The Sawmill special , was once a 49 Ford ...

[sports850]

This is a very long term build , I started it a couple of years ago now as an experiment and to see what i could do , plus I was a little bored with seeing the same thing done enginewise so started looking for a different engine to shoehorn in it . It seems to spend more time sitting on the top shelf of the cupboard than the workbench but it has made it back onto the workbench at the moment .

The general idea behind the build was a car built from the dead vehicles left at the back of a sawmill (down here , country sawmills have a "rotten row" of discarded cars and trucks down the back ) and other scrounged parts more than expensive hot rod bits , more bush engineering than anything else . The body was sectioned by a scale 4" after looking at the box art while some paper was partially blocking it and I got the impression of a low slung torpedo shaped car . When I first sectioned the body the roofline looked way too high so took the roof off (backyard guy looking for speed on a tight budget wouldn't be able to spend that much on a roof chop ) ,

The engine is a resin straight 8 flathead Pontiac truck engine with a crank driven blower (inspired by post war MG's) with twin sidedraft webber carbs .

I fiddled with wheel and brake combo's until I got the look of oversized brake drums taken from some bigger car or truck .

I tried to make some aero wheel flairs , they just didn't look right so have since ditched them ...

The latest addition to the styling is aero nacelles (how do you spell those things ...) to cover roll bars but also duct air into the boot mounted radiator (still got to put vents in the boot lid) . They still have to be thinned a bit (and cleaned up a lot , they aren't stuck down yet , still fiddling) , have a roll bar fitted in front and mesh covering the opening . I have made the drivers side (right hand drive here) nacelle longer than the passenger side as the passenger side will have a toneau cover over it and the nacelle won't have to be as high to catch as much air without a head in front of it

Before anyone says it , yes I know I am weird and come up with strange ideas .....

[Jantrix]

Before anyone says it , yes I know I am weird and come up with strange ideas .....

Then it's quite obvious that you will fit in just fine around here. Find a way to cover up those nasty rear wheel openings and you are on to something here. I also think you learned a lesson with this. Never cut anything badly because "it doesn't matter it'll be covered up." Because plans change don't they?

To fabricate some skirts, use half round stock directly onto the fender in whatever shape pleases you. Then cut flat sheet stock to fit the shape you made with the half round stock. Cement it onto the half round stock and sand the edges smooth. This gives you a distance off the fender (based on the size of the half round stock) and it's easier to smooth it all in. Does that make any sense?

[mr moto]

This is really interesting. I like your wierd ideas since I get some of my own sometimes! I'll bet that you're the first person, in scale or in 1:1, who ever put a Pontiac flathead six in a '49 Ford.

[sports850]

I've learnt a LOT of lessons with this one actually , it was my first attempt and chopping a plastic body but what I found by , to be honest , stuffing up has helped with other projects since Still , it's the easiest way to learn , not to mention getting good practice at fixing the problems my overeagerness caused

Thank's for the tip , I'll give that a try .

Manuel , that wouldn't surprise me as this engine is huge (it's an 8 , not a 6 so longer again) , I emailed one of the resin suppliers down here asking for something oddball in the way of an engine , preferably a straight 6 or 8 , flathead if possible and this is what he found me (came from the US somewhere) . I'm just glad it fitted , albeit with the firewall cut and radiator moved to the boot/trunk .

[sports850]

Managed a little bit of time to play with this one , got some step's styrene strip from a localish hobby shop and put 4 sections into the base of the boot lid , now have to get some 1/4 round strip tp make a new top edge of the boot lid (why do I never remember to get all the bits I need when I'm at the hobby shop....) .