Art Anderson

I second that. I've used more than my share of Evergreen strip styrene to make chrome spears on the sides of model car bodies over the years. A good, fast drying liquid cement would be the best--super glue or "CA" will stick the stuff to your Porsche body shell, but it also has a tendency to stick out a little bit around the edges--hard to clean that up. Art

Yes. There were a lot of modifications to the chassis, suspension, even to the bodywork (within limits, of course) all in the name of better handling and higher speeds. Art

Also, Purple Power has an industrial alcohol component in it which helps to soften the paint on a model car. This alcohol, like any sort of alcohol, will evaporate over time, which will diminish the action of the stuff as a paint remover. Art

Also, keep in mind that the sand-cast look on iron, even cast aluminum components isn't all that prominent a real automobile engine (foundry sand is rather fine), so some caution would be in order to not overdo, or overemphasize the cast-iron surface look. Just sayin' Art

What Bill says here I heartily reinforce! When using paints from sources other than hobby paint suppliers, it's always a good idea to stick with the same brand and type of paint within that brand from primer to color to clear coat, lest you wind up with a real mess on your hands. Of course, with experience, you will know what works and what doesn't, but until you gain that experience, best to heed the advice given in this thread. Art

Yes, that is a detail that many racers who used factory stock automobiles having I-beam forged steel front axle did back in the day! The neatest story, and one I suspect might be in that book, is that of the Barber-Warnock team at Indianapolis in 1924: Barber-Warnock was a large Ford dealer in Indianapolis back in Model T days, and had built up a team of modified Model T Fords for that year's 500. For power, under the hood was a Model T 4cyl, with the then new (and exotic to Americans living in the Midwest for sure) 16-valve DOHC with chain-driven camshafts Frontenac head, which jumped the power of the T engine from 22 bhp to something like 140 hp. Frontenac was the brainchild of one Louis Chevrolet ( who designed and built the prototype Chevrolet automobile in 1911) and was a legendary race car builder and driver, with two brothers who were also race drivers (his younger brother Gaston won the 1920 Indianapolis 500 in a car built by Frontenac, but sponsored by Monroe). That Barber-Warnock finished 5th in 1924, after a lengthy pit stop to replace a broken front spring (legend has it that a mechanic raced into the infield, found a Model T parked there, with the owner nowhere to be found. He jacked it up, took out the front spring, ran it back to the pits where it was installed in the racecar, and then, AFTER the race, raced back to the same Model T and replaced it--apparently the T's owner never knowing a thing about what had happened!). The 1924 Indianapolis 500 was the first major race in the World to be won by a car equipped with a supercharger--the 1924 Duesenberg, the Barber Warnock being the only car to finish in the money, surrounded by exotic, $10,000 Duesenbergs and Millers. Total Performance had that day in Indy, as did another adage popular some 50 years afterward in street rodding circles: "It takes a Chevrolet to make a Ford go fast!".. Art

The mastering for this was done back in 1995 by the late Lee Baker, who was well-known in and around the Chicago area (life member of Lake Michigan Model Car Club), and after being moved to Tennessee by his employer, helped start the model car club in Chattanooga, and was a regular at the NNL South put on by ACME each year. Lee was passionate about models of flathead V8-era Fords, as well as his other love: The great Classic Cars, with an emphasis on Duesenbergs. Lee passed away several years ago, but this resin transkit will keep his legacy going. Art

Now, thatsa nice! Art

Back in 1969, as I was setting up what was an annual window display in the local hobby shop where I worked to pay my way through college, a teenaged builder, who'd participated in the two previous window displays of 1/24-1/25 scale model Indy cars brought in an absolutely beautifully done model of Bobby Unser's Indy-winning 1968 Rislone Eagle from 1968. He'd started with the IMC Lotus Ford kit, and with putty, bits of scrap plastic, wheels from here, tires from there, the Offy engine from the AMT 1963 Agajanian Willard Battery Watson roadster with scratchbuilt turbocharger setup--down to one of the most masterful paint jobs I've EVER seen (all the way out to today!), complete with hand painted graphics that would still rival the finest decal sheet. Art DeCamp (that was his name) was proud to show off that Gurney Eagle, until he spotted a freshly opened case of the just released MPC 1968 Rislone Eagle! To be sure, his model was so well done, we used it in our 500 Mile Race window display every year thereafter, the MPC kit being relegated to the AAR Eagles, Bardahl, etc.--and that wasn't just to assuage Art's feelings--his model WAS that good. Art Anderson

Now, that's too cool for school!!! I like!! Art

To me, the bottom line for any car I've ever built is this: Have I built it to meet my expectations, my own mind's view of how it should look, and have I done a good job of all that stuff? After all, I build my model cars primarily for me, not for some group of contest judges. Another observation, if I may: Of all the scale modeling hobbies, model car building has had a distinct advantage (or at least it seems to me!) of affording us builders a tremendous freedom not really known in any other area of model building (just think of IPMS types trying to outdo one another for that last bit of at least perceived accuracy!); model railroading at least used to be heavily dominated by the superdetailer, the endless search for realism not only in the building-painting-detailing of locomotives and rolling stock, but also buildings and scenery. Of course, model railroading, being the one scale modeling hobby to combine accuracy of building with operation, the latter being that model trains are supposed to run, and the passion often becomes the "correctness" of operation of that miniature railroad, down to scale speeds, correct adherence to real railroad operating rules, all of that. We as model car builders, on the other hand, have what I consider to be an enviable freedom, that being the freedom to build a model car as we individually want to build it, say factory stock, rust bucket, replica street rods or customs, race cars, and out to the ultimate of free expression: Our own custom-designed and custom built & finished cars, done the way WE individually want them to appear when finished. Of course, along the way here, there will be criticism along with praise (ranging from half-hearted to sincere admiration), as there will be in any of our life's endeavors. That's the way it's been since the first 12yr old kid sliced the tape seal on an AMT 1958 3in1 customizing kit, and it's continued almost unabated ever since. Now, to my feeble mind, that's perfectly OK, period. Yes, I can be as praising, and as criticizing as the next person, but I need to bear in mind some very good advice from the late Dale Carnegie ("How To Win Friends and Influence People"--still a very good self-help book some 65 years after it was first published, BTW!) that goes like this: "Be sparing in your aprobation, and lavish in your praise." That was good advice when Carnegie wrote it back in the 1940's, and it still is today. Sure, the firing order may be misrepresented on that engine, the generator or alternator may still be held in place only by means of a fan belt, the panel lines may be highlighted too darkly, just about any criticism one may see to add to the conversation; but in the end, the bottom line, this is a hobby with a long tradition of doing stuff because it's fun to do, fun to do it whatever way the individual chooses, and unless the model in question is being submitted for critical examination at a contest or certainly to be looked at by those known to be expertly acquainted with the real thing--isn't it best to let some if not most of the things mentioned in this thread lay? What does it do to get all exercised about this or that being wrongly done anyway? Does that sort of criticism advance the hobby for anyone, especially if it's entirely unsolicited? I for one, have to question whether that does much more than enhance the ego of the person saying it, while threatening to diminish the hobby for the person whose model is the recipient of such talk. Worth thinking about, I would suggest. Art

I love it whenever I see a model of a Model A Ford with the stock engine! On the Model A Ford (as well as with the stock '32-'34 Model B 4-banger) the firing order of 1-2-4-3 is laid out INSIDE the Bakelite distributor body, with the result being an appearance on the outside of a 1-2-3-4 firing order. Also, those engines did not use a true sparkplug wire at all, but rather phosphor bronze (a type of copper alloy) flat strips which merely hook to the raised terminals on the "ears" of the distributor body, and then are secured by a threaded, knurled nut atop each of the four plugs. On other engines, often there is not any reason to be concerned with firing order, as the plug wires are impossible to trace! This is particularly true with Corvettes from 1956 to at least 1962, and all Studebaker Avanti's, those cars having a sheet metal "shield" over the wires to eliminate electrical interference with the car radio. Additionally, on Packard straight 8's, and the mighty Duesenberg Model J straight 8, the plug wires are divided INSIDE the distributor cap, and exit via outlet "chutes", one facing the front of the engine, the other pointing to the rear (Think the Monogram kits here). On Cadillac Model 452 V-16's (Monogram, JoHan, and Italeri) while the 16-lead distributor is in full view, the plug wires are routed down into a hole in the galley cover between the cylinder banks, and thus go to their respective plugs completely hidden from view. On pre-WW-II Ford flathead V8's, the plug wires come out of the distributor (which is horizontal, at the top of the front of the engine, mounted directly to the front of the block as it's driven directly off the end of the camshaft there), and then the plug wires enter a pair of steel tubes, one of which carries the right side bank of plug wires, the other the left side, and extending to the rear of the cylinder head where the primary ignition wire exits into the firewall and to the ignition switch on the steering column. Each plug wire exits its respective tube right ajacent to it's plug, and is arched up and over the top edge of the head, onto the plug. EVERY model kit of a Model T Ford is missing a very important component of the T engine: The ignition "timer", which performed the basic function of a distributor, with a wire lead fixed at 12, 3, 6 and 9 on the clock. The timer is a small, drum-shaped affair which mounts to the center of the front of the cam gear cover at the front right lower side of the engine (it's driven at camshaft speed), and those leads are bundled into a fabric loom going across the front of the block, then down the right side to the rear and into the firewall. On the inside of the firewall on all T's through 1925, each wire goes to an individual ignition coil which is contained in a wooden box, the series of wooden boxes being mounted in a wooden case on the inside of the firewall just above the passenger's toes. Each coil has a lead going back through the firewall to a panel on engine side, and then each lead goes to a spark plug. The wires are color coded red, yellow, green and blue, their being hooked onto the plugs which may have varied over the years of production. On the '26-'27, the coils are mounted in a steel box which is attached to the top left side of the cylinder head, by the nuts on head studs onto a sheet metal bracket at the bottom of the box. The plug leads come out of that box, one to each plug. How many modelers today know that heaters were not always standard equipment? In fact, that didn't happen until the late 60's or early 70's in a lot of cases--but if a model does have a heater, how many modelers, when detailing an engine bay, add in the heater hoses? For that matter, where a windshield washer reservoir is included either as a separate part or just molded into an under hood panel, how many think to add in the washer fluid hose, running it to where it needs to go? Along the same lines, how many who do that think to add in the little spray nozzles to the cowling where they would be on the real car, even if they are a part of a windshield wiper arm? Again, with wipers, how many bother to paint in the wiper element--flat black rubber? This isn't so much criticizing as it is pointing out that no matter the level of details we as modelers might add to a project, we still forget some very obvious ones--and I'm certainly not innocent of that either. Art

To add just another dimension to this, in 1979, when Lesney-AMT decided to reissue the 1907 New York to Paris Thomas Flyer, they contracted me to do a box art model (Lesney carried forward the AMT practice of photographic box art back then), giving me a fair amount of latitude to make the model as realistic as possible without modifying the kit in any way. I decided to give the model a weathered finish, of course, the paintwork, but also the gold-toned "brass" vacuum plated parts, as the AMT model kit represents the Thomas as it was driven down the Champs d'Elysee in Paris to finish the race and win the prize money. That meant doing a car that had withstood the elements of nature for aboutr 5 months and over 12,000 miles of driving over unpaved roads, even going cross country down railroad tracks (Trans Siberian Railway), and some 1000 miles across roadless steppes in Russia. Needless to say, the once polished brass radiator, headlights, taillight, hubcaps, Prestolite Acetylene gas generator and gear shift/hand brake levers were very tarnished. Now, brass, due to its copper content, tarnishes out brown, but the tarnish itself, remains a bit translucent, meaning you can still sense there is polished brass there someplace underneath. How to replicate that? I discovered that Testors Flat Rubber, a brown black flat paint, when thinned to a wash with lacquer thinner, airbrushes beautifully over gold tone finished model kit plating, and results in a very realistic tarnished brass look to such surfaces. Art

Those GT wheels were in the AMT '68 Torino, '69 Torino, and I believe Modelhaus does them in resin (plated). Art

Jeff, Building a Model T Ford frame from scratch would be quite easy indeed--just two frame rails, two crossmembers (the flywheel housing on the engine, when bolted to the frame rails made the 3rd crossmember!). You might take the time to Google for images of Model T Ford chassis--surely pics are abundant online. Other than that, bear in mind that the wheelbase of the Model T throughout its production run (15,250,000 from the summer of 1908 to the summer of 1927) was 100". As for the width of the frame, you ought to be able to determine that from the model kit fender/floorboard unit, or interpolate it from the frame in either of the AMT 1/25 scale Model T kits. As for the front axle kingpins, flattening out the arch of the front spring won't affect those in any way, nor would it affect the spring perch points on the axle--just adjust the length of the spring to mate up to those. Art

Jeff, For starters, this sounds like a cool project! If you are wanting to build a vintage racer out of that T, bear in mind that most of those were "back yard" built, and most of the technology we take for granted did not yet exist (for example, electric arc welding, even gas welding of steel wasn't around yet, and even when that did come into use, it wasn't until AFTER the Second World War that it was trusted enough to be accepted for racing (or for that matter, in production). Frames, such as the Model T were hot riveted together, no welds whatsoever. That made serious frame modifications very chancy at best back then! Here is a pic I took of an exact replica of the Ford factory-built 1911 Model T race car, Ford's "999-II", the original of which still exists in the possession of the Henry Ford Museum (the replica was on display at the Gilmore Classic Car Museum at Hickory Corners MI, where I did a walk around photo shoot of it in the summer of 2004). That car was designed and built by Ford engineer Frank Kulick for entry in the inaugural Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, but was rejected by the AAA and the Speedway for being too light, and with an engine (144cid) that was deemed too small to allow the car to reach the specified minimum straightaway speed of 80mph. Kulick then drove 999-II on a transcontinental run from New York to San Francisco on the very primitive dirt and gravel roads that were all that were available back then, and it DID achieve 80mph straightaway speeds on that run several times, according to the story board. From this pic, you should notice that the front crossmember was changed out for one built to a shallower curve, which placed the nose of the T crankshaft BELOW the crossmember, and uses a much flatter front spring. The rear of the chassis has a "suicide" spring perch in place of the standard rear crossmember (I was unable to get a pic of that, as the car was backed up too close to the wall of the building!) which effectively raised the top of the arched rear leaf spring higher in relation to the frame rails. This had the effect of lowering the rear of the car, to the point that the frame rails are practically dead level with the surface the car stood on--no "rake", if you will. The concept of giving a race car a lower front stance in comparison to the rear, or "rake" didn't really take hold until the late 1920's and the advent of the "balloon" tire (your T has straight sided, clincher-rim, high pressure tires--no such thing as "big and little" tire sizes on race cars in 1910, not even until the early 1930's). All this said, a T, modified for racing anywhere from 1908 (when Model T was introduced to the World) and at least the very early 1920's, would have had the bodywork removed behind the firewall, and the seats (generally speaking, until 1922, when the American Automobile Association (AAA) Contest Board allowed the removal of riding mechanics in AAA-sanctioned races) were lowered down to just a couple of inches above the frame rails, which did lower the center of gravity quite a bit (consider that a Model T Ford, with open bodywork weighed less than 2000lbs, moving a 140-160lb driver and a passenger/riding mechanic down say, a foot or so on the chassis had a serious, but positive effect on the CG, not to mention reducing drag (or wind resistance). Such modifications were about it, frankly. Even legendary cars such as the Stutz Bearcat (built pretty much exactly as the first Stutz ran at Indianapolis in 1911) and the Mercer Raceabout were little more than production passenger car chassis, with virtually no bodywork, and a pair of "bucket" seats very much like the 999-II in my pics here, had essentially the same general appearance, as to a great many modern-built, but vintage-looking, Model T Speedsters. I'd not worry about doing any engine modifications, as in 1910 there was virtually nothing at all available in the way of hop-up, or speed equipment for a Model T Ford (or for that matter, most any other production car either!). So, if a T was stripped down for racing back in that year, it was just that, stripped down, and still having the stock 22hp 4-cylinder engine and planetary transmission as produced. But, to answer your basic question, yes the front of the frame can be lowered, and for a vintage look, very much like shown in the first picture above. Still though, I repeat: This could be a cool project! Art

In the midst of answering Harry's post above, I had to walk up the street to Walgreen's to pick up a few prescription refills, and I decided to look more closely at cars in their parking lot. This is what I noticed (and I've noticed it before, just never thought about writing about it): First of all, unlike most model car kit bodies, "panel lines" on a real car don't have "knife edge sharp" edges to them, as the sheet metal is rolled into the edge, not cut sharply off (particularly true with doors, as the door skin is rolled under, crimped and spot welded by resistance welding to the inner door structural stamping just inside and "underneath" the outside surface we see when looking at any car on the street, in a garage, or at a car show). In many cases, particularly around doors, the inner "framing" around the door openings (upper and lower sills, the B-post (and of course the C-post of a 4dr) the painted surfaces are visible in the "bottom" (if you will) and clearly show through to the outside, and in the right light, you can see the color of those underlying structures through the "door lines". With lighter colors, and most certainly with lighter or brighter metallic colors, the edges of panel lines, when viewed at shallow, or "oblique" angles can actually show up brighter than the ajacent exterior surfaces. This is due to the edges of doors, hoods, deck lids having a rounded, or "rolled" appearance, and certainly the edges of front and rear quarter panels have the same rounded appearance in these areas! By running my finger along those edges (no car alarms were set off, no automobiles were injured!) I determined that the edges of those sheet metal panels have a cross-section radius of anywhere from 1/8" (very close to 3mm) to as much as 3/16", which alters the effect of sunlight reflecting back into my eyes. I was particularly struck by the appearance of a bright metallic red B-post on a circa 1999 Oldsmobile Silhouette mini-van--the B-post, which was about an inch behind the exterior door surfaces, actually appeared brighter than the surrounding door sheet metal! On cars built prior to the late 1970's, when the transition from 20-gauge mild steel sheet metal (which had been used to construct car bodies beginning about 1931-32), the "rolled" appearance of panel edges was a good bit more shallow, perhaps as much as 5/32" diameter, due to the nature of mild steel, which fractured slightly as the surface stretched upon tight bending or rolling. In addition, the "overlapping" door skins stood a good bit farther out from the underlying structural members, making for a "deeper" panel line in appearance. Also, panel lines on modern, 21st Century car bodies are much narrower, often not much more than 1/8" around doors, alongside hoods and decklids (due to the greater precision afforded by computer-designed stamping tooling, and the thinner, high carbon sheet steel used today. On cars from the late 20's through into the late 1970's, panel lines in some cases could be, and often were, as wide as 1/4 inch, sometimes even more, and they were anything but uniform on mass produced automobiles. Couple that with the wider spacing between the various exterior surfaces of those older cars, and more light was admitted into the "lines", which also tends to "soften" the contrast between light and dark. So, it gets more interesting: Just how do I soften those lines on a 1/25 scale plastic model body shell, just a tad, to allow for the effects I mention, but not so much as to make the model look something like a Palmer Plastics Company reject? Tough call, I think, but the whole idea has got me thinking, especially as I am working with opening doors on the '37 Ford pickup kit right now. I'll be softening up the edges of the door skins, and the surrounding cab sheet metal surfaces to approximate the effect I looked at just 30 minutes ago. Art

Harry, Bob got it pretty right with that technique. I've seen it in person, and have tried it--make for a much more realistic appearance. More below. Art

The old adage I heard frequently as a kid: "Great minds think alike". Art

The LIndberg '34 Ford pickup should have an engine stand that looks exactly like the ones you found in the AMT 32-40 Ford V8 kits--as AMT was the original manufacturer of the '34 Pickup (Lindberg stumbled onto that tool at a tool & die shop in Windsor, Ontario (Canada), where it had lain for more than 10 yrs after Lesney/AMT went bankrupt in 1982. Art

I used to see the old Hollywood "B" movie "Front Page" about breakfast time on AMC, back about 20 years ago. A typical "cops and robbers" movie, it wasn't very good (don't remember the cast, but I sure do remember the cars!): The bank robbers drove a '35 or '36 Auburn sedan, the city police officer had a '36-'37 Cord 810 sedan, but the FBI had the ultimate! A Duesenberg Model J Phaeton! Art

Back in the summer of 1992, I had the chance to walk through the "Save A Connie" 1049, at the Mt Comfort IN Air Show. Amazing how big the interior is on that airplane--I can see why the Lockheed Constellations were called "The first wide-body airliners". Much roomier than even the DC7C. Beautiful model too! Art

Even if one looks at a paint chip book (I have a very nearly mint set of Martin-Senour paint chips 1947-1992, and Martin Senour automotive paints were, at least from the 1960's through to 1992 when I was given these by a retiring NAPA store owner, made by Sherwin Williams) one can clearly notice the very muted colors, especially when the chips are on still-bright, white cardstock pages. Of course, one generally views such chip books indoors, under artificial light, so I suspect the colors look a bit different in the fairly bluish light of the sun on a clear day. That certainly would affect how human eyes see white paint samples. Art

If you look at real racing tires in person, be they Goodyear Eagles, Firestone Firehawks, or Hoosier, generally the lettering isn't all that sharply defined, as they tend to be stenciled with spray paint, rather than stamped or "printed" on. As for the clear carrier of the decal itself, try to cut your decals as closely to the letters as possible, that will minimize the visibility of the clear carrier coat, but you aren't going to be able to completely eliminate that, even with using a flat clear coat over them (you'll still see the thickness of the decal film). Replica's and Miniatures makes a photo-etched tire lettering stencil that can be centered on the tire, and then the lettering airbrushed on, which eliminates the decal film, and will give the tire lettering a much more realistic look, but that does require the use of an airbrush. Art

Automotive touchup paints are still a form of lacquer of some sort or another, and thus are subject to "blushing". Blushing is that somewhat "pearly" look on the surface of lacquers, and some fast drying aerosol (rattle can) paints, caused by the paint droplets actually being rather cold as they come out of the nozzle under considerable pressure from the propellant (spray cans used to use Freon, a refrigerant which is now banned in most countries, so nowadays butane or propane is pretty common). The propellant used in rattle can paints is under enough pressure in the can to force it to dissolve into the paint itself, and being under pressure at the same temperature as the ambient (surrounding) air where the can is being sprayed, and once you release that pressure by spraying, the temperature of the propellant, especially as it comes out of the nozzle, drops dramatically. The rapidly chilled paint droplets actually will condense moisture from the air, for the same reason and by the same process that a cold can of beer or soda "sweats" with condensation on the outside surfaces. The only way to avoid this is to either paint your model in an airconditioned or at least dehumidified atmosphere, but if that's not possible, Wait for the weather to cool down a bit, especially after a cold front passes by you--as that does drop the relative humidity quite a bit, and that will minimize paint blushing. Having a brother and nephew who are in the cabinet-making/antique furniture restoration profession, they also gave me this piece of advice years ago: When working indoors (their shop is a fully enclosed building), in Indiana which is well-known for frightful humidity much of the year (except on a bitter cold winter day when everything is hard frozen outside!). They told me that in their experience (and they use clear acrylic lacquer (as in automotive clear acrylic lacquer) when it's pouring down rain, as in a thunderstorm, outside, the relative humidity in their shop drops dramatically, due to heavy rain actually sweeping water vapor out of the surrounding air--which does give them quite a "window of opportunity" for spraying lacquers (and they use both rattle cans and spray guns). Since blushing is almost impossible to polish off a wood surface completely, their experience and knowledge is something I've taken to heart--they are both certified to several museums, including the Smithsonian Institution. I've used their advice, and I can attest that it does work. But, the good news is, blush can be removed, either by buffing out, or by laying on a clear coat of lacquer (or Duplicolor etc.) when the air dries out a bit. No need to strip the part or body shell just to remove blush! Art