It doesn’t seem like I got a lot done this last week, but I did spend a long time in the shop. The work on the hood and scoop assembly continued but the work was kind of tedious, so it felt like I got nothing done. The scoop was bonded to the hoods with MEK solvent, it’s the best for getting a solid plastic weld and I knew it would be necessary to avoid the seams cracking as I worked. After bonding, the seams were faired in from the top to get it nice and smooth. The next step was to grind away the hood area under the scoop and create a seamless flow from the bottom of the hood to the inside of the scoop, the dremel and a cylinder chipping bit did a quick job of it.

I now had a flat and true hood with the scoop as an integral part of it. I then finished the block sanding and contouring to get it as smooth as possible. During this step I was a little too rough with the piece and the two hood pieces started to crack where they joined. I knew I had to separate them at some point but I was hoping I could do it as the last step after the hood was reintegrated into the body…DAMN.

To make sure that integration went well I had to keep the hood flat and true just as it would be for the finished model. After cutting the hood sections apart I taped on some thin wood strips to the bottom to keep the piece aligned until I could create a hood support rail (white styrene) and get the fenders to match the hood line with bondo and putty.

It was a lot of work for what looks like no progress, but I’m still excited about how it’s coming along.




Money Shot!

I just had a chance to get into the shop for a little more work on the b-17 Cadillac. I decided to keep on working on the main body so I know what I’m dealing with once it comes time to do the detail and trim work. Sometimes that stuff can be a problem if I don’t get a head start on the planning process. The next hurdle in the body work was the hoods and the new intake and tunnel I’d need to accommodate the Allison motor.
I knew I would have to vac form a piece because the hood will be able to open, no cheating for me this time. I started with the rough dimensions of my scoop, like where the carbs are and the overall size. I then took a piece of ¼ inch Sntra (pvc board) and cut and shaped it to be the new piece. Sintra works great for this stuff, it will handle the vac pressure without distorting and it is easy to shape. After it was done I loaded it into my Mattel Vac former machine and pulled a few shapes. It was a tight fit on the vac bed but I got a few good ones made.
Then to rough the scoop in, I took a pencil and traced a “hull line” around the vac part and proceeded to cut out my new hood scoop. In the top picture you can see a line of blue tape extending to the front of the hood that will be a cut out that flows into the opening giving the scoop a little more “purpose”. You can also see that I cut out the front grill to make it super aggressive, I’ll load a bunch of custom radiators behind the opening…SWEET!