alan barton

Im taking a lot of notes on this one Greg. Thank you for your detailed explanation of what you are doing with the rework of the nose - and my convertible build will thank you also! Cheers Alan

Sorry I missed this one until today! You're usual meticulous planning is really going to bring out the goodness in this kit. In the interests of full disclosure, I have built eleven of them in my lifetime, they are all still on my shelves and I have two more channelled versions on the go. I just bought another yellow version because - I had to! They are without doubt the best 32 roadster ever tooled and the 1/25th scale snobs can just deal with it. I've got to agree with a lot of the other guys on some points. Never knew about the unique parts on the chopped cabriolet kit because I never got around to popping the cellophane! The accuracy of the cutout for your blower scoop is surgical - I can only dream! Completely agree on going back to the Deuce rocker covers - they are nice pieces and you really can only put them on a Deuce so this is perfect. I was excited by the idea of the slotted mags in the newer tyres and I'm definitely going to steal that idea for myself. The tyres they come with are pretty uninspiring but the upgrade you did here made all the difference. I would have got around your dilemma by putting two wires on one side, two slots on the other. I do it all the time - you cant see both sides on a lowered fully fendered car at the same time and most people don't even notice! But that's me - it's not for everyone and I get that. I used those ZZTop pipes on my red Tim Boyd pickup build. They are an excellent choice for any hot rod. Will continue to follow this build closely. As my favourite hot rod kit of all time, I cant wait to see what you do with it! Cheers Alan

I am really enjoying your build here, Chris. Would I be correct in guessing that you are a fellow Aussie? I see three clues in your post - steering wheel on the right side ( we all know that the right hand side is the RIGHT side LOL), you're using SMS paints and I think the diamond tufted insert on your doors came from a cake container in the bakery department of Coles supermarkets, because I have used it myself before! OR I could be completely wrong. Either way this is a great looking build. Welcome to the forum. The idea of converting the kit's Ford engine to a Hemi was genius! The engine detailing is some of the finest I have ever seen and looks just right for a tough street rod. Last year I built a similar styled model but based on the somewhat clunky MPC Switchers 32 phaeton. Hope you don't mind me popping it on here for inspiration, not that you seem to need it! Cheers Alan

This is looking good already! While working on a replica of the black 55 Chevy for the crash scene of American Graffiti, I mocked up a Two Lane car while I was at the primer stage, and took a photo before I moved on. Just thrown together as you can tell. This is a Revell 56 Chevy hardtop with an AMT front clip as I needed the panels open for the crash aftermath. I believe those correct American Racing Daisy mags came from the back of the T -Rantula dragster. Good luck with your project! Cheers Alan

A big fan of 29 roadsters ( cos I drive one!) so can't wait to see how this develops. It makes sense to do it as a model because it would be a nightmare to work on in real life - those model A engine bays are tiny! Cheers Alan

Nice work Lee. That Bare metal foil work is flawless - so nice to look at! Cheers Alan

Nice ride! The twin headlights look far better than I would have expected and I am loving the colour. Cheers Alan

Thanks guys! Looking back at the photos enlarged on my computer I can see that I need to go back and take the sharp mold line edge of the swage lines of the Little Deuce - I didn't use polishing pads on this body, only the Scratch-X and it needs to be attended to. Still good fun though! Cheers Alan

Scott, this is easily the best rendition I have seen of this kit. They are certainly a challenge to put together what with the multi piece front and rear ends and body. You have really done this one justice and I like that you fabricated the steering gear - that's an idea I might have to steal! I had one of these when I was a kid and my brothers and I customised it numerous times until there were only parts of it left! I have acquired an Outcast version and have enough of the Fire Truck specific parts like the bug catcher with the light, the big bucket seat and the tiller steering that I think i can build a pretty good clone. Might have to scratch build some ladders - mine are long gone! Cheers Alan

Thank you everyone, your comments are greatly appreciated. Cheers Alan

Hi everyone, If you have been over at the WIP posts lately you will see there is a whole gaggle of 41 Plymouths getting built. I finished my version earlier last year but hadn't got around to posting it. I have had the kit almost since it came out but after having a painting disaster at the time I shelved it. Forty years later I thought I should give it a second chance! I wanted to create a cool custom, something a well healed young guy might create back in the fifties to impress the lady folk. As you will see in my WIP post, the trick was to remove and refit the fenders to effectively channel the car but also give it the look of a mild section job. In the fact the car is neither chopped nor sectioned. The nose of this model was not well-rendered by AMT so it causes concerned modellers a lot of grief. My solution was to completely change it using the custom grille and rollpan from an AMT 51Chevy as a foundation. The colour is Tamiya Light Green Pearl followed by three coats of Tamiya Gloss Clear, all from a spray can and rubbed out with Tamiya polishing Compound.and I think it is a beautiful shade to suit the flowing lines of the Plymouth. Comments and critiques welcome! Cheers Alan

OK, last post before I put this up in the Under Glass section. When I build a custom, I really don't spend a lot of time on the engine bay because I am of the opinion that customs are all about style and they should be displayed without any panels open at all. The only details I added to this engine, just for the sake of it, were a finned head, twin carbs and a split manifold. How else was our hero going to keep up with all these flathead V8s? Truth be known he probably wouldn't but at least he would crack a nice note when he rapped his pipes! I just used scraps of styrene and some carbs from the parts box to accomplish this. The finned head started as a custom grille from a Revell 57 Chevy - not ideal but the only one I was prepared to sacrifice at the time! I used the stock head as a template to cut it to size and drilled some holes to spark plugs.and the upper radiator hose. Honestly, it's pretty crude but like I said, I don't plan on removing the hood very often. Seeing that the inner splash aprons have virtually no positive locators at all, and seeing as I had changed the height of the engine bay by semi-channelling it, I decided to simply leave them out. Hey, the owner is 19, he don't 'need no stinkin' splash aprons! One last thing, I have been a Testor's enamel fan for over forty years but about ten or so years ago it disappeared from Australian hobby shops so I slowly switched to Tamiya. It really is lovely paint but the is very translucent compared to Testors and I find it very challenging to get all the panels of a model in the same shade so I have been making funny little jigs out of sprue to make like an exploded diagram where the panels are held in the same alignment as they will be on the finished model. It is working pretty well so far. See you over at Model Cars Under Glass

As many have commented, the interior is about as plain as can be. That had to change. Our man about town had the financial backing to be attractive to most of the pretty young things in his town but there is no way they are going to be sitting on itchy old mohair or cold vinyl. Nope, as Debbie would say, they love to feel of tuck and roll so tuck and roll it is. Before sanding off the miniscule detail that AMT had provided, I drilled through the location of the original door handles so that I would have a template for replacing them later.Next, I cut a heap of half round strips to length and began laying up the pleats on the flat panels. I tried something here quite deliberately but I'm not sure if I would bother again. I laid each strip of half round with a tiny gap in between it, hoping that multiple coats of primer and colour would produce a clean finish but with deep tucks. I guess it sort of worked but not sure if it looks any better than trim jobs I had done before. When all these strips were dry, I simply took a razor saw and sawed along the top edge to get a straight line to place another length of half round strip along . The seat is from AMT's 53 Studebaker. The heavy taper of the Plymouth interior tub required me to file the front corners off and I then redid the seat welting with finer Evergreen half round. The tonneau cover was a crusty old piece from an ancient AMT kit. I repaired the damaged front edge and trimmed it to fit the Plymouth interior. Finally, I needed to address my signature right hand drive conversion. I drilled and cut away the glove box and files up a new rectangular hole for an instrument cluster and also cut and sanded a piece of flat plastic for a new left hand glove box door. I also drilled some fine holes along the lower edge of the dash and fitted fitted tiny dressmaking pins for dsh knobs. The only disappointment at the end of all this work is that I couldn't finds an appropriate decal for the instrument cluster so i used a pretty lame one to fill the gap. I probably should photoreduce a new cluster from a Google image but to be honest, it's not that easy to see in the finished model.

Hi Lenny, I am late to the 41 Plymouth party that is taking over this forum but I only just saw your post now and have enjoyed it immensely. Yes, these old Mayflowers are a challenge and I cheated like crazy by building a custom for my first effort but it worked for me. In my build post you will see I used a split bench seat from the AMT 53 Studebaker - it took some filing to fit in the narrow interior but looks great in the car. And those wheels and dress rings are definitely from the AMT 40 Ford Coupe, sedan or Delivery kits - and the sedan has just been announced by AMT as a forthcoming release.. While my custom coupe is completed to my satisfaction, I have a planned convertible, a delivery and a woody on the bench so I am not done yet. With five threads now on here for the 41 Plymouth, I will be using every bit of the information that you and the other guys have used to improve the nose. My woody is going to be based on the AMT 41 Ford kit so I was interested to see how you grafted the Plymouth sheet metal to the 48 body. Was there any particular reason why you didn't graft the Plymouth rear fenders to the woody body? In hindsight, would you do it that way next time or would you still fabricate the plymouth details on the Ford fender? Cheers Alan

Tim, that convertible ahs been stuck in my head ever since I saw it years ago in Street Rodder. I have a vision of a deep purple pearl version but still with the chromed wires. I Googled 41 plymouth convert today and the accuracy of the wo=indshield opening looked pretty good to me. Is perhaps the radius of the top corners sharper on the real thing? I know it is common for closed cars and open cars of the era to have different shaped windshield openings but the difference on the Plymouth seems to be very subtle. Would be interested to hear your thoughts. Cheers Alan

I was getting a bit sick of sanding so I looked at lowering the car some. I filed away the back of the weird spring mount to accept the rear axle in a higher position. While I was at it I used a pair of pliers to de-arch the spring - pretty easy with soft AMT plastic. With a C-notch filed into the frame rail I got the back down quite a bit. Unfortunately the pumpkin now interfered with the fuel tank so I reshaped the fuel tank to gain clearance. The old boys at the bodyshop were beginning to get sick of this job - reworking fuel tanks is no fun and can significantly shorten your life expectancy! I also removed the bumper brackets and filed a shipload of plastic off the bottom of the interior tub.The grey frame is the modified one.

Moving rearwards, it was a painless decision to remove the drip rails - they had suffered terribly in forty years. I always feel much more comfortable removing this sort of detail from a damaged body than a nice crisp one! The rollpan from a Monogram 53 Chevy was glued to the back and I found some fender skirts that would suit the era. A lot of bog went into blending the fenders into the body in their new, significantly raised position. I also decked the trunk lid while I was at it. Being at a loss for ideas for custom taillights (a shame nobody makes early Studebaker lights - they would be perfect!) I hunted through my grille and bumper box for something suitable. I think this came from an AMT parts pack. It needed a stone tray so I made one, completely forgetting that there was something similar in the Plymouth box - dohhh!

Thanks David. Funnily enough, I didn't think of the connection to the 48 Ford running boards until I was writing this post yesterday - at the time I was just trying to put the old girl on a diet! But you are absolutely correct. More on the channelling later! After doing some rough shaping of the bodywork I decided the front was still too flat so I chose to cut the Chevy custom grille and rejoin it with a strong V shape. It gave me the look I wanted but I am a bit disappointed about the cleanliness of the join. I know I could cover it with a vertical strip but that is not really the look I was after so I might have to play with another grille in the future. I then wrapped very thin sheet styrene around the V-eed grille, laminating as I went with Tamiya Extra thin liquid glue. When this had dried solid I gently cut and sanded the grille opening to shape and grafted it into the front of the Plymouth. This took a crazy amount of bodywork but it just had to be done. In the final photo you can see just how much I had disguised the shape of the Plymouth with this work. I think our young hero would have been pretty happy when he dropped into the dealership on his way home from college to see his coupe sitting in primer!

Nah, always been a Monogram Deuce guy, Steve! AMT was always a bt funky with their Deuces. Still had to have them all though! Thank you everyone for your kind comments. Sometimes it's nice to do something simple like these models as a break from fully detailed models or heavy bodywork and fabrication. Its all about having fun! Cheers Alan

I have a large collection ( built) of 1/32 scale kits so I am really impressed with your progress so far. I did my 37 convertible as a taildragging mild custom and it looks pretty cool. Really loving your paint! Cheers Alan

I'm not going to pretend that this is pretty or refined bodywork - it's not. I just let the car talk to me as I progressed and sometimes I had to go backwards to go forwards. You will see a lot of bog in the next bunch of photos ( you say Bondo, we say bog) but most of it ends up on the floor anyway! This first overhead shot shows the beak of the hood contrasting with the absolute flatness of the front grille panel. The other two Plymouth posts currently on this forum are spending a lot of time correcting this area and I am indebted to them for detailing their work as they go as my planned Plymouth conversion will need a much improved grille area. But our affluent teenage owner wants none of that boredom on his ride so we are going for a full custom front. I needed to establish some integrity in the front end before getting into the styling so I glued in place the rollpan of an AMT 51 Chevy. If nothing else it gave me a solid foundation to work with. The next step would be to install frenched headlights. I have seen this technique used before for frenched headlights but this is the first time. I have tried it and I must say it works very well. First, select the headlight lens you wish to use. Then, find a diameter of K&S aluminium tubing that the lens will sit in snugly - this will later become your frenched headlight ring.. You then need two more sizes of tubing, one the next size larger than this tube, the other the next size smaller. K&S tubing telescopes beautifully so we will be taking advantage of this feature. Cut two lengths of the largest size of tubing about 12mm or 1/2 and inch long. This will form the fender housings for your headlight. After all the sectioning work the front of the fenders are pretty fragile so I cut the opening roughly to size with a sharp X acto and then filed it to nearly the correct diameter. Finally I used a drill bit by twisting it in my fingers to ream it out to the accurate diameter. I took this opportunity to move these holes inboard as on the kit they are way too far out to the edge of the fender even if you were going for a stock look. Having done that I started to wonder if the custom 51 Chevy grille would work. It is very similar to the grille in an old Valley Custom creation called the Polynesian so would suit the period but it is very flat and one thing I wanted to get rid of was the flatness. It needed somewhere to sit so I roughed up an armature of sorts out of sheet plastic and glued everything into place. No going back now!

As my ideas developed, I figured that if I removed the running boards so that the doors became the bottom edge of the body, like a 48 Ford, I could then move the fenders up to match. That is pretty straight forward at the rear of the car but the front has a hood design that does not lend itself to having the engine bay messed with. Instead, I sectioned the front fenders so that the bottom edge of the fender was level with the bottom of the door. While the fenders were off the car, I carved and sanded the triple swage lines off the fenders, again to lighten things up. I used the piece removed from the front fender to reinforce the seam when I glued the pieces back together. The last two photos give you some idea of how dramatically this work has affected the profile of the car.

Hi everyone, seeing all the posts about 41 Plymouths made me decide to post one I completed recently. I bought this one back around 1980 and did my second ever Testors metallic spay job, which was a disaster! I then used caustic soda to do my first ever paint stripping exercise which was only partly successful so I gave it up. I have bought and started another two versions since but decided to have a look at the 40 plus year old mess and see if I could save it. The back story is that a kid in the fifties wanted to have a cool slammed 40 or 48 Ford coupe like all the cool kids but alas, his Dad owned the Plymouth dealership and that was never going to happen! On the plus side, that dealership did have a panel shop and some old school auto body men who had been with his Dad since before he was born. The trick was, how to create a cool custom out of a boring old Plymouth coupe? So here's the body I attacked. Forty years of grime and paint residue, damaged rain gutters, yep, it's not pretty so I won't cry any tears when I get the saw out! To my eye, 41 Plymouths are very heavy through the doors and quarter panels so my plan was to see if I could somehow section it without sectioning it. Sort of. I wanted to see if I could remove some of the stodge without actually cutting the doors or roof. After all, those old boys at the dealership have seen their share of cars that were cut past the point of no return! I decided to start by removing some or all of the fenders.

Jim, I've really enjoyed watching how you deal with the vagaries of this kit. I have recently completed a full custom 41 Plymouth and encountered many of the issues you have - plus I cut the daylights out of it and created some of my own issues. I have plans to build another two, a woody and a convertible so eveything in your post is going to come in very handy! Cheers Alan

Has anyone in Australia received their issue 222? Its March tomorrow and still no sign of my issue in Western Australia. I love the magazine but the postal authorities have a lot to answer for, not that they ever will! Cheers Alan