1953 Ford F-100 Standard

[crazyjim]

Sweet & SHINY

[Mike 1017]

A real beauty. My friend

[charlie8575]

That poor truck probably wouldn't have stayed that clean for that long. Very nice. 

There's a little farm not far from here that's using a Ford of that vintage for on-the-property work still, maybe short distances with the farm plate. Poor old truck looks like it's spent sixty winters in New England, too. 

Re: woodgrain. I'm not sure how accessible Testors paints are down there, but they have a new line called "CreateFX" (as in "create effects,") and among them are several wood tones. One of my friends tried them out and he said they work pretty nicely. Might help your woodgraining woes. I'm thinking of grabbing a bottle myself and giving it a try. At most, all you might have to do is to dry-brush a little bit of the darker brown to emulate the veining in the birch.

Charlie Larkin

 

[Danno]

Beautiful model, Tulio.  Beautiful!   

 

Just one tiny nit:  I think you'll find that Ford pickup beds were painted black, not natural wood, in that era.  It's a very common over-restoration error to finish the bed as natural wood (makes for a very pretty presentation when done as well as yours), but it is not factory stock.  

[rmvw guy]

Nice job Tulio, every nut and bolt looks right. I have  always loved this model and you have done it justice  on a factory stock replica.

[1972coronet]

Tulio knocks another home run right out of the park ! That's thee finest factory stock 1953 F-100 I've seen in all of my 45 years !

I have a couple of questions for you , Tulio :

1.) How did the rest of the interior come along ? I know that that kit is void of any detail ... ( that dashboard and gauge clustre looks great !! )

2.) The drip trough embellishment : is that "correct" for a base model ? Looks great but "out of place" due to the trim level (e.g. , standard grille)

3.) What medium did you employ to replicate the windscreen weather stripping ?

Now , if only some-one would make some conversion parts for this kit ; 1954 and 1955 conversions would be awesome !

[mrindy77]

Reminds me of a truck I worked on for the Make-A-Wish foundation. The young high school kid was diagnosed with terminal cancer. His wish was to see his 1953 F100 restored so that he could drive it. Our local F100 club went all in and had his truck completed in a month, working late night hours and weekends. It was a special project for sure. He took his drivers test in the truck and got his license.  A short few months later he lost his battle with cancer and he took his final ride in his truck with his coffin in the back. Your truck looks exactly like his. Nice job.

[Lovefordgalaxie]

Tulio knocks another home run right out of the park ! That's thee finest factory stock 1953 F-100 I've seen in all of my 45 years !

I have a couple of questions for you , Tulio :

1.) How did the rest of the interior come along ? I know that that kit is void of any detail ... ( that dashboard and gauge clustre looks great !! )

2.) The drip trough embellishment : is that "correct" for a base model ? Looks great but "out of place" due to the trim level (e.g. , standard grille)

3.) What medium did you employ to replicate the windscreen weather stripping ?

Now , if only some-one would make some conversion parts for this kit ; 1954 and 1955 conversions would be awesome !

Thanks John!! That was great to read!!

Now, answering your questions:

1) The only detail I added was a custom decal I made for the instrument cluster. Found a really sharp picture of one on Google, just scaled it perfectly on Photoshop, and printed it on decal paper. Gave it a coat of gloss clear, and glued it to the dash without using water on the decal paper. Glued the entire thing there, so the original kit detail wouldn't show trough the decal and ruin the "glass" effect of the gloss clear. The seat, floor rubber mat, and door panels (molded inside the actual cab) were left box stock and just detail painted.

2) That's a great question. All trucks I could find pictures off had the stainless steel trim on the drip rails. Even on a picture taken back in 1960 in front of the Brazilian home building to the FoMoCo the trucks shown had them. So, I decided just to add it. Worse case scenario it's a cool looking original accessory. 

Also on Brazilian assembled trucks, the wood on the bed was called Itaúba, a regional wood, and Ford here left the wood unpainted, just termite proofed with a oily stuff my grandfather said smelled like ATF. Chavrolet did the very same thing, and I think the wood for both came from the same supplier. 

The metal stripes were galvanized and left unpainted. On U.S. assembled trucks, Ford painted the metal stripes with the same black used on the frames, and the wood was also treated against termites, but with a paint like black stuff. 

3) The rubber seal on the windshield and the vent windows was painted with Model Master flat black acrylic, and a brush. Talk about a major pain on the rear end...

 

[Lovefordgalaxie]

A few more pictures, with cargo!!

1953 Ford F-100 Standard by Túlio Lazzaroni, on Flickr

1953 Ford F-100 Standard. by Túlio Lazzaroni, on Flickr

1953 Ford F-100 Standard. by Túlio Lazzaroni, on Flickr

The engine with the missing detail painted:

1953 Ford F-100 Standard. by Túlio Lazzaroni, on Flickr

 

[1972coronet]

Excellent ! Thanks for the additional photos , too .

That speedometre looks perfect ! Good call on scalling-down an actual photo . I remember when I built the 1986 reissue of this excellent kit ; I was 16 years old , and had a rock-steady hand . I painted the speedo with a gloss black background , then tediously hand-painted the numbers (!!) . Last one I built --around 11 years ago-- I added BMF to the speedo , then painted Tamiya Semi-Gloss Black , then rubbed the numbers off with a toothpick .

I love those Flatties ! While I'm not up on each years' unique changes , I do recognise that yours are painted to reflect their appliactions ( truck , passenger car , etc. ) .

Keep 'em coming , Tulio !

[Skip]

Good golly Tulio are you like a professional (model) replica builder or what?  Every model I see you post just gets better, this one is just amazing!  You are one of those guys who could really and truthfully put "Professionally Built" on an eBay auction and not have anyone here or anywhere else even snicker about it!   So how long do you take to build a model like this, I don't think I've ever read how much time you invest into your truely beautiful models, no replicas.  You could certainly teach most of us a thing or two about nice paint which is always just right for a stock paint job on your models. 

I just finished four of them for Christmas gifts, '53 F100 was my late uncles first vehicle.  His was a Standard model too, it originally had a straight six, which he replaced with a flathead of the same year adding Evans heads, Edelbrock dual carb intake, cam and three into one tube headers into dual smitty type glass pack mufflers with chrome reverse wheels, the rest of the truck was pretty well stock. Except for two distinguishing features a "foot" gas pedal and a 2" ball bearing that he somehow managed to drill and tap for three on the tree shifter, both items made in high school metal shop.   Calnaga Castings helped me out with the foot gas pedals, he threw them in for free with my order when he found out what my project was for.  

My Mom, aunt, uncle and my brother (who now owns the truck) were awestruck when they saw the four '53 F100's lined up on my mantel each sitting on a gift tag.  I finished them late Christmas Eve morning!  

Incidentally I had one that had to have been cursed or something, the dark blue acrylic paint laid down perfectly smooth on the other three the fourth from the primer to the clear coat gave me fits!!  Ended up stripping primer and color coat on the one before getting it to lay down

I will agree with you on the windshield gasket, what a pain in the bunz!  It was worth it though.  I wood grained the bed natural ash color and bare metal foiled the strips for a chrome look, (departure from stock but looks so much better).  Grill teeth are as bad as hens teeth, I ended up masking the headlight rings and V8 emblem to keep the chrome then used 1000 grit sandpaper to get most of the remaining chrome off, another pain times four but well worth the effort. (Actually made me wish I had one of those Paasche air erasers while doing that job.)

In researching this subject I found out that there were more six cylinders sold than the V8's!  That was sort of surprising.

Of course like an idiot, I was so tired that I didn't even think to snap any pictures, will borrow my Mom's truck back to shoot some pictures so I can at least post one.

[mustang1989]

Man what a clean build Tulio!! All the details look great and the paint job is just gorgeous! What technique did you use with the wood in the bed? It looks real!

[GTJUNIOR]

Absolutely amazing truck. Muinto bonito! 

[Lovefordgalaxie]

Good golly Tulio are you like a professional (model) replica builder or what?  Every model I see you post just gets better, this one is just amazing!  You are one of those guys who could really and truthfully put "Professionally Built" on an eBay auction and not have anyone here or anywhere else even snicker about it!   So how long do you take to build a model like this, I don't think I've ever read how much time you invest into your truely beautiful models, no replicas.  You could certainly teach most of us a thing or two about nice paint which is always just right for a stock paint job on your models. 

I just finished four of them for Christmas gifts, '53 F100 was my late uncles first vehicle.  His was a Standard model too, it originally had a straight six, which he replaced with a flathead of the same year adding Evans heads, Edelbrock dual carb intake, cam and three into one tube headers into dual smitty type glass pack mufflers with chrome reverse wheels, the rest of the truck was pretty well stock. Except for two distinguishing features a "foot" gas pedal and a 2" ball bearing that he somehow managed to drill and tap for three on the tree shifter, both items made in high school metal shop.   Calnaga Castings helped me out with the foot gas pedals, he threw them in for free with my order when he found out what my project was for.  

My Mom, aunt, uncle and my brother (who now owns the truck) were awestruck when they saw the four '53 F100's lined up on my mantel each sitting on a gift tag.  I finished them late Christmas Eve morning!  

Incidentally I had one that had to have been cursed or something, the dark blue acrylic paint laid down perfectly smooth on the other three the fourth from the primer to the clear coat gave me fits!!  Ended up stripping primer and color coat on the one before getting it to lay down

I will agree with you on the windshield gasket, what a pain in the bunz!  It was worth it though.  I wood grained the bed natural ash color and bare metal foiled the strips for a chrome look, (departure from stock but looks so much better).  Grill teeth are as bad as hens teeth, I ended up masking the headlight rings and V8 emblem to keep the chrome then used 1000 grit sandpaper to get most of the remaining chrome off, another pain times four but well worth the effort. (Actually made me wish I had one of those Paasche air erasers while doing that job.)

In researching this subject I found out that there were more six cylinders sold than the V8's!  That was sort of surprising.

Of course like an idiot, I was so tired that I didn't even think to snap any pictures, will borrow my Mom's truck back to shoot some pictures so I can at least post one.

I really don't know what to say. I guess Thank You is not quite enough, but then Thank You again!!

I'm really curious to see your trucks. Even tough they are not all bone stock, still love to see a cool build of this kit.

Man what a clean build Tulio!! All the details look great and the paint job is just gorgeous! What technique did you use with the wood in the bed? It looks real!

Thank you!! The wood on the bed is contact paper. I just cut it and glued it on the bed. 

Absolutely amazing truck. Muinto bonito! 

Muito obrigado!!

 

[DumpyDan]

That truck is beautiful, nice work

[Grant]

Love all of your builds! Watched your YouTube vids last night ... Great stuff. Thanks for sharing!

[62rebel]

Absolutely beautiful rendition, Tulio, absolute ART. 

[every second counts]

awesome looking truck, hope mine turns out as nice. What did you use for the front window gasget?  I must have missed that just gawking at the pics.

 

[junkyardjeff]

Very nice.

[Lovefordgalaxie]

awesome looking truck, hope mine turns out as nice. What did you use for the front window gasget?  I must have missed that just gawking at the pics.

 

The windshield rubber was done with ModelMaster flat black acrylic paint and a brush. 

Thanks again guys!!

[DRIPTROIT 71]

WOW!!! That is one excellent build!! It looks flawless!! Great Work!!

[Greg Pugh]

Wow! I really like that!!