Brian Austin

Some of John's final posts on FB were of his cat. I'm hoping someone's taking good care of Grom.

Seen in Shrewsbury, MA in 2016. Appears to be the mascot of a local transportation company

Several internet articles claim the bodywork composition included hemp, but I think they're playing that up for clicks. Anyway I thought the odd couple at the top was interesting. Would make an interesting kitbash?

Soybean car https://macsmotorcitygarage.com/the-truth-about-henry-fords-soybean-car/

This picture accompanied an article on Ford's "hemp" car. I'm suspicious already since Ford built a prototype for a soybean car that looked nothing like this. What caught my eye in the above image was the bodywork. Looks like a '37-'38 hump.

Also, I think the water tanks on that British steam loco are kinked like that to not block the vision of the Locomotive crew.

Re: 21st Century Toys https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/25970-so-what-happened-to-21st-century-toys-and-who-got-their-tooling/

British O Scale is 7mm to the foot, or 1:43. Yes that's a popular model car scale. US O Scale is known today as 1:48, and it's slightly undersized compared to the track gauge. Little known today, some American manufacturers in the 1930s through the 1950s promoted a Scale standard of 17/64 inch to the foot, which works out to around 1:45. Pity it didn't catch on. I unwittingly acquired some 17/64" items and they are visibly larger than 1:48 Scale items.

The San Francisco cable car system is narrow gauge. It's possible the scale is accurate for the gauge. The range of LGB trains is tricky in terms of actual scale. In the end they are toys intended to run on a particular track system with tight radius curves. Scale is often said to be 1:22.5 , but it can vary. Some models are actually close to 1:26 scale. The hobby always involves some compromise. Some G Gauge models made by other manufacturers were 1:24. Noone will be quizzed on this, but European O Gauge is 1:45 scale, half of 1:22.5 . 🙂

Yesterday there was a flash flood situation in Boston and vicinity. 6 inches of rain.

Oddly enough I got this one years ago to replace a plastic dial caliper that came apart. 😞

I just noticed my caliper won't slide properly.

Do 3D printed kits warp waiting to be built like old resin kits do?

I wouldn't wear flannel in 90-100 degree temperatures. 😄

People have been complaining about the weather in my area, but we've only just broken a drought. My town lifted its water restrictions only a week or so ago. We didn't get much snow last season.

It's been raining every Saturday here in MA for the past 12 or 13 weeks. We broke a record. Yay.

Oddly enough Google wasn't helping me come up with specific examples.

IIRC there was a fad of painting one's car in corporate logos, such as McDonald's. Big ugly wheels complete the look.

One other issue is they often supplied wrong-year chassis in their kits. The '60s Olds kits carried over their '59-'60 chassis for example. Oddly enough some Olds promos had a more accurate chassis, though simplified.

As good as thier bodies can be, they left out an important detail from their '61 Olds. The fender-top crease should continue through the doors creating a neat trough effect that JoHan seems to have missed. Easily enough fixed by the modeler.

I always heard it in the context of recording a folk music album. Along with, "It'll be a million seller. There will be a million units in your cellar you will be stuck with."

Okey isn't keeping the JoHan name alive?

Example of the background vehicles used: https://propstoreauction.com/lot-details/index/catalog/442/lot/160103/31-Four-Cars-and-One-Truck-THOMAS-FRIENDS-TV-SERIES-1984-2008?url=%2Fauctions%2Fcatalog%2Fid%2F442%3Fpage%3D2

https://propstoreauction.com/auctions/catalog/id/442 Several pages of listings. Most auctions are over at this point. From what I could see, the prices were going sky high. Several familiar train models, along with a bunch of vehicles among other things. The vehicles seem to be around 1:32-1:24, and some were larger, depending on the episode series.

I've seen plaster styling mdels in museums such as the Henry Ford with the 2-door/4-door arrangement. Since you can't see both sides at once it .makes sense.