Bernard Kron

Yep, the photo's gone again. I'll try posting the picture from my own P-bucket account. The photo has gone missing everywhere it's been posted, whether in my posts or someone elses. It originates on Photobucket but I haven't been able to locate it.

That's odd. It shows on my screen just fine. Update: I waited about 10 minutes and the image is no longer showing... I'll see what I can do. Update to the update: I just reloaded the link and it's showing again. I'll close this window and wait a few minutes, then check again...

Beautiful, just beautiful...

Beautifully done. But hardly "mild" what with the chopped top, molded in continental kit and custom grill work. Pretty radical and kool I'd say!

Just announced a few moments ago. From Ed Fluck at Drag City Casting. Ed's stuff is absolutely top drawer. He's selling the complete set as shown below. To order contact Ed at lowcab36@epix.net . Molds are completed and test shots being poured. When Ed provides pics of the resin pieces I will post them These are the masters in primer. OK. Here it is. The official picture of an actual production casting of the louvered set, courtesy of Ed Fluck himself! Thanx Ed!

That lowboy interior is a real how-to on doing it right when revamping the inside panels for a channeled car. The result will look crisp and clean and be a real improvement over the overdone, over-elaborate, over-stylized, over..., well just plain over, Rat Roaster interior. I remain frustrated by the fact that the only current issue of a Revell Deuce roadster is this car, of all things. But I have my stash of cheaply purchased old-series roadsters now so I'll stop bellyaching. And, as I mentioned earlier, your work shows that there's less melodrama in straightening the Rat Roaster out than one might suppose. Nice stuff! Looking forward to more, more, more...

If you already have an AMT kit and want the chopped top a quality re-pop is avalable from Bandit Resin ( http://www.banditresins.com/1936_ford.html ):

Further back in the descussion some one expressed a desire for some of the parts that were offered in the Sedan Delivery kits (in particular the recent 3 Stooges re-issue). Examples include the baby Moons and the DeSoto style ripple bumpers - both of which were included in the Cocal Cola re-issue of the coupe, IIRC.

I was in a hobby shop in Hollister, California this past weekend and they had the new re-issue in an oversized flattish box. Difficult to tell from the packaging ,but it looked like the Sedan Delivery stuff was missing ,and we're still stuck with the Toronado 'caps (i.e. no baby Moons). Grrrr... Still, I'm glad this is being re-issued and the molds refurbished. If someone buys one could they publish a review?

I'm thinking you're right. Thanx! I really must learn resin casting!

Now you know why you should, Niko!

The wheels and tires make the car, IMHO. They have guided the build since you started. Is there someone out there who can figure out their source? If not I'll have to figure how to make them...

This isn't about building according to a communal theme. It's about what happens to be what folks are doing at/with their workbench on Saturday, for example rebuilding or reorganizing their workspace. What could be more general than that?.For myself I rely competely on "View New Content" and have it tagged to notify me for weekly updates. If it has always been in Community Builds I guess I never noticed because of the way I go about things (just too darn many categories for me...). But, unfortunately, for those members who rely on specific categories to find things I'm not sure it's terribly appropriate where it is. But... I guess there have been plenty of responses up to now. Just my opinion... BTW, I think the notion of showing what's shaking on your workbench on a Saturday is very cool, and deserves to be different from describing My Workbench. I may disagree with Casey, but it definitely builds a sense of Community, wherever it may be found.

Agreed, but there are a couple of things to consider about this, I think. One is that it has been an agressively pursued policy not only of multinationals and poorer countries developing their export markets, but also of our own government at least since the Marshall plan. It's based on the theory of "competitive advantage" which has been taught in every b-school in the country for more than a generation. But there's nothing new about this lop-sided interpretation of "competitive advantage", it used to be referred to as mercantilism. The second point, again as you imply, is that it's not without consequences. Eventually the "consumer" country is left with few productive resources and can no longer suppport the cost of consumption, and the debt to keep it going, at a level that will be of benefit to the exporting countries. And so the pendulum reverses, the exporters suffering inflation and rising wages, compromising their competitiveness, and an opportunity to restructure and regain a position in producing goods and services for export opens up in the "consumer country". It's up to us to grab it, but not necessarily by trying to lower wages and benefits to those of the emerging exporting countries. The result can simply be "sticky" mass unemployment, lost generations of workers, and the lowering of standards of living to unacceptable levels, as we are currently seeing in parts of southern Europe. The cost of this "hollowing out" is eventually, and inevitably, borne by those who have initially benefited from it as well as by those who initially facilitated it. But the responsibility of society to regain a foothold towards prosperity is borne by everyone.

First off, I’m glad this topic was re-opened. The following is based on a discussion I had off-line and is my perspective on Harry’s original comment. I frequent quite a few model car forums and the more categories there are the more "segregated" the forum becomes. The proliferation of categories makes it increasingly difficult to appreciate fine modeling in all its forms by requiring members to decide up front what their tastes are. It also vastly complicates deciding where most effectively to post. I know for a fact that on this forum and "that other forum" both, if my drag cars are sent off to a specific (in my view sub-)category like Drag Racing Models or Race Cars/Sports Cars (where drag racing subjects are "hidden" on the "other forum") I get far fewer viewers than in Hot Rods/Street Rods/Street Machines ("over there") or simply (and even better, IMHO) On The Workbench or Under Glass. And the opposite is true, too. If I don't visit the "correct" (sub-)Categories I miss what's on offer. For example, because of the addition of new (sub-)categories to the Trucks section, T-buckets, Street Rods, Customs and Rat-Rods that happen to have pickup beds are under Model Trucks/On The Workbench or Under Glass/Pickups, Vans, SUVs, Light Commercial and are now potentially “hidden” from those for whom looking there is not intuitively obvious. For me the solution is View New Posts, which I swear by. However, it begs the question “Why bother with all these categories in the first place”? I have no opinion one way or the other as to whether a Road Racing Cars category would attract hundreds of new members or not - but where does it stop? Chuck Most’s comment about page position is well taken in this regard and is a common issue in web page design. What’s done is done. I’m not suggesting a simplification of the board from its current structure even if I, at least, would welcome it. Indeed, if I'm wrong and people need to be assured that their interests are specifically served and membership suffers as a result of too much generality, then I stand corrected. But the trend of adding new Categories in the long run leads to the blizzard of (Sub-)Categories that is the bane of the "other forum". On the "other forum" members have taken to double and even triple posting in order to reach other members they would like to have seen their work. It is a slippery slope... I contend it's hurt the "other forum" immeasurably, in many different ways, not the least of which are "enforcement" and the opacity of the Forum's home page. There are so many categories that Moderators are powerless to enforce them. Don’t let it happen here! Thanx for listening, B.

I coming down to Cali to attend. Who else is going?

The basic Brookville 53-window starts at $25K and I suspect the 5-window is more so UPI actually underprices the competition... for now... Given the demographic I wonder how the made-in-Asia aspect will impact sales. Brookville has been in the business a long time and they have huge prestige. When you're playing in this league $5K can be easily forgiven. Oops, B'ville stuff is made in Taiwan...

Round2 has a blog that makes for interesting reading, giving a valuable insight into a manufacturer's perspective. It can be found here: http://www.collectormodel.com/ . Their most recent post, entitled "The use of Resin in modeling", is written from the point-of-view of the world of Fantasy and Sci-Fi rather than the Automotive world. It also should be taken with a large grain of salt since it definitely reads like "the company line". But the outcome, that they are seriously considering resin production is equally interesting. Here are some highlights: The use of Resin in modeling posted by RJ 2:23 PM Monday, January 13, 2014 Recently I have had some inquiries about resin. I do not have a lot of experience with resin as a medium so I asked one of our advanced designers for some feedback. His response is as follows. As a material, resin is not as forgiving as plastic. It is more brittle, and if made solid, the end model is much heavier than a plastic one. Most modelers’ experience with resin kits are building “garage kits”, which means a guy or group making an unlicensed kit of their own in their basement or garage and selling them to whoever is interested. By the nature of that market, quality is very spotty. A lot of the product being sold at a show like Wonderfest is this kind of stuff. ... If we or Moebius didn’t make a kit you see in there, somebody made it themselves and they are selling them. Yes, resin kits are much more expensive, but we are trying to find sources that will make them for a reasonable price and with more consistent quality than those found in the aftermarket. Garage kits usually go for no less than $125 and could be anywhere above that. ... Why are we doing kits in resin rather than styrene? Our public answer is that we want these to be super detailed kits. Because of the injection molding process, detailed textures get minimized on the sides of plastic parts. They almost always have to be smooth to keep the part form being trapped in the tool. ... What are your thoughts on resin as a medium?

Interesting that "these '32 Coupe reproductions are exclusively licensed to United Pacific Industries" rather than, say, Brookville, for example. I wonder why they got the nod... At the moment they make very little to serve this area of the hobby.

Coolness. Thanx for the background and the missing link. One thing that's fascinating in all this is that as late as '63, even though the SoCal scene was starting to get pretty slick when it came to competition machinery, in Texas the ties to the '59-'61 period were still pretty strong in terms of the style of cars being run. The Texas iteration of the 555 '29 Roadster, first built in 1956, shows just how sophisticated this approach could be. Most parts of the country lacked the deep infrastructure of circle track race shops with roots reaching all the way back to the Miller era in the '20s that formed the backbone of the Cali race car scene. For example even died-in-the- wool Indy guys like Eddie Kuzma and Wayne Ewing built bodies for Top Fuel dragsters! This is especially interesting since, when it came to national competition, racers from Texas and other parts of the center of the continent certainly had no problems handling the California boys. I'm sure to anyone reading this it may seem like an almost trivial difference in dates, but in drag racing at that point things were evolving on an almost month by month basis.

Yes, it's the same car. I have always preferred the car in its black form - very purposeful looking. In fact I've also seen pictures of a very similar black '29 A-bone at Bonneville from the same period and wondered if it wasn't the same car. Here's a quick run down on the car's history I posted on VDM: ...Waters & Murray sold [the Triple Nickel] in 1958 to Jim Earp, a body and fender man from Wichita, Kansas. Jim Earp Motors was a used car dealership he started in 1955 which would eventually morph into a Chrysler dealership in 1965. Earp went on to build a small empire of new and used car dealerships in the greater Kansas and Nebraska region. Earp ran the car pretty much as-is except for proper Moon discs and sold it in 1960 to Bob Johnson and Don Morgan of Amarillo, Texas. Johnson owned Custom Car Supply and these guys stood ready to take full advantage of the fairly advanced structure that Waters & Murray had created in their final car. With its tubular superstructure and trick front and rear suspension it was ready for bigger power and Johnson & Morgan obliged, dropping in a blown '58 Chrysler with Hilborn 2-port injection, state of the art for 1960, While they were at it they painted the car black, but kept the legendary 555 moniker, as all owners have from the beginning. In '65 it moved on to Kansas City, Mo. to run under the Arrow Speed Shop banner, still in black but eventually in candy apple red until it's virtual retirement in 1966, when it was sold to Barry Darlington who intended to restore it but never completed the work. Coming full circle, he handed it back to the Murray family in 2007. ... You'll note that I was unaware of Don Burch. I don't recall him being mentioned in the TRJ article which got the ball rolling for me. There's a January, 1963 HRM article about the Amarillo-based black version. It shows both Custom Car Supply in some photos and Amarillo Car Bath sponsorship on the hood in others. Did Johnson & Morgan sell the car to Burch before it moved out of the area? I'd love to know more about the T-Bucket - looks cool and similarly purposeful... A web search on "Don Burch 555" yielded a National Dragster article about the T-Bucket from March 9, 1962 as follows: "Don Burch, driving his popular '555' A-roadster from Amarillo, Texas, upped his class' 148.51 marks to a new, official 153.04 mph. Don's roadster, a '23 'T' using a '56 Chrysler for muscle, runs e.t.'s in the low 10's. The haulin' Chrysler is blown, uses Isky cam, Hilborn injection and Schiefer clutch assembly". If the car changed hands it was sold to Burch long before the HRM article. I'm more inclined to believe that Burch's car ran in the same period as Johnson & Morgan, had a surprisingly similar motor, and the 555 number. The confusion would come from the reference to "A-roadster", the class of both cars, rather than the model of car it was based on. I know it sounds pretty far-fethched but I have seen references to as many as 4 different cars using the number 555 during that time period. Either way the Burch T-Bucket is a very nice car with a neat stance. Here's the HRM article:

This is a project I’ve started for a CPB on the Vintage Drag Racing forum based on a Little Pages theme. Inspiration came from the current issue of TRJ which features the Murray & Waters Triple Nickel, one of the most iconic early drag cars to grace the quarter mile. Ultra-light and very sophisticated for its time it was virtually unbeatable in its class. I’m no replica builder so I generally use an historic machine as inspiration for my own take on these cars. That will be the case here. The thing that I’ve always liked about this car is that, as nicely finished and turned out as it is, it still shows its track roadster roots. It has a certain primitive funk that, as an example, Tony Nancy’s two 22 Jr. A roadsters lack. I think the key is that Murray & Waters chose to use a Model A frame instead of the ’32 rails that most people ran. At first it was because they were cheap and plentiful, but then they realized that properly set up they could make the car exceptionally light and yet rigid. One trademark of their A-bone frames right from the start is that they removed the stock front cross member and ran a tubular member in front of the grill. This lengthened the wheelbase, effectively setting the motor back in even their earliest car, and saved weight and added rigidity at the same time. I’ll be doing the same thing on this car. I’ll be borrowing other visual cues from the Triple Nickel, such as the roll hoop, the tubular inner structure, the tonneau cover and the flat aluminum sheet wheel covers. Also, like the 555 car, my machine will have early small block Chevy power. And of course, I’m resisting the temptation to use a Deuce grill, which would destroy the entire point of the exercise. To get started I tackled the signature bits to make sure I could do them. I set up the tonneau cover to be removable to show off the interior. The hood and grille shell will be a single removable piece but the grille shell will remain chromed. Below are pictures of the second and third Murray & Waters cars and a summary photo of what I’ve got so far. My car will sit more like the second version of their car since I’m not running a narrowed chassis and torsion bar rear suspension like the Triple Nickel had. The second Murray & Waters roadster which became the first 555 car. The Triple Nickel car as it stands today as featured in the current TRJ. This was the third car the team built. I started by finding some wheels in my stash that I knew would fit the tires I was going to use (Modelhaus T110B's at the front, and Firestone directional 7" pie crust slicks from Ma's Resin at the back). Since they would totally disappear behind the covers I could use anything of appropriate width and diameter. So I found some billet-ish mags from an AMT '36 Ford kit that I knew for sure I would never use otherwise and stripped them of their chrome. The front wheels required more work because I had to make the little covers for the axle ends, so I'll describe the steps for those. First off I cut some circular covers of the same diameter as the donor wheels out of .010" styrene sheet. At the front I started by drilling a hole through the center of the wheel. I used 1/8" styrene rod to make the axle end caps. I countersunk the hole I had drilled to fit the "cap" so that the proper amount of rod stuck out, then glued the rod in place. For the back side covers, I drilled a 1/4" hole to accept the post for the wheel mount. For the rears all I did was cover them, and add some Monogram '40 Ford style brake backing plates. Then I finished everything in Testors Metalizer Aluminum plate Here are the wheel sub-assemblies before finishing. Next up was the frame. Starting with an AMT ’29 Ford Roadster kit which contributed the body, hood, grill shell, rear spring and front axle, I cut off the frame horns just in front of the grill shell and installed a tubular cross member and fabricated a suicide axle mount from styrene stock. The front axle uses cut down brake backing plates to model the axle bearing housings on the 1:1. Here’s an early picture of the frame before the roll hoop braces were added. The short block is a Revell Parts Pac 283 Chevy which will have Hilborn injectors. The center cross member came from the AMT Ala Kart frame and the front engine mount is the piece from the Parts Pac. This is a composite picture showing the status of the build just before starting the paint process. You can see the additional bracing for the roll hoop. The roll hoop itself is made from polished aluminum tubing to simulate chrome, and will be removable so that the completed chassis can be displayed separate from the body. This is the body in basic paint. Colors are Tamiya TS-31 Bright Orange and Duplicolor Wimbledon White. The radiator is in place only for mock-up purposes and will be replaced by either of two schemes: 1) a plain panel finished in one of the body colors with some sort of graphics, or 2) a transparent orange plexiglas panel. The bottom of the radiator shell has been removed to clear the front cross member. I'm currently working on the inside tinwork and drive train so I can get the car up on its wheels to take some properly proportioned pictures to design decals for it. Thanx for lookin’, B.

You can listen to prior shows here: http://www.wisconsinhotrodradio.com/whrrPastShowsList2.html He hasn't posted the most recent program as yet.

The link to it showed up in another topic (not from the OP, BTW) and I thought it deserved it...

Bump!