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This is
the 1924 Ford Model T Mercury Body Speedster from Aardvark Models,
the Modelmartin line (visit the site:
http://www.aardvarkmodels.com/Aardvark.html). A resin kit which
requires an AMT Model T kit to complete. There were no problems building the kit, but I changed a few things and added a lot of details. First I added some details to the ragtop. The top itself had rudimentary resin mounting pins, but I decided to make proper mountings. I glued a 0.5mm brass rod inside the top and left about 6mm to each side as small mounting pin. And I made a pair of 3mm x 3mm brackets for the side of the body from brass parts. On the picture below you can see one for test fitting While I was busy building and painting the parts, I suddenly thought that this would be a great model to try to get steerable wheels on. I had some ideas, but none of them looked very realistic. And if possible the wheels should roll too. After two weeks I finally had the solution. First of all, the front axle had to be modified. See the picture below of the axle with on the left the modification I made. The pictures below show all the parts of the steering assembly and the completed steering arm. The thin little round plates you see will be attached to the wheels, they are not glued to anything else thus leaving the wheel free to revolve. They are hold in place by a small pin in the middle. The hole in the wheel (for the fixed steel axle) was widened to provide room for the head of the pin. As it is a full fendered speedster, I decided to leave all other parts as they were. Just as if someone had simply swapped the factory body with the Mercury body. A gas cap (with the red M for Mercury) was made from scrap. The windshield got a few wind deflectors, leftovers from another T and resized to get the correct height. The radiator was a bit reshaped. I rounded of the sharp edges at the top and added a small decal with the Mercury emblem. The little door and trunk lid received handles and the dashboard also received the necessary details. And here are the pictures of the completed car. |
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