Art Anderson

Surprised that nobody's mentioned the Willys Model 77! In the 'teens and twenties, Willys-Overland was known as a maker of upper-middle priced cars, much in the same class as say, Buick. Willys was one of the first to adopt the Knight sleeve-valve system (instead of the normal poppet intake and exhaust valves, the Knight system was a sleeve that moved up and down around the outside of the cylinder "barrel", with passages in both the sleeve and cylinder which allowed for intake and exhaust. Willys bragged that when the Knight patents expired, every serious automaker would be using this system. In 1931-32, the Knight Patents did expire, and in 1933, the Model 77 appeared. Small and compact, the 77 very quickly eclipsed the large, expensive Willys-Knight, and legions of drag racers have loved the result ever since--Model 77 was the legendary '33 Willys, star of the "Gasser" scene at dragstrips everywhere, but it killed its "parent car". In 1946, the Willys CJ-2A Jeep and the follow-on Jeep inspired pickups and station wagons effectively killed off any return of the Willys Americar, the 1937-42 compact 4-cylinder car. Art

In 1931, Chevrolet did have a junior marque: Mercury. Art

More like the blind leading the blind.

I would think it entirely possible for a licensor to know how many units of a kit for which he is being paid a royalty are sold, and in what time frame. Royalties are based on an expected production run, and for that, payment is made up front as a condition of licensing. Subsequent royalty checks generally give the sales numbers which corroborate the amount of the payment. It might be a good thing to look back to the early 1960's when the kit in question was first released: Bear in mind, that for all the fervent popularity of model car kits in general back then, the "pickings" were actually very limited compared to today--so any new kit stood the chance of selling in very high numbers right out of the gate. In addition, the "Showboat" was one of the earliest replicas of a known dragster, and that had to heighten the interest in the model kit. Consider that by 1965, AMT Corporation was selling 10's of millions of model car kits annually, meaning that several of their most popular subjects were selling in the hundreds of thousands within the year of their introduction. As time wore on, however, the increasingly larger selection provided by AMT and all the rest tended to crimp the sales of any one individual kit--proof that there was an upper limit to the marketplace; sales being divided among more and more kits on the market. But yes, it's entirely possible that what Ivo stated has much more than just a "grain" of truth. Art

Those classic "megaphone" header pipes were actually fabricated from the tapered portion of Ford torque tubes. Ford cars, from the 1908 Model T clear through 1948 used torque tube rear ends, all with varying degrees of taper. And yes, they did have a seam down one side, as they were made from about 16-gauge sheet steel, rolled on a form, and then either crimped (tin can style) or welded (in later years), so a paintbrush ferrule must might be the way to go, seam and all. Art

You can also flatten semi-gloss black by adding a bit of flat (matte) black to it. Just be sure that it's the same brand of paint as your semi-gloss. Art

A thought here: You've mentioned the rough surface seems to happen in areas with negative shapes (I take that to mean concave, or recessed areas, such as one might find on the rear quarters of say, a '59 or '60 Chevy) and around window frames. It sounds to me as if you might want to experiment (on something that doesn't matter if you mess it up) with lower air pressures, especially with either acrylics or lacquers, as both of those paints, when kicked up into really noticeable overspray, can dry partially in mid air, before they get deposited on the model car surfaces. I had to learn about this when starting to use automotive lacquers on model car bodies with my airbrush. Here is what I found upon careful study: Airbrushes, with high air pressures (and 25psi is pretty high, believe it or not!) put out paint with enough velocity to create a pretty noticeable cloud of overspray, much of which dries in mid air, and at the end of the side of a model car body (or even around the raised detailing around side windows) actually "eddies" in a bit of a swirling cloud, which can settle on the surfaces of say, the rear of the body shell, in much the same fashion as dust collects on the rear of your own car or SUV when you drive down a dusty country road (surely you have experienced that, or have seen cars that have that effect on them!). So two steps here: First, I would not assume that any brand or make of paint sold as "air brush ready" is in fact truly thinned enough. What works for one person may well NOT work for someone else, but the technique I will suggest does work, I've taught several modelers to do this: For airbrushing, lacquers should be as thin at least, as 2% milk. This is an "eyeball" thing--think of how 2% milk flows off the inside of your glass, it "sheets" on the glass,but very thinly, very translucent. This viscosity works very well with lacquers (waterborne acrylics behave much differently of course). Even with decanted rattle can paints, they may well be a bit too thick for getting a nice airbrushed finish--I find myself often adding a bit of lacquer thinner (again by eyeball!) to get that "2% milk consistency. Think THIN here. Second, work with only the minimum air pressure needed to get the paint to flow through your airbrush. Most all airbrushes are made for the art trade, and none of the airbrush manufacturers ever really seem to take into account model car builders. So, think of your airbrush as a miniature spray gun, which in fact it is, out of which you want a miniature paint job. I always start by cutting down the air pressure delivered at my airbrush, to the point that it won't spray even the thinnest of paints. I then hold the trigger down, and open up the material control (which admits paint into the air stream) a little bit, then slowly increase the air pressure until the airbrush just begins to spray. Once I have that airpressure adjustment (and this is best done by eyeball, not necessarily by looking at a pressure gauge) I simply open up the airbrush itself to get a usable spray pattern (about 1/2 inch an inch out in front of the airbrush itself). Now I have a workable spray pattern at that distance, which is far closer than most everyone reads in the instructions as being the proper distance for spraying. Again, miniaturizing the use of the airbrush (think about how far away a production spray gun gets held from the surface of a real car at your local body shop--it's actually pretty far away,but in miniature, learn to work much closer in than you have been. Now by moving your airbrush along the sides of your model body shell, you won't be seeing nearly as much overspray in the air around your work, and very little of it will settle around the corners either on the front or rear of your body shell. With concave areas, spray those first, then work outward from them, that will give you the coverage and smooth surface you want there. Think SOFT and CLOSE here. That's my motto in painting a model car body: TSC, or Thin, Soft and Close. I'd suggest working with either a junk model body or two, or lacking those, get a package of plastic picnic spoons, and practice the above on those. I think you will see a considerable difference in your outcome. Art Anderson

A few classic era cars were produced with chrome-plated wire wheels, Duesenberg Model J's and SJ's being prominent for that. Others were built with wire wheels that had the hubs and rims painted, but with chrome-plated spokes (Cadillacs, Chryslers, and Imperials were very noticeable in that regard. All that aside, with the possible exception of Duesenberg, I believe that the vast majority of luxury car makers shipped cars with wire wheels that were simply painted, both European and domestic. It's the restorers, they going all the way back into the 1960's that seemed to feel that chroming those wire wheels was the way to go. Art

Gee, Harry! AMT did that with the '65 Pontiac GTO, and a perusal of comments even to this day of that kit would show that the concept you suggest would not be the way to go! Art

From their introduction by GM in 1949, until 1960's styling made it much more difficult for many makes of cars, hardtops were little more than steel roofs welded onto convertible bodies. In fact, if you look at any 1950's hardtop body shells with all the interior stripped out, you can see the convertible top lockdown points in the windshield header in the inside, as well as mounting points for the convertible top mechanisms. For that reason alone, almost any model car body tooling for a hardtop can be made to work with a few new mold "slides" to do the convertible version, along with new interior side panels and rear seat. Those iconic 1960's Annual Series hardtops tended to all have convertible interior tubs, at least for several years--that made it easier to offer the hardtop and convertible--and back then, did the kids we once were really notice it that much? Probably not. But at least, it took only the upper slide core of most model car kit tooling to change out a hardtop to a convertible--and occasionally the two side slide cores as well. I based my comments on my 30 some years associated with, or working full time in, the retail hobby shop business. Back in the 1960's, every July, the hobby shop worked my way through college in, participated in the downtown sidewalk sale days. Now, we always put out a lot of stock on folding tables at those sale events, and that included unsold "last year's" model car kits--and guess what? The majority of those were the convertible versions. I would guess that the lower sales of convertible kits generally happened due to the fact that most of the cars you saw customized back then tended to be hardtops or 2dr sedans of some sort or other (yes, there have been iconic convertible customs, but those were pretty much outnumbered by closed body styles), but I submit that if one really looks through pics of customs, MOST are closed body styles. In addition, convertibles are pretty rare on the dragstrips, due to their greater weight (chassis X-members, heavier body structures and so on), which made them less than competitive. Of course, NASCAR, for a few years in the very late 50's ran a convertible class, but even that went away pretty quickly, without much weeping over its demise. As for weight, a sedan delivery tended to be among the lightest weight version of most makes of cars--I learned that when researching my 58 Chevy sedan delivery some 20 years ago. It was lighter than even the bare-bones basic 2dr Utility sedan by perhaps a hundred pounds or so. As for why virtually no steel bodied station wagons in model kit form (other than Chevy Nomads), I cannot answer that, except to say that those mean tooling that cannot really be made to modify easily into any other body styles (absent say, an El Camino or Ranchero). But the bottom line seems to be thus: A model company wants and needs to see that any new tooling has some "legs" to it. That means that either a particular new kit subject has to stand on its own two feet all by its lonesome, or when possible, additional variants can be added to it without requiring all new tooling. If planned from the get-go, many American car subjects (and even a few foreign cars as well) can be engineered up front to allow for future "modified releases" requiring minimal investments in new tooling. If one studies any model car kit body shell, looks at whatever mold parting lines there are, one can begin to understand what is possible to change by simply making new sliding mold sections, called in the trade, "Slide Cores". If a particular model company (and Revell Monogram has a long tradition of this, particularly from Monogram's history) of always planning at least one major variant of most model car kit tools they ever did. But not every model kit maker has done that, and for that matter, neither did Monogram always, nor did Revell when they were a free-standing company, outside of their '57 Chevy lineup from nearly 50 years ago. In all this, I'm just laying out the whys and wherefores as I've seen them over the years, they are not just opinions, but based on actual retail sales experiences. So, please don't shoot me. I am but a messenger here! Art

Of course, that '57 Chevy "salesman's car" found a niche of fame as a Nascar racer, and later, on the drag strips! Art

never said it didn't sell well enough, but just that as a rule, over the years, model kits of convertibles never did sell nearly as well as their hardtop counterparts. Of course, there have been exceptions, especially where a convertible had another reason to catch the modeler's eye. Indy pace car convertibles do come to mind there, as an example, as do cars made famous in movies or on television. Of course, some cars, never built as anything but a convertible, do well as model kits (1952-62 Corvettes, 1955-57 Thunderbirds come to mind there). but, all one has to do is to look at the relative values of old kits--often times the hardtop version of a particular car will command more money than the convertible. But, this is NOT to say that convertible model kits don't make sense, just that in terms of a broader market appeal, hardtops and 2dr sedans, even some station wagons, actually sell better over time. Art

Bear in mind that before say, the very late 1960's. outside rearview mirrors were very scarce, very uncommon. I know it's hard to understand todayk, fully 40+ years later, but rear view mirrors beyond those on the inside of cars were not seen as vitally important--and model car kits being a reflection of real life, represent that. Art

I refer you to my post above! Kits of convertibles have almost never had the sales numbers of kits of closed cars, period. I rest my case (based on more than 30yrs experience in retail hobbies) Art

Time was when the various states required a commercial vehicle to be licensed in whatever states they operated in. However, with the advent of USDOT, that went away. Art

Frankly, as both a hobbyist, and one who has both worked in a hobby shop AND owned one: Hardtops and sedans have far outsold convertibles almost since forever. Wish it were otherwise, but that has been the case for decades with model kits. Art

Austin! Trust me, back in 1960, when I first got my drivers' license, I felt discriminated against, due to insurance. But the simple fact is: Teenage drivers have more accidents, due both to a lack of maturity (I can relate to that looking back even though I have never had a chargeable traffic accident), and lack of experience. Trust me, both tend to go away with age, but bear in mind that insurance companies deal daily with risk, and where the risk is higher, the rates for insurance are higher. Chill out, buddy, you will see that go away as you grow older! (and no, it's not a matter of illegal discrimination!) Art Anderson

The very first electric cars came about approximately 115 years ago or so. The selling point then was ease of operation, and of course, reliability. If one thinks about it, there was no need for the driver of one to be at all mechanically or technologically skilled or talented, indeed one need not have the muscles of a weightlifter in order to start one (back in the day of hand-cranked, often stubborn internal combustion engines!). That is what made them fairly popular with early female drivers, those who could afford one. Here in Lafayette, we had an elderly woman who was still driving her 1912 Baker-Raulang Electric into the early 1950's, for that very reason--it was a car she could operate (in 1912 she was perhaps in her mid-30's, so by the early 50's aged in her middle 70's). As for the car itself, it was virtually silent, save for a slight buzz from the Diamond Roller Chain (think large bicycle chain here), no gears to clash, no clutch to depress--just a controller for speed along with "forward or reverse", a footbrake, and a small pedal for a gong which served the same purpose as a horn. For her occasional outings after dark, basic headlights and a single taillight. Of course, she was a rather well-to-do widow by the time I (perhaps 6 or 7 when last I saw Mrs, Perrin and her "Rolling China Cabinet"), and had a hired handyman to take care of her large brick home, and probably charging up that Baker, but the principle of what I said about that car and her remains: Ease of operation, and very little in the way of mechanical sense needed. Now, I am fully aware that there are costs involved to drive a car (not counting the obvious maintenance, insurance and licensing). The one cost that everyone here is bringing up is for whatever energy source is being tapped. No matter what type of energy is used to power a vehicle, it's somewhat costly. The notion that somehow, years ago, gasoline was dirt-cheap is, IMO, a myth--it's never been for the most part, even back around 1900 when the stuff was an almost undesireable byproduct of kerosene production from crude oil. Rationed gasoline (during WW-II for those too young to remember or lacking the historical knowledge of those times) at 15-cents a gallon in 1944 compares to the $4000 my parents paid for the house I grew up in (I was born in July 1944!), and even the comparison with the price Dad paid for a brand new 1946 Plymouth Special Deluxe 4-door sedan in December 1945 (I want to say that Dad paid about $1,100 for the privilege of getting a brand-new car just 3 months after VJ Day), all on an annual salary of perhaps $2500 a year (plus Mom's salary of perhaps $1500 or so as the office manager of a seed improvement company here)--so the cost of operating two cars (Mom still had her cherry 1932 Chevrolet Confederate Coupe at the time!). By November 1957, I (a 13yr old 8th grader!) got the math assignment of calculating the cost for gasoline for an epic trip from West Lafayette IN to San Carlos, AZ to spend Christmas with an Aunt & Uncle whom we seldom got to see back then--I used the princely sum of 25-cents a gallon, and highway mileage of 19mpg in our 1954 Hudson Hornet Twin H-Power (mileage figured on a trip to Chicago and one to Indianapolis from here, which I had to learn do do!). I can still remember my folks literally counting pennies to come up with a budget just for gasoline for that trip (BTW, it was a "straight-through" trip, no stopping at motels for the night--Dad outfitted that big old Hudson with a set of bunk beds for my two little sisters, me, and whichever parent was not driving!). In comparison to today, the relative costs are not that much different. Now of course, that trip would have been impossible with anything but a gasoline powered car--no way could we have done that 4500 mile round trip in 3 weeks time if we'd had to stop at every one-horse town (or even a decent sized city!) along the way coming and going--in fact, we couldn't have done it, given the much longer distances between points of civilization once we crossed into Texas! Which brings me to another point: Most of us do not drive more than say, 10-15 miles to work every day, in fact, in much of the US, the daily commute is only a few miles (not everybody lives in LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago or certainly the East Coast "Megalopolis" which stretches from about Baltimore to the northern 'burbs of Boston. No, we don't!) It's the huge percentage of Americans who live in small to medium sized cities whose daily driver needs are just a few miles each way each day, home-to-work and work-to-home with the periodic stops at the Supermarket, or a shopping center for the necessities of life. So, for people such as these, an electric car can make real sense. And this leads me to another point: Tesla and others who have at least attempted to bring electric cars to market in this modern era have either concentrated on the strictly utilitarian (little more than glorified golf carts) or the flashy and "exotic" (exemplified by Tesla). Both types of cars miss the mark, in my never-to-be-humble opinion. Really now! Does a tire-burning battery powered slot racer really do it as a commuter car? And conversely, does a tiny little, boxy "glorified golf cart" do it either? Nope! At least not in my opinion! People want, and need, or so it seems to me, a car that at least meets the needs for getting around, a few creature comforts, but at least practical. Neither the "golf cart" miniboxes I've seen, nor the 2 or 3 Tesla sports cars that are on the streets here (all three are owned by professors at Purdue University, where incidently, I work) have much at all in the way of utility value--they are little more than a glorification of the electric scooters used by elderly and disabled persons--but with room for perhaps a couple of bags of groceries, and that's about it, albeit in the case of the Tesla, there is an excitement factor somewhat akin to the excitement of having that Pontiac Tempes that could fry the tires, burn channels in to the asphalt on the way to work, school, the supermarket (remember the GTO?). But, where is the minivan concept, the utilitarian vehicle that can transport Mom, Dad, and 1.5 kids from here to there, to work, to the store, whatever, at least locally? Nonexistent in the electric vehicle world, sadly. Finally, the dollar costs. Energy is expensive, always has been, and always will be, even given the tremendous advances in lighting, energy efficient appliances and the like. And yes, the production of energy is costly, no matter the fuel source (be that coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear--even so called pollution-free energy from solar, wind or water power is expensive (somebody has to pay for those solar panels, wind turbines, hydroelectric dams!. In short, there is no such thing as a "free lunch"--somebody, somewhere will be paying the price. But if there is one thing I see for certain, it's that pollution is far more easily controlled, indeed captured and reduced, at a power plant as opposed to a myriad of tailpipes on cars (I can't imagine gasoline powered cars having, each and every one of them, some sort of bag attached to capture the CO2 and other pollutants from the tailpipe. Yeah, there is nothing like the sound and fury of a big block Hemi thundering down the dragstrip or on the street, nor the scream of a small displacement engine ripping along the highway, but is that really the only way to get around town? Not in my book. Yes, I relish being intrigued by cars with real piston engines, always have and always will to the end of my days (and I just turned 68 yrs old!), but in so many ways, there have to be better, cleaner, ways to get from here to there, particularly around the town in which I live. But in the bottom line, I see it as a matter of how to do that in a clean way, not arbitrarily tied to just one way, the piston engined way. I can see having an internal combustion engine for long trips, but wherever and whenever possible (realizing that not every person in this or any other country can afford an electric commuter car) matching the type of vehicle, and a form of energy to power it, to the job at hand. Whew, one of my longer posts! Art Anderson

Regardless of the width of the spray pattern of your airbrush, "Tiger Striping" can still occur by not overlapping each pass of the airbrush with the next one. Anyone who's ever painted a real car has had to learn this. Art

Steel.

Yes it does! BMF's scriber works like a "needle-pointed" chisel, in that its tip actually removes a chip of plastic as it's pulled across a styrene surface. However, it's tapered in shape, ever so slightly, and that means that the deeper the scribed line, the wider it will appear. I've used one of these for more than 20 years, and really like it. One note though: This scriber will likely need to be sharpened before its first use. (I keep mine sharp by "honing" it on 400-grit sandpaper that is glued down to a .250" X .250" piece of Evergreen strip styrene. But I never saw that as any drawback. Art

You are correct, I was wrong! Now that I've dropped the suggestion, how's bout it, Revell????? Art

AMT's 1940 Ford Coupe is a model of the 1940 Ford Deluxe Coupe. Tooled and released in 1959, it was way out there for that era--opening hood, engine (two actually, the stock 221cid Ford Flathead V8, and a 401cid Buick "nailhead" V8). The kit also brought separate suspension detail (albeit solid front and rear axles with transverse leaf springs (the way Ford built cars up through 1948). It was a great kit for the day, and is still fun to build, but it's definitely not "up to 21st Century Standards" in the eyes of a great many model car builders today). Revell's 1940 Coupe is the 1940 Standard Coupe. Where Deluxe was Ford's top line, Standard was the bottom line car. Revell started their lineup of '40 Fords with the '40 Ford woodie station wagon, in deluxe trim. Following that came the 1940 Ford Deluxe Convertible--both of which have exactly the same front end styling that AMT produced with their 1959-era kit. The third in the series is the 1940 Ford Standard Coupe. Now ,it is possible to modify the Revell '40 Ford Standard coupe to a Deluxe, by cutting away the Standard grille, and swapping in the Deluxe grille from either of the other two kits they produced. This allows the use of the Deluxe hood as well, and by using the Deluxe dashboard from the convertible or station wagon in place of the Standard dash that is a part of the Coupe kit. Interestingly enough, the Coupe retained the interior panels, seat and steering wheel of the Deluxe kits. Conversely, it is also possible to change the Revell 40 Ford Station Wagon from Deluxe back to a Standard (Ford made station wagons in both trim levels in 1940, but the Convertible came only in Deluxe trim that year. In contrast to the much older AMT kit tooling, Revell's kits are very much state-of-the-art for today--lots more detail underneath, and in the engine bay. In addition, AMT used their then-new 6:50-15 wheels and tires, where Revell was able to justify all new tire tooling, giving their kits the much more correct appearing 6:00-16 wheels and tires. Hope this helps out a bit! Art

Actually, Plastruct has very small half-round styrene strip that should be very easily curved around those seat backs! None of those corners or countours are so sharp as to make such small, thin strips of styrene break. For the bend from the sides to the top, just "pre-curl" the half round so that it doesn't keep wanting to come back out straight for the seat back corners, glue down with Tenax across the top of the seat, then bend it down over those corners, glue that area, then lay it out all the way down the sides of the seat back. Art

Trust me. John has simplified drawings from NRC for this wrecker, with dimensions, and I've helped John confirm those dimensions. This rig is legit! Art