Art Anderson

No reason why you can't mix candy colors to get a different shade, even a different color. However (and this should go without saying!), be sure to use only candy colors by the same manufacturer AND from the same series of paints--if you mix different brands of paint together, you run the risk of making little more than a big mess. Art

It's my understanding that the '56 300B kit should be in the country by the end of October or early November. Art

Building this from test shots. Interior colors are Tamiya TS-29 Semi-Gloss Black, Testors #1167 Flat Beige, with Tamiya TS-79 Semi Gloss Clear lacque on the seats and side panels, and Modelmaster 1834 Wet Look Clear lacquer on the beige-black-beige lower dash panel. Neat thing was, I discovered that both Modelmaster clear lacquer, and Tamiya semi-gloss clear lacquer airbrush perfectly over completely dried Testors flat finish enamel. Art

What about the 1963 Corvette Grand Sport, which was a pure GT race car?

While GM Fisher Body may have used the same stamping dies for punching out roofs for Monte Carlo, Grand Prix, Cutlass Supreme, and Buick Regal back in the time frame of the car you are building, Monogram had to tool both those body shells separately. A quick check on window shape might be to compare the clear parts trees from both kits, see if they are the same, or different in say, the opera windows. Art

First of all, no I have never experienced a fire nor an explosion from using spray paint in any form, from rattle cans to airbrushes to a production spray gun (when I restored a couple of Model A Fords 40+ years ago), but I easily could have, even in my younger days of using rattle cans in the basement of my parent's house with an old-fashioned coal furnace about 15 feet away (such were the safety precautions in the 1960's!). Assuming you have some sort of gas or oil heat for winter, ask yourself why the blower on a gas or oil furnace is a "squirrel cage" type, with a sealed induction motor (these have no brushes or commutator) positioned outside the air flowing through the blower. Also, have you looked at the labels on aerosol (spray cans) in recent years? All manner of aerosols including spray paints, use one kind or another liquified petroleum gas--generally either propane or butane (the Freon propellants of years ago were banned in nearly all countries for environmental reasons). In addition, even water-borne enamel paints have alcohols in them, so they can burn if conditions are right. Most certainly, any ordinary enamels, and of course lacquers are very flammable indieed, certainly in their liquid state. Most modelers who install any kind of spray booth are looking to exhaust the paint fumes (vapors from the thinner and other solvents in the paint) out of their house, which of course means some sort of fan or turbine. While nearly every electric fan being sold today uses in induction motor of some design or another, most of those motors are "open", meaning that the armature and coil windings are exposed to air (and whatever is suspended in that air, BTW), and almost none of these are grounded against static electricity in any fashion whatsoever. Such open-frame motors, even if they don't rely on commutators and brushes for controlling the electicity going through the armature windings, and certainly don't produce the almost constant arcing and sparking that say, your electric drill, saw, sander do, they can still generate an electric spark from the buildup of static electricity. And, should the flammable vapors, even the finely divided (and flammable) particles of partially dried paint that is the overspray from rattle can or airbrush be in the right mix in the air--one spark, and WHOOM! You've got an explosion, and almost certainly a fire to contend with. Enter the squirrel cage blower and it's sealed induction motor positioned outside of the air stream the blower is moving. Those sealed motors almost always will have a 3-prong plug, and assuming the electrical outlets in your house are 3-prong AND grounded, very little chance of any sort of spark or arc to set off an explosion and/or fire. My spray booth (a Pace Peacemaker), in addition, is constructed of galvanized 12-gauge sheet steel, to which the squirrel cage blower (also steel) and its sealed motor are bolted with steel bolts, is also thus grounded--the chances of any explosion or fire are extremely miniscule. So, for "peace in the house" (exhausting those offensive (to many others) paint vapors, as well as trapping virtually all overspray "dust" in a filter, a properly built spray booth with a 4" dryer exhaust duct and outside vent will not only keep wives, significant others, even apartment mates happy, and at the same time effectlvely remove a potential fire hazard and safely so. To sum up--yes there is a very potential fire hazard, and there are also health hazards from breathing sufficient quantities of paint solvent fumes and paint overspray particles. Art

I was part of a small, very dedicated group of 3-5 local builders here in Lafayette IN who specialized in building (almost exclusively!) models of Indy cars from the late 1960's into the early 1980's, and we encountered the problems with the AMT 255 Offy as noted above (not tall enough). A little bit of history on the real engine, if I may: About this time in 1955, The American Automobile Association (AAA) announced that it was disbanding its Contest Board (the sanctioning body for the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race and the associated "Championship Trail", principal governing body for sprint cars and midgets) due to the visibly tragic crash at Indy which killed driver Bill Vukovich Sr., and the horrific crash at LeMans that June which claimed the lives of not only a driver, but 80+ spectators along with over 100 other spectators seriously injured--all of which caused a tremendous public and political backlash against all forms of motorsports (Auto racing was banned by law in several European and Scandinavian countries--and bills were introduced into both houses of the US Congress to ban racing in the US). Out of this came the United States Auto Club (USAC), which immediately introduced a smaller engine formula for the 1956 season: 255cid (4.2 liter) as opposed to the long-standing (since 1937) 4.5 liter or 274cid engine displacement limit. Meyer& Drake, DBA Offenhauser Engineering designed a new 255cid Offy simply by decreasing the cylinder bore and a slight shortening of the stroke, which took the "long stroke" 274 and made it an even more "undersquare" (bore smaller than the stroke) 255. However, John Zink Racing's chief mechanic, AJ Watson had a different idea: Mill off the bottom end of a 274 block (remember, NO racing Offenhauser engine ever had a detachable cylinder head--the cylinders were "blind bored", with the combustion chamber as part of the block itself). This made for a short stroke, or "oversquare" engine, which could wind up to rpms unheard of with the old 274's, and gave more torque and HP in the bargain. Now, how we here in Lafayette figured out how to make the AMT Offy from the Parnelli Jones Watson "Willard Battery Special" kit: While we had to live with the molded on water jacket cover plates on that model Offy engine (the finned, removable plates on the sides of any Offy engine block), we could still stretch that inaccurately low AMT block with a piece of .060" thick styrene (Squadron Shop started marketing small sheets of styrene about 1970 or thereabouts, and .060" was one they made available). on top of the block, as AMT tooled that engine with the top of the block & cam towers as a separate part (almost like a cylinder head IF Offies had ever had detachable heads!), and then after shaping that to the length and width of the kit engine block, simply center the top end part to the heightened block. Visually, it worked very well, gave at least the visual appearance of the real thing (with two individuals here each having 255 Offenhauser engines--long time racing mechanic Bob Higman, and racing photographer/memorabilia collector Ed Hitze Sr and of course, a race car museum and restoration shops only 65 miles SE--Indianapolis Motor Speedway of Lafayette, having several 255's in race cars, on display and on stands in the restoration garages we did have a lot of references at hand!) Bear in mind though: Every different displacement Offenhauser has it's own set of external dimensions. Given that they were all built with block and crankcase as separate units, the longer the stroke, the taller the block and the wider (fatter) the crankcase). Even if the old Monogram PC-1 Midget (which I think is 1/20 scale BTW) engine would fit in a 1/25 scale model for length, it's way too tall proportionately. This is because while Offy engines for larger race cars had 5 main bearings, the 91-, 110, and 120-cubic inch Midget Offies had just three mains, which made for a crankcase at least 4 to 5 inches shorter, and a shorter block (front to back) in the bargain. Also, the stroke of all those sizes of midget Offies is much shorter than even the 220cid sprint car Offy, the block is shorter, but the cam towers are still nearly as tall as on the larger engines. If I didn't have a couple of Chris's excellent resin engines still in my stash, I'd probably just go back to the way we here figured out back over 40 years ago, certainly for a classic late-60's through 1966 255cid normally aspirated Offenhauser 4. Art

R&D Unique's been closed since at least 2006 or so. Art

Google for Auto Color :Library. If that color is on a chip page, it will have at least the aftermarket paint code. Art

Unless I miss my guess, the reissue from AMT/Ertl just about had to have the same pavement tires as the original, 1975 AMT Corporation kit---the wheels were sized originally to accept the Goodyear Speedway Special racing tires from AMT's Eagle and McLaren Indy cars of the 1973-75 era. Art

Hmmm, questioning whether model building is educational? From a personal point of view, it's been very educational for me, and I don't mean merely "how to build, and how to build better" either. Model building of all subject areas has opened up a lot of education, not only for this now-white-haired developing geezer, but countless others. When you think about it, many of us have learned not just about cars, but how they were/are designed, much of "the how's and why's different types of cars and trucks developed as they did; even a lot about the history of our country in the 20th Century. If one, as an automotive model builder does any research at all (online, in print, or even "asking the man who owns one", exposed me to far more than the shapes, colors, engine types. What about the environment in and surrounding the real vehicles of which our model cars and trucks are miniature representations? I'm rather amazed how, over these past 61 years (and counting still) I've learned FAR MORE about all the things that existed around the cars I build, the companies that built them, the people who sold, serviced and drove them. In short, a lot of history, even sociology (not to mention the science and engineering behind automobiles and their supporting infrastructure (and even the infrastructure out there that automobiles themselves support). So, educational? You bet! Art

FWIW, If you have a decent artist's supply store anywhere near you, check out the Sakura line of Micron artist's pens. These work very much like Sharpies, but instead of the felt tip, they have a sort of "medium soft plastic" tip, and come in a variety of sizes (from .20mm to at least .50mm, in a wide variety of colors. The ink is alcohol based, so it works on metal quite well. Art

Same kit, same tooling. When AMT did that one back in 1975, they replicated Grant King's USAC winning sprint car. The kit's not the best engineered in the world, but it is actually pretty accurately done. I saw the real car at the Kruse Auction at Auburn IN back about 2003 or so, completely restored, I was able to get some detail pics of it, dunno if I can find them quickly or not. Art

Actually, If one were to look at Cadillac (and for that matter, Chrysler Imperial or Lincoln) ads from the 50's well into the 70's, their cars were almost always depicted in this manner--man and wife (or lady friend), on their way to some social event. Paintings of closed body Caddy's almost tradtionally showed a couple in formal evening wear--arriving at a top-quality hotel, the opera, perhaps at a country club formal event. Convertibles were often pictured in surroundings such as the golf course, the yacht club marina, or at a formal fox hunt (you know, the kind where everyone wore those stuffy fox-hunting clothes, rode horses to the hounds, and wore funny hats and knee length riding boots). Car advertising, then as now, tended to depict the car in a setting suggesting the kind of people who bought and owned them (new Dodge Caravan for Mom to drive the soccer team to a game, anyone?) Art

Well, considering that Revell was located in Venice CA at the time this kit was produced (in Southern California), it makes sense that whomever did the box art inadvertently used the correct Spanish spelling "El Dorado" rather than the way Cadillac spelled it as all one word. Stranger things probably have happened. Art

If you mean the AMT Watson Roadster, yes Chris's Offy is too tall. AMT cut a lot of corners, made an awful lot of compromises in that kit, frankly. It's Offy engine has a block height too short even for the 220cid Offy engine, it's almost as short as the Midget Offy that Revell does. It is, however, an extremely accurate 1/25 scale replica of the post-WWII Meyer-Drake 270cid Offenhauser racing engine, which was taller than all but the first few 255's which debuted at Indianapolis in 1956. He made that engine to be a part of his fantastic kit of Jimmy Bryan's Dean Van Lines Dirt Track Champ car, which was a Kuzma chassis, built in 1954, and finished second at Indy in 1955. Art

It seems to me, as a former resin caster, that casting driveshafts would be almost a fool's errand. Here's why: For starters, every car ever made on this planet with rear drive and a driveshaft has used its own length driveshaft--so which one(s) does a resin caster make? Couple that with a modeler making any changes whatsoever in the rear axle/differential unit used, also with any change in transmission or engine (which would affect the overall length of the selected engine and tranny), and certainly any moving forward or back of either engine or rear axle complicates matters even more. Further complicating this is the simple fact that the virtually standard way of mounting the driveshaft in any model car is by a small locating pin at each end--one going into a hole in the differential unit, the other into the tailshaft housing of the transmission. While the first issue complicates any decision(s) on the part of an aftermarket producer as to just which driveshafts to make, the second one would be the rather small diameter locating pins at the ends which would not only make the part more difficult to cast consistently, but would necessarily result in a more than usual fragile part (resin in smaller material thicknesses can break VERY easily!). Would not a simpler solution for all concerned be for a resin caster to cut the U-joints off a styrene driveshaft, remove the factory locating pin, then drill out the remaining universal joints to accept a length of small brass rod? I think so, and here's why: Using say, a short length of K&S 1/32" brass rod inserted through a styrene U-joint cut from a model kit driveshaft will allow the caster, once the necessary 2-part rubber mold is made, to cut more of the same brass rod to the same length as used in the master, place that in the mold, then pour the resin around it, which will cast a resin U-joint with a brass locating pin as part of the piece. Once this is done, all the modeler would have to do is to sleeve some K&S 1/16" tubing over the brass pin at the driveshaft side of the U-joint, with both U-joints, then sleeve a piece of 1/8" brass rod right over that. 1/8" in our scale being a scale 3.125" diameter driveshaft, that would work. Of course, to make a fatter driveshaft, just sleeve some 5/32" tubing over that, and so on! This way, the resin universal joints don't have to carry the weight of the driveshaft, nor be bothered by any tight clearance in the distance between differential and transmission--AND the resulting drive shaft can be any length the builder needs, along with not having to worry about an otherwise fragile part. I used this very technique at All American Models whenever I had to make a rear axle casting (and even as axle shafts for several promo-style chassis plates I made) to provide an absolutely break-proof mounting of wheels on the kits using these parts. It works, and the only extra work involved was cutting K&S brass rod stock to whatever length was needed. For any resin caster wanting to try this, drop me a PM! Art

What you have is what Tom Lowe (then owner of Polar Lights--along with Johnny Lightning) called a "chase kit". Chase kits were a take-off on a very popular Johnny Lightning tradition at Playing Mantis: Approximately 10% of JL diecast models were finished with certain features in white (that would not otherwise have been white). That got JL afficanados hounding stores for newly released assortments, and digging through the pegs to find any "White Lightning" cars that might have been in a store's shipment (White Lightning cars were mixed at random on the packaging line at the factory--thus packed in the cartons randomly). Polar Lights used the clear body thing in hopes of generating a little bit of that Johnny Lightning type frenzy. Art

Truthfully, That '55 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible box art is either a reprint of artwork from a Cadillac magazine advertisement, or Revell's own artist's rendition done in the style of Cadillac's advertising agency. FWIW, each one of Revell's 1955 year model car kits (along with their followon 1956 model year kits, AND the '57 Eldorado Brougham appear to have used automakers advertising artwork. I believe that even the 1/25 scale Pontiac Club de Mer and Lincoln Futura used Pontiac and Lincoln-Mercury artwork (Pontiac) and publicity photo (the Futura) as well. In the case of the Futura, Ford Motor Company apparently didn't take very good care of the photographs and/or the negatives, as every color pic of the Futura shows it in that very pale green color. However, in my rather extensive search for the correct styling department-applied paint, Pat Mulligan of Ford's licensing agency got back to me with the actual color name "Ice Bule Pearlescent"! In further questioning of Mulligan (same Patrick Mulligan who was editor of SA for a couple of years) he came back with a color chip from Ford styling archives, which he lent me at Johnny Lightning. We copied that color off a Pantone Mixing System (PMS) chip and added pearlescent clear coat to it, and that is how the factory in China painted the first run of the JL 1955 Lincoln Futura. Ice Blue Pearlescent is almost exactly the same very VERY light blue that Ford used for a couple of years in the early 1960's, but with a pearl top coat on it. Art

It's not been all that many years since I had to deal with licensing issues and royalty costs--within the last ten years. While numbers may have changed somewhat, I suspect that percentages haven't moved very much themselves. I still vividly remember, as product development for Johnny Lightning diecast cars, having to figure in not only the licensing costs, but also all the other tooling and production costs associated with that product line with every diecast model we created from scratch, as well as new versions of existing castings. It was there that I had to learn very quickly how easy it could be for a product to be "nickel and dimed" like crazy with licensing for not only the miniature car subject itself, but if any company's logos, even sponsorship decals on a race car where to be tampo-printed on it, could add up pretty quickly. Art

There were all manner of print advertisements, not only for say, electric or gasoline powered ride-in toy cars, but also other automotive-related products back then which showed built model cars as part of the "atmosphere". Given that the "sidewalk" toy Corvette is a '63, and the photo shows at least one man whom I think I recognize from a magazine article as having been a Chevrolet executive, I suggest that the photo was shot somewhere in the Detroit area, by one of the several advertising agencies, very likely whomever had the Chevrolet account back then. Art

The collaboration happened, such as it was, in 1954-55. By the 1960's, the two companies were competitors in the sense that AMT had become the King Kong of plastic model car kits, while Revell, then the driving force in plastic model kits of all manner of subjects, was developing their own line of model car kits, taking quite a different path than AMT was following. Art

I've never gotten down to the bottom on this question definitively, but I believe that Revell either approached AMT Corporation (or was steered there by people within the auto industry) to provide the tooling mockups given that AMT was by then established as the principal promotional model car supplier to the auto companies. Bear in mind, while by 1955 Revell had reached the level of being the largest producer of plastic model kits of all kinds in the US, having started making model kits 4 years earlier in 1951 with their then quite successful Gowland & Gowland Highway Pioneers kits (Gowland & Gowland were a pair of British brothers who upon getting their veteran's bonuses from the British government for service in WW-II (a program quite similar to this country's "GI Bill Of Rights") began creating the tooling for a line of 1/32 scale plastic model kits, which they leased first to Globe Models (founded by Irvin Athearn--who later became the largest producer of HO Scale model RR equipment), and ultimately Revell--then a company trying to decide whether they were a toy company, or a model company. This seems to me to be the best scenario--Revell was located in Venice Beach, California 2000 expensive miles west of the Detroit area while AMT Corporation was right there--already having established some pretty strong relationships with the automakers, and having at least some access to the styling departments of the Big Three, and having pattern makers already well-versed in the in's and out's of creating tooling mockups for model cars with considerable accuracy. (Of course, Monogram Models was to bring out a pair of 1956 Cadillac Eldorado kits in 1/20 scale that were also quite well done, but being in Morton Grove IL, a fairly easy drive to Detroit, even easier by passenger train). It also may have been that AMT, by reason of their relationship with the Detroit Big Three was also able to handle the licensing end of things, again by reason of their fairly close relationship with GM, Ford and Chrysler. Another thing to keep in mind here, I think, is that in 1954-55 (when these kits were designed, and tooling mockups created) the plastic model industry (for that matter the entire hobby industry) was at about the stage of getting into "training pants" out of infancy. "Industrial" pattern makers were around, but most of them were skilled primarily in working with blueprints of items to be cast in metal (foundry patterns) metal stamping (automotive and consumer goods such as kitchen appliances) and most of them working in patterns for plastic molding were in either consumer goods or toys, again working off blueprints with toy makers not necessarily looking for exact scale realism. What surely was needed in the young plastic model industry were pattern-makers with real artistic abilities--to work not only with drawings, but also by referring to photographs of the real thing, perhaps even the real subjects themselves, bridging a "gap" between industrial work and artistry that may have rivaled the legendary painters and sculptors of statues and monuments. Certainly CAD/CAM was, if even dreamed of, would have been the stuff of science fiction in the mid-1950's. Art

From my experience, of course I have a fairly good idea--but I will decline to say even that, as I don't want to even hint at revealing confidential information (if a model company wants to add such information--that's their call, not mine to make!) Art

And, you can bet your bottom dollar that every model manufacturer who printed those logo's on their boxes, and/or printed them on the decal sheet inside the kit, paid a royalty for the right to do so. Like it or not, that is the way things work. Art