Chris V

Another issue common to all versions of the '34 tooling is the difference between the main body and the door top/roof-assembly: The two pieces differ by more than a scale inch in width by the rear edge of the doors: Luckily the solution is pretty straightforward: Cut out the center sections of the main body with a razor saw, making sure the cuts are perfectly parallel. Carefully sand the edges of the upper piece smooth, making sure to remove an even amount from each side and test fit along the way. Reinstall the upper piece. When the glue has set you repeat the procedure for the lower piece making sure to keep the corners in a right angle: MUCH better:

I figured I better stop hanging around the "General" and "Industry Corner" sections of this place, and actually post some of the stuff I'm working on. Thanks to the "Daily Dose" (of inspiration) posted on Facebook by Drag City Casting, I've decided to replicate this late fifties' style Hot Rod: The build will be based on vintage Monogram parts with just a few miscellaneous parts from other manufacturers thrown in to fully capture the look of the car. As some of you may know, all early issues of Monogram's 1934 Fords suffer from a mold-misalignment making the lower part of the body flush with the beltline molding. The issue wasn't corrected until the early eighties, when the tooling was altered into the ZZ Top "Eliminator". Thus I'm using one of the subsequent Thom Taylor '34 Cabriolet issues as donor for the main body, while the roof, rear filler panel and stock chassis with bumper brackets are from a seventies "Early Iron" Series '34 Ford Coupé: Out of the two (Monogram) Buick Nailhead engines available in 1:24 scale I chose the one out of the somewhat commonly available "Orange Hauler" - Parting out an "Uncertain T" for the project just didn't seem like a viable option... 😉 The rolling stock is mainly sourced from the Revell "Skip's Fiesta" Series issue of the 1959 Ford Fairline Skyliner, which features 1:24 scale Oldsmobile Fiesta hubcaps with Monogram's large whitewall tires originally found in the 1958 Ford Thunderbird and 1953/57 Corvettes: To add a bit of "Rubber Rake" I chose to use the smaller tires from the Lindberg reissues of Pyro's old Cord Convertible and Auburn Speedster kits up front, as the tread and sidewall detail closely matches that of the Monogram tires, only smaller: As you can see, their inside diameter makes the smaller Lindberg tires an excellent fit for the large Revell/Monogram wheels, which can also be found in the more recent Revell-reissues of Monogram's 1958 Ford Thunderbird:

Not that I'm aware of... Robert Burns ("Too Many Projects" on Facebook) offers a 3D-printed ´41 Convertible, '50 Special Sedanette, '52 Roadmaster HT, and a '57 Caballero 4 dr. Wagon, but he's not taking any more orders at the moment due to a backlog.

Well that kind of haste is a recipe for disaster - regardless of what tape you use. Very few paints beside very “hot“ automotive lacquer basecoats will hold up to such quick handling.

I had to refresh/restart the checkout process a couple of times, but eventually it worked. The issue seemed to be the way the website validates the address using google maps.

The Tamiya LP-series lacquer paints generally cover very well. Though the metallic black and metallic orange are no exception (unlike the regular orange), you can use a colored primer to reduce the amount of paint required for full coverage. The metallic orange is a brownish orange hue, so an oxide red primer works well. Though many swear by Tamiya's primers, I've previously experienced some minor chipping along edges of even thoroughly prepared/cleaned surfaces, so I now use a slightly "hotter" brand of industrial primer for better adhesion. Some have experienced issues with the Tamiya's tape harming the painted surface - mainly on their acrylics which take ages to fully cure.

I've been browsing 3DScale's website looking at various wheel sets. It's very hard to tell how good the plating looks from the pictures available on-line. Considering the price, I'd really appreciate to hear your thoughts on the quality of the tires and the plating before pulling the trigger.

It's a gamble when to buy and when to wait - especially in those cases where licensing issues are effectively prohibiting any future reissues of even fairly recent kits. I've often kicked myself for passing on good deals in the past, and regretted spending fortunes on kits I've later been able to pick up for a song and a dance. I know it's been discussed elsewhere on this forum, but an explosive increase in the cost of licensing is the reason why no Ferrari kits have been issued in recent years. It felt like an absolute steal when I was able to pick up a Hasegawa 1958 Ferrari Testa Rossa for the equivalent of $ 100 a few months ago...

I haven’t seen that pattern before, but Scale Production offers the Recaro “Sunset Stripe” pattern with some of their resin seats.

A well renowned resin caster is currently working on an authentically detailed ‘30 Coupé body conversion in 1:25 scale

How about covering the opening and surrounding area with cling film/Saran Wrap, and a cover it with a dried-out wet wipe soaked in either diluted acrylic clearcoat or wood glue thinned with water? Or perhaps it’s better to tape the dried out wet wipe/tissue paper down and apply the setting solution?

It's a 1949-50 Kurtis Sport Car by Kurtis Kraft - The tooling and rights were sold to Earl Muntz, who manufactured and sold the car as the Muntz Jet.

Today I received my first (of presumeably many) orders of Chris’ parts from Thangs:

The Strombecker Scarab is 1/24 scale (or possibly even larger). The Halibrands by R&M of MD are severely underscaled for this model.

The only kit sources for stock Ford Flathead V8's in 1:24 are the original issues of Monogram's 1934 Ford Coupé/Convertible and 1940 Ford Pickup. They're both quite expensive and hard to come by, and the detail level is typical of early sixties' kits with molded-in exhaust manifolds and crossover pipe.

You can add the Horning/Fisher 12 port head to that wish:

The quick change axle with Model A suspension package for Revell's 1932 Fords is available again: Quick Change Conversion

It depends on what width you're looking for, but if you're looking for high quality tape, i recommend lookingfor either "Micron Tape" from Aizu Project or "Washi masking tape" from DSPIAE. Both are similar in type and quality to Tamiya Masking Tape. The Aizu Project tape is available in widths as small as 0.4 mm

Tire burn is a rather rare occurrance in Jo-Han kits, particularly of this era. The tires were molded from a rather “dry” compound. The biggest issue is usually scuff marks because the clear and plated parts weren’t bagged from the factory.

The majority of the american car kit manufacturers have been around since the late fifties/early sities. With tooling archives spanning multiple decades of production and technological advancements there’s not much point in comparing any manufacturer to the other in general terms: They all have their good, bad, and uglies. As mentioned above, MPC has been under the same ownership as AMT since the nineties and was absorbed by the AMT brand for a while. The current owners, Round2, has re-established MPC as a separate brand and started reissuing and and re-creating improved versions of their older kits. Model kit reviews like the ones posted on this forum are generally the best way to find out how a particular kit rates. Though many people are fond of the website Scalemates, it’s important to note that it’s uncurated and more or less free to edit by contributors - and thus contains a lot of incorrect information as well.

I’d hang on to it for now, and see if another open one turns up. Jo-Han Funnycars had impressive detailing and a completely different crispness than the AMT, MPC and Revell Kits of their time. The Pinto in question was an authentic model of Mickey Thompson’s “Titanium Pinto”. Slixx has the right decals for the car.

Green Stuff World’s Chrome brush paint (they also have an airbrush version) is outstanding for touching up the smaller imperfections from e.g. Sprue mounting points and tears/cracks in Bare Metal Foil.

Before you get too shocked by the price of the Ebay listings currently available, you should always make sure to look up the previous auction results (filter the search results to see ended/sold listings). This will usually give you a much more accurate idea of the approximate market value and rarity of the model. Some sellers simply keep re-listing the same kits over and over at some ridiculous “Buy it now”-price in hope that an unexperienced buyer will eventually pay the asking price. Having said that, the prices of even fairly common and recent kits can sometimes skyrocket, once they’re out of production - As I think many of us have found out the hard way…

Back before the days of Round2’s ownership Lindberg announced an upcoming issue of their Dodge L700, with a truckload of crushed cars. They even had a box art/display model built using existing Lindberg kits, but licensing issues supposedly killed off the project as none of the proposed manufacturers wanted to se their vehicles portrayed as wrecks.

They were added to the seventies’ “Street Rods” issue of the AMT ‘40 Ford Coupé kit. For some reason they haven’t been included in any subsequent reissues. I recently shared some pictures in this discussion thread: https://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/126388-amt-original-hot-rod-kits-engine-options/page/2/#comments From a detailing standpoint they’re quite crude and not correctly centered, but if you look past that, they add a certain oldschool coolness to nostagic Hot Rod builds.