Ace-Garageguy

Nice slice and dice going on there......

To the best of my knowledge, AMT never made a '29 coupe, but they did make a '29 roadster. I think the '32 5-window coupe is getting pretty rare (they didn't make a 3-window, I believe) and it's one of those too-expensive-to-actually-build deals, I would guess. I've picked up several incomplete, started and glue-bombs for not a lot of money, and have one in progress. The '29 roadster was originally packaged with the first edition Ala Kart, and it was available in several box-art versions seperately (which include many of the Ala Kart parts). I'm doing one as a late pre-war (1939-40) dry lakes car with a full-house 4-banger. The last version can still be had sometimes for reasonable money.

It's got a big fat accumulator on the side of it (the round thing just ahead of the tailshaft housing) so that DEFINITELY makes it an automatic. It looks like a cast-iron powerglide (two-speed auto) to me.

First, the '32 Ford is an entirely different car than the Model A. Different body, frame and engine (the first flathead V8). There WAS a 4 cyl. engine design carried over from the A, available on the '32. The '33 was an all new car again, except for the flathead V-8 engine design, so the '32 is a stand-alone car. All Model As ('28 thru '31, including pickups) were on pretty much the same frame and running gear, with different diameter wheels. The '28-'29 bodies, fenders and radiator shells were pretty much the same, and the '30 -'31 bodies, fenders and rad shells were also pretty much the same. The Monogram release 1930 model As were 1/24, as is the Revell Good Guys woody. BUT..........Revell already has GREAT 1/25 tooling (as far as accuracy goes) for A guts under the '31 model A Woody (1/25), the Woodstock version of the same kit, the '31 sedan delivery, the Sundance Express pickup, and the fairly recent releases of the Sedan and '29 A Rat Rod pickup 3in1 kits. SO, you've also got the right fenders, hoods and radiator shells for the '28-'29 and '30-'31 in thise kits, plus several body styles (the pickups use pretty much the same fender set as the other bodies...fairly easily corrected). All Revell would have to do is tool for the Model A coupe body shells and pair them with existing tooling to make an A coupe kit, and I'd be the first in line to get one. And........AMT has an old '28 A 2-door sedan kit, and '29 A roadster and pickup. MPC also had a '28 model A truck. These are only the ones I can come up with without actually thinking. I'm sure there are more. Both '28-29 and '30-31 coupe bodies are available in resin, chopped and louvered as well as stock. Many other bodies for the model A are also available in resin, so there's absolutely nothing stopping anyone from building a nicely detailed Model A of any vintage and description. PS. Casey's right....the yellow car is on '32 rails. The relief detail in the side of the frame is the signature of '32 rails. No other year has it, and model As on '32 rails have been the hot setup forever. There was a popular combination called an 'A V8', which was a Model A, frame and all, with a flathead V8 transplant ( model As were all 4 cylinder cars). It took some fairly major frame and suspension work, but it was very common. PPS. Model As are getting very popular rapidly in 1:1 as an alternative to the belly-button '32s. They're going to be overdone too shortly, but they're hot right now.

If you have a photo I can tell you, but I don't have that kit in stock.

What a beautiful model. It's truly inspiring to see work like this.

Big block Chevy with a GMC 6-71 front-mounted blower, custom front cover and blower adaptor; manifold from an AMT engine parts-pack, modified; C5-R clutch housing setup for rear gearbox.

Wow indeed. That is so perfectly proportioned, thought out, finished and detailed.....I honestly think that may be the best model of anything I've ever seen. Wow.

Another beauty....

A beauty.

Seriously cool.

I like everything about it, including your being bothered about what's 'wrong' with it. Great looking model.

Man that's BEAUTIFUL !!! You've got a fine eye for proportion and design, and the skills to bring it all together. Just beautiful.

Speaking of 409s, an acquaintence of mine found a '62 Impala dual-quad, 4-speed 409, red on red, in 2005. The car had about 60.000 miles on it. It was sitting in a carport, outside, covered, on 4 flat redline Polyglas tires. Seems the car's owner was killed in Viet Nam, and his mother could never bring herself to part with it. She finally decided to let it go, and having no clue what it was actually worth, sold it to my guy for $2500.

Lately I've been working more, so I'm lucky to get 3 or 4 hours of bench time per week. I try to get several builds to points where things will need to be bonded and put aside to set up, or where primered parts and assemblies need to shrink in for a while. And, with several builds going, there's always something small I can tackle during a few minute break or when I'm just too tired to put in a full evening. Having several builds going at once often means I have to make notes to remind me what's next when I get a little time for modelling, so I'm not spinning my wheels instead of getting something done.

This is about the bajillionth time this question has been asked, and again why it's SO incredibly helpful to have an idea of how real cars work, and how things are done in 1:1. IN GENERAL. independent front suspension in lowered correctly by RAISING the stub-axles relative to the uprights (spindles). This is done with "dropped spindles" on real cars, if they're available, and the same thing is accomplished on a model by cutting the stub axle off the spindle and raising it the amount you want to lower the front of the car. you can glue it back on (let it dry FULLY and MEASURE CAREFULLY) or you candrill 1/16 holes and glue in a piece of steel axle, welding rod, etc. If you want to lower the car more than you can get that way, you'll have to raise the control arms relative to the frame. IN GENERAL, to lower rear solid-axle suspension, you look at what actually holds the car up on the axle, leaf springs or coil springs, and you figure out a way to decrease the distance between the axle and the frame. Sometimes you can just cut a little off of the coil springs (if the car has coil springs). Sometimes you can shave the spacer between the spring and the axle (if the car has leaf springs above the axle) and sometimes it's necessary to make up new thicker spacers (if the leaf springs are under the axle) or even to swap the spring from over the axle to under the axle (again, for leaf springs).

You can always say "no", but I have no idea what kind of trouble you could get into if you shipped a can by USPS and it did pop. I'm sure they'd be less than impressed.

At first it sounds like a good idea, but even if there was a way to determine how much paint remained in a can (by weight perhaps?) there is often an internal valve clog that renders the can useless for spraying. The biggest potential problem is shipping though. Some postal officials will surely consider half-empty spray cans as hazardous, and the cost of even the cheapest shipping method will soon almost add up to the cost of a new can, as Plowboy said. I recently received some vintage 1:1 parts that were shipped with a couple of cans of engine paint. One had exploded, apparently from exposure to the low pressure in the cargo hold of an airplane.

I like the simplicity of the old AMT '32 kit, which I think gives it a great deal of versatility. Here are 3 of my in-progress takes on it......

The squiggly line running to the top of the cylinder head is water temp. Absolutely positively. You're correct about the braided line being fuel, but your reference-engine photo is carburetted, not injected. The float bowls attached to the fronts of the throttle bodies is the giveaway. The cam-driven fuel pump would make perhaps too much pressure for carbs, and there SHOULD be a fuel return line somewhere to keep from overpowering the needle valves. An injected car would also have a return line, as the injection mixture is adjusted by fitting various size restrictor pills in the return line. Bigger hole in the restrictor, leaner mixture. The black line under the squiggly water temp line is probably fuel pressure. It goes to a guage, obviously, and it's NOT H2O or tach. The tach appears to be the large gauge in the center of the panel (and appears to be an electronic unit), and the small line running to it appears to be a wire for an electronic trigger from the mag. A correct vintage car would most likely have a cable-driven mechanical tach, with the drive most likely running from a camshaft (like where the fuel pump is on your ref. pic.) or from an angle-drive on the base of the magneto.. The translucent yellow line is most likely the oil-pressure line to the gauge. The other end would run to a hole tapped in the oil-gallery on the block. The line used in the photo isn't really right for oil pressure thiough, so it COULD be manifold vacuum (it kind of looks like yellowed vacuum hose too) but race cars rarely use vacuum gauges on the panel. It COULD also be fuel pressure, but using that type of line is insane for fuel. IF it's NOT oil pressure, then the top black hose to the dash COULD be oil pressure. My best guess on the line zip-tied to the water pipe is the above mentioned fuel-return line, probably going around the front of the engine from the carbs. I really don't know what else it could possibly be. A pre-WWII midget would not have AN fittings, nor would it have braided line. WWII and post-war military surplus AN fittings were often green zinc-chromate color.

Very nice. Good to see a full-fendered '32 with an up-top. Great job making all those parts work together.

Really nice save. Great job.

Man, that is really fine.

That is really nice. I keep coming back and looking at it over and over. Great color and masterful weathering.

If your '48 Ford is supposed to represent a '48 Ford in 1949 or later, the "normal" distributor could be correct. If it's supposed to represent a '48 Ford in the 1990s or later, a serpentine belt COULD be correct. It's been done.