Art Anderson

Uh, there were drawings made of proposed ships back in the days of wooden ships. For example, drawings do exist of the Mayflower, HMS Bounty, HMS Victory, USS Constitution and so on. Those early naval architects did draw them, they were called "loft drawings", which show the contours of the ships' hulls at each station (where the ribs of the ship form the hull shape), essential in order to show the builders what the external shape of the hull had to be. From those, half-hull models were built, again to show the required construction. Loft drawings were used all the way into the automobile age as well--they were very common before the idea of clay models being carved out to show the contours of bodies, fenders and such. Art

What? No interest in a '55 Kaiser Dragon? Not even a ''50 Frazer Manhattan? What's this World coming to, anyway? Art

Dig out? HA! Here in Lafayette, we are literally chopping out! 6" of sleet, hard frozen, cheap snow shovels don't even touch the stuff--bring out the heavy artillery, garden spades, shovels, and chop & hack away. At least once busted up, it's not that heavy, but still hard work! Art

On the general map of things as regards retail type businesses, the fatality rate of hobby shops ranks right below that of restaurants and bars, and those are VERY low on the scale. As for the longevity of hobby shops, I can't think of but a few that have remained in business much beyond the working years of their owner/managers either. Art

Must be on account that 57 Chevy kits just seem to sell quite well over time....or has it all been some sort of little green men dropping down out of saucer shaped objects (Hmmm, makes me wonder just WHAT ET reported when he did get home!) Art

Apples & Oranges I believe: There are perhaps 3 eras of cars that have been, and still are, collected, restored, hotrodded and customized very widely--Fords from Model T through at least 1948, and Chevrolet's 1955-57, and those I have named were produced in the millions. Oldsmobile, by 1949, was coming off at least 3 decades of being pretty much mundane, solid dependable cars for equally solid, dependable middle aged adults (in fact, Oldsmobile almost "got the axe" from GM management a couple of times, first in 1923, again in 1931-32 (the latter cost cutting move did eliminate Oldsmobile's upscale V8 cars, the Viking). Among the Oldsmobiles of the era under discussion here, very few were cars that fit into the collectibility, customizers' fodder, or hot rodding potential--the VAST majority sold were 88 or 98 4dr sedans (two doors too many for most enthusiasts IMO) with only a small smattering of business coupe 88's (used the same A-body as the Chevrolet business coupe of those same years), a handful of woody station wagons, and of course, the relatively small number of convertibles and the newly minted Holiday hardtops. Also, much lower production at Olds than at Chevrolet then as well. Chevrolet, by contrast, had a wider variety of body styles, 3 or 4 different trim levels, and that awesome small block V8 which debuted in 1955. There were far more Tri-Five Chevies turned into HS rides, simply because there ware a lot more of them available--at least a couple million more of them. They were far less expensive on the used car market as 3-5yr old cars than even an older Oldsmobile, and high school guys who knew and understood the stoplight drags knew immediately that a Chevy 2dr sedan with a 265 or 283 and a stick shift was the way to go--Bel Air if you wanted to pick up the chicks. In short, Tri-Fives were the "Deuces" of the High Schoolers in the 1960's, just as had been flathead V8-era Fords for their fathers in the late-30's through the early 50's. While of course, a model kit of a '55'57 Chevy 4dr sedan would not bust any sales records as a model kit, just about any 2dr bodied Chevy of those years in model kit form will, has, and does sell pretty well. Another factor making it almost a no-brainer for Revell to have done as many 55-57 Chevy kits as they have since the release of their '55 Bel Air Convertible back in the mid-1990's is that Revell did it very right: They made that kit so it could become the leader of a whole series of subsequent kits--by being able apparently to shuffle portions of the tooling around, take this out, add that in, and so on. That makes it possible to do different versions, such as the '57 150 2dr sedan "Black Widow" at comparatively a lesser investment than if it had to be tooled entirely from the tabletop up. The Olds in question here, however, would have to be an all new, free-standing model kit, and it's not likely that beyond possibly a hardtop or a convertible, it would really go anyplace farther than what it would be--potentially just a "one hit wonder". In today's marketplace, model companies seem well-advised to work with car subjects which have at least something on the order of "long legs", that meaning subjects that either sell perennially, or have the potential for subsequent modified reissue subjects. Things to think about, it seems to me. Art

The 50 Olds 88 and 50 Studebaker Commander Starlight were proposals only, to "test the waters" at the RCHTA trade show in Rosemont IL, October 1998 or 99. Ertl Collectibles had just produced the Oldsmobile Coupe in 1/25 diecast as a bank, to mark the 50th Anniversary of the founding of NASCAR. It was then reissued several times as a promotional model car for various companies, including the NFL. Model companies have floated "trial balloon" projects numerous times over the years, in hopes of generating sufficient "pre-sell" orders from mass retailers and hobby wholesale houses in order to justify going forward with full development into a model kit or kits. I attended that RCHTA show on the Saturday public day, and Tom Walsh of AMT/Ertl, along with John Mueller, legendary AMT kit designer both expressed their disappointment to me that neither the Olds nor ths Studebaker generated even close to sufficient interest during the trade days of the show to warrant their going forward with either car in plastic kits. Some keep stating "well, run styrene in the diecast tooling", but that is something easier said than done. Perhaps the biggest problem is the material thickness of the body sides--while the external surfaces can have very correct curves/undercut (called in automotive styling, "tumblehome") due to the solid, hard nature of metal castings, the internal surfaces must be straight, with a bit of draft angle so that the hardened cast metal body shell can slide off that part of the tooling upon being ejected from the mold. That results in very thick material in those areas, and with the nasty tendency of molten styrene to shrink as it cools and solidifies, the sink mark problem might well be insurmoutable. That would certainly be the case with a bulletnose Studebaker. Additionally, the Olds diecast had no provision whatsoever for an opening hood & engine, so that would have been a big downer as well. Also, forget about pitching a car of this sort to "the kids". Kids today most likely have never seen, nor will they ever see, a '59-'50 Oldsmobile 88 Rocket Business Coupe--after all, 1950 is more than 60 years ago, way back in their grandfather's or even great-grandfather's time. It's not a car that was widely hotrodded--certainly not on the scale of say, a '32 Ford or '40 Ford. It's market would have to be adults, and I'm not altogether sure about its sales potential there either. "I know I want one" is a great battle cry, but are there 50,000 or so modelers out there pining for this one? I dunno. Art

Collectible Automobile Magazine's immediately current issue, on newsstands, has quite a comprehensive feature article on the classic Morris Minor series. Well worth picking up! There was, I believe, a 1/24th scale plastic toy MM Traveler toy a number of years ago, which is where the resin body shell comes from, I believe. Art

1/35 goes back, I believe, to the Britains Miniatures cast lead toy soldiers which began being produced back about the time of WW-I in the UK. Britains figures are loosely 54mm in height. In the late 1950's, several small producers began making much more highly detailed cast white metal figures in this 54mm size, and those became very popular among military miniature enthusiasts by the mid-1960's. Even Monogram Models got into it briefly, with Monogram Merite' historic military figure kits in white metal. It was Tamiya who pretty much standardized styrene armor and soft-skinned military vehicle kits, which they did in spades in the late 1960's; apparently keying them off the vast assortment of 54mm soldier figures that were highly sought after in Japan. Sometimes, just as with 1/43 scale, one hobby or line of toy products can tend to create its own market which others gravitate to. 1/72 scale aircraft had their beginnings during WW-II, when aircraft recognition models were used by nearly all combantants to train their pilots and AAA gun crews how to quickly ID Friend or Foe. Those also introduced injection molding into the realm of models and toys, BTW. 1/72 scale worked simply because it's possible to make just about every aircraft ever built in that scale, and still keep the same scale, same size relationships, which also help in fast recognition and identification of an airplane in the sky. Art

The motorized version of this kit was circa 1958-60 or thereabouts. If you look on the bottom of the car once assembled, you should see a pair of posts with a hole through them, which was for stringing the built model on a guideline (think string or fishing line) so the car could be let run free powered by it's electric motor. I believe this version was inspired by the Strombecker series of 1/24 scale battery powered motorized model car kits which came out in 1958-59 (Reventlow Scarab, MGA Twin Cam), Lancia Ferrari GP car, Mercedes-Benz W196 GP car, '32 Ford Roadster hot rod). Strombecker's cars were made with posable steering, had rubber tires, could be let run free, tethered to a central pylon (which held D flashlight batteries for a longer run time), or down a guideline as with the Monogram Indy roadster. Hope this helps ID. Art

For starters, Hobby Lobby isn't your average "Local Hobby Shop", but rather they are a big box store catering mostly to crafters and home decor customers. They just happen to have a pretty decent model kit department, but very little in the way of supplies for scratchbuilding. Evergreen and Plastruct are pretty much the venue of hobby shops, of course, but I've never seen the stuff in a Hobby Lobby or Michael's Crafts. Art

OK, a little bit of "help" here: For starters, Chevrolet had but one basic body series 1949-54, with 49-52 being only mildly facelifted year to year, the '53 having a major facelift of the lower sheet metal, but if one looks at the roofs and windshield shapes, it's easy to see that the '53-54 is the same series of body structures. OK, the car in the first pic is a "Business Coupe", meaning a 2dr with a full B-post, but having a roof (greenhouse) which is several inches shorter front-to-back than either a 2dr or 4dr sedan. It does have the higher roofline of the sedan bodies though. The Revell-Monogram '53 Chevy Bel Air is a hardtop, with no B-post; those were created by welding a steel top onto a convertible body shell (in fact, a lot of advertising, and most people, back then referred to this body style as a "hardtop convertible" which in fact most truly were). Convertibles had a noticeably shorter windshield than sedans or coupes of the era, both for sporty appearance and for engineering convertible tops that would stay put at highway speeds. AMT Corporation (later AMT/Ertl produced kits of three different '51 Chevies: Bel Air Sport Coupe (AKA "hardtop), Bel Air Convertible, and the Fleetline 2dr fastback sedan. Monogram (now Revell Monogram) produced a 1953 Bel Air Sport Coupe, which has a slightly different roof than the earlier 50-52 cars, having a reverse-angle C-post (dogleg shape). Revell, in the 1960's, introduced a Chevrolet 2dr sedan (yeah, 2dr with a post) in both 1953 and 1954 variants, as a gasser. One can combine the Revell '53-'54 sedan "greenhouse" with the Monogram '53 Bel Air HT to make a Bel Air 2dr sedan, but it will take some work, as the Revell body is 1/25 scale, the Monogram body 1/24, the difference being most notable in the width of both of these body shells. To make it a business coupe, the rear area of the Revell sedan body's greenhouse needs to be shortened, about 1/4 inch (6" in scale) to make the shorter, more "close-coupled" business coupe, most of which had no rear seat, but rather a small cargo deck there, with a much longer trunk cavity (think a car for the traveling salesman here). Hope this helps a bit! Art

Don't worry. The horse-drawn artillery caisson used in JFK's two funeral processions is owned by the US Army, specifically for state funerals in Washington DC--to go to Arlington National Cemetery. On the other note here: If there waa something truly macabre about the preservation, restoration and display of ANY ambulance or hearse, it would be just as true if the vehicle in question had been used in any funeral, or emergency run to a hospital with an accident or crime victim. and apparently not very many people consider that to be the case, as there are any number of old, even truly historic ambulances and hearses that have been preserved and displayed, from the earliest horse-drawn examples to the highly modified, seriously crafted motor vehicles over the last century or so. To my thinking, it's if, and when, a vehicle involved in a notable accident or crime scene is displayed as if it were some sort of carnival sideshow that falls short of "good taste". Witness the touring, for decades, the '34 Ford 4dr sedan in which Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were gunned down by a group of law enforcement officers, lead by a Texas Ranger, on a Louisiana highway some 75 years ago or so. I mean, do we really need to be shown the car, replete with dozens of bullet holes, with faded bloodstains all over the upholstery inside? The above is not the case with the Presidential Lincoln Continental Parade car in which JFK was riding. The car was completely redone after the assassination, all evidence of what happened on that day in Dallas removed. Now granted, one wonders why it wasn't just crushed, melted down, and done away with. For starters, Presidential parade vehicles were often provided by automakers, not directly purchased by the White House. This practice carried on for several decades, unlike the past 35 years or so, when the White House went to commissioning the construction of special limousines for the President of the United States, which are owned by the White House (US Government), rather than being provided at low, or no cost whatsoever by whomever built them. This practice, I believe, began with Pierce Arrow, who was the provider of Presidential official cars from at least President Wilson out to the very early years of FDR. Lincoln Division of Ford Motor Company picked up that practice when Pierce went out of business, provided at least three custom-built open bodied limousines for Presidential motorcade use from 1939 through 1961--Ford commissioned their construction, paid the bill for them, leased them to the White House for very nominal money, which practice went away after the assassination of Kennedy. But, to denigrate Ford, or anyone owning such a car that's played any role in a tragedy, regardless of whom, what or where, unless that car owner truly exploits the vehicle in a manner that makes it some sort of "carnival act", I see very little problem in doing so. To say, or advocate otherwise would indicate to me that such real estate venues as Ford's Theatre in Washington, or the Texas Schoolbook Depository in Dallas (perhaps the entire area of Dealey Plaza?) should be razed to raw scorched earth, to eliminate all visible evidence of the place, to erase all connection with the awful event(s) which took place there, and then leave any mention of the events to a dry couple of paragraphs in a dusty set of encyclopedias. Just my two cents worth on this argument. Art

To help out a bit here: In general, a sprint car WoO or USAC, pretty much the same, has a wheelbase of at least 84" (7 feet), while a midget uses a 6' wheelbase, and isn't nearly as wide in the bargain. Art

Jairus, I'm gonna spend my quality model car show time this spring at NNL-East, which kinda precludes a stop out at GSL this year. Art

Not quite, but thanks! I still consider myself to be a "cut and fit" sort of guy. Art

Skip, For starters, Grandt Line markets this chain drive setup, but they don't manufacture it apparently. If you go to Grandt's website, you will see a variety of sprocket sizes, with dimensions given, as well as the roller chain itself (which is easily spliced or even shortened!). Art

Started the bodywork so that I have a reference point for determining the length of the foot pedals, and also for laying out/making the hand brake lever system, and the neutral gear lockout lever arm setup: Art

Oh well, you can always tell some people, but you just can't tell 'em much, I guess.

Seeing as the Ford flathead V8 was pretty much incapable of thermosyphon cooling--despite the best intentions of Henry Ford during their original development, the magneto drive on the front of the engine in the midget is also a mechanical water pump, drawing water from the bottom tank of the radiator, pushing it into the block, whereby it flowed up into the heads and out the 3-branch water manifolds on each cylinder head. Otherwise, at the high rpms those engines were called on to rev in racing, there would have been serious steam pockets in the cylinder heads. Art

The two-tone paint job pretty much went away by 1966 at GM, due mostly to body styling thatno longer offered a logical dividing line or point for color separation, which would have meant either an awkward-looking paint scheme, or serious delays in the paint & trim department of any GM Assembly Division plant, due to the necessity of being very precise in masking for the second color. Even the vinyl tops of the era made for some interesting work for sure, particularly with Chevelle/Tempest/Cutlass/Skylark bodies having adopted the "flying buttress" roof design with the back window tunneled in as it was. As such though, vinyl tops tended to be either black, or white (at least those were the most common colors), with both colors being available with nearly every body color, I believe. Two-tone, or even multi-colored paint jobs go all the way back to the earliest cars though, and became very popular in the 1920's with the introduction of spray painted lacquer finishes that began in 1924 at Oldsmobile (DuPont Duco Lacquer, provided by DuPont, at the time the principal stockholder in GM). Of course, most cars prior to about 1930 had black fenders, running boards & splash aprons, but that was pretty much a carryover from horse-drawn carriage days. Complimenting colors were used to highlight sculptured window reveals, even the raised moldings on those old upright, squarish body shells, along with pinstriping which was the primary body trim before chrome spears. In the bottom of the Great Depression, multicolor car bodies went out of fashion, as those who could afford to buy a new car generally declined to "show off" anything that smacked of affluence in the face of breadlines in many cities. By about 1938 or so though, two-tones came back, at first limited to those fat fenders being painted a different, often contrasting color to that used on the body--usually black, or a dark color of some sort. After WW-II, a few makes, notably Buick, Pontiac and Packard, became available with a complimenting color emphasizing the body character lines of hoods, roofs and rear decks. With the wholesale introduction of new, postwar body styling by 1949, most carmakers began offering two toning, but pretty much limited to the roof, where the second color could easily be separated from the lower body color either by the sharp crease at the bottom of the roof where it joined the lower body, or by the use of chrome trim to cover the masked separation. With the popularity of "sun belt" oriented images in advertising, by about 1954 or thereabouts, the white roof came into serious vogue, although dark roof colors were still available. But with white, ostensibly that made the interior of the car cooler in the hot summer sun, in those days before the almost universal adoption of air-conditioning. Very quickly, a white top became almost mandatory, if for no other reason than to "keep up with the neighbors", darker optional roof colors beginning to disappear from the paint charts at the dealer's showroom. But everything "has its day" of course, and by the early 1960's, two-tone cars, mostly with white tops, began to be seen as old-fashioned, "last year's" styling, the emphasis being on "new" every year. Vinyl tops, on the other hand, have their roots way back in the horse-drawn carriage era, when closed carriages had black leather roofs to seal out rain. With early cars having bodies built in the carriage tradition (coachbuilt bodies), the same issue with roofs on closed cars remained, how to seal a multi-paneled construction body shell against inclement weather, so at first leather, then various treated or coated fabrics began to be used, with rubberized or plasticized canvas duck being used until the development of one-piece stamped steel roofs (GM called them "turret tops" which swept across the industry by 1936-37. Leather-grained black vinyl continued to be offered by Packard on their senior cars, Cadillac on Series 75 and Series 90 sedan limousines, even Buick on their Series 70 sedan limo. Chrysler installed a few on late-30's Imperial 7-passenger sedans as well, but by WW-II vinyl tops were gone. Fast forward to 1950: Ford Motor Company, having been blind-sided by the unveiling of Buick's Roadmaster Riviera hardtop, followed very quickly by the Cadillac Coupe de Ville, Oldsmobile Holiday, Pontiac Catalina and Chevrolet Bel Air Hardtops, rushed to introduce up-trimmed 2dr sedans; Ford Crestliner, Mercury Capri, and the Lincoln Lido, all of which sported vinyl top covering, in black, as well as dark green, dark blue, and even maroon; as midyear 1950 introductions. Those carried over into 1951, but were overshadowed by the addition of the Ford Crestline Victoria hardtop, and the vinyl topped 2drs disappeared at the end of the '51 model year. Kaiser tried using vinyl tops on their 1955 Dragon, but to little avail, that car sold very poorly, and Kaiser exited the passenger car business by the end of that year entirely to concentrate on Jeep. The next fling with vinyl top treatment came at Cadillac, introduced on the all-new 1959 Eldorado Seville, the majority of those being produced with white vinyl on the roof (now you know why Monogram chose to do their excellent kit of the car with a vinyl roof!), and continued that into 1960. With the coming of the "formal roof" hardtops at GM in 1962 (actually, those were styled to imitate the shape of a raised convertible top!), they played around with offering vinyl covering on those, but I never saw very many of them. Rather, it was Ford who made vinyl tops a "have to have" with the introduction of their "quieter than a Rolls Royce" LTD sedans in 1965, which probably inspired Chevrolet to specify black vinyl roof treatment on the '65 Chevelle Z-16; the treatment spreading across the Ford line, very popular on the Mustang Coupe. Everyone followed suit by 1966, and the rest, as they say, is history. Art

Andy, Bear in mind that by the end of WW-I, aluminum alloys, such as duraluminum were in production, and were relatively corrosion resistant, certainly in automotive use, such as bodywork. In point of fact, aluminum alloy sheet was widely used in the coachbuilding side of auto production, due to it's light weight and easy of working with both hand tools as well as power equipment such as the English Wheel and planishing hammers. Old race car bodywork made from these materials tend to be rather durable over time, and only slightly oxidize even under severe weathering conditions. Such corrosion as did occur was more within the metal itself, most seriously as "intergranular corrosion" in which the metal crystalized, often to the point of appearing sound, but readily crumbling or breaking up. This is what took out many old aircraft for example, and still does--which is why the Douglas DC-3 and similar vintage monocoque airplanes of the 1930's are now slowly disappearing from the skies. When bared to the elements, such as with an old race car body, aluminum panels dull and darken, but they don't go to powder, in say, the manner of the whitish powdery compound found around battery terminals--that's the result of sulphuric acid corrosion of the lead battery posts and the lead couplings on battery terminals, and the copper cable leads that are encased in those couplings. Aluminum exposed to such an acid would disappear far more quickly than do battery cables and connections. Of course, there would be the galvanic raaction where aluminum panels were attached with steel bolts or screws, but that's rather rare on an aluminum car body shell--most fastening was/is done with aluminum rivets. Art

Yes, Bugatti Type 35B bodywork is aluminum. Art

Dan, Just to clarify the Ford truck wheel story here: 1928 AA trucks began with those welded steel spoke wheels that look so very much like the passenger car wheel, but with 33" high pressure truck tires on them. 7:00-20 rim diameter, and spokes that were about 1/2 inch forged steel. In late 1928, Ford began offering a pressed steel, 6-slot wheel, only slightly offset, too shallow to allow for dualling, which wheel carried on into midyear 1929, when it was replaced by the soon-to-become-standard Kelsey Hayes 5 slot/5-lug offset wheels which could be mounted either convex (front wheel, or rear wheel inner) or concave when dualled with a second wheel on the rear axle. AA trucks began in 1928 carrying over the worm drive rear axle that had been produced for Model TT trucks, along with an "Express" rear axle which was simply a much larger and heavier version of the passenger car unit (torque tube, 3-pc 3/4 floating rear axle and housing) and radius rods, mounted with a very heavy-duty transverse leaf spring in the same concept as Model A passenger cars. In mid-1929, Ford introduced their full-floating rear axle (axle shafts running in roller bearings at both the hubs and at the differential, the weight of the diff and the vehicle itself being supported by the axle housing, not the the shafts themselves), along with the newly introduced Kelsey Hayes 5-slot, 5 lug pressed steel wheels that could be dualled (this wheel was used widely throughout the truck industry in the 30's BTW). In the interim, Ford also offered a 6-slot, 5 lug shallow pressed steel wheel that could not be dualled, which introduced the split rim, but used old fashioned high pressure truck tires. The 5-slot/5 lug wheel was used as standard OEM equipment on Ford 1/5 and 2-ton trucks from midyear 1929 through the end of the 1952 model year, with only detail differences. Art

Dan, Just to clarify the Ford truck wheel story here: 1928 AA trucks began with those welded steel spoke wheels that look so very much like the passenger car wheel, but with 33" high pressure truck tires on them. 7:00-20 rim diameter, and spokes that were about 1/2 inch forged steel. In late 1928, Ford began offering a pressed steel, 6-slot wheel, only slightly offset, too shallow to allow for dualling, which wheel carried on into midyear 1929, when it was replaced by the soon-to-become-standard Kelsey Hayes 5 slot/5-lug offset wheels which could be mounted either convex (front wheel, or rear wheel inner) or concave when dualled with a second wheel on the rear axle. AA trucks began in 1928 carrying over the worm drive rear axle that had been produced for Model TT trucks, along with an "Express" rear axle which was simply a much larger and heavier version of the passenger car unit (torque tube, 3-pc 3/4 floating rear axle and housing) and radius rods, mounted with a very heavy-duty transverse leaf spring in the same concept as Model A passenger cars. In mid-1929, Ford introduced their full-floating rear axle (axle shafts running in roller bearings at both the hubs and at the differential, the weight of the diff and the vehicle itself being supported by the axle housing, not the the shafts themselves), along with the newly introduced Kelsey Hayes 5-slot, 5 lug pressed steel wheels that could be dualled (this wheel was used widely throughout the truck industry in the 30's BTW). In the interim, Ford also offered a 6-slot, 5 lug shallow pressed steel wheel that could not be dualled, which introduced the split rim, but used old fashioned high pressure truck tires. The 5-slot/5 lug wheel was used as standard OEM equipment on Ford 1/5 and 2-ton trucks from midyear 1929 through the end of the 1952 model year, with only detail differences. Art