Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?



Time to tell the story of a 1936 Ford 5-window Coupe. Purchased new off the lot, $555 handed over to the car salesman, Joe and Mary proudly drove their pride and joy back to the farm. For 20 years they drove it to town, to church on Sunday, even to the “big smoke” from time to time, until the day that the engine started rattling, it started blowing smoke, and Joe had to put it off the road. It was towed around behind the barn and covered up, with the intention of pulling the old engine down at some stage to fix her up.



Years passed and it never happened. The cover deteriorated, the cancer of rust set in, the kids and grandkids started out by climbing over it and inside it, then started pulling parts off it, and even using it for target practice with the old pea-rifle. The glass disappeared, the fabric inside rotted away, grass and shrubs grew up around it and it faded from memory hidden behind the barn.


For almost 30 long years it sat, chickens and mice nesting in it, cattle and horses rubbing up against it, paint virtually all gone, metal parts being eaten away, until the day grandson Joe Jr was at the farm and asked Grandpa Joe what he wanted to do with the old wreck out behind the barn. He was starting a mechanics apprenticeship and was thinking about finding an old shell to tinker with and restore.
Together they cleared the build up of debris, dragged the ’36 onto the back of the truck, gathered up the parts that they could find strewn around the place, and took it into town to it’s new home in the workshop.



15 years of tinkering and learning, cutting and welding, removing, cleaning up and replacing parts, searching through wreckers yards and swap meets, agonising over interior fabric and body paint colours, then came the day that Joe Jr could drive it out of the workshop and out to the farm to take Grandpa Joe for a ride in the car he bought new off the lot 64 years ago.



That is the story I want to tell here. I’ve had one of these kits in the stash for years, and the “Blue Oval” group Build was going to give me the motivation to finally build it, then up popped 2 more kits on a buy/swap/sell site with minor starts and parts missing, very cheap as the sellers just wanted them gone from the to-do pile. I didn’t need much contemplation time, I could clearly see a great little display in the making here with a clean original on one side, a rodded-up version on the other, and a rusted shell vignette right in the middle. They are simple kits with a low parts count, and test-fitting at this stage shows no real issues, so I am looking forward to putting some focus on this project once I get a Chevy (or two) off the bench.



Cheers, D

D,
What a truly great story. Some how I've got the feeling that you know Joe Jr. Another triple build of epic proportions for sure. I'm personally looking forward to it.

Are you going to do all three for the Ford Blue Circle build? 6 months just may not be enough time, at least for a super slow builder like, me. On the other hand your build rate is so much faster that it can be more then doable for you.

Joel

Great backstory, D. Looking forward to your builds as they should be interesting.

Jim

Are you just planning on giving up sleep for the foreseeable future?
It's the only way you're going to get all these builds finished.

I'm simply going to have to live forever to get all mine done.

Reading some old emails from my late dad, I found out he owned a '40 Ford Standard Coupe. Now I gotta find one and build it..... Turns out Revellogram actually kitted a 40 Ford coupe. Hello eBay, take my money. Now, I wonder what color it was???

Thanks for the feedback guys, hopefully I can turn my vision here into reality.




Joel, I'm not going to try to build all three in the 6 month Group Build time frame. I am planning to build the street rod there, and if I finish the current crop of Chevy builds before October I might get a start on the other two beforehand and aim to finish all 3 together during the Group Build.

That is the plan, but you know how easily distracted I . . . . Oh, look, a Corvette

Cheers, D

D,
Sounds workable for sure. At the rate you're completing builds, you just might need to add on an extension to the house as a display room.

Joel

Great story, great project. I'm sure we're in for a great ride.

Wow D! You've got more irons in the fire, than, well, I don't know what

I'm along for the, ahem, ride

I've been putting some thought into the layout of the base for this project, and I would really appreciate the input of the team here.
I picked up a picture frame from the local Op-Shop and tried a few different arrangements of the 3 car shells to get the mind ticking over. In all cases below the cars will be Original/Rusted Shell/Rod from left to right on the base.

Option 1


Option 2


Option 3


Option 4


The current clubhouse leader for me is #4, because I intend to put the rusted shell on a small diorama base with a few parts scattered around, and this layout give is the most room and focusses the eyes to the centre. The left and right cars will probably be on a road base, perhaps dirt road for the original and bitumen for the rod.

Plenty of time to develop the plan, this is just the beginning. All thoughts, ideas, comments gratefully accepted.

Cheers, D

Hey Russ. I haven't started any of these yet, just getting things in order for when the current couple of Chevy's roll out of the workshop.

Cheers, D

Hey D!

well, it's looking good so far.

Haven't received any email notifications of replies on this build and several others of late-could there be an issue with the site?

Can I throw my two cents in for the layout of the diorama?

Maybe have the original and the rod parked in-line on a road and the rusted out corpse parked off to the side... Giving the impression the road worthy cars have pulled over to inspect the wreck? Not sure if figures are available in this scale to suit, but it could tell a bit of "story" if you will...

D,
I concur that Option #4 seems like the best of the lot especially with the rusty shell will be a mini diorama.

Joel

D I do like option 4 however I prefer option 3 and think it would still give room for a mini diorama.

Not sure what might be going on there Russ, I’m definitely getting notifications from all of my subscribed threads. Is it working for you on other sites?



Please do 😎



That would make a great diorama display, and I am planning to do exactly that with part of my Tri-5 series builds, possibly the 57 Nomad.
My concept here is to show 3 stages in the life of the same car, so in effect it will be 3 separate small dioramas on one base.

Many thanks for checking in. Cheers, D

Noted Joel, thanks for looking in!

Cheers, D

Luciano, 3 is my second preference right now. The rusted shell will need a lot more space as there will be panels and junk strewn around it.

As I progress with the builds I will play around with layouts and fine tune it.

Cheers, D

it would seem I'm getting notifications again D

Anyway you chose to build them, it sounds like it's going to be an awesome result

Option #4 will work best, I think. With the deserted car, slightly raised above the other two cars, it will make a fine focal point. If it was me, I would be Setting the rusty car in an elevated scenery with grass, auto debris and junk, this could easily be blended to a dirt road, for the mid period car, (in the right hand triangle)which again could be blended into an asphalt road, for the restored car(Left hand triangle). A strip of the dirt road going all the way around the raised scenery, to make up the side of the asphalt road.

A three day interstate work trip with 3 flights this week has left me with a horrible cough and no voice at all (and some would argue that is a good thing!), so I'm stuck at home for a couple of days to recover.

End result is that I'm in a mood to hack things up rather than put nice finishing touches on things

"Target for tonight" just has to be a Ford.



This will be my first serious attempt at a rusted hulk with serious multi-layer chipping, so I'm going to start off with just one part to test my techniques. Part of my reference library for the 36 Ford is good close images of both sides of the rumble seat, so that's my first victim.



Time to get my angry tool kit out.


First I used the cutting wheel to remove the padded seat which was already glued in place, then I used the drum sander to clean the inside of residue and moulded details and thin out the edges a bit.


Evergreen square rod provided a raised frame.



Evergreen sheet used for the inner panel, marked out the centres for the lightening holes, and while it dried I hacked up the tub.


Pilot holes were used to centre for the larger drill bit, I think I will still go a millimetre bigger on the lightening holes, and a scriber and template used to make the centre round detail.


All this was done with Eric Clapton playing in the background and medicinal Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum on ice at hand. I must say I do feel better

Cheers, D

Because I'm much better at asking dumb questions than smart ones, why did you glue the stiffener on before you cut out the holes? Then you could have used a drill instead of scribing them all out.

Gonna watch this closely as I have two more 69 Camaro Z-28s in the stash, one of them is pre painted, the other one doesn't have any chrome, clear or rubber parts... They might well be candidates to be junkers.

D,
You're making a great recovery from your nasty cold. I'm sure that the Rum is a major factor. I just might try some when my annual summer cold arrives.

Nicely done on the scratch building. I also wouldn't have glued the panel in place till I cleaned up the lightening holes with a round file & sandpaper. Just a little excess sanding and those holes will easily be that 1mm larger in dia. What is the center detail supposed to be? if it's a plate, why not just punch or cut one out of thin sheet and glue it in place? If not, then scribing certainly is the way to go.

Joel

Thanks for the feedback guys, much appreciated. Still feeling the effects, this will take a few days to pass I'm sure.
The holes were drilled out, then cleaned up with the Xacto which roughened the edges up. I will be using a larger drill to widen and clean up the holes. It is very hard to see from the reference image whether the centre detail is a raised area or just a circular mark, but I am planning to punch a thin disc and glue it on for more interest. I will also cut a small square from thin sheet and glue It on as can be seen at the top centre of the reference image. Looks to be a mounting point for the top latch. After that I will get on to drilling the various bracket mounting holes. I will use my scriber to mark the centre of the grooves running alongside the lightening holes, then either a round needle file or a round burr (if I'm feeling adventurous) in the Dremel to form them.

Cheers, D

Well I followed my own instructions above and ended up with this -


I'm very pleased with it at this stage, a little bit more tidying up and then on to the paint shop.

Cheers, D

More tinkering tonight while I watched the footy. First up I had to remove the centre panel of the roof, the rumble seat, and the rumble seat cover mounting points (circled). I used a cut-off wheel in the Dremel to do the carving, then a drum sander to tidy up the carnage.



Next up I had to dissect the rear part of the interior tub to retrieve the rear section of the parcel shelf to provide the part circled below.







Last task for tonight was to add some detail to the interior floor to make it interesting, then get stuck in to making a pile of plastic shavings using a round end mill to thin out the bottom corners of the guards ready to create some rust holes (see circled areas).



Cheers, D

D,
Just an amazing attention to detail after detail. This just might be your finest car modeling effort to date.

Keep those updates coming.

Joel