1936 ford coupe by monogram

[stitchdup]

A few years ago I found one of the la salle grilles mastered by Rik Hoving of the custom car chronicle web site. It took another year to find the monogram 36 coupe in a rebuildable state and luckily most of it had been glued after paint so it mostly came apart easily apart from both axles and one running board. I dont think i can save the axles so i will replace them with parts from the revell 40 standard coupe kit and an front axle from the parts box in australia. So far I've mostly been adding the missing body lines to the rear of the body and glued the top on ready for a chop or maybe swapping the roof above the raingutters with the top from the 40. I'm hoping to keep it fairly period which is not usually my style but i really like the old 30s and 40s customs by westergard and ayilla so if you see something that wouldn't be period please point it out to me. The engine is from the 40 kit and will be mostly stock unless i can find my missing triple carb set. The wheels will be from the 40 with some flipper caps i found that fit the rims. I dont know what they are from but they are smaller than the ones in the revell 50 ford truck. the tyres are from an amt parts pak and are a little smaller than i wanted to use but they fit the rims so they'll have to do. I'm leaning towards a darker shade of paint and a solid colour but if the body work turns out nice enough i may use hok pearl. I'm going to use the 40 dash as its nicer than the 36 one but the rest of the interior will be from the 36 with possibly a 48 ford sterring wheel. if you have built a 36 please feel free to share it here, especially if its the monogram kit as i have only seen the amt kit built.

a couple mock ups to start

redoing the rear body lines. for this I am copying Mr Gunthmiller's technique he shared for interiors using files and scribers

Now i am sure many of you that have built this kit will have been irritated by the body not sitting properly on the fenders which i have found is caused by this section inside the trunk. its just a little too long but the trunk fit is poor anyway so it will be glued shut

I'm not sure why some of the text has underlined itself

[Paul Payne]

Replicas and Miniatures used to carry a chopped top for the Monogram 36 which I believe was also mastered by Rik Hoving. Similar to Amt's chopped top. Everything is coming along and I look forward to more progress!

[stitchdup]

Just now, Paul Payne said:

Replicas and Miniatures used to carry a chopped top for the Monogram 36 which I believe was also mastered by Rik Hoving. Similar to Amt's chopped top. Everything is coming along and I look forward to more progress!

I didn't know there was a chopped top for it, thats good to know if my chop goes bad i still have an option

[Zippi]

Boy your monogram 36 coupe is a great looking piece of early iron.  Great project. 

[espo]

I think it was AMT that also offered this same body style at one time. Their version could be built a couple of different ways. The area of the body around the base of the roof and top of the cowl had interchangeable body parts. One of the options was a chopped top three window or a stock height roof as well as a roadster option. I don't know if any of these parts would scale out the same as your Monogram kit, but maybe these parts can be found in someone's spare parts box. 

[stitchdup]

Tonight i chopped the top. I decided just 2mm would be enough to acheive the custom look i want. In the process of the chop I took the time to level out more of the door top to give it a longer look than the stock curve has. For the rear window i used my widest saw to cut along the the bottom of the window as I dont want to chop it. As you can see there were a few angled cuts down from the bottom cut for the doors. its messy but the peices are level so it just a few small pieces of sprue to fill them. most of the material removed came from the top edge of the rear piece as I like the sleeker looking chop rather than a hot rod style chop on this build. I have to run the saw along the drivers side of this edge again and reglue as its just a smidge different to the other side and its easier to remove than add back.

 

[misterNNL]

Looking righteous!

[Paul Payne]

Excellent chop job! Those 1930's tall turret tops just beg to be lowered! I always like to lower the rear just a tad more than the front- makes it more sleek and blends a bit better with the rear deck.

[stitchdup]

I've ordered a 3d printed flathead and quick change rear for this. I tried the 40 flat head and it looked kinda lost sitting down in the engine bay so this one will add a little detail to that area. The quick change is just to enable me to save the 40 axles but I'll still use them for mocking up until the new parts get here. I managed to save the axle mounts from the 36 so hopefully they will fit the new axle. I very nearly did a complete 180 on the power too cos there something in my head about doing a traditional looking rod with a tesla motor but I'll store that for the future.

[stitchdup]

I got a bit ore done tonight. The chops ready for filler but i cant do that at work. I've also cut down the inner fenders from the 40 kit to near half the height they were. This hides 2 large plastic rods that were pretty ovious and it gives me a battery. I also filled a slot in the firewall that doesn't seem to serve a purpose. On top of this I've ordered one of icemans flatheads as this just looked lost down in the bay so this will give it some more height, and since it was there i got a quickchange axle too to use on this and also means i dont need to rob another kit for resin body i have so i'm claiming win, lol

 

[espo]

Great looking chopped top. The way you cut the rear portion of the roof it all follows smoothly. 

[stitchdup]

I had a stroke of luck today. I was looking through my similar era kits for bumpers and in my 40 convertible kit i found this resin interior. I have no idea who made it but its very nicely cast and had the handles included. The door shuts are a little short but i can fix that by removing them and scribing them further back. I also found these cord bumpers which i think i'm going to use. I'll be using the front  on the rear mounted closer to the body with a filler piece, and will use the rears at the front. Its much too wide but my plan is to remove the centre and mount them either side of the la salle gille with a filler piece behind. I want the entire grille exposed as a feature at the front so the bumpers may be mounted a hair firther back than the centre

 

[stitchdup]

13 hours ago, espo said:

Great looking chopped top. The way you cut the rear portion of the roof it all follows smoothly. 

to be completely honest thats more luck than measuring. The cuts were done where they are because I took the wrong razor saw to work so only had 7mm  of depth i could cut before the spine of the saw got in the way, and i find my tamiya scriber/saw is too thick for the top cuts plus pretty difficult to keep in a straight line

[Paul Payne]

I am eagerly following this project! Flatheads do sit low, one solution is to add Ardun heads!

[espo]

9 hours ago, stitchdup said:

to be completely honest thats more luck than measuring. The cuts were done where they are because I took the wrong razor saw to work so only had 7mm  of depth i could cut before the spine of the saw got in the way, and i find my tamiya scriber/saw is too thick for the top cuts plus pretty difficult to keep in a straight line

Funny how things like this can happen and in the end, it was the best solution. 

[stitchdup]

I didn't realise the rear bumper pic was so bad so here's one you can actuall see, lol
I've also glued the front grille in place. I had to remove the 2 small sections of plastic that held the fenders together to do this so figured it best to do it at home so they didn't get jostled too much taking it back from the boat. To get the grille to fit also meant slightly pulling the fenders apart and I added a small section of plastic behind for additional strength. I might leave the bumper as one piece, it seems to be shaped to avoid the grille and once its at stock height it will give a more finished look to the front end

[stitchdup]

Well I honestly thought i was done with the bodywork. I had parts in the booth but the rear of the monogram body wasn't right. They have the section from the rumble seat back almost flat and if you look at a real 36 its got some curve to it. I guess thats why they had spare wheel to hide it but I dont want the spare as it'll spoil the flow of the chop and grille.
So I took my blade and scribed around the body on the inner body line, from the rumble seat mount back (nearly messed up and moved it but realised before the cuts were done) so as not to affect the mounts and ruin the fit. Hopefully this will save some hair pulling later when it comes to assembly. I used some evergreen rod to move the body section out and as you can see the plastic is thicker in this area so reshaping shouldn't be too bad. This is after 4 hours but theres still shaping to do but the side to side curve is really there now and not just implied by the curved cut on the rumble seat top

[stitchdup]

Engine and axle have arrived so I guess its back to work