1925 Ford Model-T Tow Truck

it's totally awesome!

The newest details are all great additions to already amazing model.Thanks for sharing with the rest of us!

Out Standing ! Work

Way to go!

Here's the most current photos of the completed truck

rear view; added some chain and some weathering on the tow bar.

and one more

Good luck with your project. Be sure to let us see how it turns out.

Sometime after posting the finished photos of the truck, I decided to add a few more details that had been planned but didn't make it in the first rendition. First off is the roof. I wanted something a little different, so scrounged up a second roof and cut the back off. On my old Jeep CJ7 this was called a bikini top. I scratch built the top bows out of brass rod and tube. What will be the rear straps that keep the top tight are also brass.

After seeing the hollow seat cushion bottom a zillion times, I addressed that as well. I bent up some springs out of enameled copper wire and used some dryer lint for the stuffing. You can also see the top mounts in this picture.

I also built a toolbox using some basswood and stryrene. The hammer, tire iron and screw driver are scratch built. The wrench is a laser cut part shot with primer, then black and finally Alclad chrome. There's a bunch of wrenches in the box not visible in this shot.

I also scratch built a tool tray for the top of the box, but ended up not using it. The tray is made from brass sheet and tube.

Thanks for posting these in-progress photos of the boom under construction.That is exactly what I wanted to see.Those will help me a lot with my project !

Here's a few pics of the boom in progress.

I started by constructing a solid base in the pickup bed using Evergreen angle

more angle was used for the boom and A frame. to curve the boom, some slits were cut and then glued after the angle was curved around an old film canister. I wrapped the canister with tape to keep the styrene glue was sticking.

I found some old gears in my scrap box, one with an extended hub to use as a cable spool and a smaller one for the pinion. Brass and aluminum was used for shafts as well as for the grab handle on top. Rivets are railroad items from Grandt LIne.

More detail was added in the way of plastic bracing and brass support rods. A Scale Hardware bolt and nut were used to allow for boom height adjustment. All brass parts were dipped in Blacken-It.

A brass shaft at the end of the boom holds the yoke and pulley. I machined the pulley from some aluminum rod and then formed and soldered up some brass for the yoke.

The chain was some I had laying around and the metal hook was again a model railroad item that was filed down to a suitable shape. With the exception of the blackened brass, everything was covered in black primer. The whole assembly was weathered with chalk powders and highlighted with a Tamiya weathering set. Hope that's what you were looking for. 

Wow that is very nice.  Love the brass work and color you chose. The entire thing is done beautifully!

Do you have in-progress photos of the wrecker assembly available ? I am wokking on a wooden cab TT with a 1915 Weaver Auto Crane hand crank wrecker boom assembly.

Indeed, thanks for posting this!  Taking the time to explain your methods is very inspiring for me as I am sometimes afraid to take the lid off the box and start a kit for fear I'll muff something up!  Looks like you have experience with these old trucks as you used the addition of solid rubber tires.

Thanks, guys. I really appreciate your interest and encouraging words. This truck has certainly turned into one of my personal favorites.

What a gorgeous model and something different!

Great build. Thanks for posting it.                   Bob

Thanks, Tim.

I'm going to assume that being compared to Franklin Mint is a compliment :)

I'm tempted to cry "foul" and say you cheated and bought it from the Franklin Mint  but theirs dont look that good. Well done!!!!

Finally got around to getting some pics of the completed truck suitable for posting

Rear view showing the tow boom and related kit

Top off, front view showing the hand carved brass radiator cap with clear styrene site glass

Weathered leather seat, scratch built dash details and door latch. The windshield is real glass cut from a microscope slide.

thanks for your interest and great comments. Very much appreciated.

Alyn

Not one to be left out , I too, join in the praise  of your skill.  

Alyn

I don't know when Ford offered alternate colors for the T, but mine will boldly go with a green body and black fenders.

although Henry Ford said famously "Any color so long as it's black", they did in fact offer the T in many different colors.

Wow awesome work! Love the subject and your scratch building skills are adding outstanding realism.

Drag link steering rods made from brass? WOW. Nice work. Are those grease fittings I see on the joints? (LOL) I have a 1/16 scale 31 model A Tudor I have been wanting to build and you have provided some great ideas for kit enhancement.

Outstanding work.  Will be watching for more pics.

Jim 

these pics were meant to be with the previous post, but didn't show up.

fenders are black, the rest of the body is green. Here's the tub

and the pickup bed. As you can see, this will be a tow truck. The wrecker boom is scratch built from Plastruct styrene angle, brass and aluminum.

I meant to include this pic of the steering components prior to paint

and here's some recent paint work

thank you all for the kind comments. I've always thought the Model-T was a pretty cool old car, but now that I've done some research for this build, I love these old things. The beauty is in the simplicity.

fangerj, the engine and tranny are painted with good old Testers enamel in the square 1/4 oz bottles; not my first choice for paint these days, but it was the only green on my shelf. I mixed in a bit of black and white enamel to tone it down.

From what I've read, Ford started offering an electric starter around or after 1918. This kit did not come with a starter, generator or battery. I scratch built each of these for some added detail. I don't know when Ford offered alternate colors for the T, but mine will boldly go with a green body and black fenders.

Octane, I wish it was a "model in itself". That is, I'd like to stop right now and call it dne. I really like the way the chassis came out and hate to cover it up with a body. But I will :)

I love the details, so there's always some scratch built parts in my models. With an engine consisting of only six parts, some scratch building is pretty much guaranteed.

Here's  a few more pics showing some of the build progress.

Brass used for control pedals:

Molded-in radiator pipe was ground away, then the cylinder behind it was shaped back to normal. The replacement pipe is brass, with yellow heat shrink tube for hose and aluminum foil for hose clamps. Plugs are 26 ga insulated copper wire.

Brass used for steering knuckles, tie rod and drag link.

The steering column is an aluminum tube with a brass shaft inside. Brass end pieces soldered on each end of the shaft. Brass was also used for the spark and throttle controls

running board bracing added with Plastruct styrene rod

this looks excellent and is almost a model in itself. at what point do you abandon a kit and just build everything from scratch?

Good work so far...:)

That looks really neat !!! Thanks for taking the time to post it and PLEASE--- keep us updated.      Bob

The electric starter was concieved by the guys at Cadillac.  A woman attempting to start her Cadillac broke her arm when the crank caught and spun with the crankshaft. This was in 1915 but my mind is full of paint fumes and I may be wrong. Ford couldnt stand the thought of  paying the compitition  ( especially  Cadillac ) for the rights to what became "standard " equipment on all cars.