1933 Duesenberg Boattail

[Harry P.]

Whitewalls on both sides?

Apparently so...

[Harry P.]

A little more progress...

[Twokidsnosleep]

Is the engine block giving us a hint at body colour??

[Harry P.]

Is the engine block giving us a hint at body colour??

No, that's the traditional Duesenberg engine color they used no matter what color the body was.

[sjordan2]

Whitewalls on both sides were very common in those days, probably to atone for scuffs on the other side.

[bbowser]

Whitewalls on both sides were very common in those days, probably to atone for scuffs on the other side.

I learned something today!

[Harry P.]

As far as I understand, the car this model is based on was a one-of-a-kind custom bodied boattail. Since the real car was painted black and white, you would think they would have molded the body in either black or white plastic, but for some reason they molded it in dark blue... even though there are several black parts trees in the kit (chassis and engine parts, interior bucket, door panels and seat, etc.). Why they decided to mold the body in dark blue is a mystery to me. Anyway, there are mold seam lines in places where there shouldn't be any lines, so some sanding is needed...

[Art Anderson]

Prior to WW-II, whitewall tires were white sidewall on both sides of the tire, for apparently aesthetic reasons: On most cars of the day, you could see both sides of the front tires. In addition, in those days, rotating tires often meant removing the tires from the rims, and rotating just the rubber, not the entire wheel part of the time, which meant turning the tires around to rotate in an opposite direction.

If you look at period pics of street rods, customs and show cars of the 50's and 60's, double sided whitewalls were very popular in those applications as well.

Art

[imatt88]

Sweet!!!!

[Harry P.]

in those days, rotating tires often meant removing the tires from the rims, and rotating just the rubber, not the entire wheel part of the time, which meant turning the tires around to rotate in an opposite direction.

Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just take the wheels from the right side of the car and put them on the left side, and vice versa? Why bother taking the tires off the rims?

[Harry P.]

Got the fenders painted...

[Codi]

Harry, quick paint question for you. The paint on the fenders looks great. I see too that you reside in Chicago where the weather isn't the greatest. Certainly worse than Pennsylvania right now. How do you manage to get such nice paint down during the winter? I don't have a dedicated paint area beyond the basement which is no place to paint right now. Just curious and thanks in advance.

Tim

[sjordan2]

This is going to be interesting. I see you painted the inside of the fenders red, which is a period-correct approach if not for this particular car, so I assume the accent body color will be somewhere in that range. Nice attention to detail.

[Harry P.]

Harry, quick paint question for you. The paint on the fenders looks great. I see too that you reside in Chicago where the weather isn't the greatest. Certainly worse than Pennsylvania right now. How do you manage to get such nice paint down during the winter? I don't have a dedicated paint area beyond the basement which is no place to paint right now. Just curious and thanks in advance.

Tim

You're probably going to be disappointed by my "secret"... I just take the parts out to the garage and spray them. Unheated garage, so I go out, spray, and come right back in ASAP. Simple as that... no secret technique or special tricks. I keep things very simple when building models.

[Harry P.]

This is going to be interesting. I see you painted the inside of the fenders red, which is a period-correct approach if not for this particular car, so I assume the accent body color will be somewhere in that range. Nice attention to detail.

The instructions say to paint the insides of the fenders red. I think it looks cool and sort of flamboyant, and this car is nothing if not flamboyant! But the accent color on the body won't be red (although the interior will be)...

[landman]

I've seen some of those big classics where the inside of the fenders match the chassis color.

[bobthehobbyguy]

Nice work. Gold fenders look great and the red on the inside fenders was a great choice. Keep up the good work.

[rmvw guy]

I like the speed of this build. Nice work Harry and a good way to keep us interested.

[rmvw guy]

Just a note on those double sided white walls on customs of the '50s. I think a lot of the hot rods used motorcycle tires, therefore making the doublesided whites easy to obtain. Also the use of porta-walls was not uncommon. I would be curious what year they quit making double sided whites for cars.

[Art Anderson]

No, that's the traditional Duesenberg engine color they used no matter what color the body was.

Duesenberg Inc.'s engine color from their beginning in 1921 through to the end of Model J production in 1937 was "Apple Green" which is only a shade or so lighter than Testors #1124 Green. The exhaust manifold (on both supercharged and non-supercharged) was porcelain-coated in a matching Apple Green as well. All the various cover plates, along with the oil pan, were left as cast aluminum, and were polished.

A note on Duesenberg chassis color: The frame rails, major crossmembers, springs, front axle & spindles, torque tube, and the rear axle housings were painted in maroon (with the chassis number--prefix J from 1929 to the end) hand painted in yellow on the outside of the left frame rail just below the firewall. There were numerous aluminum alloy castings on the chassis which were left unpainted by the factory. A buyer could order his chassis to be painted in a color to match at least the fenders and running board splash aprons for an extra charge, but many historians question just how often that was done.

Art

[Art Anderson]

I've seen some of those big classics where the inside of the fenders match the chassis color.

See my post about chassis color. Most often, if the chassis was painted a color other than the standard maroon, it was painted to match the color choice of the customer.

[Art Anderson]

Just a note on those double sided white walls on customs of the '50s. I think a lot of the hot rods used motorcycle tires, therefore making the doublesided whites easy to obtain. Also the use of porta-walls was not uncommon. I would be curious what year they quit making double sided whites for cars.

From everything I've heard said, and what little written information I've seen over the years, double-sided factory produced whitewalls went away with Pearl Harbor, and when whitewall tires returned to the marketplace in 1947 (For whatever reason, virtually no whitewall tires were available in 1946) they were white on just one side.

Art

[Harry P.]

A little more progress...

[Harry P.]

The exhaust pipes in the kit are actually very flexible metal springs. I used CA glue to attach them first to the lower exhaust header...

And then CA'd them to the engine's exhaust manifold:

[Twokidsnosleep]

Coming along nicely

Very classy gold and chrome with a hint of red in the interior. Looks good!

You are in warp speed compared to my donkey speed builds

Edited December 22, 2014 by Twokidsnosleep