Beam Axle for Revell Deuce – easy & cheap

[Phildaupho]

Many people were disappointed when the Rat Roaster did not come with a beam front axle rather than the tube axle found on all other Revell Deuces. For the first Revell Deuce I built with a beam axle I used the very nice one in the AMT ’41 Woodie. For the second one I used just the central beam section from the Revell ’40 Ford Coupe Street Rod. That got me thinking that now I have another two incomplete kits so there must be a better solution. With my second beam axle Deuce I was able to maintain the basically pretty good Revell Deuce front-end suspension system except for the mandatory lowering modifications, which makes life easier so, rather than robbing another kit I decided to try substituting #271 - .060” – 1.5mm I-Beam Evergreen Strip Styrene.

Mythology – see photos below

1 – De-chrome and do whatever lowering and wheel mounting modification are necessary. De-chroming allows you to do a good clean up of seam lines etc. but you could forgo the de-chroming and just use Bare-Metal Foil.

2 – Cut out the tubular center section. The remaining tubular upturned axle ends can be filed to give a flatter surface, which will not be very obvious once the shock absorbers are in place.

3 – Give some curvature to a length of the Evergreen I-Beam. The warm of your hands is enough to do this.

4 – Cut the I-Beam to length. Slightly longer is actually OK as it gives some tension to the curvature. In the final photo the I-Beam section has not been glued into place but by using liquid plastic glue any gaps will be eliminated.

5 – If you desire you can drill the I-Beam before installation

6 – Chrome with Alclad or paint and you have an easy and cheap beam axle without robbing another kit.

Hosted on Fotki

Hosted on Fotki

Hosted on Fotki

Hosted on Fotki

[Ace-Garageguy]

While this doesn't duplicate the look of any 1:1 axle I've ever seen (tubular axles are common with welded-on, forged solid ends, but not I-beam units), I think it's a great way to get the I-beam look without pirating from a kit, as you say. Nice trick.

[Roncla]

Thats a nice and easy way to capture the look. Thanks for the heads up.

Your top photo shows Revell isn't holding back on the coating they put on under their chrome. I've seen other manufactures do the same.

It often surprises me just how much detail can be lost under that coating.