Aurora 1934 Ford "Rat" Rod

[mvadrag]

A few days ago I posted this image in "Who doesn't love a mock-up?" I noted it was an updated version with a scratched chassis, firewall and interior.

I thought it might be interesting to show how I got this far (and maybe never finish).  Here is body I started with from the old Aurora double kit, stock and street rod.  This is the stock body, the street rod is metallic green with an open roof.  Don't know what that paint strayed on it is, but It will not come off, I tried.  I will cover it with a fake patina, thus the rat rod title.

I trimmed off the ragged wheelwells using the old back of an X-acto knife method.

That got me the start to the first mock-up. The back wheels, tires and rearend from a Monogram funny car, along with the engine from a similar kit.  Front wheels are from the Monogram Boot Hill Express (my favorite).  All salvaged from "parts kits".

[mvadrag]

Next step was to create a chassis.  I wanted one that would follow the contours of the body and allow for the funny car engine and big rear tires.  First I traced the shape of the body on a piece of paper.  I then drew in a rough outline of the chassis I wanted.

Here is the cleaned up sketch.

Next I scanned the sketch into my computer and cleaned it up more with Microsoft Paint.

 

I imported that sketch into a vector art program called Inkscape to create a .dxt file.  The reason for the .dxf is so I could use it in my Silhouette Cameo craft machine to cutout the shape of the frame on .020 styrene sheet.  That sound too complicated?? It really is not once you get the hang of it.

Here you see the .020 sheet with the pieces removed.  You have to laminate four of the pieces to get a good useable thickness: .080 (2" frame thickness in 1:1).  You can see that I cutoff the frame kick up when I could not get it to work the way i wanted.  The final(?) result below after I added engine mounts and cross members.  The rear axle hard attaches to the frame.