maxwell48098

One thing that is always helpful, if you decide to take your pics with a cell phone, whenever possible take the pics horizontally. That way you don't cut off the left or right ends of your model, while having large wasted space above and below your model. Too many folks just hold their phone vertically which usually ends up making you model appear small, but the background overpowering and distracting. Just my thoughts. A.J.

I have small 1X2 blocks under the front corners of all of my cases that are sitting on carpet, and some 0.5X1.5 plywood blocks under the front corners of my cases sitting on hardwood flooring. It's just enough to make the cases lean ever so slightly rearward. Just a thought, A.J.

Isn't that the Revell kit?

Here's one I built at as tractor way back in 1979 that I shortened the wheelbase on.

I used the frame fro the AMT '53 Ford F100 and had to add about 3/4 to the frame wheelbase to make it come out right. I've also dropped the 1960 Cab onto the '53 F100 frame and pickup box for a proper '60 F100 Flareside A.J.

The current May/June issue of Vintage Truck Magazine has a great article on a beautiful 1972 F250 360 CID 4X4 Highboy "Dentside" pickup. Like all Vintage Truck articles, the author goes into the background history of the truck line being featured before going into the specifics of the featured truck. The Featured truck is now owned by the son of the original owner who died in a vehicle accident in 1984. His son was 3 at the time and 2015 did a serious restoration of his dad's truck. Lots of great pics as well. I have had a Vintage Truck subscription since way back when the magazine was originally titled This Old Truck in 1993. It is my goto source for info on various light duty builds I do. You may want to pick up an issue if you see one somewhere, or you can subscribe at vintagetruck.com. A.J.

There's an extra one in case you lose one. I thought that it was a great idea, and if you don't lose any, you have a whole extra set after 5 builds! A.J.

I did a couple over the years. If I remember correctly, I vertically cut off the rear of the body as far back as possible. (These rear doors ended up being used as the side doors on the '72 and '78. Then I took a second body and cutoff about .75 inches at the rear (roughly 18 scale inches_ then aglued this to the first body and blended the lower rear area behind the rear wheel openings. It's not as hard as it seems. Hope that helps. A.J.

All American Models did a complete conversion kits back in the day. A.J.

Sure would be nice to see Round 2 re-release the 1957 after seeing all of the 1955's released over and over again. A.J.

Nice work on the chassis. FYI - The transmission should a cast iron color instead of the engine color. Great job overall. A.J.

The tread width of the MPC/Ertl/AMT DM800 and DM600 is too wide for them to be correct for 1/25 scale. So these chassis will work fine with 1/24 scale casting. I have a feeling that Jim Etter the original proprietor of AIM purposely made his castings a little wider so that the MPC chassis would work. If you've ever built the DM800 or DM600, the tires actually extend past the edges of the fenders, but this casting fits them perfectly. A.J.

Here are some images of an original American Industrial Models Mack B-81 dropped on the MPC not AMT DM 800 chassis. Really simple. A.J.

I use thee different types of liquid glue. What I have to done prevent knocking over the tall glue bottles of Plastruct Plastiweld, Plast-i-weld by Flex File, and MEK Substitute is to rubber band the three tall glass bottles together to form a triangle shape. Haven't had a problem with knocking this over for decades back to the old Tenerex days. A.J.

Has anyone else noticed that the date on the M&M is 2009? A.J.

Boy, I can remember getting a McDonald's Hamburger for 15 cents, fries set you back another 10 cents, and a large (today's medium) Coke cost another 25 cents. And we think truck have gotten expensive. A.J.

Gregg, I'm retired from Chrysler and the high performance versions of the Charger use HP Hemi engines which have their blocks painted orange while cylinder hears remain bare aluminum.

The Exhaust Manifolds on all of my MOPARs were a dark, rusty brown. That is true once the engine paint burned off. Just running them on "the rolls" dynos in the assembly plant, the top 2-3 inches of paint would be burnt off. Once it got to the dealership and prepped for delivery, in about 20 minutes the last of the paint was gone. Park the vehicle in humid air overnight, ato life. nd that rusty patina came. Every engine that I saw leave Mound Road Engine, or Trenton Engine in the suburbs of Detroit had the manifolds installed before paint. A.J.

Here's one source of high quality custom decals. https://stsdecals.com/

Johan tooling is long gone. It's a subject that has been discussed over and over for years here.

Having worked on several 1:1 versions of these old Mopars, I must say that nearly every single one had various panel gaps and fit far worse than those on your model. On 1:1, we've spent days getting them even close to being equal and tight. Kudos on your efforts. A.J.

Yes, "MEK substitute" does work fine, and its odor isn't nearly as strong original MEK. I git mine at Lowes for $8.69 for a quart can. I just put some in an old Plastruct cement bottle, and have even mixed some into other liquid cements to stretch them out a little. No noticeable degradation of the other cements. A.J.

I wonder if Round 2 will issue a 4X4 Dodge W100 using the 4x4 suspension pieces from Warlock? Seems pretty simple, if they can do the reverse for the warlock. A.J.

Looks like I'm not the only one you uses the bottom up technique. Been doing it that way for maybe 50 years now. A.J.

I recently discovered tire melt on a model that I used some aftermarket soft resin tires that I installed when I built an AMT F350 about two years ago. A different version of the F350 built at the same time with resin wheels, but same tires, has shown no signs of melting or other damage. Replaced the plastic wheels, cleaned the inside of the tires, lined the new plastic wheels with Bare Metal foil before reinstalling the tires. First time this has happened since some of my original builds back in the '60's. Now I don't take chances anymore and routinely line the plastic wheels before installing soft resin tires. A.J.