Ace-Garageguy

Yeah, the engine bay detail looks great. What did you use to get the "Cool-Flex" water hose effect?

Really nice job on this vintage race car. Looks great.

This is a really fun concept model. I love the idea of a Corvair based flat 12. Back in the dawn of time, I had just about every version of Corvair offered, from the '60 4 door to the last 2-door style from '69. Along the way, I had both early 150 hp and late 180 hp turbocharged Spyders. I mean I really loved Corvairs. There was a guy here in Atlanta who put a big-block Chevy in the back-seat of a late convertible and ran it in (SCCA) A sports-racing against McLarens, etc. It sure would have been cool to see what a 12 cylinder like yours could have done. It's really great to see this model, and thanks for putting it up.

Man, that is REALLY slick !!! A lot of work obviously, and all your mods work together very well.

Those wheels and your color and detail choices really work great on this model. The '56 Ford has always been one of my favorites, and this one reminds me why.

That polished showroom floor and backdrop really show off a good looking model. Nice photos too.

I like it a lot, especially your wheel choice, the molded rear gravel pan, and those little slit taillights. Cool model.

Though aluminum rod bends beautifully to any radius and holds its shape, I've encountered bonding problems with almost all of the adhesives commonly used on models. This isn't surprising, as aluminum "glueing" is well known to be problematic in the aviation and automotive industries, and special adhesives and pre-bonding surface treatments have been developed to deal with it. The limited bond area of a butt-joint at the end of a tube is a real problem with aluminum tubular-type model car chassis. Tacking aluminum chassis tubes together with CA and then creating a "weld fillet" with a slow epoxy has worked acceptably for me, but it's been much easier and quicker, and a lot less frustrating, to just use styrene for chassis work. One thing I've found aluminum rod does work exceptionally well for however, is exhaust systems. They're attached at the end of a build and don't get as much handling as a tubular chassis during construction.

Yeah, that will be a cool one. Kinda my idea of a daily driver.

Looks good so far, especially for a "first attempt". I hope you and your son find the hobby as much fun and as relaxing (sometimes) as many of us do. Welcome. I'm newish on this forum too, but there's a great bunch of enthusiastic, helpful and encouraging people here.

That's pretty funny, Brizio, but in reality, the maximum amount of windshield chop to get this look was determined on a real car, by using much thinner than stock fiberglass racing seats, dropping the seats lower on the floor pan, raking the seat back somewhat, and actually measuring where the driver's head would end up. A 5'10" driver will be looking through the windshield, not over it. It also requires altering the controls significantly, including moving the steering wheel and shift lever back somewhat to accomodate the more formula-car style driving position.

Not all 9-series widebody Porsches are 930s. It's entirely possible to put 930 flares and a whale tail on a 911 to get the look.

This is a long-time stalled project, and started out as a design study for a proposal on a 1:1 client car. The plan was to build it from a rough '74 Targa S, but the interested party ran out of money when the false-economy collapsed. It's more radical than it looks at first glance, with the windshield chopped and laid back a lot. The rear quarters are sectioned, the front of the decklid is laid down and forward, and the hard tonneau is cut down....all to give the tail a little less of the load-in-the-diaper look. The car is dropped the maximum available on the stock-style suspension, with just enough wheel travel left inside the flares to accomodate small bumps and steering angle. We considered bagging it to get this static stance and still be able to lift it a tad for vigorous driving, but the project ended before the engineering had been worked much beyond the what-if stage. Steel 930 flares are available in 1:1 to rework 911s and the front and rear fascia would have been custom in-house fiberglass, smoothed to recall the clean lines of the 356 Porsches, and to do away with the protruding crash bumpers while losing some weight from the ends of the car. Color was to have been a blue-green pearl, a little bluer and lighter than the spot on the front fender.

Love these things and really looking forward to seeing your build. Had a '72 Gran Torino about a hundred years ago., always wanted a Ranchero. I really like ALL the Rancheros, come to think of it. Sounds like you've got a good plan with the donors. I MAY have some 351C stock valve covers if you might think about trading.

Really liking where this is heading. Will stay tuned for further developments.

Thanks to everyone for the interest and the kind words. Tony T, sounds like a great deal on the GeeBee. I've seen them as high a 50 bucks. The Olds engine, the LaSalle box, and the mild lowering of the tail all conspired to necessitate a rework of the floor and tunnel. Floor is scratched from styrene sheet, and the tunnel was sourced from a parts-box interior tub. The Olds also requires a center mount at the gearbox, so all of the original K-member of the Deuce frame had to go...... Top view with interior panels being fitted...... .....nice tight fit of the side floor-panels to the body. The wire pins sticking out at the rear help keep the body aligned during fitting. One step backwards. I decided that this thing really needs a Halibrand quick-change rear end to complete the vision I have of it being a triple threat car....street, lakes and drags. Parts stash offered up some approproate bits....center section, Ford axle bells and model T rear spring. A model A crossmember will have to be substituted in the rear for the one I scratch-built, and clearance will have to be made in the floor for the center-section. This is the way you do it on a real one.....a QC takes a lot of work to mount in a Deuce. You can also see the LaSalle box being converted to a top-shift case. ...and she's gotta have a rolled rear pan. This mystery valence from something has the right top curve to be the basis.

Fine metalwork, finishing, details and photography. Inspiring.

Glad someone over here was able to use my info as well.

Wheel paint is Testors 1204 Gloss Dark Red enamel. Body will be gloss black lacquer.

This is another one back in the rotation while things dry, or while I work out problems on the other builds. It started as an AMT '40 Tudor Sedan. A comparison of the kit body and the mod bod. This one's getting a Lincoln V-12 flathead, and an early auto gearbox (not the Ford gearbox pictured). Lots of cutting and fabbing to get it all to fit.

Another method to widen fenders, or to create custom flares, is to glue .010" strip styrene to the inner edges of the wheel openings, letting it extend outward as wide as you want your flares to be..... Then simply fill and sculpt to the final contours you want......

A couple of things to remember..... Roll cage tubing will almost always be 1.5" or 2" on a full-size car. That scales to .060" and .080" in 1/25. Those sizes can be bent cold, with your fingertips, SLOWLY and carefully. BUT, IF YOU GO TOO FAST, it will crack. After I make my bends, I run the part under HOT tap water, and hold it in position while it cools. That sets the shape pretty well. It WILL tend to spring back after a while, but if you glue it in place fairly quickly after bending, it's not a problem. The main hoop and the windshield post bars were done as I described on this model. Exhaust pipes will be from 1.5" on a stocker (or header primary tubes) to 2.5" (scales to .10" in 1/25) on something fast. You MIGHT see 3" tubing on a race car (.12" in 1/25). The larger sizes are a little too thick to bend cold, but the concentrated heat from an old blow-dryer is plenty. I made a small metal funnel from a cake decorating tip to go on the nozzle of the dryer. It works best to have the dryer in a vise so you can use both hands to make the bend, and the small opening in the funnel directs the heat EXACTLY where you want it. WARNING WARNING DANGER DANGER: The concentrated heat will burn your fingertips if you're not careful, but it won't "smoke" the plastic unless you hold it in the heat WAY too long. The funnel will also cause heat to back up into the dryer and sometimes cause it to shut-down automatically. The dryer is designed to do this if it overheats. As soon as it cools down, it will work again. BUT, you shouldn't have to run it long enough to overheat it anyway. It actually takes very little heat to bend styrene rod.

Yes, Williams has a pair in 1/32, both the R-1 and the Z. They also make some other important racing planes of the period. Nice kits.

The dropped front axle I'm using is from many Revell model-A kits. It's a nice piece, and comes with working steering, but it also has model A mechanical brake backing plates, which aren't appropriate for a hot rod that represents a car with hydraulics. MOST fast hot rods got built with '39 or later juice brakes. They were almost a bolt-on, and vastly improved deceleration. This is the chrome tree that goes with the axle, a set of juice front backing plates from the Monogram '30 Woody kit (which comes with later brakes) and the axle and wishbone from the A kit. Axle and backing plate drilled to take a .030" kingpin. Axle, split wishbone with the ends modified and drilled, and new stub-axles on the backing plates. And a much more realistic model with poseable steering and the hydraulic-brake backing-plates that any fast car would surely have had.

Because sanding pads are actually soft sanding "blocks", it is very possible to just knock off the dust nib without changing the shade of the surrounding paint. Yes, you DO have to be very careful. Candies are extremely difficult to spray and get exactly even coverage anyway. A lot of 1:1 cars have visible stripes in the candy where the build is heavier in some areas, owing to improper overlap of paint gun passes, and there's no way to fix that, but I have sucessfully sanded small dust nibs out of candies. ALL lacquer candies got sanded and buffed back in "the day", and urethane based candies do today. Whenever you touch a candy color with anything, sandpaper or polish, you risk getting blotches of uneven color. So VERY VERY careful is the rule. Color sanding of a candy color on a crowned panel, the top of a fender for instance, is a scary proposition even without dust in it. But unless you can lay the paint down perfectly slick, which is pretty doubtful in most cases, you're going to have to color-sand anyway to get show-quality paint. Again, because a sanding pad is a "block", it's possible to just kiss the surface and let the bolck shave off the dust nib without going into the surrounding color. Then, colorsand and polish as you would normally.