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 This '49 Ford has been in my junk pile for quite a while. I got it in this condition, but no longer remember when or how. |
 It has several very thick coats of paint. Hopefully once it's stripped it won't look quite as bad. |
 This was the toughest stripping job I've ever done. |
 Individual overnight soaks in Super Clean, 91% alcohol, and brake fluid barely touched the old paint. |
 Finally, three separate overnight applications of oven cleaner did the trick. |
 I decided the look I wanted to go for was a modern day interpretation of a mid-sixties mild custom. I set the stance by dropping the front some. |
 I'm using the custom rear rolled pan and one of the custom front ends from the AMT '50 Ford kit. |
 I never liked the extended look of the custom front part when it was just glued in place over the stock front end. So I did a little surgery with a razor saw. This is a first stage mockup. It will probably get moved a little more back. |
 A lot of cutting and fitting later, the custom front end is in place. |
 The next step was to fit the front section of the custom hood to the front end. |
 I took a scale 7" section out of the rear part of the custom hood. |
 Here I've joined the two sections of the custom hood. |
 The front section is much more narrow, so I'll have to reshape the edges of the hood as well as the inside edges of the fenders. |
 I added some flat styrene pieces on each side of the hood opening for support to the newly reshaped hood, and to make it easier to fill the gaps between the fenders and hood. I also reinstalled the front support I had removed while fitting the custom front end. |
 I took a little too much out of the hood, so I added small strips of styrene at the back edge. Next I'll fill the side gaps. |
 I wanted to use skirts, but the ones that came with the kit looked clunky, so I trimmed them to fit flush in the rear quarter panel openings. I'm also trying out wide whitewalls from an AMT parts pack. |
 Here's the next stage mockup. I've started filling and shaping the hood and front end. |
 I also installed a rolled pan at the rear, removed the chrome trim on the side and flattened out the taillight spears on the rear quarter panels. |
 I spent some time checking out the side profile and decided that the appearance I wanted would involve sectioning the body. |
 I used a graphics program to test different amounts of sectioning and decided that a scale 3" section would give me that look. |
 I started by marking a horizontal line around the body from the leading edges of the front wheel openings. Then I carefully cut the body into two pieces along that line. |
 I wanted to retain the shape of both wheel openings, but the amount of sectioning would have prevented that, so I sketched a pattern on card stock for later use. |
 Here's the first mockup after joining the two body parts together. |
 I did the first fill with putty. The trunk lid will need to be reshaped slightly. |
 This is the original interior after sectioning. It needs some serious reworking. |
 I decided to construct a complete new interior, starting with side panels made from Evergreen styrene. |
 I wanted to do something cool with the interior panels. I found a pair of old skirts in my parts collection that fit the bill perfectly with some trimming. Top shows the original skirt and bottom is the trimmed version. |
 Here are the trimmed skirts added to the door panel. |
 Here's a mockup of the direction I'm headed with the new interior tub. |
 The only thing retained from the old tub is the lower front floorboard, transmission tunnel and rear package tray. |
 After a lengthy break I started again, including more body work refinements. |
 This is another mockup with the interior in place. |