1941 Plymouth Coupe: WIP (Photos Restored)

[David G.]

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/71919-41-plymouth-coupe/#comment-895356

Nice one Mtija, you should dust it off.

BTW, what did you use to replace the fender welts?

David G.

Edited October 11, 2016 by David G.
typo

[David G.]

Time to throw a few more photos at you. 

OK, these are not the wheels I plan to use, these are the custom hot rod wheels. I plan to use the stock rims with bias ply tires which are a bit taller and will fill the wheel wells a little more. Also, the body is not sitting all the way down on the chassis. The slots in the front apron should be down over bumper brackets. This would drop the body two to three millimeters- at least in the front.

 

Given those points, I think I'm mostly happy with the stance. The kit has metal wire axles which I plan on doing away with, mounting the wheels directly with styrene pins. This will afford me an opportunity to make more adjustments.

 

I just like this shot. The red on the inner fender wells is too bright, but more on that later. Oh, I still need to make a six-volt battery!

 

Thanks for looking and feel free to comment.

David G.

Edited July 18, 2021 by David G.
Photos Restored

[PowerPlant]

BTW, what did you use to replace the fender welts?

David G.

I used a scrap piece of red sprue, heated over a candle and then stretched out to a required thickness.

Edited October 11, 2016 by PowerPlant

[Earl Marischal]

I reckon it looks pretty good with those rims...

steve

[David G.]

I used a scrap piece of red sprue, heated over a candle and then stretched out to a required thickness.

I used wire on mine. I'll see if I can get some photos posted tomorrow.

David G.

[426-Hemi]

For fender Welts, I wonder if fishing line wouldn't work? (You could get any amount of it you wanted, and different thicknesses by lb test of the line itself!) HMMMMM

[David G.]

For fender Welts, I wonder if fishing line wouldn't work? (You could get any amount of it you wanted, and different thicknesses by lb test of the line itself!) HMMMMM

Another good idea John. I'll put that one in my queue in case I ever need to do something like this again.

David G.

[426-Hemi]

David,

I know I got at least 2 of these cars to build, SO I know thast I am NOT all that good using the candle and rod trick, so. that got me thinking of an alternative that do the same thing and be good reaction to glue, and Fishing Line is Polyethylene, so.... I can't see why it wouldn't work.... AND like I said, you can get different thicknesses of it by the Fishing Lines pound Test, the thicker the line the heavier pound test it is....

I'll have to look and see what all I have in my tackle box LOL (Yeah, I'm an angler too) and I've got SEVERAL different spools in there, I know I do!

Edited October 28, 2016 by 426-Hemi
Changed my mistake!

[David G.]

I have a few more photos ready, so here they are...

OK, time to "shoot the elephant". Replacing the fender welts is the one part of this project that I'm least looking forward to and want most to finish. The masking tape is a guide to help me keep my lines straight.

 

Using the razor saw I cut a couple of shallow kerfs where the fender welts will go.

 

After finding some .018 vinyl coated stainless steel bead wire I drilled anchor holes using a #77 drill bit.

 

Here the wire is glued into the grooves using CA.

 

Not bad, it looks like I have some blending to do.

 

Thanks for looking and, as always, please feel free to comment.

David G.

Edited July 18, 2021 by David G.
Photos Restored

[PowerPlant]

It looks great to my eye!

Nice idea to make grooves for the wire.

[Harry P.]

You could have used thin styrene rod. It comes in sizes that small.

[David G.]

You could have used thin styrene rod. It comes in sizes that small.

Thanks Harry, I'll keep that in mind.

David G.

[David G.]

It looks great to my eye!

Nice idea to make grooves for the wire.

Thanks Matija, I think it turned out pretty good, but it can always be better.

David G.

[Harry P.]

Fishing Line is Styrene so....

Fishing line is nylon, polyethylene, or several other materials, but never styrene.

[modelfink]

Wish I saw this before building mine. Those fender welts are looking great!

[David G.]

Wish I saw this before building mine. Those fender welts are looking great!

Thank you Travis.

David G.

[426-Hemi]

Fishing line is nylon, polyethylene, or several other materials, but never styrene.

yeah Polyethylene is what I meant to say why I said Styrene I don't know..... -It works much the same way but is stronger tensile strength!

[David G.]

OK, I found some time for a quick update.

When I opened this kit and saw the manner in which AMT decided to mold the front panel of this kit as a separate piece, I was a little disheartened. I knew I could blend the panel seams without much difficulty, but correcting the disjointed the fender welts was going to be a challenge.

To my eyes, the way the fender welts followed the waterfall sweep of the fenders as they merged into the body line framing the butterfly grille was a significant design feature of the car. Not getting this right would greatly detract from the finished kit. 

It's not perfect, but it's better than what the kit gave me.

As always, thanks for looking and feel free to comment.

David G.

Edited July 18, 2021 by David G.
Photos Restored

[David G.]

I have a few more photos processed- here they are!

I've pre-foiled the badges on the nose and trunk lid. After each coat of paint, I carefully remove the paint from the foil with a toothpick dipped in lacquer thinner.

 

I've darkened the panel lines with thinned black acrylic paint.

 

The dark gray primer almost has me tempted to change the color to black from the dark red I planned.

 

I think we're ready for some color!

 

While I was waiting for primer and putty to dry, I decided to prep and paint some of the secondary body items. The color I bought was Duplicolor Milano Red. If one goes by the appearance of the cap, it's a nice dark red. Using white primer beneath it seems to punch up the color a bit too much for my liking.

 

So it's on to the spoon test. The piece on the top of the cap shows the noticeable variance between the intended shade and the way it actually came out. The three spoons show the effect different primers under the paint. The leftmost spoon has the white primer that I initially used. The middle spoon uses a red oxide primer and the spoon on the right uses a dark gray primer. I think the dark gray gives the closest match to the intended shade.

 

It looks like the dark gray primer was the way to go. That's about as close a match as I could hope for.

 

Hopefully, I'll get the time to post some more soon. As always, thanks for taking the time to look and feel free to comment.

David G.

Edited July 18, 2021 by David G.
Photos Restored

[Dogfish_7]

Excellent stuff! Sure glad I saw all your hard work, before I went too far on mine. Awesome work!

[David G.]

Excellent stuff! Sure glad I saw all your hard work, before I went too far on mine. Awesome work!

Thanks Bruce.

David G.

[David G.]

Finally, some color!

The color looks a little warm in this photo, but the panel blending shows nicely.

 

This shot shows the color a little closer to its actual appearance.

 

I really like this color on this car.

 

That's all for now folks.

Thanks for looking and please feel free to comment.

David G.

Edited July 18, 2021 by David G.
Photos Restored

[Dogfish_7]

Did you foil the whole nose center grille area, because there are allot of small strips around the badge?

[David G.]

Did you foil the whole nose center grille area, because there are allot of small strips around the badge?

Just the badge. Too much foil can have an effect the way the paint looks.

David G.

[David G.]

While I was waiting for the paint to cure so I can polish it out, I got some work done on the wheels.

 

Perhaps you remember these... things... these "custom" wheels.

Blech.

Well no more of those.

I've stripped the kit "chrome" coating and sprayed the wheels with gloss black enamel in preparation for spraying with Alclad "chrome" paint.

 

After thinking things through, I decided it would be easier to paint the red to match the body color before the Alclad.

 

Masking for the chrome areas with Silly Putty.

 

Once I had the putty where I wanted it, I placed the masked wheels in the fridge for a few hours to firm up the putty. After a re-check to make sure nothing moved, Alclad paint was then applied.

 

I had to make a few minor touch-ups around the rim areas. Just the little bit of handling it took to remove them from the sticks and test fit them with the wheels was enough to begin rubbing the paint off in some areas.

 

I think this car looks much better with the factory wheels than the custom wheels that I put on earlier as a place keeper.

 

I don't think I'll need to adjust the ride height, but I'll check again before final assembly.

 

As always, thanks for taking the time to look and please feel free to comment.

David G.

 

Edited July 18, 2021 by David G.
Photos Restored