Mr.Zombie Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 (edited) Hello. My friends gave me a Monogram 1931 Model A as a present and I happened to have a cowl left from a 1929 Pickup Truck by Revell, owning a real 1929 Tudor Jalopy, I decided that I build my own car in 1:25 using parts out of these two kits. I didn't find a 1929 A kit anywhere, and I hope it doesn't exist or I'll cry because if you can buy one, then my efforts were for nothin'. I decided that I'd like to replicate the car as it looked like when I had it running for the first time, partly because I haven't had to build the downdraft carb manifold from scratch (build it anyway), and partly because that's how the car looked at some certain point, and not like now where it's changing constantly. The trim rings I added later that evening, therefore they are on the model. Only three as I couldn't find four of the same design inbetween my junk. I began the conversion by cutting off the sun visor of the '31 roof as it's lower on the '29, then I fitted the floor and front wall and cowl cut off the '29 truck cab, used some putty to fill in the gaps and had a full "twentyninish" body at the end of the day. I had to glue it all together at this stage alerady as I needed the body to be square and the dimensions correct. Unfortunalley, this ment also that I would have to build everything inside thru the door openings, including the skeleton of the body, highly visible on my car as it's missing the doorcards and sidepanels. The body needed some more alterations as I went along, some of the trim needed to be removed, the beltline of the body needed sanding and filling as it's different on the '29 than the '31, the roof was filled on my car long time ago, and so I sanded down the imitation of the kits vinyl roof. I also had to alter the mudguards, the profile of the '29 is very different from the '30-'31, but I couldn't simply use the trucks fenders as they are different in the back, so I cut off the rear fenders of the '31 and crafted them on the front fenders and running boards of the '29. I also did the safari window. Sanded down the original lines, cut out the window shape from clear acetate, and glued on some heavy black teflon tape stripes around it as the window frame, then sanded the edges, painted the whole thing in body color leaving a very thin black line between the "glass" and the "frame" as weather strip... Later I added a wiper and some supports out of wire, PE screw, pin heads and some plastic card. Here's how the whole body looks like today sitting on the chassis: The body isn't ready just yet. My real car was painted 40 years ago with some red oxide primer using a brush, therefore I airbrushed only a basecoat and the chassis, everything else I painted with a 3.0 and 2.0 brushes as it's aproximatley in scale with the brush used by whoever painted my car. The paint is heavily chipped and faded, the roof has been welded shut and it's very dirty. What you see here is just the first coats of paint, later I will add dirt, dust, filters, rusty streaks and so on. For now I concentrated on painting the rust as faithful on the model as I could, meaning the color and the shape of each rusty spot is kind of like it is on the real car, and I tried to vary the shade of paint right on the model to get this worn effect. But in terms of painting I'm maybe 40% into the model right now, so don't panic just yet. Edited November 13, 2014 by Mr.Zombie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Zombie Posted November 13, 2014 Author Share Posted November 13, 2014 (edited) The seats of my car don't look like the ones provided with the kit whatsoever, So I sculpted mine using Super Sculpey, baked, sanded in some structure, added a piece of round material along the edge, and I'll have to paint the whole mess with this strange muster before I glue them into place... I superdetailed the engine and the chassis too. Henrys "never fail" mechanical brakes are in place, though they can't be seen anyway, the battery was moved to into the engine bay and the whole engine was modeled after my real engine... Here's the battery: And this is how I built the head. It consists of 21 pieces instead of 3 now. I cut down the sparkplugs and drilled holes, The shiny base of the sparkplugs is 0,3 mm aluminuim tubing, the isolators are made from white plastic rod, and even though it looks like there is plenty of space between the rod and the tube, the head is so tiny that it can't be seen with the naked eye. I used the distributor from the kit, but driled a hole for a cable and I glued on some brass plates bent into shape (Model A's don't have ignition cables), each sparkplug got it's tiny screw on top, on the real car securing those "spark plates". The distributor got latches and it will get two more details when everything is in place and the body is installed. The engine became some love too, on the drivers side it has now a tiny voltage regulator on top of the generator and the + cable that will end at the battery... I also built a tiny fuel filter on the firewall out of some tubing, plastic rod and a transparent plastic ball... The other side of the engine got a trottle linkage out of 10 parts, the carburettor has now a drilled intake, three new elements and a fuel line that later will be connected with the fuel filter, and the whole thing has got a first coat of paint. That's what I have for now. Thanks for listening. Have a nice day. Edited November 13, 2014 by Mr.Zombie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace-Garageguy Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 WOW ! Some beautiful work. You really have to pay attention to be able to tell the model from the real car. Very, very nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afx Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Impressive work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobthehobbyguy Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Great job its hard to tell when viewing model and actual car. Nice work making the 31 into a 29. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobraman Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Nice work. Very cool project . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slusher Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Man, that is looking great... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTalmage Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Beautiful car and model! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Myers Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 My first car was a Model A , can't say you missed a thing. Bob's correct in that you can't tell the real car from the model. Now that's modeling at it's highest level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misterNNL Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Very impressive weathering everywhere on this model.Great to see the imagination you used adapting whatever you had at hand to replicate the parts of your real car! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LouO Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 This is awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nitro Neil Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Wicked Pissa! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
espo Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 I have to agree with the others, it's hard to tell the 1:1 from the 1:25th. The detailing is outstanding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarkmucker Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 (edited) Looks great! I've been wanting to do this for some time now since I have so many model a bodies laying around. Amazing detail Edited November 13, 2014 by Tarkmucker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxer Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 This looks awesome already and is one of my modeling loves .. building what's sitting out in the garage! The rust is looking very good .. engine is amazing ... all the small things made from add pieces .. woot! great building .. ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bpletcher55 Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 realy like this .great details and over all the look is spot on , NICE WORK ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeBoyle Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Fantastic detailing. Love both the scale and 1:1 versions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1930fordpickup Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Looks great . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GLMFAA1 Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Wow! AMT made a 1928 sedan, When I was in high school our auto shop club project was the teacher's 29 sedan, I remember going and getting the car, trailering it back in the dead of winter, taking off the rear end, splitting the rear suspension, adding a 49 Merc rear end, dropping the 283 Chevy in it using 57 Chevy front mounts, adding 53 ford truck front spindles and getting the axle heat treated to camber the spindles, adding hydraulic brakes, bracketing the powerglide. When done the sedan rode real nice and fast except going up hill-oops forgot about the gravity fed gas, cured by an electric fuel pump, learned a lot of car mechanics from that old car greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmvw guy Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 NO, you did not waste your time no matter what. What you did do is put on a clinic as to how one should look with all the little details. Nice job! The best reference is to have the vehicle in your garage you are trying to replicate. I can never seem to model a car I now own and always wait until it is gone. Example; I now own a 2000 Beetle and the kit to build it, why don't I do it? I don't know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Myers Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Wow! Is right Greg, great story. And the AMT 1928 Model A molded in pure Unobtainum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wayne swayze Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 What an impressive build! The detail and weathering are superb. Some of your photos are done so well, that it's difficult distinguishing the model from the 1:1. Congratulations, and please keep us updated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Pugh Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 That's amazing! I love what you've done here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffs396 Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 (edited) Nice work Adam! Here's what an AMT '28 looks like built, courtesy of Drew: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=66473 Oh, and Jimmy Flintstone casts a '29 body, not sure if it differs from the original AMT '28 or not? http://www.ebay.com/itm/380702868854?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT Edited November 14, 2014 by jeffs396 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Zombie Posted November 14, 2014 Author Share Posted November 14, 2014 Thank you for your kind comments. Well, the resin body looks wrong. The doorgaps are crooket, the cowl is absolutley wrong. Surley not more difficult to straighten that out than what I did. The AMT Kit is okay I guess. The shape of the cowl is wrong here too, but at least it has some nice part separation making it easy to build as far as I could see it on an Ebay auction photo. I also dig the original wheels, I sure would like those, but the rest ain't as good as in the Revell '29 truck, so I guess even if I knew, and actually had the AMT kit, I'd still kitbash it... So dunno... Over the last couple of days I just painted a little, the fenders recieved the first coats of dirt and grime, the chassis got some more oil, the radiator has now some leaky streaks, the body is almost ready minus the shark teeth that I drew on with chalk only on my real car at that point I'm building it and minus some dust. I need to redo many spots on the fenders though, the dirt is too prominent on some areas, or too blooby and undefined in terms of shape somewhere else, but at least it gives me a pic of what it'll be like when done. I should slowly finish the interior so I can glue the whole thing together and add last details on the cowl, connect the choke and advanced ignition cables, coil and so on... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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