Kev’s Bench: Custom ’32 Ford Project

Kev’s Bench: Custom ’32 Ford Project

After seeing photos from this year’s Axialfest (You can see the full coverage in the November 14 issue) I decided that I have to build a truck and join in on the fun next year. Playing with your scale truck in the woods for a few days sounds like fun to me. I’m starting my Axialfest build with an Axial SCX10 Jeep Wrangler G6 and although the truck is perfectly capable of running at Axialfest out of the box, I plan on making a lot of modifications to the truck. A battery relocation, axle housing modification and some bullet proofing are just some of the ones on my list so far. I’m also very much about the look of this truck and I really want it to stand out. It seems like 80% of the trucks out there have a Jeep or Toyota pickup body but I want something different for my truck. After a lot of thinking I decided on a Tamiya Clod Buster body with a dovetailed front end tubular rear end and dovetailed rear fenders. I busted out the body and the parts needed to make it happen and it just wasn’t doing it for me. A Clod Buster body isn’t as common and my mods were going to make it stand out but it wasn’t different enough for me. I finally decided that I needed to build my own body for this project and what I decided on was a mix of a 1929 Ford pickup and a 1932 Ford pickup. The truck is a great looking truck and I could see in my mind how cool it would look on that SCX10 frame.

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The 1929 and 1932 Ford pickup is awesome looking on street tires but I wanted to see what it would look like as a beefy 4×4 truck. That’s why I’m making it happen.

If you look at the truck you’ll see that it’s very simple so making one for my truck shouldn’t be a problem. Before moving forward I made a quick sketch of the body on a 4×4 truck frame in my design book to see if it had the right look. Once I was done with my drawing, I was 100% sold on the idea. I got on the computer and grabbed my SCX10 and used it and my CAD program to get the basic shape and size of the body down. There’s no need to get major details going in CAD since the body is going to be made my hand. I just used it to get the size and angles of parts figured out. I’m currently wrapping up a few projects for the next issue of Buyers’ Guide and Car Action so I won’t be able to start the body in a few weeks. I already start gathering materials and I figured out how I am going to make some of the complex sections of the body. The hood, front portion of the cab and roof are the hard parts. The roof is going to be made out of wood and I’ll cut it to the rough size and shape needed and throw it into my milling machine to get the angle of the top right. I’ll flip it over and hog out the middle to make it thinner and more realistic before rounding the outside edges with a block and sandpaper. To strengthen it I’ll coat it with epoxy and a thin layer of fiberglass. To make the hood and front section of the cab I’ll start by making a wood buck in the shape needed and I’ll cover it with a few layers of thin plastic that are coated with glue. After clamping and a day for the glue to dry, the plastic should be perfectly shaped and ready to join the rest of the parts.

 

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A quick sketch was all I needed to sell myself on the idea.

 

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I roughed out the shape in CAD to get the size and body angles figured out for my body build. 

 

I have a few other mods for the body that will make it stand out. For the fenders I’m going to make ones that look like custom off-road Jeep fenders. The rear fenders will be held in place by magnets which will allow them to fall off when they take a hit which will add to the realism of the truck. Pro-Line Ridge-Line bumpers will help give it the beefy look that I am going for. I picked up a set of RC4WD LED light bars for one of my Buyers’ Guide projects but they fit the look of my custom body perfectly so I set them aside for my SCX10 project and it will also have head lights, tail lights and so on. To me a truck like the 29 or 32 Ford looks great with a blower and scoop sticking up out of the engine compartment and I planned on using the new RPM Mock Intake and Blower on my custom body. I’m not sure about this mod only because you don’t see trail trucks with blowers sticking out of the hood. I’ll leave that up to you guys. Email me at kevinh@airage.com and let me know what you think. Pro-Line Interco TSL SX Super Swamper tires on RC4WD Raceline Monster 1.9 Beadlock wheels will complete the look.

 

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Updated: July 21, 2015 — 10:53 AM
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