The Joy of Modeling: Building the ICM 1/24 Model T 1911 Touring #7

My energy level as of late is not congruent with my ambition. I really want to get this wrapped up, but also must be careful not to take a shortcut that ends up taking more time to fix. Model building is a delicate balance of completion and process.

In our last episode, the wheels got done, the car was centered on the base and holes were drilled to attach the wheels. I can hear my wife now "you said you were going to build it out of the box!" I know. Yes, that was the plan, but things evolve.Shown above the wheels are being glued to the chassis, using "tube glue". They are screwed to the base from below. The blocks are from a knock-off Jenga game and like Legos, are great to use for centering. One of the things that needs to be addressed here is that the rear wheels should be at a 90 degree angle to the road, while the front wheels have a slight camber angle.

"Tube glue" is positionable and strong. The blocks make it easy to set the camber of both wheels to match.

Here is a diagram showing the camber from a manual. I didn't go as extreme as this, it looked wrong on the model. It should be noticeable but not weird looking.

Let it dry real good. I used a conservatively copious amount of cement, I wanted these wheels to stay on. I had my second vaccine shot yesterday, so some of my words here may be a bit bent. If I fall asleep, just poke your screen gently.

I have all sorts of devices which emit sound waves, one of them is a radio that I grabbed from a box of yard sale items from my in-laws many years ago. I usually listen to NPR, when I'm done I go out and hug the tree in my back yard.

Covering the floor are several white mats. My plan was to make templates and create them with solid white decal "Trim Film" (a Microscale railroading product). I would use this same technique for the firewall which is stained plywood edged with brass trim. The idea was to paint the whole area brass color and drop in the decals, thus negating a complex painting process. What you see here is one of the templates.

There is waffle like texture underneath, however dousing the decals with Solveset barely affected them. I had these decal sheets for over a decade...I suspect they did not age well.

I ended up using double sided tape to pull them up.

Using metal foil from wine bottles I cut mats out to shape. The knurled handle of a punch was rolled over them to create a texture pattern. They are then painted white.

The mats are then glued in place, making sure the edges will fit inside the body once it is screwed on. The dimensionality looks nice.

Here is the bottom of the all black chassis with the muffler glued in place. I originally was going to do the muffler natural metal and rusted. But, 1) this is a new car and 2) I bet the muffler was dipped in black paint like the fenders to protect them. There were no Midas shops in 1911.

All the while I also worked on the cobblestone textured base. The inside of the display case is black, the car itself is black, a lot of blackness, which would swallow the model up visually. Having the cobblestones would be an opportunity to add a lighter color under the car to make it pop. I cut a strip of the sheet off and did some experimenting with oil colors.

I ended up going over the cobblestones a dozen or so times until I got an even unassuming shade that I liked.

The last bit of the body needed to get painted, that pesky plywood firewall. The inside portion got masked and painted, the wood is painted by hand in layers using acrylic miniatures paint. I then used a wrecked brush and a dark brown oil wash to create the grain. Very slow going here.

We are now in the homestretch. This is the kit horn, nice, but I have found replacing cool stuff like this can really bring a model to life. I will use the squeeze bulb and brass horn from the kit and replace the metal segmented hose with an old bass guitar string. The three brackets are carefully removed from the kit hose and drilled out.