Harry P.

Ok, so here's my take on this. Ford unknowingly sold me a car with (potentially) defective airbags. Granted, Ford didn't manufacture the airbags, they were from an outside supplier (Takata). But they were installed in the Ford that I bought. Is Ford responsible for its cars, regardless of who supplied what parts? If I ignore the recall notices and the driver's side airbag goes off and injures me... who is to blame? Ford? Well, no... they didn't manufacture the airbags, and they did warn me of a potential problem. Takata? Seems to me that yes, they are to blame. Or... if I ignore the recall notice and take my chances, would it be me who is responsible if a defective airbag blows up in my face? The recall notice isn't "mandatory." So if I ignore it and the bag blows up and injures me... can I sue Takata for a bazillion yen? Just wonderin'...

I find detailing to be addictive. Once I add a detail, I have to add another. Then another. Pretty soon I've gone completely crazy scratchbuilding linkages and lines and details that weren't in the kit. But the results are worth the effort...

Also got a few scratchbuilt details installed on the floorboards...

There is no real positive attachment point inside the body for the floor. So I calculated where the floor should be, and used strips of cardboard and a Sharpie to mark the location of the floor on the inside of the body.... Then I glued some square styrene rod in place. The floor will rest atop these locator strips and give me a solid ledge to glue the floor to... The car has a full belly pan, so none of this will be visible once the model is built.

For some reason that I don't completely understand, the car has wooden "caps" that are installed on top of the frame rails between the body and the radiator, where the lower edges of the hood side panels rest. Maybe as a buffer between steel to steel contact between hood panels and frame rails? Don't really know. But following my old "nothing looks more like real wood than real wood" theory, I used the kit pieces as templates to carve replacements out of basswood... Then I stained them. Here is where they will attach to the tops of the frame rails. The cutouts in the front are to provide clearance for the grille shell...

Minor progress. You really can't see them in the photo, because they run behind the chain guards, but I installed the rear brake cables. I used heavy-duty gray thread to simulate steel cable. Once the wheels are on, you won't even see the cables at all... but at least I know they're there...

Oh, you're right on that count, Skip. The only pizza you eat with a knife and fork here and not get laughed out of the place is Chicago-style deep dish pizza. There's no other way to eat it! And of course we'll have an ice-cold pitcher of beer with that...

Oh yeah...that's done here too! Especially at the ballparks.

Been slowly plugging away. New progress photos tomorrow (Sunday).

The air going into that engine must be very clean...

What do you need to know about Photobucket? This site only allows a very small amount of space to upload images directly from your computer, because this site is NOT meant to be a photo hosting site. Can you imagine the amount of storage space we would need if this site hosted all of the photos we constantly post here? The right way to do it it to open a photo hosting account, like Photobucket. Photo hosting sites are designed to do just that... host (or store) your images on their servers. Load all your images into albums on your photo hosting site, then you post the link to your photos here in your posts, not the actual photo. The photo stays parked on your photo hosting site's server, taking up their space, yet we can still see the image here in your posts because you posted the link to the image here, not the image itself. As long as your actual images are parked on Photobucket, you can post as many links to images here as you want. I have used Photobucket for many years, have hundreds (maybe thousands) of photos posted there, and still am at only 24% of my FREE account capacity.

Who eats pizza with a knife and fork???

Superb detailing all around. Very impressive.

Times sure have changed...

It's been done, years ago. Remember the Amphicar from the early '60s? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphicar

I got not one, but two recall notices. Both driver and passenger airbags have to be replaced. Ford says they have the parts to do the driver side now, but are still waiting for parts to do the passenger side. So now I have to go in twice... once for the driver's airbag, then, when they get the parts, the passenger airbag.

That's a beautiful car. Build it!

Do what you want to do! If you want to document your process step-by-step, by all means do it! Some people will be interested, some won't be (probably due mostly to subject matter)... but it's not important what others think. It's important to do what you like to do. I love doing detailed WIPS, and I've done a ton of them... and have always gotten great responses and a pretty high level of interest. But I do them because I like to do them. If others find them entertaining, or interesting, or informative, so much the better!

Wow! That's a thing of beauty. I think that is the best model you have ever posted. Nice work.