Art Anderson

For starters, the tires in question (shown in the picture) are not rubber, but a soft PVC (Vinyl). Gel pens aren't "ink", but rather an oil-based paint. It's the old syndrome that we older modelers discovered way back in the 60's--enamel paint (Pactra or Testors were our choices back then) simply would NOT dry hard on PVC tires, when we tried to whitewall them. This was, and is, for the same reason that occasionally, PVC tires in model car kits, if they laid in direct contact with say, the body shell or the clear styrene windshield glass would eventually "attack" those parts, leaving a softened, but nagging imprint of their tread or sidewall behind. Water-borne acrylic paint does not have this problem, be it from a bottle, or from the recently available Molotow acrylic paint pens. Art

Uh, I'm doing this as it would have appeared coming off the assembly line at Ford's River Rouge plant--thus it's going to be devoid of all markings and insignia. Those were applied after arrival at whatever US Army or US Navy depot. Art

Uh, in steel, tough as nails. But in 1/24 scale plastic with a number of scratchbuilt details, not so tough. Art

Uh, no "PUSH" will happen, simply because this model is in many ways too fragile, too delicate for me to do that (already I've had to make some repairs to it going forward) Art

Pete, why not Google for pics of the real '54 Corvair--THEN look for a paint color? (as just another thought--one '54 Corvair Dream Car was painted in a candy apple red ) Art

Flexible plastic drinking straws have one serious drawback: They are made from a very low grade of whatever plastic, and as such, tend to crumble into little flakes of plastic over time. Art

That color is a very light green, definitely not blue. Art

Uh, when I did the production "job bag" for the 1954 Corvair Motorama Dream Car, I couldn't use any production car color, simply because there wasn't anything available (and I wasn't going to cut up any pages of my very large automotive paint chip books for the project. As a general rule, unless we knew the exact color, by year, make, even body style, we at Johnny Lightning used the Pantone Mixing System (Pantone is a globally recognized color chart system, with extremely accurate color chips--used widely in the printing, paint-mixing and color matching industry. We (my co-worker Al Pletcher and I) would compare any and all color images we found with the color and shade of that color in Pantone (once in a while, we'd even seek a third opinion), and once we felt we had it, would tear out that perforated color chip from he Pantone book, put it in a pretective plastic bag, and send it off to the factory in China. There, they had a skilled paint mixer who would match the color exactly, by eye. Art

So, here are a few pics of progress:

Having cast several thousand resin kits, transkits and parts sets, yes, it is possible to reproduce an entire model car kit in resin. However, it IS NOT GOING TO BE INEXPENSIVE (at least not in the minds of most model car builders). The sheer cost of materials (resin, and the catalyzed RTV rubber both are costly), and the very high labor intensity involved (particularly when compared to injection-molding styrene kits), make this a very daunting proposition for any "newbie" wanting to do such, and for even professionals in such a business, it's stll expensive--due to both the material costs as I mentioned, but also anyone doing this as a profession (even a part-time one) will expect to be paid for his/her labor, plus something for the investment of money in equipment (and while RTV rubber molds are of limited lifetime, they are "equipment), in other words, a return on such investment. Art

Actually, automakers have been assembling engines before painting them since at least the mid-1930's, so almost everything that is the basic, overall engine color gets painted at the same time (inluding any bolt heads or nuts used in the assembly process to that point.. Ford was perhaps the last "holdout" when it came to painting engines: From their beginnings in 1903 until the shutdown of civilian car production in early 1942, Ford's practice was to paint each casting prior to assembly, then paint overspray was removed during the final assembly of engines (blocks in the machining process, heads as they had their mating surface milled and polished. This made for a fairly "dressy" engine when new---the cadmium-plated bolts and screws really stood out. Art

For starters, there is but one model kit mfr in the US who has had control of all their existing tooling since day one, and that would be Revell (yes I know that some Revell tooling was lost to them out in Venice CA years ago, only to be found by other model kit vendors). AMT and MPC tooling both have been through multiple ownership over the past 40 yrs or so, with several moves of that tooling happening. With AMT, that was a "fire sale" thing, after ttwo bankruptcies--AMT Corporation, and then Lesney-AMT: Those lead to hasty gathering of molds and inserts in a matter of mere months--there is but one man today who might know what insert goes with what tool, and that would be John O'Neil, and he's at least 80 yrs old, if not older. With that in mind, consider the problem: You've got a warehouse of model kit tooling, most of which is in large solid steel blocks--weighing a few hundred lbs apiece. Open one up, only to find inserts missing. Where the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks are those inserts. More searching! Then, since model kit tooling is almost always cut in steel--what is the condition? Were those tools properly preserved with Cosmoline, or were they left to rust (surface rust is death to an injection molding tool cut in steel). Now, estimate the cost of restoring such tooling as can be restored to the level we modelers demand. Most of you who read this, being not ever associated in any way with the model kit industry, tend to assume that all that is necessary is to find he tooling, load it up into the mold press--and PRESTO! Your favorite "unobtainium" kit is now in mass production! (Would God it were that easy!) Art

Believe it or not, in the late 1970's, with crude oil shortages being as they were (polystyrene is made from petroleum!), AMT Corporation actually was hitting up RV and mobile home Mfr's in Northern Indiana for surplus styrene stuff--cheap window louvers (I saw stacks of 4X4X4 cartons of those on a visit to AMT in 1978!), which could be re-ground into the pellets needed for loading into injection-molding machines (AMT was also making all manner of polystyrene stuff for other industries at the time). AMT was concerned enough about the supply of polystyrene, that in 1976 or so, they actually worked up a program for hobby shops: Take your empty model kit parts sprues to your LHS, turn them in, for a discount coupon good on any AMT model car kit. Of course, that failed, considering that there was no viable way to ensure that only polystyrene sprues would be proffered--other plastics stood a huge chance of being stuffed into those boxes. But that was the situation back in the 70's, crude oil was running out, and what supplies there were then, were controlled by countries that were less than reliable, if not downright unfriendly. Art

Actually, AMT first issued this kit in the late summer of 1964, using their then-standard 3in1 Customizing box--which was way too tightly packed for this model--many of the kits came into stores with the roof squashed! I built one up way back about 1994, to showcase my then-new Chevy 235cid Blue Flame 6 AAM resin kit , and it went together perfectly. I then used the entire windshield area on a Monogram '59 Impala convertible body, along with a widened JoHan '59 Cadillac "Sixty Special" 4dr door sedan tor the roof, to do a resin-master for the '59 Biscayne 2dr sedan. In doing this one, I had a concern about the height of the windshield--slapped my measuring stick on my real '59 Biscayne 4dr--AMT got the roof height correct. Art

I too have started an accurized model of the Revell '57 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham. Having seen, and studied (a bit at least) the real one owned by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum (it was Tony Hulman's personal car), the Revell kit is a lot more accurately done than most people believe. Many modelers are of the openion that the real car is too short--nor realizing that the actual cars ARE shorter than the mass-produced 1957 Cadilacs. However, there is one dimension that is shorter, and that is the length of the front clip--forward of the frong wheel wells--by 3 scale inches (minutely shy of 1/8"). This is based on dimensional sketches that the late Bob Clidinst (who was a long-time Speedway staffer, and consumate scale model builder). The fins are a bit too blunt, and not quite tall enough--but that is pretty much it. Revell also missed the twin airscoops at the rear of the tops of the front fenders, as well as the cowl vent. Other than these issues, the kit is actually far more accurate than most believe. Bear in mind that when Revell worked up this kit, model car kits were in many ways, a step-child of the industry--us early "Baby Boomers" were far more into models of aircraft, even naval ships--so the kit was done in the same manner as Revell worked up their companion model kits, the Lincoln Futura and the Pontiac Club de Mer dream cars--two-piece "clamshell" bodies. thus the Eldo Brougham suffers from that. But, by dimensions, it is pretty much accurate for proportions, according to my late friend, Bob Clidinst. Art

It was Polar Lights (part of Playing Mantis back 15-20 yrs ago) who was "reverse-engineering" old Aurora kits. As for doing a model build of a "real" Chitty, those cars (and there were at least 3 of them built back in the 1920's, those used pre-World War I Mercedes grand prix car chassis, greatly stretched, with Maybach and/or Benz aircraft engines left over from that war. Versions "I" and "2" were purely race cars, built for events at the famed British high-banked oval at Brooklands. "Chitty III" was built along the same lines, but its builder, Count Louis Zborowski later rebodied it as a road-going tourer, drove it in Western Europe on public roads. "Chitty IV" was the largest, and after Zborowski's death, was sold to Englishman Parry Thomas, who gave it all new LSR style bodywork, ran it on a beach in England, where it crashed. Nicknamed "Babs", the car was buried in the sand there, until it was retrieved, and restored-now on display in a museum in the UK. Here's the story of the real Chitty's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitty_Bang_Bang Art

Except that Studebaker built no 1965 Avanti's, as Studebaker ceased all US production in December, 1963. Those square "custom" headlghts, though are correct for a '64 Avanti, of which a few were produced. (and of course, most Avanti II's) Art

Chevy and Cadillac in 1949--two different cars, two different body series. While the major styling themes are very similar, Chevrolet used GM's A Body back then, while Cadillac used the GM C-body (which was longer and wider, with some curves and major contours being rather different. Fortunately, when we modelers do such conversions, "Plastic Surgery" can be relatively easy--no torches, no welding of sheet metal. Art

The center crossmember of the chassis is farther forward on the '65-66. right below the rear of the cab. The transmissions have a much shorter tailshaft, with the driveshafts of both wheelbases being markedly longer (the long wheelbase--8' bed) has a "pillow block bearing" underneath the center crossmember, to support the 2-piece driveshaft. Art

I spent several hours yesterday (Saturday the 9th) helping to review the first tooling mockups of the '65-66 F-100's. Once the little niggles are corrected (there are always those with first generation tooling mockups), they will be pretty cool indeed! Lots of features there, numerous variants--so hang on folks! Art

The problems will still be very much the same: The original Acetate promo would have suffered shrinkage, unevenly, which lead to the warping. Unfortunately, casting the warped promo in urethane resin will only serve to transfer those problems to a new medium.

The problem with "Tenite" (DuPont's trade name for the acetate plastic they invented in the late 1920's or so) has always been that it's prone both to shrinkage and to moisture, which in the case of injection-molding, is very uneven, due to the "locked in" stresses that happen when liquified plastic of any sort is compressed into a set of hard metal dies under tremendous pressure (injection-molding machines do this with well over 100psi!), and once that acetate body shell is removed from the mold, the elements around it do start to come into play. Ever see a cracked automobile steering wheel that was made anywhere from the late 1930's to the early 1960's? Those were molded around formed steel units, and over time, the acetate plastic would shrink, leading to noticeable cracks in say, the rim, sometimes even in the spokes. About the only acetate promo's I have acquired which have no warpage are those I've bought way out west, such as NNL-West, even GSL, where the air is dry, which allowed the acetate to "settle" (or whatever!) without humidity. Why acetate plastic, you might ask, in those promotional model cars of the 50's? The simple, and plain answer is that "plastic" had a very bad reputation then--early styrene was hard, and as brittle as glass--when it broke or shattered, the shards were as sharp as glass--lots of little kids back then (and I was a little kid in the late 40's-early 50's) got cut fingers from broken, cheap styrene plastic toys. For this very reason, most quality plastic toys (and promo's WERE seen as toys!) back then were molded in acetate plastic, for the simple reason of SAFETY. But, what about early model car kits? Only a few kits were ever molded in acetate--Monogram's very first model car kits were first shot in acetate, but once they realized they were not making toys, but something just a bit more serious--styrene. When AMT Corporation came up with the idea that really put them "on the map", that being their precedent-setting 1958 "3in1 Customizing Kits", they wisely went to styrene, even though it was a fairly brittle material, but with the material thickness of the body shells and chassis, they did survive a lot of handling. About 1960, ABS plastic (I'm not even going to attempt to type out that name in full text!) came on the scene, and by 1962 or so, all promotional model cars were being made from ABS--AMT, JoHan, and by 1965, MPC. ABS had the toughness, and shatter-proof qualities of acetate, but the stability (warping resistance) of styrene, and can be far more easily bonded to a polystyrene part today. On the flip side of all this about acetate promo's, I have a gorgeous '57 Chrysler Windsor that Dean Milano did almost 40 yrs ago--and it's still straight as a die, to this very day--so not all acetate promo's (this model was done from an acetate promo) warp--but that's a very random thing.

Not since the British company, Contrails, went out of business about 20 yrs ago or so. Art

CA or epoxy are pretty much the only glues that will join Acetate plastic to polystyrene. Solvent-based cements will bond Acetate to Acetate, styrene to styrene, but the two plastics are way dissimilar, they don't dissolve and bond well to each other. Art