"THE STEPCHILD" (32 B400)

[mrm]

I decided to make a separate thread for the "Stepchild". It started as the guinea pig for my other build and it took on a life of its own, so I believe it deserves a thread of its own. 

It will be based on mostly stock '32 Ford Five Window bottom half. Meaning chassis, fenders, grille, hoods and most of the motor. 

Just like with all my full fendered builds, I glue the gas tank, fenders rear aprons each side of the tank and crossmember together before paint.

 

Making everything square off is not as easy as it should be. 

 

What is different this time, is that I decided to glue the grille shell and the apron beneath it before paint too. It's an unusual way of doing this, but I decided to give it a try. 

 

The body I am using is a Jimmy Flintstone resin B400 with the top removed. It will have a full scratchbuilt interior. Well, mostly...

Making that body sit flush on the fenders was no small task, involving a lot of sanding and constantly checking fitment. I could have saved myself quite a bit of work if I used the low profile smooth gas tank from the Dan Fink Speedwaon (also included in the 5 window kit), but I wanted the stock looking tank, which I believe will go better with the whole fenders, skirts and bumpers look. 

 

The hood did not fit. For some reason it had to be shortened. Nothing that would be noticeable after the build, but a considerable amount nonetheless. Now it fits.

 

The front will be definitely in the weeds. The apron under the grille is pretty low and the front bumper will sit even lower. 

Thanks for looking and stay tuned....

[Dennis Lacy]

Nice!

I swear I’ve seen these B400 bodies advertised as fitting the Monogram 1:24 ‘32 Roadster kit so that may be why you had the fit issues…?

[Phildaupho]

So far so good. I really like the roof removed look.

[mrm]

50 minutes ago, Dennis Lacy said:

Nice!

I swear I’ve seen these B400 bodies advertised as fitting the Monogram 1:24 ‘32 Roadster kit so that may be why you had the fit issues…?

I don't know. If it was designed for a 1:24 model, I would have to extend the hood, not shorten it, no? I believe that this casting was pulled from a very old Franklin Mint model, which was advertised as 1:24, but who knows. It is what it is and I am determined to get it to work. LOL. So hell or high water, I am building it. 

42 minutes ago, Phildaupho said:

So far so good. I really like the roof removed look.

Thank you Phil. The removed top look came kinda by accident as described in the other thread.

[mrm]

This will give you guys an idea how much the hoods had to be shortened. The stock one is on top.

 

The engine is getting there and front and rear ends are pretty much done. The rear and the engine still need clear coat. This is going to be the accent color for the drivetrain. 

 

The fender assembly received a coat of primer, which showed few areas that needed to be addressed. One such area that I keep forgetting is the inside the grille. I like using MCG photoetched grilles and then that hole on the bottom is visible and drives me nuts. 

 

It got corrected and after some sanding a fresh coat of primer was sprayed. 

 

The color combo will be somewhat of a shocker, which I have been wanting to do for a wile now. 

Stay tuned and thanks for looking. 

[cobraman]

Looking forward to seeing your color choice.

[mrm]

17 minutes ago, cobraman said:

Looking forward to seeing your color choice.

Let's say it's going to be distinctly British!

[mrm]

Working on the interior.

The floor and the seats are going to be from the Dan Fink Speed Wagon. The rear fender covers/handrests from the Speedwagon are cut off and glued to the rear seat. They will still need to be further modified.

 

Next I wanted to create the inner window frames to give the interior a better three dimensional feel. So generic panels were cut from styrene .

 

The front panel was sanded down to shape and then glued to the inner window frame.

 

The rear followed up, but it will be first painted, then glued to a piece of clear sheet and then glued after the body has been painted. 

 

This gives a little bit better idea of the interior plan. 

Stay tuned and thanks for looking....

[Can-Con]

On 7/9/2022 at 8:41 PM, mrm said:

I don't know. If it was designed for a 1:24 model, I would have to extend the hood, not shorten it, no? 

No, if the new body is larger than the original, [longer] that means there's less room between it and the rad shell so the hood would have to be shortened. 

I always thought that Flintstone body was 1/25 too but I never had one to find out.

I think it's gonna be cool though. The B-400 is my favorite '32 body style. 

[mrm]

A couple of map pockets were fashioned from styrene.

 

Now the interior is pretty much done and about ready for receiving some paint. 

 

Also new trim was fashioned from square rod for around the rear.

 

The body also received its first coat of primer, but I've got no pics. That's it for today.

 

[mrm]

After a coat of primer, it was more evident that areas needed to be addressed. I always like rescribe panel lines on all models before paint. The problem with resin is that those lines don't stay true. Especially with a poor casting like this one. So some lines had to be corrected. Now it's ready for Tamiya primer and the base coat. 

 

 

[mrm]

As I have mentioned erlier, the color combo is going to be very British......

[Zippi]

Looking pretty sharp.  I like it.

[bisc63]

Very nice, love the green!

[mrm]

18 hours ago, Zippi said:

Looking pretty sharp.  I like it.

Thank you Bob

15 hours ago, bisc63 said:

Very nice, love the green!

Thanks Rusty

[mrm]

Full steam ahead....

Wheels and tires are from the original Revell '32 Roadster. I really wish Revell had these tires with different wheels in their other Deuces. They are the absolute perfection in size, whether you build a Deuce with or without fenders.

The suspension is all done in the accent color, which is Tamiya Dark Yellow TS-3

 

The exhausts from the 5 window coupe (which is my main donor kit) were cut right behind the rear axle, sanded and drilled. They were primed, followed by flat black, then Tamiya metallic black and then a light coat of Tamiya matt clear. I wanted them to have that ceramic coat feel. 

 

The running boards were sprayed matt clear and then the floor underneath the chassis was painted matt black. The exhaust is not gloss, but still a nice contrast to the floor.

 

The front shocks had their frame horns modified and then were drilled to accept pins for mounting.

 

They were then installed with the help of the pins and some 5min epoxy. The frame horns were then painted body color by brush. 

 

The kit's rear shocks had their sprigs sanded off.

 

While the silver on the shock bodies was drying, new springs were wound from green craft wire.

 

And now we have nice new shocks with original size and mounting points with color matched real springs. Easy-peasy....

 

I love MCG's photoetched Deuce grilles. They make such a difference on a model. But they also create the problem of what can be seen behind them. I decided to try something new and stupid-simple (and cheap), mainly because I'm pressed for time. 

   I asked my wife what kind of black embossed aper stock she has in her scrapbooking supplies. Lo and behold, she had exactly what I was looking for. So, I made a template from another grille shell (every hotrod modeler worth their salt, should have at least a dozen of these grille shells laying around. LOL) and made a copy from my wife's paper. Perfect radiator surface ! 

Next the kit's radiator and my new paper radiator were painted gunmetal. Aluminum would have had even better effect, but not the look I am after, for the overall style of the street rod I'm building. Here the radiator is already masked to receive a light coat of primer before a coat of the accent color and some clear coat. 

 

Meanwhile on my deck, I was taking advantage of the blistering sun with unusual low humidity to speed up the curetime for some more details. 

 

Aaaaaannnndddddd......this is where I am as of an hour ago.

 

Next, few Advills to help me with my back and I am storming the engine. 

I am determined to complete this for the show tomorrow. 

[mrm]

If anyone is going to the show, I’ll see you there. The Stepchild just got finished like 30 min ago, after an all-nighter. 
 Still I have a lot of WIP photos to post. 

[bobthehobbyguy]

Cool project. Glad you got it finished.

[mrm]

Long story short - I did not make it to the show today, because I'm a dumb a$$. LOL

I made it about 30 miles north of my house before I turned around, realizing I had completely brain farted the distance and on top of that I just realized there is an hour time difference. All this crazy rushing and sleep deprivation for nothing....

Anyway......

Some more progress pictures. 

In today's world of modern hotrods, often times everything is hidden in boxed frame rails, double floors hollow firewalls etc., etc.. And that's the way I like it in 1:1. So here's the master cylinder with the lines disappearing into the frame.

 

The beginning of the longest and hardest distributor/spark plug wiring in my life. For some reason this fought me all the way and took me three times the usual time I get the job done in. 

 

The carburetor all plumbed up. I did not go crazy on it not only because I was short on time, but also because you don't see any of it once everything is assembled. 

 

The radiator received it fan and some black wash. The airfilter received same color treatment.

 

Engine finally in the chassis and the carb receiving some more detail.

 

Carb completely disappearing under the filter.

 

I wanted a monochromatic look under the hoods as seen on many rods today, so I painted the hoses to literally tie up the engine colors to the radiator. I really like the look. 

 

Next comes the interior, but I have to load the pics. 

Thanks for looking. 

[Spex84]

Looking fantastic! The color combo is loud but interesting.

[mrm]

11 hours ago, Spex84 said:

Looking fantastic! The color combo is loud but interesting.

Thank you. 
the color combo actually is not loud at all in person. The somewhat darker Portola Red interior and the Racing Green kinda cancel eachother out for a nice typical british combo. The thing is that I sprayed clear pearl on top of the green instead of mixing it in the green as I should have. So now, in pictures the camera picks up all the metal flakes above the green which overpowers the color on photos or the flakes look like dust. I personally think the metallic addition was a mistake. But after all, the whole model was but a guinea pig for the B400 I really wanted to build. 

[mrm]

The main reason this model came to be was experimenting with the Jimmy Flintstone resin body. I wanted to see if the interior of that resin blob could be done in a really nice way. So after the top was removed the interior was sanded to thin the body and then the interior walls were lined with styrene. The inside window frames on the front doors were glued to the body, but the rear window frames were painted separately and then glued to a clear sheet of Evergreen.

 

And then the clear was cut around the frames, leaving some extra underneath the windows.

 

The new interior panels were glued to the line created earlier and then the rear windows with their inner frames were glued to the body.

 

Next the modified trim strip from the Dan Fink Speedwagon's interior, which was painted half green half red clicked right in the recess created bellow the window frames and above the new door panels, creating a really nice three dimensional interior details on the door windows. I had forgotten to trim the Speedwagon's piece at the rear before paint, so I had to sand it down during assembly, which are the white spots.

 

Next the floor and rear seats from the Speedwagon received some extra styrene to fill the spate behind the seat back and to widen the handrests/wheelwells.

 

Fits perfect. Just needs some touch ups here and there.

 

The front received MCG photo etched grille

 

It's surround is also a photoetched piece in the MCG kit, which would be fin for a billet look, but I wanted something more traditional. So I made one from silver jewelry wire, which I bent on a jig made from an extra 32 grille shell.

 

The instrument panel came from the same MCG photoetched set as the grille. My favorite method doing these panels id taking the clear acetate sheet that the gauges are printed on and laying a nice coat of 5min epoxy on it. Immediately, before the epoxy has set, I lay down the photoetched piece and press it down. This pushes the epoxy from underneath the metal around it, but inside the gauge faces it creates a dome lens effect. Once the epoxy has set, but is still kind of rubbery, I cut out with scissors the excess epoxy and acetate around the metal panel. just few more minutes and the epoxy is hard as plastic. Thats when I panted clear orange on the back of the clear gauge faces and backed the whole piece with BMF. Now I have a jewel of an instrument panel, made in about 20 minutes.