Art Anderson

I've always kinda liked the old adage about "The best cakes are baked in the messiest of kitchens"! though. Gotta be true (IF I let you look into my model car workspace) Art

chuckyr, The issues surrounding tire logo's or the lack thereof have been discussed to death, I won't delve into them any further. Can we just chalk it up to the list of those things that aren't gonna change, can't be changed, and move forward? Art

On Highway 79, about half way between Florence Junction AZ (Intersection of 79 with US-60 East of Mesa & Apache Junction) and Florence AZ there is a rest area/picnic area maintained by Arizona DOT, that is on the site where Tom Mix died when he drove his Cord into a construction zone. It's quite interesting, very nice monument there. I believe the Tom Mix Cord has been restored, seem to remember seeing it at an ACD Reunion in Auburn IN's Eckardt Park back about 1996 or so. Art

I've worked with several Chinese factories/pattern making shops over the years (diecast and slot cars when at Playing Mantis, along with assisting Dave M. when he was the go-to person at Polar Lights--plastic kits), and the tradition over there is pretty much "make the mockup exactly as it will be tooled for molding" rather than using solid basswood or white pine (not hard maple BTW) body mockups as was once traditional in the industry here in the US. The parts in these mockups are made pretty much from sheet and strip styrene, with catalyzed putty for finessing shapes, smoothing out the inevitable tool marks. Time was, I suspect, when body shells were carved entirely by hand, but anymore, CAD-CAM does apparently get used for at least body shells, particularly if the model kit being developed is a subject for which CAD files are available (they aren't of course, for the majority of cars extant, simply because thousands upon thousands of car designs were done well before CAD was even a draftsman's pipe dream. Some confusion comes from looking at the pics of mockups (or the mockups themselves, as the Chinese use grey primer all over; helps them with their work of judging shapes and contours. So to the untrained eye, a grey primered mockup can very easily look convincingly like at least test shots in styrene, but trust me, the pics Dave has shared are not even close to test shots. In short, those pics show some of the most amazing scratchbuilt models I have ever seen in my entire model building life. Art

First of all, NOT test shots! Tooling mockups please--which are what the tooling will be cut from. And yes, all three of us noted the anomaly of the rear quarter panel sculpturing--that is one thing about the car that good usable pics are hard to use (this doesn't show up well in pics of a white car!), but we managed to cook up a sketch or two of what that area needs to look like, perhaps the most major of all our comments. The Chinese surely are aware of the expectations expressed as to the importance of such being correct now. They won't get the nod to start cutting steel until all comments are satisfied. Art

Harry, There are a couple of problems with your analysis here: First of all, the pic of the real car you chose is a carefully posed photograph, done professionally for a Chrysler advertisement. Are you not aware that in the era of "longer, lower, wider", artists renderings, AND photographs done for advertizing purposes were deliberately altered to reflect this trend? Yes, they sure were. Ever hear of Boulevard Photographic Studios? They were the first to invent a special film holder for the camera's their professional photographers used, which actually curved the film in a concave manner, which had the effect, with custom made lenses, of making the actual car look longer, which they experimented with, to find that balance between a slightly stretched view of the car when shown from the side, yet not so much stretch as to make the wheels and tires appear obviously oval in shape (there was a book published some years back--we had a copy of it in the company library at Playing Mantis when I was there--describing their techniques). Also, the photographer used a tripod, set at eyelevel for a person of at least average build, if not a bit higher, and far enough away from the car to minimize the at least a bit of distortion. In addition, the roof of the '55-'56 Chrysler has a very pronounced crown to it, which gets more pronounced as you get to the rear. That "crown" makes the roofline of the car in your photograph appear at its true height. Now, Dave Metzner's snapshots are in no way "beauty shots", but rather documentation of the tooling mockup, for the purpose of pointing out to the Chinese pattern shop the corrections we three (Dave, Bill Coulter and myself) saw upon review that require correction before it can be approved finally for tooling (note the disclaimer watermarked on each pic of the mockup please). Dave's side view pic was not taken with scale eyelevel in mind, if it were, it too would reflect that pronounced "crown" toward the rear of the roof which shows in the pic of the real car. In reviewing the mockup, we had pics of actual cars, none of them advertising/publicity shots, so no photographer's tricks. We did look very closely at the roofline, and all three of us judged it to be pretty darned correct. One thing we did note to the pattern makers is that the front wheel arches are too far forward, and a bit short in their fore-aft dimension, which will have to be corrected before approval is given for tooling (I suspect that is also now a requirement from the licensor as well). It's things like that which reviews are absolutely necessary, and this one has gotten a ton of scrutiny before the mockups were even sent to the US. One thing that I suspect most modelers are still unaware is, with a photograph, the camera can pick up ONLY two dimensions, length and height (or width and height), but NOT depth. However, as humans, we are blessed (or as modelers cursed!) with "stereoscopic vision", which is what allows us to see height and width (the same 2 dimensions the camera sees) plus the ability to judge depth. The spacing of our eyes apart allows us to see more of the model kit body shell than any camera can see of either model or the real thing. So, in judging such shapes as a body shell, it almost always behooves at least me to close one eye, negating my stereoscopic vision (and my corresponding depth perception) and then hold the body shell as close to exactly the same angle at focal point as the camera did of the real thing--simply put, there really is no other way to do that, and I think I've done enough serious model kit body conversions over time to know that is basically true. Also, in order to get a true comparison by camera, the camera simply must be positioned as close to the same focal point on the model that the real one was when the pic of the real car was taken. If the real car was shot with a camera on a tripod, set at say, average eyelevel, well, the average adult male in 1955 stood about 5' 7" tall, add an inch or so for shoe heel height, 5-8. But his eyes are what, a good 3" below the top of his head? Just rounding off to the nearest 1/2 foot in scale, that means that the camera focused on the model must have the center of its lens at, or very close to, 2 3/4 inches above table top height (and I haven't even allowed for the tire "squish" of an inch and a half or so on the real car, which almost cannot be duplicated with any scale model car tires you and I would buy). So, I think you have jumped the gun a bit here. Art

Powerflite automatic tranny, with the shift lever in the dash. Art

Kitted in 1961, fully posable 1/24 scale figure, with several variations possible from the kit. This is a current test shot from the original tooling. A bit of puttywork, hmmmm? Art

Try this link: http://dmetzner.smugmug.com/Cars/1955-Chrysler-C-300/13100296_mYtSu#949713917_yHGDW Art

Actually, there was nothing wrong with the original Saginaw power steering pump, which GM Delco mounted on the rear of the generator. Art

If I might suggest: If you are going to build the windshield interior garnish moldings (for that matter, the rear and side window garnish as well, it could well be easier if you replaced the kit glass with .015 or .020 clear plastic. Those are both much closer to scale thickness, and would give you a lot more room to do those inside frames. Art

Shawn Carpenter did, maybe still does, make a '50 GMC grille for that conversion as well. Art

15-liter Cummins-Navistar engine. Art

As a kid growing up back in the 50's, there was a small automotive scrapper about half a mile from my home, used to go past there every morning on my paper route, and saw burnt out cars there constantly (they used to torch old cars before rolling them flat with an old Caterpillar tractor, sending them to the steel mills for recycling). A burnt out steel bodied car looks for all the world like the shell of a dead insect, which is the best way I can describe it. Ultimately, everything that isn't steel or cast iron is gone, burned away, leaving only the exoskeletal remains of the body, with a curious cache of bones in the form of chassis, seat springs and framing and the like. As most all body brightwork by the 1940's was polished stainless steel, that remained, but with the look of a burned chrome-plated motorcycle exhaust, in addition to having been warped and buckled out of shape by the heat. All the glass would be gone (that old laminated safety plate glass would shatter, and then the gummy clear plastic center layer burned completely away. No rubber moldings left around windshield and other windows. Diecast metal parts such as door handles, badges, scripts and hood ornaments would melt to puddles on the ground, as did diecast grillwork. If the burned out vehicle still had its wheels and tires mounted (cars being scrapped usually had those removed) the rims would be there, no tires anymore, save for the rings of piano wire used inside the bead of the tire casing. But the sheet metal wouldn't remain shaped as it was stamped, certainly not hoods, roofs or deck (trunk) lids. Those sunk in downward due to being heated to red-hot by the intense heat of the fire, looking for all the world as though an elephant propped its feet up on those surfaces for a pedicure. Burned, painted sheet metal begins to rust almost immediately. The rust begins when the steel is heated to a certain point, and then continues immediately after the metal cools to the temperature of the ambient air around it. This rust tended to be bright orange in color, but varigated, mottled in appearance, and assuredly--it was dead-flat dull. Art

Chuckyr, Points well taken (although you did omit that Germany, of all the major economic powers on the planet, also maintains a relatively high unemployment rate even in the best of times). It's also most interesting that Germany's model kit company--Revell of Germany, produces the bulk (if not all) of their product in other countries, mostly in Eastern Europe (Poland, etc.) which helps to illustrate what I wrote in my all-to-long post. In addition, the lofty Japanese plastic kit maker, Tamiya has also outsourced much of their model kit production, to places like the Phillipines. Something which I failed to address is, the USA is one of the most expensive countries in which to manufacture goods, make things. Others in that club include also Germany and Japan. It's not only wage rates vis-a-vis those in other lands, but also non-wage related benefits, and of course, taxation. Most countries in the EU, as I understand it, also have a multilevel national sales tax, the so-called VAT or Value Added Tax (where the increase in value of any commodity and/or the final product, is taxed at every stage of the production and marketing process--but not if that product is sold as export--at least some of the VAT gets waived in that regard, much like in this country, when we buy stuff across state lines without actually traveling to that particular state (such as eBay, mail/phone/internet ordering of model car kits from say, Illinois when we live in another state), we don't pay the sales tax in that state unless we actually put our feet on the ground there when making such purchases. And of course, while I made mention of China as being populated by people with a long tradition of a work ethic AND a huge rate of unemployment/underemployment, I failed to address that China, for all its geographical size, lacks the huge natural resources that we in this country were, and still are, blessed with. Germany and Japan as well fit into that same category. Germany and Japan rely on other countries for oil, iron and other metal ores, and with Japan, a ton of food imports from overseas to support their industry and population. Germany is in that category as well, although not to such a great extent except for petroleum. (The Second World War was, for both those countries, as much for grabbing real estate with resources as it was for anything else!) I've gotten a ton of economic theory force-fed into my head over my lifetime: In my Sr year in HS, our economics class used the textbook "Principles of Economics", and a year later, as a college freshmen, that same text again, in an economics course taught by its author, who was on Sabatical from the University of Chicago--perhaps you've heard of Dr Paul Samuelson (wish I had been more attentive in his class!) In addition, I grew up knowing, and listening to, a pair of outstanding agricultural economists from the University here, one of whom drafted "Food for Peace" and the economic model for the Green Revolution, which helped to make India self-sufficient in that area. But it was my Micro-Economics professor, who had been GE's Chief Economist, before he went to India, and worked tirelessly to persuade that government to abandon some of its practices (which they pretty much have, BTW) that kept India as a huge, but poverty stricken nation, with a very small wealthy ruling class). So, I think I did learn a lot over the years from all these sources. As a boy, I knew about such brands as Leica, Wollensak, Blaupunkt, Marklin, Lehmann Model Bahn (LMB), Schuco, Mercedes, BMW, Porsche and VW, all were iconic brands and products from Germany in the 1950's (model kits weren't yet on my radar screen from them). Of those, I believe only the automobile marques are still made in Germany, and even Mercedes and BMW stumbled embarrassingly in the last several years over quality issues. As for multinationals not really caring much about the places in which they operate, I would give you British Petroleum, which has faced severe and deserved scrutiny over the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico this spring and summer. What about Union Carbide, and the tragedy of Bhopal India about 25yrs ago or so? If a Boeing airliner goes down anyplace in the world, does not Boeing dispatch a team of investigators to aid in determining the cause? Even foreign automakers producing cars here in the US toe the line to our regulations and concerns. But I digress. It may well happen sometime in the future, that many of the low-end consumer products that used to be made in this country may once again be produced here--and hopefully that will happen due to the growth and development in other countries, to the point that it becomes economically not feasible for them to do that for us. Time will tell, of course. Barely 20 years ago, it was a tremendous concern, for example, that foreign steelmakers were eating the lunch of their US counterparts, but that concern is, I think, a thing of the past at least for now. Airbus got dealt a huge blow by the WTO, when Boeing won an almost landmark (and RARE for a US mfr) ruling from that outfit that Airbus was improperly subsidized by the countries where they operate (the UK, France, Germany), and as such Airbus isn't likely to get a look at the USAF aerial tanker project after all. And at some point, WTO or someone else, will rule against The Peoples Republic of China over their artificial manipulation of currency exchange rates, and the playing field will likely level out a bit. Art

Bryan, Sorry, but you are asking questions for which I have no definitive answers; and even if I did, it's just not likely that such would be something I would be prepared to discuss on a public forum such as this. There are things which are closely held information by manufacturers of all sorts, and even if I knew some of the "juicy bits", it just would not be ethical whatsoever for me to divulge them. I can say this, however: In the US, for perhaps the last 150 years or so, it's been that low-end consumer products (and it CAN be argued that model kits in general fit the category of low end consumer products) have largely been imported, almost without regard to the subject matter in question. A century ago, Germany was a principal source of such products, then with the end of WW-I, Japan became the country from where inexpensive products, such as toys and Christmas decorations came. For a while in the 50's and 60's it was Taiwan (remember Cragstan stamped tin toy cars?), then on to Hong Kong, and now China. Even this country, in its early days, shipped a relative lot of low-cost goods overseas, in addition to commodities such as cotton, tobacco, naval stores (pine tree trunks to England for the masts of ships, pine tar by the barrelful for waterproofing rigging, that sort of thing) and small cheap manufactured goods, although nothing like the volumes of stuff that has come out of the Pacific Rim since the end of WW-II. My economics education in college taught me (if nothing else!) that no country gets wealthy solely by trading exclusively within its own borders, regardless of the supply of natural resources. I give you as examples a few of the largest exporters of products in the World: Boeing (and before Boeing bought them, Douglas Aircraft) whose airliners are seen in the service of airlines worldwide--their 737 airliner is the most common airliner on the globe. Caterpillar yellow is seen on every continent, even in the face of Kubota and other foreign manufacturers of earthmoving machinery. Regardless of one's misgivings or not, US military aircraft and weapons systems are all over as well. The list goes on and on of course, but mostly US exports tend to be at the high end of the scale. Of course, one ought to keep in mind that this country has been the leading source of agricultural commodities worldwide since before WW-I, and even today, the US steel industry is the largest exporter of steel in the world as well, and aluminum isn't far behind that. With plastic model kits, while the concept of those can probably be said to have been developed here, the technology has spread all over the place since the 1950's, England, Europe, Latin America, Japan, Korea and now China. One thing that did occur, particularly in the Far East, is the concept of how those kits are tooled. Where AMT, MPC, Revell, Monogram and others relied on HUGE molding machines, and model kit tools that are massive (producing the kit entirely in one large tool base, all parts save for clear, transparent colors, and PVC tires) in one molding cycle on a machine about 30-feet long and perhaps 12' or so high (weighing God only knows how many tons!) for efficiency, Japanese companies began the idea of making model kit tooling in small sprues, such as you see in kits from Tamiya, Hasegawa, Fujimi. Those smaller sprues, self-contained as they are, indicate much smaller molding machines (not nearly as expensive), many of which can be operated automatically, the finished parts literally coming out and dropping on conveyor belts with little, if any, human touch to them. Now, transfer that sort of technology to a country with a tradition of industrious workers, lots of them, and huge unemployment/underemployment, such as China, a country whose people have a tremendous drive to get ahead, improve their own lives, and an artificially constructed rate of exchange, their currency VS all others, it should be easy to understand why such as model car kits can be made a lot more inexpensively there than just about every place else. I know, some say "slap some tariffs on", but history shows the very real dangers of that. Eighty years ago, from right now, the US, indeed much of the industrial world was mired in a "Great Recession". Thinking that raising tariffs (import duties) might help break the cycle in this country (strange in a way, seeing as the US wasn't a major importer at the time, but was the largest EXPORTER then!), which the US Congress did (Smoot-Hawley Tariff). With in mere months, the rest of the developed world did the same in retaliation, and harbors all over were filled with idled ships rusting away at anchor, and the Great Recesssion of 1929-30 morphed into the Great Depression of 1931-33, which your grandparents and their generation remembers all too well. At almost the same time, in almost the same breath as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, came the so-called "Fair Trade" laws, at both the State and Federal levels in this country. Those laws were designed to stem the drop in prices for goods, and were followed quickly by minimum wage laws, figured to stop the decline in wages and salaries (a Depression is characterized as a period of deflation, the drop in wages/prices, rise in the value of money itself). In that environment, there could not be any sort of "discount department stores", which are what the mass-retailer "Big Box" chains are today. Manufacturers in the US had to set the retail price, and that was it, and accordingly, they also set the wholesale price as well, and that was it as well. If one looks at model car kits from their beginnings until the mid-1960's, the stock number on the end of the box nearly always resembled this: "0000-198" the first digits being the stock number (SKU number) and the second set of numbers the retail price of the product. A manufacturer could, if they so desired, under Fair Trade laws, require a merchant to honor that retail price or risk not being supplied with new product, in many US states, and manufacturers did just that in many cases, until the courts ruled otherwise. Even now, modelers (we still read it on message forums such as this one) that the price of a model kit should be no more than what Walmart charges--or did, when they still carried model kits) Locally owned hobby shops at least perceived that they could not sell model kits at prices needed to support their cost structures (including paying an income to their owners), and we all have heard that lament, which I believe from my personal experience to have been largely unfounded. So, enter the idea of a "price point". Price point simply means a maximum price at which a product can be sold, often arbitrary, generally contrived by the largest retailers. Go over that price point, a manufacturer can easily be frozen out of a marketplace (a particular chain of stores, or an entire class of retailer--same difference, same problem). If that product cannot be profitably produced under existing conditions, then in order for the manufacturer to stay in the game, things simply have to change, no if's, ands or buts. Simplification of the product helped at times, automation on the production line helped for awhile, developing more efficient means of transportation too (ever wonder why semi-trailers grew from say, 30-feet in the late 40's to 53' today?). But eventually, none of those things could be counted on to work anymore. So, enter the world arena, find less expensive (in both real terms and in terms of currency exchange rates) places in which to produce lower end goods. One can only divide up the former $10 price point of a 1/25 scale model car kit so finely (it gets down to as little as a quarter of a penny sometimes with some operations required to produce one!) before any chance of a reasonable rate of return on investment becomes difficult if not impossible to obtain. Last, consider that model car building isn't the wild fad that it was 50yrs ago. It's not. Time was when a company such as the former AMT Corporation produced literally 10's of millions of car kits yearly, many times more car kits than Detroit build cars when the Big Three plus AMC sold annually roughly 90% of all new cars bought by Americans. Those days for the model kit industry began to decline by the late 1960's, and by the late 1970's, new model car kits announced yearly dropped nearly off the map. Only the return (I maintain) of young and middle aged adults back into this hobby in the 1980's saved this hobby from oblivion, IMO--had that not happened, we'd not have this message board, nor this magazine today. Will model car kit production ever return to the US? I don't see that happening, not without a sea-shift of major tsunami proportions, and I'm not sure that would be something I'd want to see--the ramifications might well be more undesirable than the result, given the complexities that likely would be involved. So, when it comes to model kits of the American cars we all know and love, I am content these days, to have those developed here, by high wage people knowledgeable, and leave the rest to others, regardless of where they might be, if that is what it takes for me to enjoy my hobby into my senior years. And I say that knowing that if unfettered by Government, other categories of products will come about to employ workers in this country. Art (Phew, what a long dissertation, but one I have given tons of thought to over a lot of years!)

Interesting that you refer to a '55 C-300 being on the assembly line, as that isn't how those cars were built. Chrysler 300 letter cars, through the 1961 300-G were "craftsman built", meaning that they were built at a special station off the line, all parts and components brought to that area for assembly, almost as if custom-built. Beginning with the 1962 300-H, letter cars came down the regular assembly line. (I say "Letter Cars" as for 1962, Chrysler used the term "300" as a trim level car, which wasn't the high performance 300-H, just a rather ordinary Chrysler trading on the reputation of the fabulous letter car series). Art

There's not all that much difference between 1955 and 1956 Chryslers, mostly the rear quarter panels (fins(, taillights, rear bumper, some side trim, and the dash--'55 had its Powerflight automatic controls in a "stalk" that extended out from the dashboard to the left of the steering wheel, where the '56 introduced the pushbutton controls for automatic transmissions that became characteristic of Mopars well into the 1960's, placed in a pod on the left end of the dashboard. For all intents and purposes, any other differences were very minor, many invisible from viewing the car or componentry externally. Art

I believe it's always been November-December for the Hudson and Chrysler C-300, January-February for the Lonestar. I would go by what Moebius has to say in any case though. Art

The real projected release dates are what the manufacturer says, not necessarily what some retailer, wholesaler might say on their own. Art

Every model kit I know of goes through the test shot phase, when plastic is molded in the new tooling, to check for any errors in cutting the tooling. In the days of so-called analog machining of model kit tooling, when the mockups were used to create 2X sized masters of what the molds should look like, those mockups of the tools themselves were clamped together, and resin poured into them to create oversized resin castings of the sprue, which could then be studied and corrected, before going to steel. Once they had the tool mockups finalized, the tool mockups themselves were copied, on a 3D pantotagraph (just like a draftsman's pantograph, but capable of carrying a milling cutter, and move in all three axes. After the steel tooling was cut, it would be mounted in a molding machine, and plastic injected into it, the resulting parts being test shots, which were then evaluated for fit, shape and such (remember, those old hand-operated pantographs were subject to error, so there tended to be a few mis-steps that would crop up). With modern, hi-tech toolmaking, CAM and EDM (Electrostatic Discharge Milling) have taken a lot of the "by Guess and Begosh" out of the equation, new tooling is more nearly correct crack out of the box than ever before (and much more quickly done as well). Building up test shots can be a ton of work--almost never any instructions beyond perhaps an exploded view drawing of the kit, sometimes no locating pins yet--so it gets rather tedious. The evaluations tend more to checking parts for eqregiously visible mold parting lines (caused by misalignment of mating "slide cores" (a model car body shell can take as many as 6 separate mold cores--all but one of which must slide together and then pull back in order to make those cool one-piece body shells: Upper, right side, left side, front, rear and inner surfaces core), and all must mate up as perfectly as possible to make a high quality body shell. Flashing is also looked for, that happens when the halves of a mold, or multiple slide cores don't mate tightly enough to keep the molten styrene from being forced between the various mold sections (but there does need to be a bit of escape room to get rid of trapped air!), so that becomes where the tool and die makers really earn their pay. Having reviewed several test shots of new kits, the comments about errors that need fixing can almost be a book sometimes, and the language needed has to be both concise, and in terms that the toolmakers will understand (when dealing with say, a Chinese factory, EVERY comment made in English here will have to be translated into Chinese, so the toolmaker can read and understand what is needed). Not a task for the faint of heart, it does take a lot of experience, and more than a little bit of judgement as well. Art

High humidity and lacquers (nitrocellose, acrylic, synthetic--all of them!) aren't a good combination. Humidity is water vapor in the air, as you surely know, and water can cause lacquers to "skin over" very quickly on the surface exposed to the moisture, leaving a slightly irredescent, but dull finish. Solutions? Of course, drier ambient air is always good, but if this condition (called blushing) is what you have, all is not lost! No real need to wet-sand blushing, it will polish out with a good quality micro-fine compound, such as Novus, to a high gloss, and you'd swear the blush never happened once this is done. If you have an airbrush, this is a good time of year to learn to use it, frankly. Being a miniature spray gun, you can control the amount of finish sprayed, which you really can't do with a rattle-can that literally drowns the surface in paint or clear. With rattle can paints, simply decant the stuff into your color jar by spraying it gently into the jar, against the side of that jar so that it doesn't just blow right back in your face, then airbrush away. I find that thinning even rattle can paints slightly with lacquer thinner helps too--it does eliminate virtually all tendency to blush, and I can guarrantee you, I also live in Indiana, the Land of Humid in summer, and have almost always had great results. Art

Very hard, if not impossible to do, frankly. Decals are thin, as you know, generally made by imprinting artwork onto a thin film (generally clear lacquer) laid on a sheet of blotting paper, the adhesive being common, ordinary gelatin (like the "There's always room for Jello" stuff). Decals, when applied, rely on evaporation of the water that liquified the gelatin adhesive, by the process of the water "wicking" out to the outer edges where it then evaporates, until all the gelatin is dry, and it's virtually impossible to reverse that process, and even if you could, the water would likely take what remains of that gelatin with it, leaving none for re-application. The decals themselves are impervious to water, so it won't just soak through the decal, rather in the application process, water soaks through the blotter paper they were printed on, rather than the decal itself. You would be better served to see if you can't get another sheet of the same decals, remove the ones incorrectly placed, and lay down the new ones where they should be. Sorry, but I have no better answer for you. Art

To do the conversion of the Revell '59 Chevy to a sedan, as in the Biscayne, takes a lot more than just putting a B-post in the hardtop roof. There is a marked difference between the length of the hardtop/convertible greenhouse and that of the sedans, and the sedan roof is noticeably taller, meaning also a different, more vertical windshield and back glass. I did this conversion for resin casting back in 1994, using the convertible body shell. I started by adding in the windshield framing from an AMT '59 El Camino (which car used the same windshield and framing as station wagons and sedans), then used the entire roof behind the windshield, from a JoHan '59 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 Special 6-window (in real life, all Cadillacs used the GM A body, same body series as Chevrolets), which was perfect for height and length, but was 3 scale inches (1/8" actual) too narrow, so that had to be widened. The door framing and B-posts for a two-door sedan were done in Evergreen strip styrene, as was the Biscayne side spear. Pics: Art

Progress report! The Lonestar tooling mockups are in Indiana as I write this, and will be going to Navistar's Engineering unit at Ft Wayne IN (where the real truck was designed) for their evaluation and approvals this coming week. I understand that if all goes well, first test shots should come perhaps in late October/early November, with the kit hitting the shelves in January or February 2011. Stay tuned, this should be one great kit! Art