Bill Geary I could use your help on this 1

[B.Beachum]

How about cutting the doors on this 1/12 Vette?..I will not build it right away but if you care to show and or tell me I could do it to show a different scale to your veiwers,I realize how far the door runs into the roof and the contours of the frt of the rear fender,..but I thought it might be fun for variaty,...the 57 is coming along

Barry Beachum

[MrObsessive]

Hmmmm........you can try the method I use which is to use the back edge of an Exacto Blade, or you can try this method for opening doors.

It will also be essential to get good photos of any '63-'67 'Vette with the doors open as you'll need shots of the door jambs, (both body and door) and how the door opens. Google images and eBay are excellent places for photos!

I can tell you that the doors swing away from the body as Chevy wouldn't switch to a pivot type hinge until the debut of the new style '68's.

I would only cut away and build up the door jambs one side at a time! Since the body is so big, you don't want to cut out both doors.................you want to build up one side------door jambs and all to minimize breakage of the rockers-------then do the other side.

Since your cutting away the doors.............you'll need to replace whatever was cut away with plastic to get reasonable shut lines when the doors are closed. Go to my Turbine Car thread to see how I did this.

That's all I can say about it right now..........when you get to the point of building hinge supports and hinges.........I'll stay tuned to try to give you any pointers that may come in handy. :wink:

[B.Beachum]

Week or less,...I've been looking at your build step by step and studying since you started, I'm hoping the same will work here there is no real weight issue,It's just larger and easier to see and making more eye appealing ,I'm trying to use just 1 body,.. test myself,..sucker for pressure,..

Barry Beachum

I guess I could be aka The Plastic Punisher

[MrObsessive]

Barry, I was worried more about the brittleness of the plastic since it's a larger scale. In the past when I've built the huge scale (1/12, and especially 1/8 ), I've found the plastic to be a bit more brittle than their standard 1/25 scale.

This was particular to Revell/Monogram though.

Also, I don't know how old the kit is, or if you have the original issue which is at least 20 years old............but plastic does get a bit brittle with age.

It's one of the reasons I haven't had the courage to cut up those old builtups I want to restore!

Keep us posted! :mrgreen:

P.S. "The Plastic Punisher".............I like that!

[B.Beachum]

I will tape over the area around the door ,I wanted to try 1 of those scribing tool if it was thin enough,..I'm collecting pics of door openings,going over what you did and this car I will try you Future floor wax trick because its RED and because after the doors I will have to put it in the BULLPIN and it will have plenty of time to cure after being primered

Thanks once again for your help

BarryBeachum

[B.Beachum]

It takes about 1/2 hr per door,..the tape on the door is so I can be lazy and drag the knife across the tape and it falls in the DA GROOVE,..I think the index card will work but we will make it a LOOSE card,..when I was scribing the roof line of the door I held the knfe at a compound 45 so the roof is at a 45 when it's cut through, I think it might help in the dressing of the opening and the tops of the doors will have a 45 are better,I taped the tub and frame in the body for xtra support,...I think it will be fun building this opening,...I could be wrong,...I'm a rookie at this,...I got side tracked by a 1/12 Power Tour Camaro build ,..I had to stop everything so I could try to get a LOOK while it was in my head.

Thanks,

Barry Beachum

[Jeff Johnston]

Hey nice project lol !!!!

I did the same and let me shed the mistakes I made..I hope this helps.

First, as Bill said, the doors swing out. This is pretty much evident when you look at the reference pics. I also use Ebay cars for reference material.

Here is the mistake(s) I made. The hinge is tricky. This is because of the curvature of the body. I made the mistake of mounting the hinge directly to the body. This created a "butterfly affect" where the door does not swing out level. You will need to build the lower hinge out from the body so that the door swings level (or in depending on how you see it ). .

I also had to futz with the jambs because I made them a little too thick. You also will need to add an arm rest, as the kit is missing one. After I mounted the body, the door panel bumped against the seat..so I had to carefully get them off and grind the jambs down a bit...

Here is what I ended up with.

You can see the door does not hang level.

Though it does shut level LOL

Here is a better look at the door...The drivers side is the even worse (hence my pics fomr the passenger side "DOH*)...looks like it sags. If you look through you can see the drivers door sags worse.

I intend to do another one someday...with correct hinges.

Another with door closed.

[B.Beachum]

I see it's camera,.. got 1 # on 2 pics in 2 different folders

[MrObsessive]

Your door's lookin' good so far Barry! The only thing I would do at this point is maybe tighten up the shut line on the leading edge of the door just a weeeeee little bit.

This can be a little tricky as you'll have to allow for paint, but since the doors swing outwards, you wouldn't have as much of a problem with scraping edges.

As Jeff had mentioned, the hinge support will have to be as straight as possible when you build it.

In other words, when looking at the body from a head on view, you want the supports to be perfectly horizontal..........not leaning either way, and when looking at the support from the side, you want the same deal.

Also as Jeff said, due to the geometry of the door you'll have to play around with the shape of the hinges. I built a '65 similar to Jeff's years ago with opening doors and I remember running into this problem.

I think the upper hinge has a slightly larger radius than the lower one.

Keep us posted !

[B.Beachum]

it is going take 2 different size hinges,...I have some Bamboo Squewers from the dollar store and taped 2 inside the body from fender to fender too help take stress off the rocker and help keep the opening straight ,...and I will tighten up the opening,..I was waitng for a Tamiya Scribing tool to see how it works but I just used the backside of a blade and I'm just going to have to deal with the opening cause the blade width and not being to hold it perfect in every pass,..and it's funny how fitting the door can get out of hand in a hurry if you don't remember to work with just 2 of the 4 sides of the opening,I'm with you on working the front of the door edge(hinged end ) and hopefully the openend will follow, Jeff Thanks for the Heads Up on what not to do ,but that is a nice car anyway...if you get tired of looking at those doors I could find room for it ,...I'll be back after I done some more Homework,

Thanks,

Barry Beachum