David G.

Yeah, having one of the tables opened would be great but I just took the easy way out for mine. I just glued some styrene shapes to the seatbacks and painted them. Cheers! =D-

I'm glad to know that your surgery went well Chris. It must be nice being back at the bench. Driveshafts I usually paint for a steel or black rusty iron color. But that depends on what you want your build to look like. Didn't some of the cars of that era use some kind of leather torque tube as a driveshaft? David G.

Great progress on this David! When I built mine, I did make a set of snack trays but I missed the mirrors. I don't recall seeing them in any of the photos I saw during my research. Were they an optional item? David G.

Great work getting the engine and transmission sorted Len. David G.

That's one sweet looking engine. From the '60 Starliner I'm guessing? Thanks for sharing it @sidcharles David G.

Hello Everybody! Thank you all for following along. As always, I do appreciate your comments, questions, pointers and suggestions. Moving on to the floor jack, Fujimi has left me with another error to correct. On part C-13 there is supposed to me a shaft that during assembly, passes through the cup support brackets and central lifting arm before anchoring in part C-12, pretty much holding the entire lifting mechanism together. As cast, part C-13 has no shaft to pass through the other assemblies. (first panel) I've drilled out part C-13 (on the right) to accept a piece of styrene rod that I pre painted. The rod is glued in place with some Tamiya cement. Part C-12 is on the left waiting in place for C-13 to cure before I cinch the whole thing up for final assembly. (second panel) The central mechanism with everything cinched together, glued, trimmed and touched up. Now on to the frame. One end of the jack's frame is held together by the connectors at the bottom, the other end by the lifting mechanism and handle. The jack frame seems to be designed to both capture the lifting mechanism and be held together by it. 😕 The implication of this design seems to be to make the jack poseable. I don't see this working out very well as it is, so I've added a reinforcing brace of styrene rod. I'm hoping this will allow it to be poseable once it's assembled. I've added another support piece to brace the arms and keep them engaged with the slots in the side frames of the jack. The jack is completed and I managed to retain the poseability feature! And of course, the floor jack at home in the shop. Thanks for taking the time to look and please feel free to share your thoughts. David G.

I agree. I just didn't have access to one at the time. Thanks, David G.

Thank you most kindly Scott! It's nice seeing this one float up to the surface again.. David G.

Thank you most kindly Scott. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. =D-

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. Thank you Devin. Yes, everything you've seen in this post is included in the kit and a little more. I'm currently working on a floor jack. I'll be posting photos of that soon. But when you go to buy, be aware that there are two versions of this kit. One is "Garage Tools" which has just the tools and the other is "Garage and Tools" which has both. I hope this helps. David G.

Thank you kindly Jon! =D-

I'm still following along and I'm still tremendously impressed with your engineering and fabrication skills. I'm also sorry to learn of your health challenges. I'm facing a few of my own as many of us in this community are. I'm glad to know that you're doing relatively well. Hang in there Tom. David G.

Dang Anton! That looks fantastic! Well worth all the time and effort you've put into it. BTW, I'd leave the lenses a little fogged. I've learned that when a project is this close to completion it's best just to let some things slide rather than taking a chance on messing everything up for a 3% improvement. Cheers! David G.

Hello Everybody! I have another installment for the Fujimi Garage and Tools kit. There's a welder's hood that goes with the arc welder. I've painted it but there's no way for a welder to wear it. So using some strip styrene and wire, I've made some headgear... complete with ratchet adjuster! After painting the headgear and gluing it in place I removed a section so the welder can see what they're doing. The completed Welder's hood. With the safety equipment in place, the arc welder is ready to go. Here's the shop with the arc welder placed. It's starting to look a little crowded and there's still more equipment to build. I'm going to need a bigger shop! As always, thanks for taking the time to look and please feel free to comment if one wishes. David G.

I'm running some options through my mind. Thanks again! =D-

Thank you so much for the tip Alan! That's is one modification that I hadn't considered, at least not in that way. I do have a thinner, custom firewall left over from AMT's '32 Victoria, I'll try that one first. If that one doesn't work I'll see what I can do to fabricate a custom piece and install it from the inside of the body shell. It'll be no trouble removing the one that's there now as I just have it tacked in for the test fit with PVA. I do value your insight regarding this issue. Thanks again Alan!

Sorry to learn of the failure of your laptop David. I have been keeping up on your posts for this build but I haven't been commenting as often because I've run out of creative ways of saying: "Wow, that's really good!" Oh! I've just found another way! I hope you get your tech issues resolved soon. David G.

Hello Everybody! I know it's been a few years since I posted any progress on this one. I've been going back to some of my unfinished builds and well, finishing them. Picking up where I left off on the arc welder.... Using a scrap of photo etch material I made a strap hanger and drilled it to accept a straight pin. After that I drilled a hole in the side of the welder's cabinet, cut the pin's length to about 5mm and glued the assembly in place. Here, after four long years, is the completed arc welder. As always, please feel free to post any comments or questions you may have. David G.

It just seems right, doesn't it? I'm hoping I can make this one work. Thanks for the encouragement. =D-

Hello Everybody! I'm still working on finding a suitable custom engine for this thing. I really want a Thunderbird engine and it looks like I may have found one that I can use! After test fitting a number of parts-box and glue-bomb engines I found this! It's from an AMT '57 T-Bird glue-bomb. Similar in size to the kit-supplied custom flathead, it looks like it might be a good fit. The test fit looks good! It even clears the original kit firewall. Let's clean it up and get to work! As always, thanks for taking the time to look and please feel free to comment. David G.

Great work on both of them Kimmo! It must be a good feeling to still have the one from your youth. Thanks for sharing those. David G

Hello Everybody! The quest for a suitable engine for the Woody continues. This time I'll try the Chrysler Max Wedge from AMT's '49 Mercury. Removal of the automatic transmission is the first step. It looks like a good match between the Woody's transmission and the Mercury's engine. Since I plan on displaying this model without a hood I want to add a little extra detail to it. Here I'm fabricating a bracket to support the alternator. With the alternator bracket in place, it's time to move on to other things. When fitting the transmission I discovered that cutting off the old one left a gap near the top of the engine block. I cut and glued in some scrap styrene to fill it. Unfortunately, once the fan belts and fan are added, there's not enough room between the firewall and radiator for this engine. In its proper position, the engine barely clears the thinner custom fire wall, and the fan is clearly intruding into the radiator space. Fortunately, I do have other options. I'm looking at the T-Bird engine from AMT's '60 Starliner. Which is the one I originally wanted for this build. So since I'll be coming full circle on this, maybe it'll be the one. 😕 As always, thanks for taking the time to look and please feel free to share any comments or questions you may have. David G.

Thank you Carl. Thank you Elliot. I've already lowered the back a little and I think the front will come down a little too once the front axle is properly in place. And I am currently considering a rear axle swap; mainly so I can have the option of a shorter driveshaft. Actually, I swiped the boards from the Surf Shark. You're three for three so yeah, I guess you can see where this build is going. Thank you Ken. =D-

Thank you Lenny, I'm glad to have you along. Thanks Greg. There are a number of questions and suggestions offered. I'm going to respond below and try to address them all in one shot. Thank you Alan, that was my thought too. I plan to make this a surfer wagon and the Max Wedge is a much better choice when it comes to driving to the beach with your buddies every weekend. Okay Folks, I appreciate all your questions and suggestions and I hope this response covers them all in one pass. My first choice for replacement of the less than stellar custom engine option for the '29 Woody was the Thunderbird engine from AMT's '60 Starliner. Unfortunately the automatic transmission prevented it from fitting without cutting and swapping the transmissions. I wanted to avoid doing that so I started looking for a suitable engine with a manual gearbox. The one that filled that bill was the Red Ram from AMT's '29 Model A Roadster. The transmission on the Red Ram turned out to be too short and I realized that I would end up doing what I wanted to avoid. Cutting and swapping transmissions. I figured that the best option at that point was to keep the Woody's transmission as a central anchor and work around that. I knew that the Woody transmission would fit the Woody chassis and all I had to do was make the engine work with that. When I discovered that the Red Ram's starter location didn't match the bell housing bump on the transmission, I considered moving the bump on the bell housing, modifying the Red Ram transmission to fit the Woody chassis or just putting the whole thing together and pretend that I didn't notice. Previous life experience has taught me that adjusting multiple factors at the same time is a recipe for disaster, or at least failure. For example, if your engine is running rough, it's not a good idea to adjust the carburetor, points and timing all at once. Hit 'em each one at a time and get what you can from that and move on to the next activity. Again, I figured it best to stick to keeping the Woody's transmission as the central anchor point and working around that. Though I did like the blower on the Red Ram, I wasn't happy with its overall lack of detail. Letting go of it was not a difficult choice. So I looked through my kit remnants and found the Max Wedge from AMT's '49 Merc ( I do have kits from other manufacturers, I promise! ) I did have to cut and swap the transmission but at this point it looks like everything else should work. The casting detail is much better on the Wedge than it is on the Ram so it'll look better without the hood. Though it is a rather wide engine so if I do run with a hood I'll probably have to ditch the side curtains. And I don't like the header-manifolds that Chrysler stuck on this engine so I'm scratching around in my parts box for a set of aftermarket headers. Because... hot rod And the Thunderbird engine, my original choice is still an option I'm considering. Wow! I hope that hits 'em all. Thanks for taking the time to read through all that and thanks for taking the time to offer your comments and suggestions. David G.

Congratulations! Well deserved. David G.