The Work of Jeff Jones

Jeff is fascinated with Ed Roth's Mysterion (link to section, above) and he's been passionately building this car in 1/8 scale. This model is entirely scratchbuilt. Check out Jeff's article and great photos:

Mysterion Lives!

It was 1963, I was in my freshman year of high school and it was just dawning on me that hot rod magazines just might be more interesting than comic books. I remember the day I was loitering at the magazine stand at smiths Market as was my habit while mom did her grocery shopping. It is exactly like the question you always hear, "where were you when you heard that Kennedy was dead?" (Actually I was at high school walking from math class to speech class). I looked up and it hit me; the cover of the September 1963 Rod & Custom with that miraculous set of pictures of Ed Roth and the Mysterion

fig 1.The magazine cover that started my love affair.

(See figure 1)! I had read about the car in previous issues and was vaguely aware of Ed's previous creations but that magazine cover stunned me. The article inside the magazine was a three page Joe Henning cartoon strip. Aside from the magazine cover and the box art on the model kit, there were virtually no pictures of the car ever published. No contemporary magazine did a good photo shoot. I that isn't romantic enough, add to that the fact that the car existed for barely one year before it mysteriously and magically disappeared forever and how could I not be hooked for life.

I hadn't really thought seriously about the car for 3 decades before Ed published his "Hot Rods by Ed Roth" soft cover book with wonderful coverage of the Mysterion and all his other cars. That plus the emergence of eBay which allowed me to track down and acquire a treasure throve of Mysterion information rekindled the fever. I found many little tid-bits of information including many high quality never published photographs that our fearless leader Mark Gustavson graciously copied and sent to me. Thanks Mark! With this newfound stimulus I HAD to make a 1/8-scale model of the car! For the past two years I have been collecting information and model parts to make my masterpiece of love. Key pieces I could make myself were the body and nose of fiberglass and the bubble top; hand blown from a home made pattern. I knew I could count on Monogram Big T kits for a lot of the other more common parts like carburetors, rear tires, rear ends, etc., and save a lot of time.

fig 2.These are the wooden patterns with a gloss coat of urethane ready to make molds.

The first step was to make a working set of plans. To do this, I reverse engineered the ubiquitous Revell model kit. I traced out the important bodylines with a black Sharpie pen and put the parts on a Xerox machine and enlarged the images by a factor of 3.125 to convert from 1/25 scale to 1/8 scale. As good as that model is, and it is one of the best models ever made in my humble opinion, there are some glaring errors. Appendix A details the major ones I found by comparing pictures of completed models to actual pictures of the car. Also shown there are several dimensional 'errors' made by Roth. Actually they cannot be considered errors by any stretch of the imagination because that was THE car but if I made the model as an identical duplicate including his free form divergences, the model would look poorly made.  Legend was that Roth never used a tape measure. I believe it!

I carved the body and nosepiece from basswood. These were sanded and painted with automotive catalyzed urethane and polished to perfection as shown in figure2. 

fig 3.This is the cavity of the 5-piece body mold ready to lay up the fiberglass body shell.

Figure 3 shows the multi-piece fiberglass female molds made from the wooden bucks. Finally, I laid up fiberglass body pieces from the molds. I used commercial grade white gel coat (gray gel coat for the molds for a contrast) and three layers of fiberglass mat. Figures

fig 4.The finished body shell with some of the final preparations done. Not the jig for making the windshield surround. The bubble top and surround are taped in rough position.

4 & 5 show the body and nose pieces ready for finishing. 

fig 5.The finished and assembled nosepiece awaiting holes for lights.

fig 6.There are 4 fiberglass pieces that must be epoxy glued together to form the nosepiece. The 1/8" holes In the two pieces accept a piece of brass tubing which allows passing electrical wires to the lights and strengthens the spindly light stand.

The nosepiece is made from 4 separate fiberglass pieces (figure 6), epoxied together.  The two holes in two of the pieces receive a piece of brass tubing which strengthens the skinny neck on the big headlight pod. The digit that climbs onto the bubble top from the back was made from fiberglass on the body using a junk bobble top. Once finished, I made a mold (figure 7 ) so it could be easily duplicated if necessary.

fig 7.The wonderful digit feature on the back the Mysterion bubble couldn't be made with the rest of the body so I molded one in fiberglass on the body shell using a reject bubble top. Then I made this mold so more digits could be made from resin.

Next to come were the frame rails. I calculated I needed 15/16" square brass tubing to duplicate them but no one makes that size so I used 1". I got a 12" long square tube, cut a piece of square basswood to fit snugly inside the tube, then ran this through my table saw to cut ¼" wide frame rails. I couldn't use the full size patterns I made on the Xerox machine because the Revell model's frame is not even close so I drew up a pattern scaled from actual car pictures. This pattern was laid out on a  piece of oak wood and all holes accurately drilled with a drill press (figure 8).

fig 8.This jig makes drilling the many holes in the frame rails quick and accurate.

A n o t h e r pi e c e o f o a k w it h t h e s a m e g e n e r al dimensions as the first piece was slotted so the flanges of the frame rail fit snugly.  The rails were clamped into this fixture and the holes were drilled in the brass. I used nitride treated drill bits at high speed and slow feed and was able to drill the big holes in the thin brass very cleanly. A third piece of oak was cut with a 1" dado, ¼" deep with a couple of razor saw kerfs so I could accurately cut the frame flanges at the two points where the frame bends to a narrower width in the front of the car as shown in figure 9. Figure 10 shows the finished frame rails with all holes drilled, the bends formed and soldered, waiting for the cross members.

fig 9.This jig allows quick and accurate notches in the frame rails to make the jog in the frame in the front of the car. One of the already bent rails is shown in the jig.

fig 10. Here are the frame rails waiting for the cross members.

The bubble top was fairly easy to make using the method employed by all the classic big car bubble top customizers. First I laid out the shape of the bottom of the top where it joins to the body onto a ¼" piece of plywood. I used the Revell Xerox pattern for that. Then I cut a matching ¼" deep depression in a ½" piece of plywood. A 1/8" piece of brass tubing was epoxied into a hole that penetrated into this depression. The depression was coated with high temperature RTV silicone to make it airtight. Then I attached two 1/8" curved wired on either side of the opening to form the great little side bubbles on the Mysterion top. A sheet metal height indicator was screwed to the top board so the top would be blown to exactly the proper height. These two wood pieces were screwed together with a 1/16" thick piece of clear Plexiglas sandwiched between using about 18 screws to insure an airtight seal. Figure 11 shows the jig.

fig 11. 1/16" Plexiglas is sandwiched in between these two boards, heated in the oven @ 375F 'til soft, then blown with a rubber hose and my lips 'til it almost reaches the metal gauge. A perfect top almost every time. Note the blue silicone sealer to avoid air leaks and the wire side bubble forms.

The whole thing was put in the pre-heated oven to melt the plastic. After a little experimentation, I found that 275 ^oF was the perfect temperature setting for the oven. Any colder and the plastic didn't get soft enough and any hotter and the plastic degraded and formed a froth of little air pockets. The plastic was heated until it sagged all the way across the area of the opening. It is important to wait until the whole piece looks limp; if I took it out with only most of the center sagging. The plastic didn't form to sharp edges at the bottom rim. Finally all I did was take the sandwich out of the oven, fit on a piece of 1/8" rubber hose and blow with my mouth until the bubble grew to just under the metal height indicator. Hold that breath for about 10 seconds and viola, you have a bubble top! It took about 6 or 7 tries to get a good top but now that I have the formula, I can get a good top nearly every try. Major errors happen when I allow the plastic to contact the metal height indicator.  When that happens, there is a permanent line in the plastic due to rapid differential cooling or the top bursts! The only other thing that goes wrong is that for some unexplained reason the top grows a little more on one side than the other resulting in a lopsided top. This is not really a flaw per se. If you look as some of the famous custom cars like Starbird's Futura, pictures from the front or back show that the tops are not very symmetrical at all. They all seem to have this flaw to some extent. The silicone rubber seal coat is a lifesaver. With it, I blow one and pinch the hose and the top stays put 'til cool. Without it, the leakage was so bad, the top was heaving up and down and cooled in unattractive shapes.

fig 12.These are the steps I used to make the windshield surround. In front From left to right in the rare; Plexiglas bubble with a 1/8" thick Bondo for the surround; plaster cast of the pattern; and Bondo jig formed in the plaster cast. A heat gun was used to form two pieces of 1/8" half-round Plexiglas to shape.

The windshield frame was made from another jig made as shown in figure 12. I simply shaved a 1.8" Plexiglas rod to I/2 thickness and with a heat gun, bent it around the Bondo pattern. It was made in two pieces and the corners epoxied together. It will be glued to the final bubble top with acrylic solvent and painted flat black. I can't do that until the top is permanently attached to the body rim and that must wait in turn for the interior mold to be made. Figure 4 shows roughly how it will look.

Once these basic components were roughed out, the next step is the 406 Ford FE engines. They must be made so the frame x-members and interior bucket can be made to fit. I decided to use Monogram's Pontiac V-8 that come in a version of their '32 Ford roadster as the basis of the FE. Since the FE is a Y block, the bottom of the Pontiac block was extended down about 3/16". The rear of the block was modified to include the wings on the rear of the FE. An oil filter mount was attached to the lower right front of the block. Although the real engine has separate front timing chain cover and water pump, I compromise and made then in a single unit to save making a urethane mold. The heads took the most work and a sing head was highly modified and made so it can serve both sides of the engine. The FE is unique in that the heads are truncated and the intake manifold actually forms part of the 'head' under the valve covers.

fig 13.The wood carving of the transmission is actually 3 pieces; two transmission halves and the bell housing.

The intake manifold, oil pan, valve covers, bell housing and Cruise-O-Matic transmission (figure 13 is a photo of those woodcarvings) were carved in wood primed and sanded 'til good enough to mold. The raised 'THUNDERBIRD' script on the valve cover was painted on in several coats of heavy primer paint 'til it looked like it was stamped in steel.  Finally urethane rubber molds were made of all of these parts (figure 14 shows some of the molds) and the final model parts were cast in rigid urethane resin. 

fig 14. Just a few of the rubber molds that I will need to make during this project. I bought stock in the chemical company before I started buying resin!

fig 15. Here are all the major engine parts finish cast in resin ready to assemble.

Figure 15 show the finished engine parts castings waiting to be deburred and glued together. I still have a bunch of parts to make and cast like belt pulleys, distributors, carburetor risers, etc. 

Since any engine has a lit of exposed bolt heads that need to be modeled, I made a bolt head mold by sinking a bunch of 00-90 and 00-82 bolts into modeling clay until just the heads showed. I then made a silicone cast of the heads and from that cast I made a bunch of Bondo simulated bolt heads. These were then glued in place on the various engine parts before they were molded. I know, I should have made everything screw together with real bolts but hey, I am not getting any younger and I wanted to finish this model before Alzheimer's sets in!

The '48 Ford rear end housing was made from two Lindberg Big Rod kits because I like how they are made compared to the monogram method of splitting the parts along the length of the axle. All of the suspension parts will need to wait until I have the frame x-members in place so the mounts are in the proper spots.

The front wheel was made by thinning down two Revell Big T inner wheel rims and gluing a 1/16" disk of plastic inside one. The necessary holes were drilled and cut with an X-acto knife. The front tires started as a Revell 1/8 scale 20" tire that was sectioned until it was the right circumference to fit the rim and super-glued together.  Then I made a two part rigid urethane resin mold. From that mold I will male silicone rubber tires colored with black powered aniline dye. The rear wheels have a Big T rim with the web cut out. The Radir wheel web was made by casting the center section of a Revell American mag wheel in Bondo from a silicone rubber mold. The spokes on this casting were flattened and strips of styrene were glued on them to simulate the ribs on the spokes of the original Radirs. Finally the web was epoxied into the Big T rim with a ridiculous deep offset as on the Mysterion. I will use the Revell piecrust, white wall slicks, which are already a good match for the real car.  The wheels will also be molded and cast in resin. I will likely install 00-82 stud and lug nuts on the wheels. 

fig 16. The wheels are ready to mold. Will use the Monogram whitewall piecrust slicks. The front tires will be made in black silicone from a hard resin mold made of the cut down Monogram motorcycle tire in the picture

Figure 16 shows the prototype wheels and tires ready to be molded in rubber.

That is as far as I have gotten so far. Goal is to finish by next October so I can enter it in the Kern Count Fair.

Incidentally, my passion has gone so far that I am 90% complete with collecting all the parts I need to make a full sized driveable reproduction of the car. Should start slinging plaster for the body pattern nest summer!

View Appendix A here. It is a rather large Word document with many photos.  Approximate size is 1.6 MB