1937 RR woody... I mean, "shooting brake"...

[Harry P.]

Trudging on...

Time to make the doors! First step is to make a cardstock template. The red lines indicate where the wide horizontal beltline will be.

The door itself is made pretty much like the rear panels... cut the panel to shape, then glue on the framework pieces, constantly test-fitting the door as I go, piece by piece, to make sure everything lines up correctly. I'm using CA glue here, so there's very little margin for error. Once you glue a piece down, there's really no way to move it. You have to get it right the first time...

The hard part is the fact that I'm working in 1/16 scale, so the margin for error is tiny! In 1:1, if my door gap was off by 1/32 inch, you'd never notice it. But in 1/16 scale, 1/32 inch equals a scale half inch... and it's noticeable to the eye. So I am working with literally hairlines as margins for error, and keeping the door shut lines parallel to the rest of the body is very tough. This one door represents 3 hours of work... and I'm a fast worker!

[Harry P.]

I decided to change things up a it. Instead of a flat roofline, the door posts are slightly higher than the windshield posts and the tops of the rear side panels, meaning that the roof will have a subtle but noticeable curvature to it front to back. I went with a curved roofline rather than flat because it looks more elegant. In order to make the top crossmembers of the doors, I'll need to know what that curvature will be... so I took out my trusty old set of ship curves and found the one that gives me the correct curvature. I used a red Sharpie on the curve to mark the position of the front edge of the rear side panel, the door post, and the windshield post...

Now I can carve the rear doors' upper crossmember to shape using the ship curve to shape it, and finish up the rear doors.

[Harry P.]

BTW... here is how I built the rear doors.

First step was to make a cardstock template of the panel. Then I used the template to cut the panel out of my birch veneer, and I attached the curved piece of the framework to the surface of the panel:

Next, I cut the front door frame post to length, matching it to the length of the door hinge post I made earlier. I used my razor saw to cut a slot into this piece, to receive the front edge of the panel:

Then glued that pice to the panel, always checking fit and alignment with the door hinge post as I go:

[Harry P.]

Next, the rear post was notched, and another slot cut into it to receive the rear edge of the panel:

That rear piece was then glued into place. I'm using CA for all the wood parts of this model. CA sets up fast, but not instantly... so as soon as I glued that rear post into place I clamped the door assembly between two pieces of flat scrap wood. That way, once the CA sets up hard, both front and rear posts will be perfectly parallel and I will have a door that's perfectly flat, with no twist or warp:

[Harry P.]

Then I added the first piece of horizontal framework, the beltline piece:

And the rest of the horizontal pieces:

There's something very subtle going on here. The horizontal pieces are not spaced equally... the top third of the exposed panel is slightly smaller than the middle third, and the bottom third is slightly bigger than the middle third. I think this makes for a more elegant design than if I had spaced the horizontal dividers equally.

[Harry P.]

Now comes a tricky part. I have to cut slots into the front and rear door posts that run on the inboard side of the door panel to serve as the channel that the window glass will fit into (and theoretically run up and down in, if the windows on my model actually worked... which they will not! )

I started the slot with my razor saw, but the blade is too thin to give me a wide enough slot to fit the .010" clear styrene sheet I'll use for the "glass" (which looks to my eye to be a good scale thickness)... so the slot was widened with my other razor saw, which has a thicker blade... giving me a wider slot:

[Harry P.]

Cutting the slots exposed raw, unstained wood...

so I used a Q-tip "brush" to quickly run some stain into those slots..

More to come...

[cobraman]

Very nice work. I think this will be my favorite of your many fine builds. : )

[Harry P.]

Because the roof will have a slight arc to it front to back, the tops of the doors have to have a matching arc... they can't just be flat across the tops. The arc is so slight that I didn't think I could do it by soaking and then bending the wood. The amount of "spring back" would be enough so that the pieces would probably not hold the arc. So I went with an old woodworking trick to bend wood: laminating several thin pieces together and forming the arc before the glue sets, then clamping the piece to shape. Once the glue sets up, the laminted piece will hold it's shape with no "spring back."

Under all these clamps is one of the pieces I'll use for the door tops. It's two thin strips of wood glued together to get me the final thickness. You can see how slight the arc is (between the two white pointers on the ship curve)...

Once the glue dried, the pieces held their shape, as you can see...

Two identical mirror image doors...

I only hope that once I hinge the doors to the hinge post, I can maintain the good fit...

Because of the wheelwells, the rear door glass can only roll down about half way... but half is better than none!

[Harry P.]

Next, the front doors. But before I can build them, I have to glue the cowl into place. And before I glue the cowl into place, I have to paint it, paint the firewall, and paint/detail/install the dash (and the windshield). The painted cowl is in the dehydrator at the moment, so in the meantime I'll work on the dash.

[Harry P.]

The kit has a chrome windshield trim surround, but the chrome tree was unusable. Many of the pieces had very thin (or no) plating; you could see the plastic underneath. And even the parts that were fully plated weren't shiny, they were all more of a satin finish. So I cut the tree apart (to fit everything into my Tupperware container) and soaked the chrome parts in "Purple Power" for two days. After that time, all it took was a gentle scrubbing with an old toothbrush to remove any last bits of chrome. Notice the little "Flying Lady" hood ornament at the lower left of the photo.. .

[sjordan2]

Odd. I have all labels issued for this kit and haven't seen that problem at all.

[Harry P.]

Odd. I have all labels issued for this kit and haven't seen that problem at all.

When I was looking for the instruction booklet for this kit (which you provided), another forum member PM'd me and told me he had a spare kit. He actually also sent me the instructions (before you sent yours, so I have two!)... I described to him the condition of my chrome parts and asked if he would be willing to sell me the chrome parts out of his spare kit. He told me his chrome parts were pretty much exactly as I described mine, so apparently mine wasn't an isolated case.

[Cato]

Assuming you shoot them with Spaz, will they be safe to handle during assembly? Or will you get rub-off?

Since this a special one-off and unique, I might send them for quality vac plating.

Jus, sayin'...

[Harry P.]

Spaz Stix is pretty tough. Doesn't rub off.

[Harry P.]

I got the cowl/windshield/dash assembly finished. As with almost all cars from this era, the windshield is flat, and surrounded by very thin chrome trim. This leaves almost no gluing surface at all... same issue with gluing the chrome surround to the cowl. Very little surface for glue to adhere the pieces together. The best way I've found to do is is by just touching the tip of the liquid cement brush to one corner, and letting the cement just wick into the joint. Another dab on the opposite corner, etc. That way you get full glue coverage over the entire perimeter of the glass and the trim, yet no danger of smudging the glass or any "squeeze out" like you get with tube glue. Also, as I usually do, I replaced the scratched and crummy looking kit glass with Lexan, using the kit windshield as my template.

The kit's dash gauge decals were missing, so I found a photo online, manipulated in Photoshop to get rid of the perspective and make the gauge faces round, sized it, and printed it out on plain paper. The gauge faces are "glued" in place with Future. I also added various switches and buttons using bits of aluminum and styrene tubing and sewing pins...

Now that the cowl is glued into place, I can start on the front doors.

[sjordan2]

Fabulous dash, as usual. As for the chrome. I'm sure SpazStix will look just fine on most of it but I worry about the radiator. However, you've always made things look right, so I look forward to your results.

Edited May 25, 2015 by sjordan2

[Harry P.]

There's not much surface to see, but the windshield surround and the wipers are Spaz Stix.

[my80malibu]

Harry you should have done one side in clear, to showcase the interior.

[Harry P.]

There's really not much going on inside. All black, with simple plain door panels. About the only interesting thing is the dash.

[om617]

Looks amazing. I was not aware of this kit had a v12,and it looks really good.

[Harry P.]

This may be overkill, but because the upper corners of the doors have so little glue surface, I reinforced all of these joints with short lengths of sewing pins. I used pins instead of brass wire because the pins are much stiffer and stronger than brass wire of the same diameter would be.

Here the doors and center post as just "posed" for the photo... nothing is actually hinged or connected yet. Just a sneak peek of how things will look...

[wayne swayze]

That's looking AMAZING!!

[Twokidsnosleep]

Good thinking on the reinforcement...mechanical +glued = stays put

Phenomenal WIP

[bobthehobbyguy]

Super job.