29 A roadster - budget hot rod

[Blake Rogers]

wow man i love it please keep it going lol

[Bernard Kron]

It's baaaaack!!! And the stance is 2 tuff! (It ain't too shabby on the inspiration 1:1 either - thanx for showing us the pic). Lookin' forward to more whenever the muse strikes you...

[Raul_Perez]

Alyn,

I'm glad to see that you're back to working on this one.

Yeah...it looks like you need to take a bit of material off of the pinch-weld, but the added detail is pretty cool...

The stance and ride height looks right on the money!!

Later,

[Alyn]

Thanks, guys. I think the stance is pretty good, but I'm holding off judgement until the windshield frame is chopped. It's canted back about 5 degrees from stock, but still really bugs me with how upright it stands; gives the whole car a character that doesn't work for me.

I spent what little time I had tonight on building a jig for headers. Nothing fancy, just a 1" x 1/8" strip of aluminum with some 3/32" holes drill in one end. The holes are spaced to match a Ford Flathead block, so I can use it to bend and mock up headers. The good thing is it can be clamped up in a vise to provide a sturdy base to bend the headers. I don't use solder, but rather aluminum rod, brass, or styrene. The harder metals take a bit more effort to bend, so the rigid base comes in handy. I can even use heat if needed without fear of melting the motor. Once bent, I know that I can slide the headers out of the jig and they'll fit right into the block.

I have another jig for SBC headers and plan to make a few more as the need arises.

cheers

[Fletch]

Alyn, I haven't been paying a lot of attention your '29 Roadster build, but it sure looks like I should have been taking note of it just in case there was a test at the end. The only words I can find to describe what you've done with this build is 'Classic'. This is what a Hot Rod was meant to be.

Love the brass work, I need to get my resistance soldering unit back together and get back to learning those tricks.

Keep going you've got us drooling.

[Alyn]

... Love the brass work, I need to get my resistance soldering unit back together and get back to learning those tricks.

Keep going you've got us drooling.

Thanks, Dave.

Speaking of drool? I'm ready to start drooling over a resistance soldering setup. Is this something you made yourself, or store-bought? From what I've heard, the store-bought variety can cost a buck or two. If you made your own, I'd love to see some details on that.

I had to work late tonight, but here's a picture of my exhaust header jig. I don't know how well I explained it before, but a picture says a thousand words. The plastic is .080 round rod. Sounds a little big in diameter (2 inch in scale) for a small flathead, but by my eyeballs, looks about right. Artistic license strikes again.

I also cut down the windshield frame last night. The joints still needs to be cleaned up and the wiper arm will probably go, but looks to me like a definite improvement for the cars attitude.

[brett]

Pipes look the right size to me as well and that cut down screen screams attitude. The work you have put into this is amazing and will be refered backto often. Thanks for sharing.

[Alyn]

I've been fiddling around with my latest Flathead. I really like building these motors. They have so much character. This one will look fairly worn, but not a rusted out barn find. The only hop-up parts will be the aluminum dual carb manifold and extra carb.

As seen in a previous picture, the motor was originally primed in Tamiya gray to work out the seams and flash. Once that was taken care of, it was shot with a coat of black primer. After the black had time to dry, I brushed on some Floquil mineral brown and a bit of roof brown somewhat randomly about the motor. Then some liquid mask was dabbed in the plug holes and a few other random areas.

After the mask had time to dry, a salt mask(ala Cranky) was added to produce a random chipping effect. The final engine color will be a worn gold, so the whole engine and tranny were covered in Tamiya TS-21 gold.

The TS-21 is a gloss paint, so to tone it down, the gold was covered in Testors dullcoat for the final worn appearance. The intake manifold is covered in MetalMasters stainless steel and Testors dullcoat. The stainless is slightly darker that MM aluminum, giving it the look of weathered aluminum.

[RodneyBad]

WOW!!

That is some Awesome Brass work..

For a second, I thought ya did the engine out of Brass.

That's gonna be a good looking engine.

Even the Intake looks worn and cast.

Fantastic work.

[Blake Rogers]

Alyn wicked work man !!! looks amazing so far

[jbwelda]

totally awesome and all the more for being a replica! do you have any more photos of the original?

[Alyn]

I appreciate your comments, guys. JBWelda, I only have the one picture. My dad was showing me an old photo album and when we came across this one of his friends car, the picture jumped right off the page and screemed BUILD ME! The scanned .jpg I posted is actually about 50% bigger than the original that I'm working from.

Just like Fletch's Shadowbox coupe, one overly dark picture and missing alot of detail. Both of us are having to make up some of the details, but keep them within the tradition and era of the original car. I suppose we could've done a "build an oldy from a picture" community build...

thanks for following along

[rustybill1960]

I am really diggin' on your work here Dude!

Really like the flathead work, totally awesome Man!

Your meticulous eye for detail is truly awesome, you are sure to find a place right along with some of these other fellow modelers as "par excellent" builders!

Glad to have you here!

Thank You for sharing!

Later

Russ

[Clay]

Great job Alyn. Love what you are doing.

[Alyn]

Glad you like it, my friends. I wish I had one about 25 times larger myself, and these Flatheads are becoming my favorite motors to build.

Last night was gas tank night. The stock 29 has the tank in the cowl with gravity used for the fuel pump. Looking in the trunk, there's a huge space behind the seat, so I thought a tank would look cool there. This one is made from 3/8" styrene tube with the ends capped. Styrene rod is used for the filler tube which will have a cap made from a slice of slightly larger rod. The brackets are glued to the inside of the frame rails to hold the tank. At its current height, the trunk hinges interfere slightly, so the rear of the body will likely get raised 1/16" for clearance.

[Alyn]

The pipes got a little attention tonight. The headers are .080" styrene rod, increasing to 1/8" rod. 1/8" aluminum tube is epoxied to the styrene. The pipes have a 45 degree cut at the end. You can't see it, but I drilled a .020" pin hole about 1/2" from the end of the tube. This will allow for a small rod that will extend out from the body for a rear attachment.

I'm not really happy with the transition from the small diameter rod to the 1/8" rod. It's gong to need some work. Actually, I think the megafone style shorty headers look better, but my first two Flatheads had those, so it's time for a change.

Building a model is just a long series of challenges. You think about each one, solve it and move on to the next.

[Alyn]

Latest progress on my 29 roadster;

Because of the Z section at the rear of the frame, the axle sits up even with the side rails. This kept the stock wishbone from fitting. I scratch built some radius arms out of styrene rod. Brackets on the axle drop the arms down low enough to clear the frame rails. The front of the arms attach to scratch built brackets at the frame end. These are simply pieces of styrene angle with a small tab attached. A couple of holes are drilled in the bracket for bolts. The front suspension is resolved as well. The axle is a stock unit from the AMT 34 Ford. To drop the front end down, a suicide bracket was built for the front cross member. I really liked how the curve of the frame horns flowed out from the brass rails, but they had to be cut off to make room for the axle & leaf spring.

[DanielG]

Solder and brass, I LOVE it!

[Alyn]

Here's the final choice for wheels. These are also from the AMT 34 Ford 5 window coupe. The fronts will use the stock tires from the same kit while the rears will be much bigger and wider tires from the Revell Dodge VTS pickup. To accommodate the added width, a strip of flat styrene was curved and glued between the inner and outer wheel halves. The pieces in the foreground of the picture are the stock wheels for the front. The same pieces, but with the widening strip are shown in the rear.

These wheels come with chrome center caps, but just for fun, I decided to build my own. I cut some disks out of some .005" sheet aluminum. the disks were then hammered over a ball bearing to give them the dished shape. The final hubcap is about the size and shape of a contact lens.

The finished parts for the rear:

and for the front:

The original car has black walls front and rear. The small front tires are designed with white wall inserts that were going to be painted matte black. I started thinking about how cool some worn, yellowed white walls would look. Once I weathered the white walls, I just had to use them. The yellowed rubber with the red wheel is a cool match.

[Alyn]

Thanks, Daniel. Working with brass is the pits because it end up getting covered up with paint. The temptation is to leave it raw metal. This looks cool as all get out if the whole care is done in brass, but when you're just doing a few pieces here and there, the bare brass just wouldn't look right.

[Ragnar]

That Roadster gets better with every post! Great Work! I really like the Scratch building that you are doing on the Model, it is trully unique!

CHEERS!

[Raul_Perez]

Alyn,

I'm glad to see that you're still working on this one!!

The frame and suspension mods look GREAT!!

Keep going!!

Later,

[Alyn]

Thanks, gentlemen. Raul, I don't stop working on it, I'm just slow; not a lot to show for my efforts so far this year. Some of my time has gone towards building an Invisible Man model for my wife. Crunchy bones and gooey bits.

Here's a couple more photo's just before the color goes on. The body is setting higher on the rails than it's final resting place, but I thought she looked so good in red oxide primer that I wanted to show these. You can really picture this car in somebody's garage as a 1:1 work in progress during the strip down phase.

[jedimastergary]

Looks great so far nice work I found that I have that

same body with nothing else might have to try a rod

of some kind from it think it was given to me as parts

after someone used the rest of it.

[Alyn]

Looks great so far nice work I found that I have that

same body with nothing else might have to try a rod

of some kind from it think it was given to me as parts

after someone used the rest of it.

Gary...

Use the body.

Be not afraid. Fear is the path to the Darkside.

Paint day.

I wanted the darkest blue I could come up with.

This car was repainted when the owner first stripped it down to build a hot rod. After several years of hard use, his amateur repair work came back to to haunt him. Occasional wax jobs won't cover up a lack of basic body working skills and maintenance.