'51 Plymouth 8/12/17 photo link fix

[Foxer]

I'm a happy, but poor, puppy this morning ... I won a bid for a 1951 Plymouth promo last night that is my Holy Grail! This is the first car I owned and have been looking for something to use to build it. I have a resin kit of a '50 but that would have taken major work to make it into a '51, as you can see in this thread I started 5 years ago. I just recently saw these '51 promos that I never knew existed and HAD to have one.

This will be a pretty simple task to make my car .. yes some scratch building for various pieces and trim ... but it will me so much better in the end.

It seems Photobucket is down right now so I'll post some photos of the 1:1 and of the starting promo later .. I'm just too excited NOT to start this thread!

 

Edited August 12, 2017 by Foxer

[DumpyDan]

Looks like a cool project, best of luck with it

[scm]

I'm sorry but I don't see any pictures at all. What have I done wrong?

[Speedfreak]

There are no pictures yet

 

[66belair]

Where's the pics? I would love to see this project as I don't have a clue what a 51 Plymouth looks like.

[Foxer]

Sorry about the pics delay ... Photobucker was down and I got delayed.

First are photos of my 1:1 .. I was in college at the time so only did some cheap mods from JC Whitney ... fake mag hubcaps and seat covers in the interior I stripped and painted. The gloss black dash was masked to paint over the ugly painted fake wood. If only I could have gotten it to start in the winter!

This is the '50 Plymouth resin kit I thought I would have had to convert .. glad that's not necessary now!

These are some auction photos of the '51 Promo I will be using for this build. I haven't received it yet so I'm getting anxious as to how well it will work.

This is the L-Head from a '41 Plymouth I started building to just display along side the ;51. I'm not planning to open the hood ... yet.

Edited August 10, 2017 by Foxer

[ChrisBcritter]

Wow - I'm looking forward to more (a green '50 Deluxe was my first car).

At least it looks like the '51 promo was molded in styrene - no warpage there. Hopefully you can resell the '50 kit on eBay to offset some of the cost.

[Speedfreak]

Mike, your old car was cool! The promo body looks 'much' more accurate than the resin body, great project! 

[Foxer]

Wow - I'm looking forward to more (a green '50 Deluxe was my first car).

At least it looks like the '51 promo was molded in styrene - no warpage there. Hopefully you can resell the '50 kit on eBay to offset some of the cost.

Oh, nice! I should have at least you rooting for me . ehhe. I see you're north of Chicago .. did your '50 start in the winter?

[Foxer]

Mike, your old car was cool! The promo body looks 'much' more accurate than the resin body, great project! 

I'm curious about that ... will see when it comes at the end of the week.

I've been researching and found some Torque Thrust wheels from Morgan Automotive Detail that look like they should work.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Cool project. That promo is remarkably warp-free for its age. Other than the little chunk out of the door, it looks perfect; is it acetate? In the pictures, it looks more like a phenolic.

If it IS phenolic, be aware that a lot of it contained asbestos fibers as filler prior to the mid-1980s, so be sure to wear a respirator if you're doing any grinding or sanding on it.

Looking forward to watching this one. That old resin body is a blobular mess; it looks like you'll have a much better starting point now. 

[Foxer]

Cool project. That promo is remarkably warp-free for its age. Other than the little chunk out of the door, it looks perfect; is it acetate? In the pictures, it looks more like a phenolic.

If it IS phenolic, be aware that a lot of it contained asbestos fibers as filler prior to the mid-1980s, so be sure to wear a respirator if you're doing any grinding or sanding on it.

I'm a little familiar with phenol since I did a lot of structural work here where GE had a phenolic resin plant servicing their large transformer facility. We didn't wear any protection in those days when entering the plant. Now it's all gone and the small lake they dumped everything into has just been cleaned up. But, I hear ya.

And we also engineered asbestos discovery and removal ... maybe I'm due for a lung checkup anyway.

Looks like there's a possibility of phenol or acetate. I'll have to figure out how to tell. I'd have to assume phenol would be much more stiff and brittle.

Edited January 31, 2016 by Foxer

[John Goschke]

Neat project! That maroon promo looks like one of the Product Miniature Corp. (PMC) models. I believe they were a larger scale, perhaps 1/20th. They also made a Plymouth station wagon, which is a bit more common than the sedan.

[charlie8575]

Cool, Mike. 

If you decide you want to sell your '50, please let me know. It's close enough to my great-grandfather's '49 that I'd be happy building that.

Charlie Larkin

[Foxer]

Cool, Mike. 

If you decide you want to sell your '50, please let me know. It's close enough to my great-grandfather's '49 that I'd be happy building that.

Charlie Larkin

Charlie, I couldn't think of a better place for this to go! It will make a great '49. Give me a few days to see what the '51 Promo looks like. I may want to squish some molds of trim and logos off the resin body. I got it from R&R Resin    but don't see it there currently.  It is a good casting and the chrome looks good to. There are more photos on another post I did about it here.

I have a ton of reference material, photos and links, that might be helpful for a '49 ... even a '46 to '54 Plymouth Service Manual.

 

I tried to PM you but your box must be full  ...

[charlie8575]

 

Charlie, I couldn't think of a better place for this to go! It will make a great '49. Give me a few days to see what the '51 Promo looks like. I may want to squish some molds of trim and logos off the resin body. I got it from R&R Resin    but don't see it there currently.  It is a good casting and the chrome looks good to. There are more photos on another post I did about it here.

I have a ton of reference material, photos and links, that might be helpful for a '49 ... even a '46 to '54 Plymouth Service Manual.

 

I tried to PM you but your box must be full  ...

Unfortunately, it is full.

Send me a message via Facebook and we'll work out the details.

Charlie Larkin

[Foxer]

On 1/31/2016 at 10:21 AM, Ace-Garageguy said:

Cool project. That promo is remarkably warp-free for its age. Other than the little chunk out of the door, it looks perfect; is it acetate? In the pictures, it looks more like a phenolic.

If it IS phenolic, be aware that a lot of it contained asbestos fibers as filler prior to the mid-1980s, so be sure to wear a respirator if you're doing any grinding or sanding on it.

Looking forward to watching this one. That old resin body is a blobular mess; it looks like you'll have a much better starting point now. 

I got the promo and was a bit surprised at the 1/20 scale it is. I'm "scale bias" so will have to see how this sits in mt head as it will over dominate the other cars on the shelf.

I don't think it is a phenol based plastic, but that's just a guess ... I don't have anything to base my opinion on other than how it cut ... some surgery was required to get it apart. It was riveted and glued together with the rocker panels as part of the plain chassis plate and heavily glued. I used a cut off wheel to slice it off close to the rocker panels. The plastic did melt and bunch up like stryrene does but it didn't react very much to styrene glue. I just tried flooding some shavings from the saw cuttings and it did react, though didn't melt. I used Tenax and could roll the shavings into a ball. There is virtually no distortion to the body like acetate tends to do. So. I think it is a styrene molding.

The bumpers and separate guards are thin metal pressings. The grill and headlights are metal castings. I'm hoping both will polish up nice and shiny.  The interior consists only of two plastic seats and a plastic cast steering wheel.

The first cut I did to free the chassis was too far inboard and had to be reattached with glued strips to keep the alignment as I cut it closer to the body. The seats glued to the chassis were preventing chassis removal. Now I can add some strips to mount the chassis to and the rocker panels can be cleaned up right on the body.

Some photos of the disassembled promo with all the parts ...

It looks like my biggest problem will be finding some 1/20 scale Torque Thrust wheels ... and with spinners. The scripts and logos will have to be made with decals ... bah on needing chrome for decals.

Still, this IS a 1951 and will be so much easier to build than that resin '50!   ...now, if I can just get get used to this huge scale

Edited April 1, 2018 by Foxer

[Ace-Garageguy]

The cuts sure look like styrene. I've had some old Johan styrene bodies that Tenax would barely touch too, for what it's worth. Only way I could hold them together permanently was with epoxy.

Far as the odd scale issue goes...it WAS your first car, right? That's enough reason to let it get away with being a little bigger than everything else on the shelf...maybe?

Adds complication to getting scale guts in it, but that body looks awfully good.

 

Edited February 2, 2016 by Ace-Garageguy

[Foxer]

The cuts sure look like styrene. I've had some old Johan styrene bodies that Tenax would barely touch too, for what it's worth. Only way I could hold them together permanently was with epoxy.

Far as the odd scale issue goes...it WAS your first car, right? That's enough reason to let it get away with being a little bigger than everything else on the shelf...maybe?

Adds complication to getting scale guts in it, but that body looks awfully good.

Yeah, I agree 100% ... maybe a visit to the Medical M........ Store will fix my scale issues.   The body IS too good to ignore.

[Foxer]

I have to add a short update .. I found some Torque Thrust wheels at 20" in 1/25 that will be just right 16" in 1/20 !

 

This is a go!!

[charlie8575]

I have to add a short update .. I found some Torque Thrust wheels at 20" in 1/25 that will be just right 16" in 1/20 !

 

This is a go!!

Not bad at all.

I was going to say I think the recently-reissued MPC 1970 AMX has Torque-Thrusts as an option, but it looks like the problem is fixed.

I'll look forward to seeing what comes of this.

Charlie Larkin

[Foxer]

I've been continuing to tear the promo apart (laughs at promo collectors) and doing some repairs to my crude methods. The chassis plate had an extra cut where a strip had to be put back in place. Now it curing .. epoxy, fiberglass cloth and a styrene plate on top .. mostly as a place to apply the clamps to keep everything straight. There's some wax paper on top to insure the clamps are really free of epoxy. The chip on the driver's door was also filled with a .40" thick piece.

Here's a shot with the1/24 '50 Resin body for a size comparison.

 

Edited April 1, 2018 by Foxer

[Foxer]

I've been working constantly with getting the wheels and tires apart, research and small repairs.

The tires are very hard rubber I ended up with a press (an idea suggested in this thread) that slowly forced the wheel thru the tire as I heated the tire with a heat gun. In the end it all worked well. I received some 20" Torque Thrust resin wheel fronts that fit these 1/20 tires beautifully and will simulate the JC Whitney fake mag hubcaps I had on the 1:1 well. The backs will be the back half of the promo wheels painted black.

The body had the chip broken off the drivers door and the rear part of the rocker panel where the body and chassis butted to repair. I made a mold of the rocker panel pattern with RTV putty and cast the rocker panel with Bondex. I cut out small sections of the rocker panels square and glued in pieces of the Bondex rocker.

 

Edited August 11, 2017 by Foxer

[Ace-Garageguy]

Looking good. Seems like the press worked out well. 

[Speedfreak]

Looks really good, nice work!