kennb

Frame update KennB

This is the specs that I am working from for this car. I also have a data base of several dozen photos that I got from the net. Thank You..KennB

Finding drawings for some of my projects is very difficult. Specs are even more vague. I have the wheelbase and tread and some drawings I found online for this one. All my work is done with an exacto knife, wood ruler , some needle files and a pair of needle nose pliers. I dont have any fancy equipment and use the drawings for scaling the best I can. Most things are done by eye. As for things I dont have information on, i.e. the frame, I try to use what was common practice for the era. This can be a challange for some things. Some things there is just no information on, so you have to depend on the photos that you do have for the details. As in case of this car and the Tatra, there is the fact that over the years the cars have changed and it ends up that you dont have any 2 cars that are the same. With my Tatra, cars even the same year were not the same as things along the line were changed at the whim of the company. Cars like the Italia were all hand built and this ment that there was even variations within this small group. All my research is limited to what I can find online. I have the Tatra build in this forum, I started it in June and finished in July. I also have photos of the build on photobucket. There are some albums there of my paper builds, and a few others cars I am working on. http://s126.photobucket.com/albums/p100/shutter-bug/2nd%20set/ As for the plastic I use. It is thermal setting plastic that I buy in 40" x 72" sheets, .40 (thousanths) that I get from a supplier in Ohio. I can get about 6 cars from 1 sheet, depending on the car, and how many times i have to remake specific parts. If I am not happy with something I restart and throw the previous away, hence "wasting" material. I think I have responded to the questions. Any other questions are welcome and I will answer the best I can. I enjoy the process of construction and willing to share how I do it. You may find that you can use some of the techniques and even improve upon what I do. Someone mentioned in one of the posts that this is art. It is more closely related to an art form in as that I am as accuratly as possible, with what I have, trying to show the feel, the texture, and look of the car as opposed to detailing each nut and bolt. I use no commercial parts but will steal plastic from swizzle sticks, as shown in the tailights in this picture. The glazing is a coke bottle and donut container. Thanks for the continued support and comments. I will have more photos of this car later today as I make progress on the frame, steering and rear end. KennB

You are very right, and i think it is a valid question, and taken that way. Why do I waste my time making the tires and the frame when I could get a kit and rob parts from there. It obviously would be quicker and granted they are better considering that I dont spend a lot of time roughing things out. I has to do with one simple thing. I want to. I have built a lot of kits and have 2 I am working on. They are in a box. I do not find them as fullfilling as building it all from scratch. I thourghly enjoy making all the parts, The wheels, as tedious as they are, but do bring satisfaction of my doing them myself. The challage of building a square frame can be both enjoyable and frustrating at the same time, but when it is done I look at the completed frame knowing that I did it all myself. To be blunt I get very bored with building a kit. I am not trying to sell any of the projects shown here short by any means, but I simple do not find a kit challanging enough for what I do. Also, there plainly are no kits that would provide what I want to build, with the exception of the tires. This particular car has a drop center frame that has a 105.2" wheel base. I would have to totally rebuild any frame to start with to get it to work. There are a lot of cars that there are no kits for. There is an unlimited supply of material (cars) to work from so yes there is a lot I want to do also. It takes me about 6 weeks to build a car working about 1 to 2 hours a day,,maybe 3 hours some days. That is about as long as one takes to build a really nice kit with the same hours spent. Yes very nice projects can be completed in a few days and are really great. That last reason is totally economics. I spent 12 dollars for enough plastic to build maybe 6 to 8 cars. How much are kits now. 20 on up to 60 or more. I won a 60 dollar kit in the only show I put my Tatra in. It is still sealed. But for the most part I can not afford a big outlay for kits. I have a very limited budget so this is a way to enjoy the hobby with very little expense. For 12 dollars I have enough material to last for sveral months. Thank you for the question and comments. I do have some interesting things coming up for the next build. Stay tuned. KennB

This is the part that I have not been looking foward to, the frame. I have not had good luck with them in the past so i was dreading it. I did get the side rails cut and shaped to what I am guessing it would have looked like. Then set up a frame jig to make sure everything is square. In doing this i have it at the proper ride height, I hope, for it to work out. I set the rails in place and glued up a few channels and the engine mounts. I trashed what i did for the engine mount when I was working on the frame for the engine mount and will rework that so it works out the way it is suppose to. I have to put together the front steering and rear end but with the frame jig this should be a little easier, Thanks for looking and commenting, KennB

I have been thinking about the hub caps and tryed to make some 50ish caddy style. I heated the plastic and pushed it one way with the knife handle and the other way with a needle file handle. These are rough but you can get the idea. I was thinking of using the Hudson triangle in the center. The photo leaves something to be desired but you can get the concept of what I am working towards. KennB

Started the wheels and tires today. Have a few roughed out but not with the rim inserts. Not sure what I am going to do, maybe just some hubcaps tha look Hudson since I am not going to do the wire rims that came with the car. One photo shows how the tires and rims are made. I did use a tube for the inside of the rim. (I cheated a little). Of course more ont he way. I try to update at least one time a day so keep checking back. Thank you for your interest. I dont chnage the header since I still havent figured out how to do that . KennB

I started the interior and have the boor panels and dash worked out and roughed up. Still working on the detailing to bring it out. I added some photos after the filler layer. It is starting to bulk up properly. Kenn B

I have started the front bumper with the signature A shape. I left part undone so you can see how I do the bumpers. I am planning on using a different way on the rear and will post how that method works when I get to it. KennB

This outshines my feeble efforts. The process is far more efficent and reproduceable with a fine consistant body. Very nice outcome.

I guess it came about becasue I had the material at hand and wanted something to do.I know that sounds rather simplistic. The first scratchbuilt car I did was the Tatra. (In plastic, I have worked some with paper models). I have another car on the back burner. At this point it is evolving and a mater of trial and error, a lot of the later . You are seeing with me the first time I do things and if the work great and if they dont I show you me doing them over. I will say that the polystyrene that I use is very giving and be formed a lot easier that Everygreen. That will flatten back out over night, great for some applications but not this one.

And so ends the first week of this project with the filler on the left side bulking up the body a little, and bringing the hood to the final shape. I opened up the grill opening and worked out the headlights and hoods. Not totally pleased but will wait a bit so see how the come across when I get further down the road. It is starting to look more like the car than a pile of plastic. The inside is finished like the outside with little tails and excess plastic is trimmed off and cleaned up. I am proceeding with getting the body ready for casting and then from there will make the adjustments for the coupe.I will start on the bumpers and chassis next week. Since I dont have any thing to go by for this I will wing it using the typical standards for the time period. This is a step down frame on it so the side rails are going to be a challange, wide at the interior and closed back in for the wheels. Since this is going to be cast also I will start with a floor pan and work off that with some of the suspension on the front cast inplace. As I see it now the rear end and details will be seperate pieces. All the chrome will be plated instead of painted, a first for me. Thanks to all those looking at this and for all the comments. If you see something you feel could be improved upon please let me know. It is rough at this point and still a lot of details that have to be worked out and parts made. KennB

getting the front organized. I wont use any filler until I get the entire body roughed out to my liking. I try to use the styrene even to fill small voids. Filler has a tendancy to fall out of openings so AI use it sparingly in the final steps. Kenn B

I am continuing with this as a roadster but have started the corrected body for the sedan. I will have photos later of this. Remember that this is 105" wheelbase car and is really quite small. In this photo you can see the grill shell started. This will, of course be chromed and will be an insert. I am working on the front now that this end is roughed out. I have started on the front but need to tear it out and redo it. When building from scratch the way I do nothing is sacred and at times has to be torn out and redone. The fornt of the Tatra was torn out 3 times before I finished it. Again thank you for the comments. Kenn B

I am getting the side and rear roughed out. I noted the the rear trunck fascia was located wrong and needs to be moved back. Wondering if I should just make this a phantom convertable and redo the entire thing from the beginning. Cutting the fascia at this point might through the whole thing out of kilter. I should have paid more attention to what I am doing. This is how it stands now. I dont have a lot of time into it,...... Thanks to all those looking and commenting. KennB

Total time so far,, for those that are counting.....about 2 hours to this point. Note this is addidtional post of last 2 photos,,,,It said i had to many on the past post.

After a false start, photo 1, I trashed that and attacked it from a different way. This time i laid outthe sides and the hood and part of the deck in one sheet. photo 2 I shaped the side curve with an exacto knive handle and marker burnishing from the back side. I feel good about the shape so far. Thanks for all the comments so far. Kenn Then i cut 2 bulk heads that may or may not stay. and started to glue the body together starting with the flatest part first. Then with some wire i formed thesides around the rest of the bulkhead and glued theat up. Total time so far,, for those that are counting.....about 2 hours to this point. Kenn

This is built on the Jet chassis with the 6 cyl. engine.....thank you all for the comments.Will be posting piccys later tonight.

Totally scratchbuilt,,,yes. If you missed my last one this is a photo. No commercial parts used. Kenn B

I am going out on another limb here. Since there is a lot of Hudson mania going on I will attempt to build the 1954 Italia. The was about 26 of these made in Italy for Hudson. As with my Tatra I will use no commercial parts for any of this model. It is going to be 1/25 scale. I just got my plastic from Ohio (4'x8' sheet) .40 thick. I will use this for 95% of the model along with some various tube stock that i have on hand. this is how i get the polystyrene plastic. Cut into more us pfriendly sections and ready to use. This is a photo of the Italia KennB

PT Cruiser?

The body has been mated to the Boyd body, Axels have been changed to fir the Revell tires and rims that I am using and the ride height in the rear adjusted raising the body a bit. I also sarted putting in the fender inserts inside as shown on the rear fender. I am doing the same to the front fenders to give a more finished look to the final product. Still to do on the body is the front windshield which I am thinking now as being a split window. More pictures can be found at photobucket http://s126.photobuc...!cpZZ1QQtppZZ16 Kennb

The basic body is roughed out and ready to cut into the Boyd body. There will be a short peice of "metal" at the running board under the wood body. If you look at the previous set you can see the pencil marking for the cut. I put in some blocking inside the fenders to hold everything square. I also dug out some bigger rubber and redid the rear fender openings to match. I am probably going to have to get more massaging of this after the frame is done and ride height adjusted. At some point there will be some chrome imbedded into the wood parts of the wood body. Thank you for the comments, they are always welcome. A dry assembly of the "stock' car revealled that the fit of the parts does leave some to be desired. I was surprised that Testors would have such a problem, they are far from novice to kits. I have not started the frame but with the dry fit problems I saw I am looking forward to the challange . KennB

I am waiting to materials for my next big project and ran across this at a flea market for 6 bucks, everything inside was sealed. I was thinking it would make good trading material,,,whoa there......Then on the way home a started thinking.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,lets have some fun with this one. I drew up on a sheet of plastic a concept for a fanciful woodie and cut 2 sides out. I cut some strips for the outlineing. With my saw I scraped all the parts to give it a wood grain look to it. KennB

They both did great jobs on these. very nice for each of them.