Ace-Garageguy

HONK HONK !!!!

Sometimes I have to wonder if I live in a third-world country. With the frequency of power outages here, I figure they must be getting cheap PCB-filled transformers from China.

All true, but with the paper calendar you can do it all when the power goes off, and you don't have to keep your battery charged.

Exactly. Though I've been making things pretty well for many years, there are a lot of fabricators in the world who are WAY better than me, and a lot of model builders who post on this very board who are also WAY better than me...and some of them have significantly fewer years of experience. I know too that my own work is considerably better, in both fields, than a lot of fellers who seem to think they're the cat's pajamas. The point is this: the great majority of folks who refer to themselves as "masters" of anything are usually only masters of BS-ing. PS. Formal "masters" certification programs don't always accurately reflect the certificate holder's actual competence either. I know a couple of ASE "MASTER" techs who I wouldn't trust to change the plug on my lawnmower.

Some designs of aircraft "blind rivets" (similar in appearance to common "pop rivets", but much higher strength) have a splined section on the pin that gets pulled through, snaps off, and is thrown away. Certain sizes will work well to represent axle ends or transmission input-shafts. If you know an aircraft mechanic...

Looks great. Clean build, fits together well, sharp, crisp foil work. Very nice indeed.

In the real-car world, many different types of supercharger can be adapted to use on many different types of engines. It would help if we knew which particular kind of V6 engine you wanted a supercharger for, and whether your intended application is a street-driven car or something built only to race, or something in between.

In the real-car world, frames are made specifically for each type of car, and in the model-car world as well. In the hot-rod and racing car end of the real-car world, frames are sometimes swapped from other vehicles and sometimes specially built for a particular purpose. This is really an oversimplification, but the point is that it's entirely possible to use a frame from one model car under another one if the basics of frame design (for example, is a frame a ladder-type, or a tubular "spaceframe", or is the car of "unibody" construction), and length, width, wheelbase and track-width are kept in mind. In your case, the '37 Ford uses a simple ladder-type frame with roughly parallel main side rails. From 1935 through 1940, all Ford cars (and light trucks through '41) used almost identical frames, so any of those in kit form would give you a reasonable starting point. Many of those vehicles were done as kits, so the "wanted" section might give you some leads...but it will be a lot easier if you're just starting out to get the frame designed for the kit you have. There are 3 versions of the '37 Ford as kits from Revell / Monogram, and any of the frames would work fine for you. There's rather a lot to know, and if you're interested in learning how real cars work, how they're made, and how they're modified, there's no better place to get started than by building model cars. If you want to know more about car frames in general, read this for a brief introduction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_frame

I suppose I should have called it "poseable" rather than "steerable", because I'm not going to get in to making a geared steering box. Mayhap I'll change the title for enhanced word-sense disambiguation. Then again, mayhap not. With the dearth of 1/25 scale threaded fasteners small enough to represent tie-rod-ends, making a suitable steering linkage that looks good and functions presents some interesting problems to solve. As soon as I find what I consider to be an optimum solution or three, I'll post part deux.

Hey Steve...it's great to know what other specific kits had them too. Honestly, until today, I didn't even realize they represented real wheels...even though I'm a fan of a lot of Winfield's work. Up until now, I'd always just assumed they were some generic mags that got made-up for the old T kit.

Did you read the whole first post? The post includes the part numbers engraved on the trees (sprues) as well as the sprue numbers themselves. I actually physically pulled the T kit I referred to off the shelf, opened the box, took the chrome out of the plastic, and compared both the PARTS and the NUMBERS. They're as I stated. The sprue the OP has with those wheels come from the specific AMT / ERTL 31223 kit I referenced. Not opinion. Verified fact. Sorry if that seems argumentative.

I didn't know that ! A little digging turned up this photo of the man himself with a completed wheel and either raw centers or patterns.

You're welcome. They also appear in earlier versions of the kit, including these, but some of the earlier ones lack the part numbers on the sprue, and the sprue number itself.

AMT / ERTL kit # 31223

Pretty cool. I never woulda thunk of that. The 4WD Cobra ought to be a lot of fun to see get built too.

Thanks for your interest and comments. The plan right now is to do it in the big-flake Testors Flaming Orange, which is appropriate for a gaudy old drag-car, as a nod to the box-art. I'm also going to try to use the kit decals for the same reason. We'll see how things work out as we go. I still have some left over from this...

doggie427: "Modified Sports Cars were allowed a 25% engine setback ( like an altered) and unlike the gassers and street roadsters which were limited to 10%." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Exactly. I appreciate the interest in this thing and as I said at the beginning of the thread, if anyone sees me doing something that doesn't reflect technical or historical accuracy, please feel free to call me on it. Really. Most of my models are intended to accurately represent period-correct cars, though usually not replicas of specific cars. I try to do enough research to get in the ballpark, but I've been known to make a mistake or two. The "25% setback" dimension is arrived at by measuring the wheelbase of the car and dividing it by 4 (25%). This number is then used as the maximum allowable distance from the front axle centerline to the middle of the farthest-forward spark-plug hole. The scale wheelbase of this little car is approximately 105". 25% of that is 26.25", so to be class-legal, the front spark-plug hole center needs to be a maximum of 26.25" back from the front axle centerline. This dimension is marked roughly as the vertical line on the side of the body in the first mockup shots. In the first mockup shots, the engine is definitely too far back. You'll notice the front face of the blower housing is several scale inches behind the reference line. As the build has progressed, I've taken more care to get the dimensions reasonably close to accurate. If you'll have a look at the most recent mockup shot, you'll notice the front face of the blower housing is now in line with the 25%-setback reference line on the body. The front face of the blower housing is roughly in line with the forward spark-plug hole, so we're really pretty close to class-legal. HOWEVER... I used a Buick nailhead for the early mockups, and I've since switched to a Chevy W-block. I remarked earlier that the W-block wasn't really the best engine to use here, but I didn't fully elaborate. The nailhead's (and many other engines) forward plug hole is somewhat farther forward in relation to the rest of the engine than the W-block's forward plug hole (see photos below). This results in a class-legal installation of a W-block placing the engine slightly farther forward in the chassis. In the case of this particular model, the W-block is actually 1.25 scale inches too far back to be strictly class-legal. I decided to allow this 1.25 mm discrepancy to remain, rather than correcting it after I discovered it. The engine placement would be class-legal and correct for some other engine choices, and the look of the car would be identical...with the blower cutout appearing as it is.

'Bout as close to building a real car as you can get without building a real car. Kinda makes my little pissant 1/25 scale stuff look...pissant. No way I'd ever see myself putting that much effort into something that didn't run, but man, it sure is something special to see somebody building a model at this level. Beautiful work, as you well know, and always pleasure to drop by to see the latest progress.

Kerry, Dan & Dave...thanks for your interest and comments. Far as the engineering goes, I build them as close to reality as possible...which is one big reason I often get bogged down. It's sometimes actually harder to do something and have it look good in 1/25 scale than it is in 1:1. You simply can't get in there to measure and fit and paint, etc., so 1:1 techniques and ideas don't always translate easily to model cars. Still, I enjoy the additional challenge of working out as many of the major functional details as I can...and I'm really trying to keep this one going through to completion.

Should be interesting to watch this one come together. Your work looks good so far. I've bought a lot of 1:1 Eckler's f'glass parts over the years, mostly OEM style C1 and C2 stuff.

As I said before, I LIKE the concept sketch. A LOT. Concepts start to lose it sometimes when they begin to drift away from the original strong idea. Watch your angles and proportions, stay true to your original vision here, and I believe you'll have a stunning model that's instantly recognizable as '49 Merc.

Yesterday's news that our friend Harry is at home, doing much better, and felt good enough to post here.

Thank you sir! With the mount plates in place, the roll-cage is moving pretty quickly. Should have some more updates shortly.

I need to look into that. Not too hard to scratch an early-style front bumper to backdate the '75 (I just looked at both bodies), and whacking off the tapered tail to backdate the other end seems pretty easily do-able too. This is one of those times I don't want to buy more kits (to get a correct year body) but to use up stuff I already have but really have no other use for. Since it will represent a clone race-car body anyway, body accuracy isn't particularly important...kinda like my M/SP mashup elsewhere.

Indeed.