Deuce roadster / tub kit bash

customline · Monday at 01:21 AM

It seems the deuce grille, the very thing that many of us love the most about the old girl, is not well represented in some kits and this is one of them. There are two weaknesses with this one. Fortunately, the shape of the shell is good, from what I can determine, which is something I can't say for some others. The grille, however, lacks the cross braces and that's a big one. I can't fix that. The other is a common one and that is the way the grille fits the shell. It goes into the shell too deep. On other builds, I just shim up the grille till it looks right to me. This kit has an additional issue that needs to be addressed before I can be happy. The chin is weak. Literally.

It can be easily broken. First, I added shims to bring the grille out using scraps of .005" sheet. To make me happy, I needed to do it twice for a total of .010" at each point of contact. Then I braced the chin with more junk, bending it carefully into position, and holding with CA and a kick. With all the test fitting I've had to do (another story 😕), I was lucky to get this done before I broke it off.

Moving along, and I know some folks won't like this but I want the hood but I don't like the louvers. Sorry. They had to go.

Why did they have to use this (arrow) for the sprue gate? Gotta fix that too.

While I was playing with the grille shell this popped up👇😕. Easy fix, though. A bit of CA on a thin toothpick and done. You didn't need to know this but I wanted to show off a very handy tool that maybe isn't ubiquitous among fellow builders. And it's still wet 😋