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.

[mvadrag]

I neglected to show how all the parts fit on the chassis.  The front axle comes from the Revell C-1132 Roadster chassis speed equipment, I like the hairpin radius rods (not attached yet).  I made the front perch just like Dennis Lacy showed how to do it in his Ala Kart post.  I was going for a look and not necessarily realism, so I drilled holes for pins to attach the rear axle.

Here you can see the rear kick up I made with rectangular styrene stock.

Nice detail on the front axle.  I think these parts are now in the new Revell Fiat kit.

[tim boyd]

Jose....this is very creative work, and thanks for showing some of the build steps.   I think your project has great potential and I would like to add my vote to see you take it forward and finish it.... or just keep it the way it is if that makes you the happiest.  Either way, way to go...TIM 

[Trainwreck]

That's some mighty fine scratch building.

[mvadrag]

Thanks for the encouraging words, Tim.  I am interested in getting the patina on the body, so I will continue progress on this build.

[mvadrag]

I needed to duplicate these interior parts for this build, so I followed the same process to get parts fabricated.

That step on the back of the dash indexes to a tab on the body under the cowl, so it was critical I got the fit correct.  I traced out the interior shape in a top view and a side view.  Cleaned up the drawing, scanned it and imported it into Inkscape to get more parts to cut out.

 

Below you see the styrene sheet with parts I used to laminate the interior panels.  I had to finagle the shapes to get a good fit to the to the body and chassis. 

I also fabricated a fire wall from sheet stock.  That was tricky.

The fire wall, dash and forward part of the interior locate the body so it sits right.

Edited Friday at 02:57 AM by mvadrag

[Dennis Lacy]

Nice work so far! The firewall looks like it fits like a glove. It’s really neat to see the old Aurora body get used. Should be a really tough looking car!

PS: Glad you could glean off one of my old projects for the front spring perch. Sadly, that project got the axe. 

[mvadrag]

Thanks Dennis.  I have lots of projects that also got the axe or the box!  But they all help to gain experience for the next one(s).

I have a stash of Aurora kit parts that a friend collected for me (nothing totally complete).  He had lots of contacts and kept me fed with parts cars.

I even tried to restore an over glued stock body for a future nice build.  These came highly polished out of the box.  The street rod body above is untouched.