Mark

Good mechanics and bodymen can make a good living because so few people are coming in. Were I in high school now, it's a field I'd consider. But a lot of school districts don't have shop classes anymore. My brother-in-law recruits techs for a large dealership group; he likes the job but it is challenging. Good tradesmen can make decent money: automotive, plumbing, electrical, drywall, painting, because so few people are willing to do it. I work for a construction company (in the office); we are a union contractor, but some of our (and other contractors') key guys actually earn higher than scale.

The only complaint I have seen regarding Rodder's Journal is that new issues appear at book stores before subscribers get their copies. No big deal as far as I'm concerned. Many other magazines outside the automotive realm have gone away or cut back in recent years. I waa hoping that Hot Rod Deluxe and (earlier) Elapsed Times would hang on. They seemed likely to be less costly to produce, seeing as much of the content was recycled archival material. Guess not. Rod & Custom screwed up early on, by going monthly as Pat Ganahl was heading out the door. Not enough content for a monthly left them essentially printing half of each issue as nothing more than instruction sheets for using advertisers' products. Rodder's Journal has no how-to content, only features and historical stuff, so they should be fine as long as enthusiasts want to flip the pages themselves.

And Pontiac never used that phrase to promote the car! It was part of an old vaudeville routine, and the creator of it copyrighted all of his material because theft was rampant in those circles. Pontiac didn't want to pay to use the phrase, so they worked around it.

Newer tool kits like the AMT '67 Chevelle and Impala, and Revell '65-'67 Chevelles and El Caminos, '68-'69 Corvettes, and '69 Camaros all have decent big block Chevy engines. One of the Revell 'Vettes has an optional blower setup. Most old-tool engines, particularly the AMT altered wheelbase cars', are on the small side.

Street Rodder is gone too. Of the print magazines published by TEN, only Hot Rod, Four Wheeler, and Motor Trend (why?) remain. I too was baffled when they dropped Rod & Custom while (then) keeping Street Rodder.

How old is he in cat years? Maybe he thinks you should be working on a Cheetah, or at least a Cougar.

Shelby kit is 1/25 scale, '70 Mach I is 1/24.

The restored '69 body is somewhat different from the original annual kit body (side trim is gone) but is pretty clean overall. The chassis is a bit heavy-handed, but that can be swapped for something else with more detail.

Some resin hoods and other smaller parts warp (curl up) because they have an extremely thick area adjacent to a thin area. One such example is an early Camaro hood with the Yenko scoop. I have two of those, from different casters. They are designed the same way: scoop is mostly solid making the hood twice as thick in the middle. Both hoods are curled upwards at the rear corners. The amount of shrinkage with most resins is miniscule. But concentrate all of it in one direction, and you'll end up with warpage like this. A resin body that is a copy of a conversion, with say, the roof or body sides changing in thickness by a great degree will also do this. I stay away from a lot of the thinner castings because of this. The right material could probably be cast as thin as some pieces are being done, but few of us doing these things have the engineering background to determine which material is best for a particular purpose. We're using the same resin for everything, usually the stuff we are used to working with. Even so, if you avoid abrupt changes in thickness, you'll probably be okay.

How much paint is on the body? The paint could be shrinking and pulling everything out of shape.

The only thing to do is test first.

There were several kits to backdate the MPC kit to a '68. Find a pre-Ertl issue (one of the street machines) as those have '68 side markers on the body. All of the 1:1 cars were built as 1968 cars. For the underbody, I've got a Dart kit set aside for mine. The wheelbase will need to be shortened for the 'Cuda though.

I'll still buy stuff missing parts, but at a discount. I'll either already have the part (in which case I can pay a bit more than someone else not having that part), or be willing to wait for the part to come to me, or in some cases cast the part from one I already have. It hasn't materialized on any scale yet, but I thought some guys might start casting on a small scale. Someone into early Corvairs for example might start doing parts they need, parts not often found in good condition. They could then sell or trade the extras to pay the cost of the materials. Hasn't happened yet on the scale that I had expected, but then again I don't watch eBay much anymore.

I'm pretty certain that kit is 1/20 scale. I believe Modelhaus briefly sold resin copies of one.

Either the red is bleeding through the white, or the white is dissolving some of the red and mixing with it. Either way, you're getting pink. If you are painting stripes, paint the white first, mask them, and paint the red. Many people would recommend painting the lighter color first in most cases. Or, use acrylic paint for the white if you paint it over the red. Acrylic won't dissolve the red enamel. The red could still bleed through however.

It's frustrating, but I would cut my losses. Return the defective item, get a refund. Then, never deal with them again, and explain the situation to anyone you know who has thoughts about dealing with this company. I'm surprised they won't just replace the item. While a happy customer might tell one or two people about their experience, an unhappy one will share theirs with everyone they know, and a bunch of others they don't know.

The original MPC decal sheets were very small and simplified. Remember these kits retailed for $1.50 when car kits were usually $2.25. For example, the Roth Mail Box kit sheet had only the Mail Box logo for the upper rear corner of the body on each side, in only two colors as I recall.

One thing I (don't) do is dip the brush too far into the paint. No more than one third of the length of the bristles ever touches paint; the paint never gets close to the ferrule (the metal part that joins the bristles to the handle). This keeps dried paint from bunching up in the bristles, causing them to spread. It's much easier to clean the brush too.

WHEEL....OF....FORTUNE!

I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it...

More speculation...maybe GM wants an outrageous deal to license a C8 kit? In years past, multiple companies might have been willing to step up, especially if they had an exclusive deal. In the post-promotional model era, it might be a diecast company that bags an exclusive deal on a 1/24 scale replica, potentially shutting out any kit manufacturer(s) that may have wanted to get in on doing one...

The Revell '65 and '66 kits use the same chassis parts, so the parts breakdown will be identical.

Australia too.

The Craftsman is the ex-promo, the "other" one. It is weird that they altered the headlights on the Chevy (at that time) but not the Ford. I have a couple of the Chevies; the headlamp detail is crooked ("clocked" wrong) in that issue. That was fixed for the next issue though.

It's customized, so it may only be possible to narrow it down to a certain range.