I had initially thought we could remove the body from the frame, then to have the bare frame sand blasted and power coated. That process would have allowed George and Wayne to have cleaned the underbody and spray it, and the firewall, in the factory blue color. After some research, I determined that it would be too dangerous to do so since I don’t own an hydraulic lift that could have easily, and safely, lifted the body. So, after consulting with Mike, George and Wayne, we decided to clean the body and frame in place and paint the same. What a job!

With the front of the car thoroughly cleaned, it was time to exhaustively sand and prep the firewall and the underbody. Using a combination of 220 grit (dry), followed by 400 dry 3-M sandpaper, and a coarse sanding pad, George carefully sanded the firewall and prepared it for paint. Red oxide primer was applied to bare metal areas. After the primer dried, the entire firewall was wet–sanded with 400 paper to smooth it for the finish paint. At the same time, Wayne had crawled underneath the car and lightly sanded the underbody sheetmetal (Wayne reported that a great deal of the factory paint had survived needing only a good chemical cleaning to remove the last vestiges of grease and oil).

Using custom matched Valspar acrylic enamel, George sprayed the firewall and Wayne sprayed the entire under body, section by section, after thoroughly cleaning it and priming a few areas.

With more light on the bottom of the firewall, you can see greater detail that can be especially useful to the committed scale auto miniature builder.

Once the blue enamel cured, George masked off the engine body and the firewall, and all of the blue underbody, and painted the frame in semi-gloss Valspar acrylic enamel (not catalyzed). This paint lays down and flows easily. Here’s what the masking looked like just before frame painting (the front frame clip has been previously painted with inexpensive paint that looked awful).

The semi-gloss Valspar acrylic enamel laid down beautifully on the frame to produce a professional appearance: the semigloss will be a nice contrast to the suspension, brake lines, polished brass fittings and the glorious engine!

Check out the great finish on the surfaces. An easy inspection of the frame shows the crude welding from late 1956!

As soon as the frame paint had set up, George removed the body masking to reveal this great view! Wow! At this point, the holes in the firewall can be unmasked and prepared for installation of the master cylinder, wiring harness, rubber hole plugs, and other details.

Here’s a closer view up the passenger side of the firewall. Consult with Steve Roullier’s dimensioned drawing (following) for critical measurements for advanced scale automobile miniature building.

The driver’s side of the upper firewall looks like this. Check out all of the subtle details that could easily be duplicated on a 1/25-scale miniature Ford.