Discussion Forum - Northstar Chevelle Club

John D · 2K+ Club

American Graffiti - '32 5-Window - Milner's Hot Rod

Derek69SS · Founding Member

Great start!

John D · 2K+ Club

My new acquisition in machine tools has opened up an entirely new world in model-building accuracy & detail... Stuff that just wasn't possible with hand-tools is now easily available.

The exhaust headers on the Milner '32 are external... they come off the engine, then along the body under the doors. There are "header plugs" on the ends of the collectors that transition to exhaust pipes & mufflers under the car. I had a set of SB headers (scrapbox) from a T-bucket, but they just had collector extensions to dumps. Cut off the extensions, made new collectors w/ transitions, and I've got the headers covered.

The drive pulleys are another story. The molded-in-one-piece crank, WP, Alternator, and belt just look clunky... always have, and are in every kit - you just can't make them look real (as supplied). So, why not make them real? A stick of 1/4" aluminum, and some time on the lathe and there's now actual pulleys on the devices. (How I made a scale "rubber" V-belt for them is another story).

Jon H · 1K+ Club

Amazing!

Lost in the 60s · President

I see John's addition just got turned up about 10 notches. That's crazy cool to be turning out pulley's...

John D · 2K+ Club

What's nutz is the availability of "laser etched" parts... look back at the pics, and you'll see a slotted alternator adjustment bracket.
They're made by an outfit called Detail Master, and you get a sheet of .003 stainless - with about 3 engines-worth of perfect scale accessory brackets... PS, Alt, AC, whatever.

John D · 2K+ Club

Been "decompressing" in the Skunkworks after the Holiday... Got a few new DVD sets from Santa, so I pop 'em in the player and go into miniature-land.

(I did "hog out" the material in the intake scoops - which was totally scary on the finished pieces - but it turned out well. This was a NO CAFFEINE operation using a Dremel tool and a 3/32 round burr.)

I'll admit things like brakelines & fittings are a little on the obsessive-side, but in a model like this where 1/2 of the frame/car is uncovered and exposed they are needed for realism & accuracy.
The brakelines are (of all things) .011" steel strings for an electric guitar. The rubber hoses to the wheels & axle are the insulation stripped off a 26ga. wire in an old VGA monitor cable. The brass fittings were turned from rod-stock, through drilled for the wire & locating pins, then filed to shape.

I usually build in sub-assemblies.
I'll page-ahead in the instructions, and pre-build a bunch of parts that eventually will go together, doing whatever detailing or prep needed to make final assembly easy - before paint. One of my tricks is to install tiny lengths of .030 brass wire as "locating pins" into the parts. These pins will be concealed by the parts when they are ultimately glued in place, and greatly help assembly - you don't have to hold or clamp some oddball shape while the glue sets up. Also, pre-drilling the frame and parts for detail, then fabricating detail pieces before paint prevents buggering up the paint-job while fitting them.

Next machine-shop projects will be the 1-into-4 fuel manifold for the firewall, fuel filter, master cylinder, and the finned voltage regulator - none of which exist in the kit.

Lost in the 60s · President

Cool !! How do you get a guitar string to hold a shape ? They don't really like to bend
Is the master cylinder on the original car a hydraulic clutch master also ? It appears the copper tube goes down near where the slave would be located.

John D · 2K+ Club

The guitar strings are hardened, but once a bend is started they'll "breakdown" and hold the shape - however you've got one shot at it - you can't bend it back without fracturing. I've got a cheap set of craft "beading" pliers from Micheal's. They're rounded tip , duck-bill, etc. for the artsy/crafties who make jewelry. They're great for (duh) bending wire.

It's a mechanical clutch car. That's a weird dual piston master on the firewall. The copper tube is the fuel line coming up to a canister filter, then into the 1-to-4 fuel manifold.

I found a site by the guy who owns the actual car now, and some pics of it's restoration...

Lost in the 60s · President

I saw the copper fuel line but the inside tube from the master looks like copper also. Guess it's an early dual line system ? Can't really tell from the pic of the original either and its' Dang cool to see the real car !

John D · 2K+ Club

Here's some of the "archival" pics I've gleaned off the internet. I like the one with Spielberg hanging off the side by straps.

This car was in pretty sad shape...

Larry Lucast · Active Member

What amazing skill!

John D · 2K+ Club

I'm only "dipping my toe" into the waters of serious scale modelling. As my patience, tools, and skills expand with age & experimentation I get better with what I can do. In all humility I was pretty da*n good as a kid/teen, and my stuff now compares with most on the 'net, but I am not even CLOSE to the league that this man is...

There is no kit. Everything is created from raw materials. This guy is a Zeus in the modelling community.

Lost in the 60s · President

Yup, that is crazy cool, but to compare your models to his level is unfair to you. I'm certain if you had his background and nothing else to do with your time, you would be there with him. I'll stick to watching your talent and evolution with your new machine capabilities on here.....

John D · 2K+ Club

Thanks for the kind words... We'll just see when I hit the no-job/retirement phase. (There has to be 10x? hours into each part of the models Gerald builds. His level is a goal.) It's a weird ambition of the "addiction" to be able to craft a miniature of something (be it a ship, plane, vehicle) that is a scratch-built model of the prototype, using only raw materials... not a pre-formed kit.

John D · 2K+ Club

I've had "how do I chop the top in scale" in the back of my head rattling around since I opened the kit. There's no documentation of how much the top was cut on the Milner car, so all I have is photographs to go by. The photo's aren't in any scale, so I couldn't just do the math and figure it out.

The old rule of "walk away from it for awhile" worked again.
If I had a known/fixed object on both the prototype and the model, I could determine scale from that. The photo has a good shot of the door hinge, and the model has door hinges...

The side-window opening on the photo is 4 & 1/3 height units (of the door hinge).
Measure the model door hinge = 2.3mm
2.3 x 4.333 = call it 10mm
Measure the window opening of the model = 13mm
13 - 10 = 3mm
As luck would have it, I had some 3mm "fine-line" masking tape in my bag-o-tricks! Run a strip of tape around the center of the window openings and voila!... cut line.
(using a scale online calculator/converter, 3mm upscaled from 1:25 to full size equals 2.97 inches. So in real-life the Milner car has a +/- 3" chop.)

I used a modeler's saw (blade's only .006" thick) to carefully slice the posts, using the tape-edge as a guide. The pics are of the raw cut... no dressing or sweetening with a file or sandpaper yet. I'm going to have to do some filing/filling/scribing to get the door gap & trim lines to blend, but it would be the same on a real car. There's a length of brass wire pressed in the door gap of the B-pillar I'll use as an alignment aid.

Lost in the 60s · President

Cool, just like a real car, if you could cut the top in 2 places and extend it a little, it would nearly match up perfectly.
I think the car was chopped even more, by comparing the quarter window.

John D · 2K+ Club

Yeah... but the bytch of it is that the fabric center panel of the roof is molded into the plastic. I'd only have to extend it a few 32nd's for perfect alignment, but recreating the texture and bead around the edge would be really tough.
It'll be easier to "fudge" the "A-pillar" with some filler & re-contouring, and (because the parting lines on the kit are so crappy) I've got a lot of work on the round & rear-window anyway, I'll "fudge" the 1/4 window too...

Like I said, there's no work been done to the cuts yet, and the only "alignment" is the rod in the door gap. Stuff can be push/pulled and tacked still...

Lost in the 60s · President

Yup, you would have to Z cut the top in 2 places around the fabric panel, but unlike a real car, that would be difficult to make work.

John D · 2K+ Club

Made some progress on the Milner '32

Got the roof glued back onto the body, and did a lot of re-shaping of the 1/4 window openings to get them to blend. Then several sessions with my "Dr. Duck's Super Secret All-Purpose Sauce" scale model body filler, then the 1st coat of high-build primer.

Amazing that what looks great "raw" really pops the areas that need work when you get some primer on it!! There'll be a few more minor filling & sanding sessions, and a little reworking around the window openings, but not too bad...

What is DDSSAPSPMBF you ask?? A little explanation about using filler on plastic models.
Most commercial model fillers are pretty much like automotive glazing putty - about the consistency of toothpaste, and solvent based. They attack the plastic, bite in, then harden to a sand-able material. Several problems here.
- It takes hours to dry
- Because the solvent attacks the plastic, and the underlying filler (and plastic) can be soft long after the upper thickness has flashed off & hardened. This can cause shrinkage & cracking a month after the model is finished!
- The filler is not nearly as hard as the plastic, and you'll sand through it before contouring the plastic

Enter Dr. Duck's Super Secret All-Purpose Sauce & Plastic Model Body Filler. (a tip picked up from my internet modelling friends)
It's made from medium thickness CA (cyanoacrylate/crazy-glue) and talcum powder. Squeeze out some CA, and gently blend in the talc, adding as much as needed to get to a flow-able & workable paste. You've got about 30 to 45 seconds to gather it on a toothpick, and spread/work it into the area needed - then it'll kick and harden.
- It doesn't attack or soften the plastic, it just reacts and hardens to it.
- It is completely file & sanding workable, and doesn't clog.
- It's hardness is very comparable to the parent plastic. It and the substrate sand at equal rates.

John D · 2K+ Club

Since I didn't stay up to witness the death of 2016, got up at my usual 0500 and started in again on the '32.

Using the tip/trick of pinning the parts to the body (and to eachother) I was able to do a reasonably accurate layout of how the rear fenders were bobbed from the photo's. Some initial cuts with a razor saw, then rough shaping with a Dremel, then final file & sanding.

Now onto the front "cycle" fenders... ugh.

bowtie · Secretary

Lost in the 60s wrote:
Cool, just like a real car, if you could cut the top in 2 places and extend it a little, it would nearly match up perfectly.
I think the car was chopped even more, by comparing the quarter window.

I know that quite often guys go with a 3/2 chop. 3 off the front and 2 off the back. Gives it a little rake.

bowtie · Secretary

John D wrote:
Since I didn't stay up to witness the death of 2016, got up at my usual 0500 and started in again on the '32.

Using the tip/trick of pinning the parts to the body (and to eachother) I was able to do a reasonably accurate layout of how the rear fenders were bobbed from the photo's. Some initial cuts with a razor saw, then rough shaping with a Dremel, then final file & sanding.

Now onto the front "cycle" fenders... ugh.

That looks really good. Thanks for the tip on the Dr Duck fillerglue.

John D · 2K+ Club

Not too long after I moved up here from Chicagoland, my step-dad introduced me to the odd side of his sense of humor. He had this thing for Mike Nesmith's video career (post Monkee's), and had "Elephant Parts" and "Dr. Duck's Super Secret Sauce" on VHS.

Whenever we were working on something that needed glue/goo/sealant/whatever he'd just blurt out "Get some (or) It needs some secret sauce!". Ever since then it's stuck.

John D · 2K+ Club

Been awhile since an update on the Milner '32...

There's been a lot of progress on the build. The next few posts will detail the progress. The front "cycle fenders" are done, the body & fenders are in color, the firewall is complete, the interior is complete, and basically waiting on dry-time to plug all the sub-assemblies together.

Front Fenders...
The fenders are not much more than the bare minimum to be DOT compliant. The originals (guessing) were made from motorcycle or utility-trailer pieces.
I have a '23 T-bucket kit on the "parts" shelf that I've been pillaging, and it had this type of fenders. I had to make the mountings however. Looking at the photos the original brackets weren't much more than sheet/flat stock bolted to the backing plates, bent & contoured around the tire, and bolted to the inner lip of the fender. I re-created this from sheet brass.

I drilled the backing plate/caliper in two spots, and put alignment pins through the holes. A piece of sheet-stock was scribed and cut to fit the contour of the plastic fender. This piece was fitted to the backing plate and marked. The holes were drilled, the excess material cut out, and two more sheets were rough-cut. The template and final pieces were tack-soldered together, and the final contours and holes finished at one time through all three. They were de-soldered, cleaned up, and mounted to the plastic fenders.

John D · 2K+ Club

Interior Update:

There were never any real detail shots of the interior during the film, other than the "file this under CS... Chicken Sh*t" and when he give the shifter knob to Carol. This model is so tiny, and with the chop-top you can't really even see inside the car! However, my OCD has kicked in, and I built an accurate dashboard (according to the photo's). The photo's reveal that the bulk of the dash is an aluminum panel, punched out for gauges... two large dials (assuming tach & speedo), flanked with 3 on each side... with one of the 6 missing.

I hogged out the (as molded) dashboard, leaving a thin rim with the column support intact. Using this, made a paper template of the "aluminum" insert panel. This panel was glued to a slightly larger "backer" piece (same contour), so when put behind the dashboard, the face-piece would appear to be an insert. The insert layed out and drilled with eight, 2mm holes for the gauges.

To the lathe...
I regurgitated some 35+ year-old skills and ground a piece of tool-stock to the contour of the gauge rim. Chucked some aluminum rod in the lathe and turned out the 8 gauges. The tach & speedo are 4.5mm dia, the others are 2.5mm. Each has a 2mm "nub" on the backside, which is pressed into the corresponding holes in the dash panel.

The "gauge" bezel/inserts were flood-filled with black paint, and when dry, gently scribed with detail (needle, numbers, etc.). After this each was again flood-filled with clear lacquer to simulate a glass lens.

The only other detail work done was to foil/chrome the window cranks & door handles.

John D · 2K+ Club

Firewall update:

The real car pretty much has a hunk of semi-polished aluminum sheet stock screwed to the original steel firewall... So I did the same. Mine is a piece of .003 sheet plastic, that was sprayed with AlClad Chrome. AlClad model paint

The pieces not in the kit were the 1-into-4 fuel manifold, the master cylinder, and the voltage regulator. These I carved out of brass & aluminum. I also finished the feeder lines to the master cylinder, and the fuel filter and line.

John D · 2K+ Club

Body Update:

Well, it's in the "Kinda a cross between p*ss-yellow and puke-green" color...

I masked off and shot the flat-black roof panel a few days ago, then got busy prepping for the yellow. After masking off the black roof-panel, cleaning all the parts, and loading the air-brush I shot the yellow paint on the body. It went on real nice, but of course, Mr. Murphy showed up again...

About 8/10th's of the way through, and when I only had about a 1/4 cup of paint left (paint left meaning the jar was dry... NO MORE to be had), I realized I'd forgotten the headlight buckets! These are chromed pieces as supplied, not body-color. So, I've got a loaded air-brush, everything else with 4+ coats on it, no paint left, and two more parts to spray! Well a panic stripping session on the buckets, a quick prep, then a paint session (before the air-brush totally gunks/clogs) and the headlight buckets got done too.

John D · 2K+ Club

Since I've been home 3 days this week with a non-working knee, I've had plenty of build-time on the Milner '32.

It's Done!

All the sub-assemblies have come together, and managed to get the car together without bugger'ing up the paint or other work.

This was a fun build. Got to develop and practice a lot of skills that I've never tried before. By far one of the most complex I've attempted in recent history... Chopping the top, lowering the radiator surround, and a multitude of scratch-build or kit-bash parts.

Modifications to kit (as supplied):
Chopped top
Bobbed rear fenders
Conversion of SB Ford block & oil pan to SB Chevy "lookalike"
Lowering of Radiator & Shell

Kit-Bash parts:
Intake Manifold & Carbs
Cycle Fenders
Rear Backing Plates/Torque Arms
Transverse rear spring

Scratch-Built:
Engine Pulleys
Header Collectors & pipes to mufflers
Gauges
Fuel Manifold
Carb Linkage & Fuel Fittings
Master Cyl
Voltage Reg
Shocks (4)
Front Fender Mounts
THX 138 License Plate
Front & Rear Bumpers
Fuel Filler Cap
Brake Lines & Distribution Blocks
Window Glass

Lost in the 60s · President

VERY cool !!!

I take it the '55 re-creation is next. The box says "build 1 of 2 ways". I'm thinking they have NO CLUE what is going to happen to that model...

Larry Lucast · Active Member

That is amazing. I can't wait to see the 55 build.

John D · 2K+ Club

Well if it's not too "hochmut" (look it up), I'll bring the '58 and the '32 to the meeting tomorrow so y'all can have a look up close...

Lost in the 60s · President

John D wrote:
Well if it's not too "hochmut" (look it up), I'll bring the '58 and the '32 to the meeting tomorrow so y'all can have a look up close...

I was going to ask if you could do that, but didn't want to pressure you to bring them out.

John D · 2K+ Club

Lost in the 60s wrote:
John D wrote:
Well if it's not too "hochmut" (look it up), I'll bring the '58 and the '32 to the meeting tomorrow so y'all can have a look up close...
I was going to ask if you could do that, but didn't want to pressure you to bring them out.

I'll bring the cars with me...

"I take it the '55 re-creation is next. The box says "build 1 of 2 ways". I'm thinking they have NO CLUE what is going to happen to that model..."

Yup... It's going to be much more than the 1 of 2... Since it's the only kit available for a '55 posty coupe, all of the "Bel-Air" stuff is going to have to be removed to turn it into a 210 post car.

Throw in the radius'd rear wheelwells, absent rear seat, "tarp" cover of the rear seat area, and the BB under the hood and it'll be another kit-bash and scratch-build session!

John D · 2K+ Club

Here's some links to my YouTube vids: