Ace-Garageguy

There still seems to be a big ol' wobble in the character line on the door...

Rather more pleasant than being nibbled to death by ducks...

I would suggest you look for period color shots of the parts in question. For example, the August 1954 cover of Hot Rod shows a natural-aluminum GMC blower that's been bead-blasted (in '54, GMC blowers on hot-rods would have been taken from the original Detroit Diesel applications most likely, and would have been painted with the original engine as a unit; bead-blasting would make them look less like junkyard parts). I've found light gray primer to make a very believable simulation of this finish...and handling it doesn't hurt either. Finger oils can make the part look more used. For polished aluminum or magnesium, I prefer to strip the chrome and use Testors buffing metalizers. Properly applied and buffed, they give a very realistic appearance as well... like the front wheel and canopy on my Challenger backdate. Old aluminum and magnesium castings tend to get powdery oxide deposits on the surface. Again, different colors of gray primers or metalizers can get the color right, or a solid coat of primer with a light dusting of metalizer, buffed. Experiment. Maybe even an uneven dusting of flat-white to simulate the oxide.

Drew, all the AMT '32 wires I could find have an outer-rim OD of about .660". I'm sure I had one set of slightly larger diameter AMT wires that look like your pics, but I think I may have given them away a couple of years back. If you can use two of the .660" diameter wheels, I'll be glad to send them to you.

I know this one because of a very short involvement with building prototype parts for a car that followed it. Man, this thing is ugly.

Something to think about. http://www.inddist.com/articles/2012/02/what-happened-critical-thinking

Spectacular.

Drilling small, pin-vise size holes, around .015"-.045" holes is indeed very easy in thin material. Drilling 1/4 inch holes in material that thin is next to impossible, as the flutes of the drill bit catch and tear the material. This even occurs when drilling soft, thin metals (and even thin steel sheet)... ...which is why, in the third post from the top, I recommended to use some type of punch tool to make holes of the necessary diameter in thin styrene or acetate sheet.

There IS a method that will work with a Dremel, but it's not for the faint-of-heart. I've successfully 'melt-bored' large-scale-diameter holes in clear styrene by using a tapered grinder bit in my Dremel, and a fairly high speed. A tapered bit allows you to bore the hole slightly undersize, remove the melted flash with a sharp X-acto, and bring it up to final diameter with files worked at 90deg to the surface, NOT rotated in the hole. A tapered file that's a close fit in the hole, if rotated, can also dig in and crack the material. Finish-polish the final edge with sandpaper rolls, wet. And as SfanGoch and Art Anderson both caution, do NOT try to power-drill a hole in clear styrene.

Nice pix. Color-enhanced I believe. The steamrollered details in the red Fiat and Ford roadster bodies give it away. Great stuff though.

An important thing to remember when using conventional bits as per Tom's method...or even the special bits for plastics...go slow. Normal drill bits are designed to 'bite' into the material, while the special bits for plastic have a differently-angled tip that "shaves" material out of the hole, far less aggressively than standard bits do. When a bit bites too deep, it will force itself farther into the hole than there's room for, and the material, much weaker than metal and unable to stretch, will crack. Whatever bit you use, if the bit is pushed too fast or too hard, and it digs into the material, it WILL crack. Cracking also occurs frequently when the bit breaks through the back side of the hole, as it can easily become wedged and split the material at this time. Tom's suggestion of supporting the backside of the material with tape, AND making sure the drilling location is flat on the backing surface, are both VERY important to avoid cracking...especially if you elect to try to use conventional bits. I learned about the special plastic bits back in the early '70s, working for a Datsun dealership installing clear headlight covers on the then-new 240Z. The cover kits came with special bits, but the other mechanics didn't bother to use them or read the instructions. They also ate a bunch of headlight covers they'd ruined. Over the years, I've installed many, many very expensive aircraft and race-car screens and windows, and have come to rely on the special bits for cheap insurance.

Using conventional drill bits to drill clear plastic is almost guaranteed to shatter and crack the material. Tom's suggestions of using masking tape and carefully supporting the work are good, but experiment on scrap material...that is IDENTICAL to the kit plastic you want to drill... FIRST. Special drill bits that are far less likely to crack and shatter clear materials have been devised. http://www.eplastics.com/plexiglass_lexan_plastic_drill_bits A good way to avoid the problem entirely, and make scale-thickness windows, is to use clear plastic or acetate sheet, and use a hole-punch to form your holes. The old standard paper-punch works fine for this, and they can be found in various sizes. Gasket-punches also work beautifully.

Sad news. So young, always a good guy here, and knowledgeable about the 1:1s. Very sad news.

I'll be watching. I have several gluebomb built-ups of that old sedan kit too, and a similar mashup is in my queue.

Looking good. Lots of patience required to get a project this involved to come together. I find it helps the process to do other projects during, too. Seems to allow the subconscious to solve problems on its own, and when one comes back to the project, the solutions become obvious.

As Miles says, strip plastic. Think about what you need to do, measure and fit carefully. Not hard. I had to replace both pillars on this blue body shell after some clown tried to chop the top, butchered it and gave up. Primered. Done.

Brett's right, and both styles are also sometimes called "flippers" too. And then you've also got single-bar "flippers"...

I really hope they'll do an app for desktop / laptop computers. This is far enough along to be a very useful in-home talk-to-it-computer add on. My old AI can open programs, take dictation, read documents and web pages aloud, and perform web searches using only verbal commands, but she's easily confused by syntax and context. I'd buy the "hound" app today, even if it meant replacing my current computer with something powerful enough to run it.

A further note about "sombreros". The most desirable ones in the real-car world cover the ENTIRE wheel like the upper photo on the right, without having the wheel rim showing, as on the left-hand photo. Of course, the smaller OD on the left is good for getting a different look, with possibly a contrasting-color painted wheel, as shown.

"Sombreros" (first offered on the '48 Caddy)... Olds-style "Fiestas" (usually have a 3 or 4-bladed spinner in the center, so they're sometimes called "spinners" too), lotsa variations...

I hit a wall on this one some time back, and didn't like the nose. There were a few too many defects on the RH splice area for 1-part spot-putty primer to kill entirely too. Soooo...I decided to heavily sand the splice area and re-prime repeatedly. She's shaping up nicely. The problem I saw on the nose had to do with conflicting curves between the hood leading-edge and the bumper insert. I sanded the crown of the hood flatter, and added material to the front edge of the bumper. This will be shaped into a curve that mimics the hood edge. While I had her on the bench, I decided to go ahead and fix the gaps on the sides of the deck that had gotten too wide. A strip of styrene added to the RH inner deck opening proved to be all that was necessary, plus some final close fitting to come.

See above. It's built from a derelict fiberglass Glenn Pray "continuation" replica. http://www.hotrod.com/cars/featured/1136srp-1936-glenn-pray-auburn-852-speedster/ The shop I work with is currently building a car for the custom Auburn's owner, James Hetfield. Quoting from the article at the above link about the "Slow Burn" custom Auburn pictured above... "Glenn Pray Auburn 866 Speedster The Speedster featured on these pages is a fiberglass recreation of the classic Auburn Speedster. The original Speedsters sell for extreme dollars, with the last one leaving an Indiana factory in 1937. But that's where our story begins. Glenn Pray in 1960 purchased the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Co. and moved it from Auburn, Indiana, to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Around 1959, he quit his job teaching mechanics at Tulsa's Central High School to take control of the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Co., making him the youngest president (age 36) of an automotive manufacturing company in the world at the time. He designed and manufactured, among others, the Auburn Speedsters and phaetons. Pray owned the rights to produce and title these cars as Auburns. He used the real Auburn hardware and design, making his fiberglass reproductions strikingly authentic to the original car. n August 1967, the first Speedster was viewed at the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Club event. It was designated the New Auburn 866 Speedster and available to the public in 1968 (and produced through 1981) with a retail price of $8,450. Pray referred to his 866 Speedsters as Second Generation Cars or Auburn Continuations, as he believed they were never meant to be replicas of the originals. Again, he believed his cars are modern-day versions of the original Auburn Speedster. Pray was able to get Ford involved and the original chassis and powertrain came from Blue Oval; a 428 Ford engine, automatic or manual transmission, and rearend was used on the Auburn prototype. Other items, such as the functional supercharger-style exhaust pipes (two pipes per side), along with the likes of power steering, power brakes, and air conditioning, made this car unique. Pray modified the original body design to accept the Ford convertible chassis, featuring an extended wheelbase of 127 inches. Because Pray had the original tooling and surplus parts he believed 100-125 Speedsters could be trimmed out in original N.O.S. Auburn parts. He produced 138 Auburns and sold an estimated 90-100 Speedsters that were in various stages of completion." Glenn Pray died on March 24, 2011.

Original had raised door lines. All of 'em have raised door lines.

Sorry...wrong. It's a fiberglass Glenn Pray "continuation" car (built between '68 and '81) that had seen better days, and the real story is fascinating. http://www.hotrod.com/cars/featured/1136srp-1936-glenn-pray-auburn-852-speedster/

If you can't find another one, measure what you have with a caliper. I've got just about every wire wheel made in styrene, glad to send you one if I have it.