Art Anderson

Snowcrest white should have a slightly "creamy" or "warm" look to it, especially under artificial light. It's not a stark white as it say, "appliance" or "refrigerator" white--white automotive paints from even the late 1950's were that way. The problem with any photograph is that so much depends on the camera, the film used, and if published in a magazine or book--it's transferred from a transparency image, probably Kodachrome, which can approximate the colors of the subject as seen in natural sunlight. However, indoors, under artificial light, most all automotive white paints from back then do have a noticeable "cream" cast to them, the degree of that varying from one manufacturer or model year to another. Art

I feel like someone speaking from the wilderness here! I, for one, have NEVER used anything BUT the freshest 3M masking tape I can find, that coming from either a paint store or from a local specialty retailer catering primarily to auto body shops. I also NEVER use that masking tape "straight off the roll" as no matter what, the edge of commercially made masking tape will be at least slightly "boogered" by both the mass-production process and in handling the product at the retail end, no matter how it's been packaged. And, I have NEVER subscribed to the notion of using clear to "seal" the edge of the tape with clear to prevent "bleeding under" by the second color either. What I do though, is to lay strips of this masking tape down on a clean piece of plate glass (fortunately, where I work I have been given several pieces of sample plate glass (I work around perhaps 70 people at the University who are involved in all steps of overseeing the construction, remodel and renovation of buildings on campus, and as such, they are constantly tossing samples of tempered plate glass, most generally 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick) and then using a straight edge (a strip of K&S brass strip works great for this) and a fresh #11 Xacto blade, I cut my own fresh edge on the tape, and then cut the tape into narrow strips, anywhere from 1/8" to perhaps 1/4" wide. I first lay down the narrowest strips of tape to get the "edge" of color separation, and burnish down that strip with my fingernail (your fingernails can be some of the most versatile "tools" you have, BTW!), which presses the tape adhesive down tightly against the surface of the first color, and then adding strips of tape until I have the entire body masked off. As I airbrush 99.9% of all my models, I get thin coats of paint which virtually never bleed or run under the masking tape (years of experience I suppose), and when I pull up that tape from the finished 2-tone paint job, I have very little in the way of an "edge", although with any 2- or more color paint job (for nearly 20 years, my building was primarily Indianapolis race cars--and some of those had rather outrageous paint schemes) there will be a raised edge between colors simply due to the added layer of the second (or third or fourth) color, which is inevitable. Simply polishing out the paint job minimizes and de-emphasizes this though. For burnishing down masking tape in areas where my fingernail won't quite reach, my trusty .5mm "push-click" mechanical pencil does a great job--again a very universal and useful tool at my workbench--I use the same pencil to press BMF down into the little details of scripts and emblems as well--and oh yeah, it works great for drawing lines on paper or styrene too). Art

A lot might depend on whether the "headers" were part of the original tooling, or if they were parts done well after the kit was first tooled and produced. I built mine from the very first production run, when the kit arrived in the hobby shop I owned back in 1987. I had no problems other than the stock aircleaner wanting to interfere with the fit of the hood, that was taken care of by simply trimming down the top of the "lump" 4bbl carb (considering that the carburetor was pretty much hidden by the stock aircleaner, that worked very well. I'm not altogether sure now, 26 years later, that I assembled the thing correctly or not, so it is possible that the problem might have been mine, given that I never had any customer mention having the same problem back then (I sold all 4 cases -- 48 kits in all -- within two business days). There can be, and it has happened with just about every model car kit manufacturer, problems with fitting parts that were added to the kit well after the fact, especially if those newer parts were not part of even the original engineering and mockup stage of the design and development. But at least at the time it was released, the '66 Nova kit was hailed as a breath of new, fresh air from AMT/Ertl, and was very well received at that time. Art

Actually, on diecast, Dremel's HSS (High Speed Steel) cutters work through the metal like a knife through warm butter, and are also very easy to control. Use the Dremel at the higher speeds though, and take your time with it. Art

I've had great success where adhesion of BMF was a problem by carefully "painting" Micro-Scale metal foil adhesive on the detail in question (particularly with interior detailing where I've used flat finish paints!). Allow the metal foil adhesive to dry (it will be nice and tacky) and simply apply and trim away any excess foil, burnish it down and that's it! Art

Bear in mind, AMT/Ertl tooled that '66 Nova back in the mid-1980's. If you take a Monogram (now Revell) kit tooled in that same time frame, it was done in very much the very same way. FWIW, AMT, Revell and Monogram back then were all three using the very same tool & die shop(s) in Windsor, Ontario (Canada). Art

For a car to be economically viable (meaning one could sell it for enough to at least cover the cost of restoration) it would at least need to have a very sound body, with little if any real rust on it. If there is rust, and there are no patch panels available, the cost will go way, way up. In the case of that Olds in the picture at the start of this thread, the only way one would get usable replacement sheet metal panels (quite possibly rocker panels are available, given that there were convertibles and hardtops produced that used the same rockers--pretty typical of the Big Three for decades) would be to find them as rust free sheetmetal from one of the specialty yards in the dry western states. Still though, the costs run up, even with reusing existing sheetmetal, even modern-made patch panels. It would be no different with the Datsun in that picture, probably even worse, given that import cars back in those days were far more prone to rusting out than most any US car. Art

Painting model cars by hand brushing is how it was done way back in the beginning, before Pactra introduced their line of "Sof-Spray 'Namel" in 1959. Back in those days (the dark ages to many if not most modelers today!) enamel paints were almost always sold as "4-hour enamel", meaning that it took about 4 hours for the stuff to dry just to the tacky stage (dry to the touch took 12-24 hours). That allowed the enamel to "flow out" quite a bit, and with the proper brushes, it was very possible to get at least a passably smooth, shiny finish. It takes a slow-drying enamel of course, and for best results, a soft, natural hair brush (most of the synthetic artist's brushes I've seen (and use for detailing) are far too stiff for this, IMHO. Even better is if the brush is a flat brush, at least a quarter inch wide, with bristles at least a half inch long. This gives a wide, and smooth brush stroke, without the noticeable brush marks of a round brush. As for slow drying enamels, Humbrol Enamel is still that old, slow drying formula, as is "One Shot"--a line of professional sign-painting enamel (which BTW when thinned and airbrushed, can give amazing results--but that's a topic for another time, another thread). Art

The smaller size polyethylene clear plastic squeeze-bulb dropper pipettes from Testors do that very same thing, and are far less expensive. $5.39 for a pkg of 6 at the hobby shop in Indianapolis where I picked mine up. Art

Solid solder is great for a lot of things model-wise, but in the size (diameter) needed for say, a 1/25 scale sway bar, it would, IMO, be darned near impossible to make it straight, and keep it that way while handling it. I'd strongly suggest K&S brass rod, perhaps .020" which scales out to 1/2" on a 1/25 scale model. .040" would be closer perhaps, scaling out to 1" in scale though, but K&S doesn't make it that size. K&S does make 1/32" which scales out to slightly over 3/4" diameter, which would be almost indistinguishable from .040" (I have a hard time seeing 5-thousandths of an inch difference, for example). Also, somebody will check me if I'm wrong here, but I have never seen a sway bar flattened at the ends and just bolted to another part or surface. Rather, I seem to recall that every setup of this sort I've seen has been secured by collars at either end, and that collar fixed to a link leading to the frame, rather than the trailing arms--given that trailing arms on a coil spring suspended solid rear axle move up and down with the movement of the axle. Brass wire has the advantage of being straight to start with, and with small flat pliers, it can be bent accurately to shape, and yet in between the bends it will still tend to hold it's straightness. Food for thought? Art

Quality? As it refers to what? Frankly, when that '66 Nova kit hit the shelves in 1987, it was the hit of the decade, and actually very nicely done. It is, of course, rather a transitional design--somewhere between the old, tried and true molded chassis pan, and a modern kit with everything but the bolts and nuts as separate parts, but it does build up very nicely. Art

Two cars that more than likely would cost more to restore than they would ever be worth completely restored, unfortunately. Art

I've used gap filling CA glue (Goldberg Superjet) for as long as it's been available (first came out about 1985) for just about everything imaginable in model building, from gluing parts together to even using it as a filler for small imperfections! One of the real advantages of the Superjet bottle is that it is readily adaptable to a series of accessory "nozzles" from Bob Smith Industries which seem to have been made specifically for the Goldberg packaging. My favorite nozzle extension is the BSI 302, which has it's tip drawn out into a 1" long capillary "needle" in soft polyethylene plastic, the ID of that tube being about .25mm (.010") and an OD approximately 1mm. This makes a perfect applicator for the stuff, and makes Superjet very easy to apply in small areas for gluing, as well as filling file or other tool marks in a reworked surface. Goldberg Superjet is slow setting, and just as with any CA glue, it doesn't set up on its own except VERY slowly, so an accelerator is necessary. BSI makes a perfect accelerator for CA, packed in a 3 oz push-pump bottle which allows one to dribble a few drops on the CA, or spray a larger area, setting up the CA in seconds, and when sprayed wetly on a CA glue joint on painted, clear or plated surfaces, cures the CA just as fast, with absolutely no fogging ever (those who have seen my models often are amazed that these parts were glued in place with CA--it's virtually invisible! In the bargain, BSI Accelerator will not attack or damage any paint, be that lacquer, enamel, or water-borne acrylics--I've used it on all these types of paints with perfect success for since it became available in the late 1980's, so I know it works. There are other accelerators out there, but many of them will mar styrene and paint jobs, and there are other makes of applicator nozzles out there, but they don't hold a candle to the BSI 302--I've tried most of them at least once. Goldberg Superjet is available in many hobby shops having a large, well-stocked RC plane and/or boat department, as are BSI Accelerator and their appicator nozzles. In addition, BSI products are also readily available online from Tower Hobbies as well. I've used Superjet with this accelerator as a filler for sink marks on body shells, and with a bit of needle file work, followed by sanding smooth, it paints very well and never shrinks. And, it has the advantage of very short working times due to this rapid setting quality using the accelerator I've described.

Of course, it might be wise to consider that for a great many people, their concept of a really nice miniature car or truck could very well be something from Franklin or Danbury Mint, even some of the other diecast marques. My model car club, Lafayette Miniature Car Club, has exhibited at the monthly outdoor cruise nights at the largest local McDonald's every year (and every cruise night!) since 1991. We get all kinds of lookers, from the knowledgeable to the uninitiated, from small children to pretty elderly types. The comments and questions run the full gamut from "Oh, look at the pretty toy cars" to serious questions as to just how did some of our models get built to the level they are; as well as just about anything in between you might imagine. Of course, if one considers that Franklin Mint had the reputation of making some of the very finest 1/24 scale diecast model cars, I see that as a compliment, certainly if it came from someone whose only exposure to model cars has been prebuilt, prefinished diecasts. And hopefully, one receiving such a seemingly backhanded compliment would do well to keep a very diplomatic mind about it, at least in public. Art

Any commercial sandblasting gun most likely will damage your diecast beyond saving, given that Zamak (the alloy commonly used for diecast is non-ferrous and thus is considerably softer than iron or steel. Chemical stripping would be the way to go. Look in your nearest auto supply store for paint strippers labeled "For aircraft use", as that will take that paint off in mere minutes if not seconds, and will not damage the diecast surface whatsoever. Art

Of course, for both simplicity and cost reasons, Ford laid out their flathead V8 with simple log style exhaust manifolds, each bank of cylinders being scavenged through a manifold very similar to that of an OHV engine. Trouble was, that meant that the exhaust passages, given that on any ordinary V8 engine, the camshaft lays between the cylinder banks, actuated valves that are on the high side of each bank, with an exhaust passage that went through about 9" of coolant to get to the outside of the block. The result? BEST water heater Detroit ever made! (but they did work and work pretty well even so). Ford wasn't the only automaker to produce flathead Vee engines: Cadillac, Packard and Lincoln all did (among others). The major difference was (besides the practice of most other automakers to build assembled Vee engines having cylinder blocks bolted to a common cast crankcase) was to route exhaust gasses out the high side of each cylinder bank, giving the shortest exhaust passages, that didn't run through the water jacket. This necessitated a system of multipiece exhaust manifolds. Generally, the left side manifold had its outlet at the front of the engine, with a cross-over pipe (cast iron also) connecting from that to the front of the right side manifold, where its gasses joined those coming out of the right side cylinder bank, then exiting the right side manifold at the rear, as a single pipe system. Those were very expensive to produce, as they had to be very precisely cast, and then precisely machined at their mating points in order to get a tight system with no leaks. This was the practice of Cadillac V8's from their first one in 1916 through the 1948 model year (Cadillac introduced their first OHV V8 in the 1949 model year--the first series Cadillac V16 and its companion V12 having been OHV, while the second series Cadillac V16 was a flathead engine), Packard did not produce a true OHV engine until they introduced their first V8 for 1955, and Lincoln's Model L (like the MPC 27-28 Lincoln kits) and the subsequent Model K and KB V8's used this multi-section exhaust system, but the Lincoln V12 produced from 1935-48 was laid out exactly like the Ford flathead V8, and had almost all the same characteristics, including a tendency to overheat. Art

Eric, a couple of slight corrections:: The Japanese-,made Cord 810 is a Convertible Phaeton, not the Convertible Coupe (AKA Sportsman), and was loosely cloned from the Monogram kit, by Bandai Bandai's 1935 Duesenberg Model J with supercharger is also loosely cloned from the Monogram Duesenberg series, but depicts a somewhat inaccurate model of the Figoni Berline. Italeri first marketed their 1934 Mercedes Benz Kabriolet as a 380 (Mercedes identified that series of car by the engine size, even if the same car/body style had a larger engine (as in 380--3.8 liter, 500--5.liter, or 540--5.4 liter) We had a member of our local antique car club here for years, who owned and restored a '34 Mercedes 380K Kabriolet with coachwork exactly like the Italeri kit). Southeast Finecast produces (and has for over 40 years now) a 1/24 scale kit of the 1929 Mercedes Benz SSKL roadster in white metal, and a '27 Bugatti Type 35 as well. The Monogram "1931 Duesenberg Murphy Speedster" you mention is actually a somewhat inaccurate rendition of the single long wheelbase (153.5" wheelbase) Murphy Disappearing Top Convertible Coupe as ordered by, and built for George Whittel of Woodland and Lake Tahoe California. The actual car is a Model J, was never supercharged, and has hood sides that use Cadillac chrome plated thermostatically controlled doors in the hood sides, instead of the standard Model J concentric curved louvers. (the late Lee Baker modified the Monogram hood for this one, and scratchbuilt the standard Model J underhood exhaust manifold as used on standard Model J's, along with the standard carburetor and aircleaner, and I corrected the shape of the boattail area and cast this as a resin transkit at All American Models). Now, if only John Hanle, owner of JoHan had completed the 1932 or 33 Packard V12 Phaeton he was said to have been working up back in the 60's! All in all, you have the list nailed down! Art

Skip, I work in Building Services at the university here, and it's far more into recycling than either of our twin cities are. As a major research university that receives considerable funding from federal grants, the safety requirements are pretty strict, as regards any discarded items that can cut, puncture, lacerate, regardless of whether those items are made that way on purpose or are made of materials (such as glass) that when broken, presents those same safety hazards. My use of a soda can for storing used Xacto (and even surgical scalpel blades--as I use those in model building as well) is for my own personal safety, as well as keeping them from the trash bag, where they could very easily do someone harm, anywhere from the person tossing that bag into the packer truck to people at the trash transfer (read that "sorting") station. The small corrugated box for packaging up sharp or potentially sharp objects is standard throughout the medical, veterinary, biosciences, and chemistry fields--and is an OSHA requirement--one of the OSHA regs that truly makes a lot of sense. When I have a burnt out light bulb (either incandescent or CFL) I do exactly the same thing, and put the small box in my recycle tub for city pickup. Believe me, they do know how to handle those things in sorting, as the public trash transfer station here also processes what we at the university call "mixed recyclables". Art

348CID tripower. Art

Nor is a bathroom fan explosion proof. Art

On the surface of it, I can't imagine any reason why it wouldn't work to bend PE parts, as they are nothing more than sheet metal cut out to whatever design. Art

I have no idea, Harry, other than the company originating the 3D printing files would have no control over the process nor the finished 3D printed part or parts. Also, a signature by a minor to an agreement accepting risk, or "terms and conditions" has absolutely no force whatsoever, and a parent has only limited rights to sign away any right to action by his/her child in a matter of tort (damages). Bear in mind, the creator of such software would have no control over the quality of the particular 3D printer used, nor the kind (or grade thereof) of plastic feedstock used. I know that sounds rediculous, but sometimes civil courts seem rediculous, and of course should a lawyer see potential for a winning case with a significant fee for himself and/or his law firm--well, I don't think I should have to elaborate further. Art

Another thing for fire safety: Our fire department periodically surveys neighborhoods and apartment complexes to ascertain any special hazards or needs. This can include, for example, oxygen tanks as used by people with that medical need, rooms where children, infants or the elderly sleep, and anything that can be a special fire hazard. I simply remind them of the existence of the dozen or so spray cans of paint I might have on hand at any one time. Why spray cans? Look at the label--since Freon went out of use as a propellant, the most common propellant is propane, which is highly flammable. Art

For used Xacto blades, I keep an empty soda can right next to whichever bench I am using at the time, and simply drop the used blade in that. Whenever I toss out a can with blades in it, I put it in a small box, tape it up securely, and with a Sharpie, I write SHARPS on all 6 sides, and put that box in with my recyclables. SHARPS is the standard warning for anything that can cause cuts or punctures, such as used hypodermic needles (many diabetics know this, for example) glass (whether broken or not) and certainly used sharp knives or blades. It's something I've taken to heart from work. Art

In scanning through The Wall Street Journal from Thursday, June 6, 2013 over lunch at work, I read a fascinating article on 3D printing and some of the uses it's being put to in industry (for example, Ford Motor Company has started creating masters for both foundry castings and injection molded plastic parts, and GE, who are experimenting with producing jet engine parts by 3D printing IN METAL), the most interesting part is about Mattel--whose engineers now use 30 3D printers for creating the tooling mockups for future toys. However, Mattel seems to through a considerable "wet blanket" on the concept of a toy manufacturer designing a subject, then selling the requisite files to consumers so they can 3D print toys on their own for their kids. "A company spokesman said the company couldn't guarrantee toys that consumers printed out would be safe for children (my note: Model car kits do wind up in the hands of children still in these days of adult builders!), a 'topic that that the entire toy industry will have to face and embrace' as #D printer use broadens at home." (WSJ, June 6, 2013) It would seem that similar concerns most likely will surface at most plastic model companies as well, it seems to me, at least in the foreseeable future. Art