Art Anderson

When you are ready to do the wood, we can get together online, and I can coach you through the process I used on the '49 Mercury station wagon I took up to the Gilmore there, a couple of years ago. Also, 1940 saw the introduction of color-matching roof coverings on Ford station wagons, meaning that a Ford Maroon car could be had with a maroon roof treatment (the Pyroxylin impregnated canvas top) Art

For that matter, one of those fine-nibbed artist's or draftsman's pens might actually work better, given how wide even the narrowest Sharpie marker is. Art Anderson

From the time I first got the stuff (in an AMT Styline kit w/AMT body putty) back in 1961, 400-grit Wet or Dry sandpaper has been my "go-to" for cleaning up mold parting lines, finishing off putty work. Only occasionally have I had to use my extensive collection of needle files doing bodywork. I sometimes will use 600-grit Wet or Dry sandpaper, depending on any perceived need. I find that Duplicolor Sandable primer does a great job of filling the minute sand-scratches caused by 400-grit (of course, I decant this into my airbrush color jar, then airbrush on the primer). ONLY on very rare occasions do I ever go coarser than 400-grit, and then nothing more coarse than 320 grit, after which I polish the areas affected with 400-grit. Airbrushing the primer allows me to achieve a very thin coating of primer, which I do polish with 6000-grit Micromesh polishing cloths, wet with water, prior to painting with the finish color. Art

And, my long-stalled Duesenberg Special, as it appeared at Bonneville in 1935, with Ab Jenkins at the wheel:

Not a TROG car, but my WIP "What if there had been a 1941 Model J (or quite possibly an SJ) Duesenberg coupe with bodywork by Rollson? May I present my phantom 1941 Duesenberg Touring Coupe'?

Eric, you might have that '40 Station Wagon dusted for fingerprints! I was the person who produced that resin kit, cast approximately 700 of those in resin 1995-2000. The transkit was mastered by the Late Miles Lee Baker, of Chattanooga TN. Do you have the seats, and the interior door hardware--also the spare tire and the special station wagon rear bumper (plated)? Those parts were also part of the kit. Art Anderson

Scale Finishes paints, as with MCW automotive paints, are sold directly to the consumer only, I believe.

Looks like a 27' Pup trailer to me.

1/43 may seem an odd scale to us here in the US, but in the UK, and Europe, that was the most popular scale for diecast toy cars from the likes of Corgi, Dinky, Solido etc. for several decades. As a spinoff of that popular collecting scale, kits began to appear, in the late 1950's, of car subjects that had never been done as "toys", and to make them salable to adults then, who'd cut their car teeth on the diecasts I mentioned, those early manufacturers--mostly "cottage Industry" types, simply went with the flow of the times. Art

"Washington Blue" is a color that originated on Fords beginning with the 1930 model year, and carried forward into the late 1930's. It can be a difficult color to "judge", even from the best photographs, due to factors such as light and shade, not to mention film (older photo's) and camera settings in today's digital world. This is a pic I found with a Google Image Search--the inside surfaces of what I believe is an original, unrestored '37 Ford pickup grille shell. From this pic, and several others, I'll submit that Tamiya TS-13 is as close as one can get in ready-made hobby paints, over a dark primer (even though it's very much opaque color). I'm leaning toward this color on my factory stock '34 Ford 3-window coupe build.

Bill, no the Strombecker kit was one of a series they produced themselves in 1957-58 (The D-type, Scarab Mk1, Lancia-Ferrari F1, Maserati 250F, Mercedes-Benz W-196, and the only 1/24th scale MGA I have ever seen--all these were 1/24th scale, with poseable steering, rubber tires, and were motorized, powered by C-cell batteries. They were designed to run free (hence the ratcheted poseable steering) or on a straight string nailed down to asphalt, or in a circle with a battery-carrying pylon to control the car as it ran in circles. These models, given their motorized nature, had no cockpit detail, just the driver figure from the arms up, in the same manner as Strombecker's (and others) plastic bodied slot cars of the 1960's. They were pretty accurate, especially for their day, BTW. Art

Stombecker also did a D-type in 1/24 scale, circa 1957-58.

I've been working on an original 1964-isssued '34 3-window coupe (stock bodied) by Monogram. While this kit does have some issues, mostly in regard to parts of the various body character moldings (for example, Monogram tooled the kit as though the roof should have pronounced drain moldings around the tops of the doors (or at least a very heavy molding), the real car has merely a faint flared edge to this are of the roof), that model is actually spot on for shapes and proportions. In my considered opinion (and I have the much later AMT '34 5-window and the holy grail Aurora version as well), the original Monogram kit has all those shapes and proportions about as close as close can be. This is the kit, BTW, from which Monogram derived the ZZ-Top Coupe street rod kit from.

If that white object in the middle is what you think is vinyl, it most likely is not, as PVC is almost NEVER used for packaging. More than likely that is polypropylene plastic, the same stuff that soda bottle caps are made from. As such, it cannot be glued to anything at all securely, as polypropylene just isn't affected by any ordinarily available solvents, and like polyethylene does not bond with epoxies or CA glues.

Except that the quintessential "belly tank streamliner" body shell was the long-range, aluminum "ferry tank", used to give the P-38 Lightning transatlantic range for ferrying to England during WW-II--and I know of no 1/24 scale Lockheed P-38 Lightning kit. As for a styrene kit, too many unanswered questions, starting with "Which one should be kitted", and secondly, perhaps more important: "Would enough modelers buy such a kit, should it be offered?" As iconic a dry lakes/Bonneville straightliner car as belly tankers were, in a very real way, I wonder if one would have enough following to generate the sales needed for such a kit to be profitable? (not that I'd not buy one, for I would in a New York Minute). Art

Monogram '30 Model A Ford kits, particularly the coupe, are quite plentiful, the coupe being the most available, as it's been reissued several times in the last 20-25 yrs or so--shouldn't be much more than a $10-spot at model car shows. And, the visual differences between the Model A 4cyl and the '32-early '34 Model B 4-cyl are few, with most of them being invisible to the naked eye in model kit form. Perhaps the most visible difference is in the water pump (right behind the fan) which on the Model A was held on by 4 bolts, two on each side, while the Model B water pump used just three bolts, two at the top, one at the bottom, to secure it to the front of the cylinder head. Art

For drilling with "numbered" micro drill bits, I first twirl the very tip, lightly, of a #11 Xacto blade into a styrene surface, then use a good quality pinvise to hold the drill bit. Bit be careful, even with carbon steel drills, they can only flex a small bit then they break readily.

The excellent book, "Ford, The Men And The Machines" also covers the Edsel debacle in great detail as well.

Ford made a lot of massive mistakes with Edsel, starting with the idea that there was room in the marketplace for a car situated between Ford and Mercury. Couple that with horrible build quality, and some gadgets obviously poorly designed, that car was doomed even without the sudden, sharp recession of late '57 into the 3rd quarter of '58. The questionable (for the day) styling only added insult to injury. Art

FWIW, in the ten years I was resin-casting (several thousand molds over those years, BTW many hundreds of thousands of castings from very small to complete car bodies), I used but one mold release when making new RTV rubber molds, and that was plain old Vaseline petroleum jelly, well-thinned with Testors enamel thinner! Basically my mold release was made by dissolving about 1/2 teaspoon (by eyeball) of the petroleum jelly in 4 ounces of the enamel thinner, stirring and shaking the stuff (with a lid on the jar of course!) until the Vaseline was completely dissolved. It NEVER failed me, and NEVER caused the first problem with even the very first castings of of new molds made in this manner. Art

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is not Westphalia a state in Germany? Art

Living in "The city where Subaru's come to life" (Lafayette IN, home of Subaru Indiana Automotive), naturally I have a very soft spot in my heart for Subie's. We saw a lot of BRAT's here in their heyday, local dealer Bob Rohrmann sold a bunch of them. Art

"Bi-drive Recreational All Terrain" BRAT Art Anderson, who lives in Subaru Land (Lafayette, Indiana)

Most all T-Bucket street rods use a shortened frame if no turtle deck, rather than merely "shove the body back" on the frame.

For starters, there WERE NO Model T Fords produced in 1929! The last Model T off the production line here in the US was in early June, 1927.