that! Cheers Alan

Hi Jim, sorry for the delay in responding to your earlier posts. Yep, that is the T model axle I was speaking of. You are right about the Revell Model A axle being the best of the bunch but I still feel that some reworking of the Model T axle would more closely suit the Thames proportions. If you reduce that hump near the third member on each side of the tube, and then filed a flat surface around the centre ridge, to my eyes at least I think you would be in the ballpark.. Been spending more time in the garage on my 35 than in the model room just lately so I will dig out those Plymouth wheels this weekend. I am thinking that while they would suit the size of your Thames, the detail in your 37 ford units might be more in keeping with the detail you have put into this model. I must say, that engine bay is looking amazing! I'll be in touch! Cheers Alan

Looking great! Will patiently await the Under Glass entry! Cheers Alan

That's what I was talking about! The Ala Kart back would have really fought you - I have been able to make do with my 27 roadster conversion, mainly because it is going to be a Pro-Comp drag racer with a huge flat rear wing. The curve in the Ala Kart rear panel gets really exaggerated when you narrow it where as you have shown here, the touring rear panel still has a correct contour when shortened. I don't think I had seen your So Cal car before . I really like the stance and the colours We have a local rod on the street here in Perth that is remarkably similar in style! ( except that we have fender laws over here!) 27 T pickup with a long bed - Check! Deuce frame - check! Red wire wheels - Check! 32 Grille - Check! Small headlights set down low and level with grille - Check! Chopped 27 screen - Check! Side pipes running level with the ground- Check! Steering wheel on right hand side - whoops!

The chopped top on the truck makes perfect sense because it keeps the mighty Val out of the clouds instead of looking like it is on an Evel Knievel ramp awaiting take off! And that white grille - you need to thak your friend for aging it so perfectly to suit the truck! I think the entire race team has come together really well. You even got the stub tail of the ramp truck to match the stub tail of the Valiant - genius! I like the dulled paint, this obviously isn't its first season. Dirt track speedway cars are the perfect solution for using up bodies that are past their prime for the street or show scene! Cheers Alan

Us Aussies can only dream of prices like this. In a local hobby/games shop the other day I saw a Coke branded kit priced at $79.95. At local hobby shops with more realistic prices, we are still looking at $59.95. Get 'em cheap while you can, guys! Cheers Alan

I love old tow trucks, having built four already. This great shot just proves they were all shiny once, they don't HAVE to be modelled all beaten and battered! Thanks for the shot. Cheers Alan

Nice job Gerald, on a rather unknown version of this car. I have been studying Tony Nancy's cars for decades now with intentions of building as many as I can - I have five done at the moment. I got to meet the great man and speak to him for about two hours in his shop in January 1997 and you couldn't meet a nicer, more obliging guy. He gave me an old copy of his autobiography and it includes a photo of this car without front sheetmetal and I am assuming with a longer wheelbase., giving us three variations that could be built from the Revell kit - the original with the Wedge engine, your blue version with the Hemi and a longer blue version sans front sheetmetal., A great model of a great car! Cheers Alan

You've got it Dave - that's exactly what I am planning. My intent in chasing up approximate dimensions was to get it as close to the size of the original model as possible. Obviously, with people carving their own shape from the given block, they would never have all been the same size anyway - I am guessing that most of them would have come out undersized due to a few errors along the way and the vagueness of carving balsa - it is hardly a precise material, nor forgiving! Thanks for thinking of me! Cheers Alan

Hi Jim, may I suggest that any rear axle unit from an AMT 25 or 27 Model T kit (any version) will give you a more delicate assembly than the fairly robust Model A or 32 type axle you showed earlier. The T axle does not have that flat circumference ( the 'banjo") but it would only take a few moments with a file to fix that. It would be more in keeping with the size of the Thames components. Love your work so far - the wood frame detailing is very impressive. I'm at work at the moment but when I get home I will check my stash for some 1/32nd scale Pyro Plymouth artillery wheels - these also may be more to scale than the 37 Ford pickup ones. Cheers Alan

Thanks guys, yep, they are very simple beasts but a great memory of the origins of our hobby. The box art is fantastic but for now, I would be happy to simply create a replica of this style of model to be representative of where it all started. I have a beautiful old English kit of a Maserati F1 and it came with pressed paper louvres to be glued on to the hood. How cool is that? The original builder started carving the shape of the nose onto the body block ( a firmer wood than balsa) before giving up. It also came with rubber tyres on aluminium wheels with clear plastic spoke inserts and foil grille detail. The instructions are printed on incredibly delicate tissue paper. This morning I did find an image of the instructions for an ACE A-V8 and it mentioned that the scale was 3/4 inch to the foot which is 1/16th scale so I might just use that to establish my sizes. Still, if anyone has an original that could be measured for me, I would love to hear from you! Cheers Alan

HI folks, hoping some one may be able to help me with a project. As well as building plastic models, I collect toy hot rods of every size, shape and material imaginable but I haven't been able to track down an Ace balsa wood kit. Just for giggles I want to construct a replica of an Ace T-Rod. I found a set of plans off the net but there are no dimensions as the blocks of balsa were already pre-cut in the kit. Does anyone have one in their collection that you could measure and give me the length, width and height of the body from? I can scale it up from these dimensions. The diameter of the tyres would be helpful as well. Cheers Alan