1955 Ford Fairlane Victoria WIP

[dub]

Dynamite work, as always, Bill! Thanks for sharing your techniques with us. It helps us all strive to be better! I would say that I am anxiously awaiting more progress, but this will keep me occupied for a while! I hope I can drool over it some more in February.

[OLDERGUY]

You are what your name means. But you sure do fantastic wrk., I should be so talented. Hope I'm alive to see it finished, just kidding.

[Lyle Willits]

Tomorrow, Bill will be using the hair from the back of a common house fly to fashion a filament for inside the 25th scale tailight bulb.

[Rob Hall]

There are usually a bunch of the Hendrix '56 Ford conversions (2dr sedans, wagons) on ebay..I've got their '53 Ford 2dr sedan and it's pretty nice..

[MrObsessive]

Bill,

Where did you get those bolts for the sway bar bracket? They look great!!

Thanks,

Thanks Raul! I get the bolts from here. Great realistic stuff...........a little pricey though!

[MrObsessive]

Tomorrow, Bill will be using the hair from the back of a common house fly to fashion a filament for inside the 25th scale tailight bulb.

Now that's funny!

[Raul_Perez]

Thanks Raul! I get the bolts from here. Great realistic stuff...........a little pricey though!

Thanks, Bill!! I thought that's what you're using, just wanted to confirm. I found their site through another post here, (that you probably provided), a couple of weeks ago.

Have you tried their plated ones yet?

[cruz]

I hate bill geary

[MrObsessive]

Have you tried their plated ones yet?

Yes, I have the plated threaded ones with the nuts (the smallest size they have).

Actually, I got them from the late Augie Hiscano at the '04 Birmingham NNL. I haven't used them yet though............Looks like they would be great for removable wheels with a mini lug nut wrench or something!

[7000in5th]

Great job, Bill! I just remembered that I did one of those about 53 years ago, based on a friction model. Not quite as detailed as yours but it does have that '50's flavor, three tone paint, Von Dutch, Caddy wheel covers and all:

Edited January 16, 2008 by 7000in5th

[MrObsessive]

Sorry for the long delay with the update!

Between working third shift and trying to get other things done, I don't have the ambition most days to sit still long enough to compose what's been done besides building the model itself.

I like to do more than just show pics..............I try to give a step by step look of what's been done so that those that are interested can maybe refer to this down the line for another build.

Here's the latest.........

The rear end of the car was just too plain for my tastes, so I needed to kinda dress things up a bit. Leaf springed cars incorporate spring clips which attach to the axle.................Most cars that have leaf springs have a similar setup so I didn't try to get to the exact nut and bolt shape, just a reasonable fascimile of what it looks like.

The springs were painted with Alclad Steel, while the axle is a basic acrylic gloss black toned down a scooch. The spring plates are aluminum made from...............Yup! Cat food can aluminum!

A drain plug was added too.................just some brass bolts I have which was dipped in a solution called "Blacken It".

One thing I forgot to take a pic of but it's definitely there, is the crossover brake line which runs out of a T that sits on top of the axle. I thought I took a pic of it but no dice........I forgot to take it!

I next need to run a fuel line before the axle gets set into place-------I drilled a slight channel through a couple of the frame railings for the lines (brake and fuel) and according to pics of the 1:1 I have, they run side by side to the front of the car.

I had a hard time seeing where the fuel tank line exits in the rear, so I had to kinda guess where the logical location would be...............

I added a couple of hold down clamps per the 1:1...........

Next, it was time to make an emergency brake cable-------I got some nice undercar shots from a '55 on eBay, which showed a nice pic of this...........

More to come.................

[MrObsessive]

The "horseshoe" that the cable runs out of I made by bending H channel brass. I needed to solder some bead wire to the horseshoe, so I got out my vice and set the horseshoe in it...................

Here's the horseshoe with the beadwire now soldered on.........

BTW, here's the kind of solder I use.........just regular 'ol Radio Shack silver bearing lead solder.

Now here's the emergency brake setup with all the "v" clip made by pinching the wires together and running a bead of solder.......

I then scratchbuilt a swivel arm out of brass..........dipped it in Blacken It, and then attached it to the frame...........

While the epoxy on the swivel arm was drying, I next needed to make the rear part of the emergency brake cable which'll go into the brake "drums". I took a larger size of bead wire and wrapped coax cable shielding wire around it to simulate the shielding that is seen on a lot of emergency brake cables..............

And here's a pic of the whole works together.........

I need to touch up the swivel arm a little more with some flat black paint...........particularly where the little "bolts" are holding the arm of the horseshoe.

Now here's the pic of the "almost" completed chassis! I say almost because there are some tiny details I'd like to add such as the floor bolts, and some tiny detail painting. BTW, the mufflers were semi scratchbuilt out of the mufflers that were originally cut away...............just some sheet plastic was added to make them more "whole".

The front exhausts are bent solder------which was easier to manipulate with all the bends, while the rear exhausts are bent aluminum rod. Note also the muffler clamps which are Detail Master items...........

Well that's all she wrote for now! I still need to do a crossover brake line for the front, and some other minor details which might not be seen later.

Now it's on to the interior which I swiped out of the diecast-------this'll require some repainting and probably reshaping as they are two different scales.

Stay tuned!

[Tom Kren]

Bill you are sick! Great job look to be another winner!!!

[Raul_Perez]

Amazing detail and workmanship, Bill!! Thanks for sharing and keep up the posts!!

[James Flowers]

Man that is great detail on that emergency brake system. Great way to recycle those cat food cans on the other parts. How do you hold those small parts and drill the holes ? How do you cut out them for that matter ? Looking forward to more of this build.

[MrObsessive]

Man that is great detail on that emergency brake system. Great way to recycle those cat food cans on the other parts. How do you hold those small parts and drill the holes ? How do you cut out them for that matter ? Looking forward to more of this build.

In a word.....Magic!

No seriously, I use very sharp scissors to cut the aluminum. The aluminum is soft enough without dulling them, but its pliability is limited..............bend it too many times and it's toast.

As far as holding them............mainly with my fingertips (along with fingernails I have left), and a steady hand.

[Harry P.]

You might want to try an aluminum baking pan or pie pan...you know, those disposable pans you cook a turkey in, or the type of container coffee cakes come in.

The aluminum is thin enough to cut, file and bend very easily, yet stiff and thick enough to hold it's shape. It's the perfect material for making things like the rear spring shackle plates on your "55. It might be easier to work with than the aluminum from a cat food can, which I assume is thicker and harder to cut.

[MrObsessive]

Yeah, I have some of the pie pan aluminum........but it dented too easily for me when I tried to hold it to drill something when working on projects in the past.

The cat food can aluminum is not that hard to cut and drill.............the hobby shop stuff definitely is! I had no trouble drilling it through, as I have my drill bits still intact.

I was going to make working springs and shackles--------but I'm trying to push things along a bit since the chassis is pretty much static. Not to mention, '55's have kind of a weird shackle shape that might not have held up well even with the aluminum I use.

As the pic below shows............blackened brass (about .020-.030") would be better suited for something like that, especially if I were to make it functional.

Edited February 4, 2008 by MrObsessive

[novadose71]

WOW!!! Bill, your chassis is awesome, the details are great. I can't wait to see the rest of this progress.

[Gray Smith]

Bill your level of workmanship never ceases to amaze me...the chassis looks great, I can't wait to see this one come together.

Gray

[OLDERGUY]

You need to be crowned the king of scratch building & detailing. Iwas wondering if you have xray vision? Absolutly{ can't work spell check} fantastic work.

[kasteer]

WOW! Beautiful work and beautiful detail!

[Jeff Johnston]

Once again I am blown away ! Great stuff as always Bill.

[MrObsessive]

The slow but sure progress of the Victoria solders on...............since I got the chassis pretty much 98% complete, I needed to finish up the engine as far as I could get it before permanently putting it in the chassis.

I originally posted pics of the engine a couple years ago before I ran out of steam and ambition with this model before-----But now I have impetuous to "git 'er done" since getting this far with the chassis.

Here are some pics of what's pretty much complete...........some paint touch up work is now gonna need done as this engine has been painted and handled for pretty much two years now.

The carb detail I had to fudge a bit because finding pics of just the naked carb were about as scarce as hens teeth! I have a '55 Ford shop manual which shows it under rebuild, so this was the best I could do to get some detail on the carburetor.

I cheated a bit with the air cleaner................I swiped it from the derelict diecast which will be giving up a number of it's parts to get this one done. I still need to add heater and radiator hoses, however those won't go in permanent until the body is on the chassis.

Just for curiosity, I wanted to see how the body will sit stance wise on its wheels and tires now that the front and rear suspensions are now in place..............

So far so good.............I've got to dig out my 1:1 pics to see if the wheels are that tucked in the body like that. Memory tells me they are as that was quite common on '50's-early '60's cars.

Some very minor bodywork is in order before any color coats get put on----------I need to make the windshield header a little bit thicker per the 1:1 and also from a suggestion from Ron Hamilton. Likewise I may tweak the left side vent window a bit, as to my eyes it doesn't seem quite symmetrical to the other side. The door sill trim will need to be replaced as sections have broken off from two years of handling.

BTW, painting the body will be one of the last things I do as I want to make sure everything will fit together so there will be as little handling of the body as possible.

A little more to come........!

[MrObsessive]

I'm now putting my attention on the interior.......some definite reshaping of some parts are needed because of the difference in scale. I had the hardest time trying to get the interior parts out of the diecast............the Chinese used some super industrial strength glue to fasten the parts! I was afraid they would get damaged trying to get them off the diecasts chassis floor.

The following parts are painted green and snowshoe white................however since the car I'm doing will be Regency Purple and Snowshoe White, the seats should be black and white according to a very knowledgeable Ford guy I know.

Here's what I've pried out of the Danbury..............

The dash in the pics above will be a bit troublesome as it's too wide for the interior.........I'll have to carefully file down the sides (symmetrically) so it fits..........likewise lengthen the dash top to match the contours of the windshield doglegs, as well as the base of the windshield. I'm going to try and do all this and hopefull preserve that Y-Block decal as well as that PE emblem.

The front door panels will be scratchbuilt as the ones in the diecast are waaaaayy too thick and would interfere with doors opening and closing properly. I have some very good 1:1 photos of the door panels so this should be no problem.

If I have time, I'll try to get everything painted up this weekend, but there's flocking to put on the floorpan and some other tweaking to do yet so stay tuned!

Thanks for lookin'!