Ace-Garageguy

'37 Ford, mid-engined, twin turbo. I probably have an extra hood.

I missed this one up 'til now. Comp Coupe was always one of my favorite classes, and your work here hits all the right notes for this kind of car (as usual). You have a real knack of getting just the right period feel. Beautiful.

Indeed. Sure makes me miss Arizona.

This is from a year ago. Looks pretty good to me...

Make sure it says PROFESSIONAL GLAZING AND SPOT PUTTY, #801 . They make a single-part lacquer putty too (#907). Don't get confused. And yes, it comes with a little tube of hardener in the package.

Though I don't have one yet, the 2013 Revell Mustang Boss 302 is said to have a good Coyote. Its 23 piece-count would tend to imply a well-detailed engine, and the IPMS review praises its appearance. Revell has had a couple of engine-scaling hiccups in the past few years though, (like the way too-large engine in the Dodge Magnum, the incorrect exhaust port spacing on the new '29 Ford / Buick nailhead engine, and the significantly too-long intake manifold on the new Starsky & Hutch Torino for example) so maybe someone else will chime in with more information.

Coulda been THE number one major player in digital photography...oh, but why would we want to do that ? Kinda like some oil companies failing to embrace alternative energy sources. I mean, everybody knows oil will last forever, right?

Lacquer doesn't have the "recoat window" that enamel has, and that's why you can go back to it any time. Don't try that with enamel...and when in doubt, read the instructions on the can of whatever you're using.

Man's got a legitimate point.

Jus' keeps on gettin' coolerer n' coolerer.

A simply tragic waste of India Pale Ale. Far as pin-vises go, I've not seen one that will hold a bit larger than 3/32" or 1/8", so to get the 1/4" holes mentioned, it's necessary to use a standard twist-drill in your fingers...not the easiest thing to do. Perhaps obtain a small drill chuck to make handling the larger bits easier, and to give a little more leverage? Supporting the area to be drilled with clay, maybe even masking tape directly on the glass and THEN clay, seems like a good idea. Gots to try it.

Once you get one, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it.

Huge improvement. Looks really really good. Nice work.

Eric, thanks for your interest and kind comment. The windshield shown on the first mockup is the DuVall-style piece from the AMT '32 Phantom Vickie (though I'll probably do a Hallock-style or Brooklands screens for the final build). You're right about the wheels. Rear tires the same. Front tires are AMT '34 Ford, which fit the Johan wheels perfectly. The AMT Vicke DuVall is too wide to fit the '29 bodies well, but if fits all the 1/25 '32 Ford bodies, AMT and Revell, quite well with only moderate reworking.

Hmmmmm...the clear-pearl topcoat is a really interesting idea...gonna HAVE to try that...

Oh baby !! Perfect. Don't change a thing about the proportions or stance. That's dead damm on.

Thanks Nick! I've got 3 WIPs going using the new Revell '29 parts from my first kit...the body is going in the Eddie Dye project http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/105602-eddie-dye-roadster-new-revell-29-scratchbash-sept-15-scaling-and-scratching/ , because the curve of the tail is more accurate on the Revell body than the old AMT. I'm using the zeed model-A frame and front axle from the new Revell kit to go under a '26 http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/105644-26-ford-rod-based-on-new-revell-29-bits-sept-15-third-mockup/ because the A frame is perfect for a lighter car like a T, and the frame and rear wheel wells from the new Revell '29 are under this one. I was originally going to use a heavily modified AMT frame under this, or possibly a modified Revell '32 frame from the '32 kits, but the narrowed rear of this latest Revell frame seemed a great place to start here.

Thanks to everyone for the interest and comments. I'm trying to keep this one simple enough so it will get finished in this lifetime.

In the top pic, the blower housing looks like one of the "burnt metal" metalizer colors that guys use for jet aircraft afterburner stainless. In the bottom pic, the housing looks like it's been left as-cast, with a slightly rough surface, but the blower drive looks to have possibly been polished at one time, but not kept all sparkly. Subtle differences between exposed-metal colors of the blower housing and drive can make a model appear more realistic. If you shoot Testors metalizers 'wet', they lay down and give a nice soft sheen with a very fine grain that can be polished up to a quite realistic full-polish look, or only polished halfway, etc. If you shoot them 'dry', you can achieve a rougher as-cast effect. Just don't try to topcoat them with clear, as it muddies and ruins the metal effect, and simply looks like metallic paint.

Thanks for the input on the Ford modular engines, gentlemen. It's an engine I as yet know very little about, but you've given me some good info to start researching. I had a low-miles 4.6 and auto box that had been pulled out of a totaled police car here, slated to go in my old Jag XJ-6, but it disappeared when I left the place I was working in 2005 and ended my involvement with those engines before it began.

The last one from the company looked pretty good...a total redesign that looked more like a real race-car than a dorky kit-kar...except for a few unfortunate lines here and there (most notably, a slightly drooping nose).

Exactly, and the only way to do it during the time-period we're discussing was to carve away the entire surface of the mold, everything except the panel-line, to a level slightly below the panel line (which would yield a raised panel-line in the mold that would become a recessed line on the part). Obviously a vast amount of work, compared to sculpting a nice negative surface and simply scribing the lines into it. Think about how difficult it would be to carve the Auburn body as it is from a block of wood, with NO panel lines. (I'm talking a positive image, just as the kit parts look, but with no panel lines.) You could file and sand the carved shape to get nice smoothly-flowing shapes, right? Now think about carving the exact same shape, but having to LEAVE the raised panel-lines on the surface, perfectly formed, and you had to sculpt and shape BETWEEN them. A LOT harder, right? Now think about doing it as a negative image, in steel.

You mean like dis?? Hmmmmm.....you might look at slot-car wheels... Pegasus makes turned-aluminum sleeves and tires in several diameters. Get the right ones of these, and find or make some appropriate centers... Pegasus also makes a deep-dish chrome wheel that might get you halfway there (poor photo, and I don't really know what these look like)...

I spend a fair amount of time obsessing over stance, and this build will be no exception. The front axle I'll be using is the old dropped unit from the "fiddly" 1/25 Revell model-A kits of 50 years back. It comes with pose-able steering, but the brakes are mechanical A. A car like this with a big OHV V8 would certainly have been converted to the newer Ford hydraulics, and drilling the axle ends to .030" allows the '40 Ford juice-brake backing plates from the 1/24 Revellogram model-A woody, which have molded-in spindles, to be installed on wire kingpins. It's important to get the stance and wheelbase established exactly before committing to gluing the front crossmember I removed earlier, back in. The height and fore-aft placement have to be dead-on to keep the 'look' I want. The crossmember gets narrowed considerably to fit the pinched rails too. The underside of the crossmember has to be in line with the tops of the frame rails, to allow the front spring to go high enough in the chassis to get the nose down where I want it. One thing I like a lot about this new chassis is the rear-axle locating tabs. Though I'll cut them off in the end, they allow fairly easy adjustment during mockup of the rear ride-height, and also allow the rear crossmember and suspension to be built in-place so everything stays the same. Measure a lot of times, fit carefully, glue once. I moved the rad shell and hood forward about a scale 1", so the rear of the hood will have to be extended to fill the gap. The wheelbase is now also about 111", or 5 scale inches longer than the '32 106" measurement. This creates some crowding of the bottom of the grille shell (which has to get notched) by the front axle and spring, but it's worth the hassle to me...for the longer look. You can see from this shot, again, how the narrowed Revell chassis (this is the '32 chassis from the new Revell '29 kit) sits under the 'AMT '29 body nicer, with not so much of the rails sticking out from the sides. I'm quite happy with the stance at this point, though the nose MAY come down another scale 1/2 inch. She's not quite as aggressively nose-down as the first mockup, but this is about as far as I can go with the axle I have without putting a kink in the frame rails. A sharp eye will note that the brake backing plates are not centered vertically in the wheels, but I'm aware of this, and compensating measurements to locate the crossmember exactly from what's here have already been made. This shot also shows the effect of lengthening the wheelbase...longer, leaner, more graceful. A front-3/4 shot from a scale-human perspective to check the lines again... Yup...I like it.

Very attractive model. We rarely see the 1/24 Revellogram '36 built these days. Nice job on the top too; flows well with the lines of the car.