Most advanced project yet, cutting open doors and trunk on a '69 Judge.

So I decided that I wanted to take on a challenging modeling project. Taking a normal 1969 GTO Judge kit and cutting open the doors and trunk and putting working hinges on them to have a model with working doors and trunk. The good news is, I did it. The bad news, it's not as easy as I thought it would be, but that is the point of a challenge isn't it? So here's a tutorial with pictures on how to do it. First thing you need to know is building this model is going to require some supplies: 5 min. Epoxy. An old No.11 hobby blade with an intact unbroken tip. masking tape and model putty (I use Tamiya Putty, Basic Type because it does not shrink, it's very light and mold able and it grabs onto surfaces and sticks well) Why no hobby saw? Because we are not going to saw the doors and trunk open, it removes too much material and the blades bind and break while sawing, it also takes FOREVER! That's why we need an old No.11 hobby blade. We are going to use the back of the blade tip to repeatedly score along the door and trunk lines, until we cut right through them. First off though your going to want to paint and assemble the model's interior, paint the chassis (do not assemble undercarriage yet) and do not paint the body exterior (interior: yes). The reason for this is the model is going to be built sort of in reverse of what you might be used to. Once painted, your going to want to glue the interior to the chassis and the body to the chassis using 5 min. Epoxy. The reason for this is if you tried to cut open the doors on the body you would be left with a body that is very weak in the middle and could/will break. If the model is already assembled, then once the doors are cut open and removed, the body will remain rigid because the chassis is attached to it. See why we painted the interior first? Once it's assembled you won't be able get a brush in there to detail anything. Here are some pics of what's been covered so far. Note, the model in these pics is an unpainted extra Judge I had sitting around in case I messed this one up.

My lines are on the outside, but you get the idea, glue the inside edges. Once everything is glued let it sit overnight. 5 min Epoxy does not dry in 5 min. it sets in 5 min, but takes over 12 hours to completely dry.
Now that the glue is solid, your ready to begin cutting. First, we want to tape the blade, except the tip. Your finger is going to be pressing down on the sharp side of the blade for pressure because we will be using the back side of the blade, so we want a cushion between finger and blade so as not to inflict a nasty cut on ourselves. Next, we want to score along the door lines with the back tip of the blade many times. Always score down the same groove. Start with the door sides going from bottom corner to top edge of door. Once that's done, score along the bottom of the door from the corners toward the middle. The reason for these blade movements/directions is to minimize the chances of your blade jumping out of the groove and putting a nasty gouge across the body. This way, if the blade jumps, it will likely land back in the groove and harm nothing. The easiest way to remember this is always be scoring AWAY from a corner, not into it. For the last few strokes though, it really doesn't matter though as the likelihood of the blade jumping, when it's that deep into a groove is minimal. Here's a few more pics.

So, now your doors are off (trunk is much easier) but now your left with the inside door panels to deal with, what now? Same deal, using your newly opened door edges as a guide, repeat the scoring procedure until the inside panel is off. Now you have 2 halves of a door, this is where the fun begins. We are going to use these halves to make the new door. The easiest way to do this is glue the top edges of the door halves together and stick a pen or something in between the halves to hold the halves open while it dries. After it's dry, we need to fill in the back and bottom edges of the door. Do not fill in the front edge of the door as we need this open later for hinges. Once the filler is dry, sand and refill where necessary and sand again until you have nice smooth, flush edges. Also fill in the gap behind the doors with putty and sand, but don't fill in front of the door (body side) again, hinges. Check your door fitment OFTEN during this process. Paint the dry putty to match your colors and now it's starting to look like the real thing. Here's some more pics.

That's all for now. All this is going to take you some time and this blog post is getting really long, so I will continue this in a second post. Next post will be how to make a simple hinge and paint this beast!