Art Anderson

Some progress: I finished the carburetor today. I've heard of "cotton wick" carburetors, sorta understood the principle of them, but hadn't ever seen pics of one until I started researching the Knox. Basically, they were very simple, primitive by modern standards, using a large cotton "wick" inside a pipe that was perforated with many holes to admit air. Gasoline flowed onto that wick, and with each intake stroke, the rush of air through the perforations evaporated the gasoline, then the piston drew the vapor into the cylinder through an atmospheric pressure operated intake valve (still to be added). While unsuitable for multi-cylinder engines, it probably worked quite well for a single cylinder unit, turning perhaps between 500 and 1000 rpms. Also added are the flywheel, and the basic transmission drums, turned from clear acrylic plastic bar stock. More to come, so stay tuned! Art

For a TT conversion, about the only mechanical and structural stuff that would be usable would be the front axle and front spring. Even the TT truck had different wheels, same number of spokes, but about twice as thick. Front tires could be either the 20X3 1/2 tires as used on passenger cars (the front axle of a TT only had to carry the front part of the vehicle, the weight of the cargo was essentially balanced over the rear axle, as well as solid rubber tires. The rear tires, if pneumatic, were 33" (outside diameter over the tread) high pressure tires, about twice the width of the passenger car tire, in addition to available solid rubber tires which like the high pressure tires, were about twice the width of the front solid tires that were available. Note: Model TT trucks could not be fitted with dual rear wheels, pretty much the same as with most all other trucks of the era--there were no weight restrictions then, as are in place today. In addition, wooden artillery wheels just didn't have the strength to be set, one wheel outboard of another, and with demountable rims, tire changes would have been nearly impossible (you demounted just the rim to do a quick roadside change, the wheel itself couldn't be easily unbolted from the hub, and almost never were, except to replace bearings or an axle shaft). While the TT frame is the same width across the rails as the passenger car, the frame rails themselves are much deeper channel steel, about 5" or so tall, with fully 3" flanges top and bottom. TT used the same style rear spring, but this was much larger; wider leaves and more of them. TT's used a much different rear axle (although it still was torque tube drive, with long radius rods to keep the rear axle and torque tube in alignment), but instead of the Model T ring and pinion, the TT rear axle was worm drive construction. The front end sheet metal was the same as the passenger car: Same front fenders, radiator, hood and firewall. The roadster body could be had, as could (after 1924) an open C-cab, a closed cab, in addition to the roadster. Running boards are passenger car units, shortened, but with no splash aprons between running board and the bottom sills of the cab. An easier conversion, believe it or not, might well be the Smith Form-A-Truck, which was an extended frame unit that slipped, telescope style, over the outside of the passenger car frame, the Smith frame rails being about a foot outboard of the stock passenger car frame, tapered in toward the front, where they bolted to the stock frame, just ahead of the flywheel housing of the engine. The Form-A-Truck conversions came with a beam rear axle, a set of sprockets and drive chains, as well as a set of heavy parallel semi-elliptic rear springs to mount the new axle on. You just eliminated the passenger car rear spring, clamped the passenger car rear axle solidly to the bottom of the modified frame, replaced the stock wheel hubs with a pair of drive sprockets, then stretched the roller chain from those, back around the driven sprockets for the truck rear wheels. Art

Why not just wait for a few months? Revell just announced a 1966 Impala kit. It's gonna be the convertible, but a conversion using the roof and rear deck of the Revell '65 hardtop should be a fairly easy conversion. Art

Well said, Ed! It's pretty hard, I suspect for adult builders nowadays who are significantly younger than say, 55yrs or so, to remember the context of the times in which AMT engineered and tooled those Model T Ford kits. Plastic model car kits started out as a "kid thing", made for younger hands, the average age of a model car builder was perhaps no older than 13. It was we then-preteens and teenagers of the 60's who cut our permanent teeth on model car kits--as far as we were concerned, adults need not apply. That's the primary reason for wire axles, one-piece molded plastic chassis pans, even screwdriver assembly of chassis to body on those annual series customizing kits of the day. The '25 T Double Kit was a step beyond even AMT's earlier Trophy Series offerings, those being the '32, '36 and '39-'40 Fords, particularly in the suspension detail department--if you want to see truly oversized front axles, just check out those V8 era Ford kits AMT did back then. Wire axle assembly did make it possible for younger hands to assemble those two Model T kits, they could stand the stress of a possibly frustrated 12yr old, give him a successful experience, which hopefully would bring him back to the hobby shop for more model car kits (and it did, and they did!). This precluded the use of the many very small parts that would have made truly superdetailed Model T scale replica's of course. As for "molded on" parts on those T engines, about the only item that could have been made separately would have been the lower water pipe and hose, but then, just about everyone molded numerous subassemblies as units back then--each of these kits, being double kits ('25 T stock roadster and chopped coupe street rod, '27 T Touring and XR6 show rod), the parts counts were very high, probably not room for many more separate small parts in the tool (itself a huge block of steel, weighing well over a ton). Additionally, the building frenzy for these kits wasn't the stock version, but rather being creative, doing wild hot rods out of them. I don't think I ever saw any stock ones built back in the day other than the ones I did. The '25 T Double Kit was tooled and released in 1961, the kit hitting store shelves about the middle of September that year, and as such, represents pretty much the state of the art of plastic model kit layout and design. Same with the '27 T, which hit the shelves in late spring, 1964--again pretty much state of the art at that time. It's also well to understand that there was nothing at all like CNC, nor even CAD yet, certainly not down at the level of model kit companies--their kits started on old fashioned drafting tables, went to hand-carved basswood tooling masters at least 2X the size of the final product, every part having to be carved freehand by a patternmaker. Tooling was cut entirely mechanically, by vertical mills set up with 3-D pantagraphs, a stylus following the shapes and contours of each wooden master (small parts masters were inserted into larger blocks of wood, making the layout of the tooling itself, then reproduced in an early urethane resin as a tool section, which was then pantagraphed. Contrast that with today, when CNC, and EDM (Electro-Discharge Milling) can do the same jobs with almost infinite precision, and in far less time. Those early kits were engineered to be shot in fairly hard styrene, which meant visible "draft angles" (now you know why your Model T cylinder head didn't fit nice and flush with the top deck of the block without some filing!), in order to get the molded parts out of the tooling once cooled, without damaging either the tooling, or the finished parts trees. To have made that front axle, and its leaf spring, exactly to scale in styrene would have meant a very delicate, fragile piece, with almost no strength at all, particularly at the outer ends (Revell had that problem with their beautiful, for the day, 1929 and 1931 Model A Ford kits, those have a very spindly front axle unit, if you've ever seen or built one!). Even today, to scratchbuild correct units such as these, if done exactly to scale, likely investment cast brass would be the only way to get truly usable parts, that wouldn't just simply collapse, or at least warp under the weight of the model they support. Yeah, there are compromised dimensions in many areas of such model car kits, but all in all, with some careful work, and some added detailing, their compromises can be at least minimized to the point that your attention really isn't drawn immediately to them. Andy's got a point as well, about the AMT '23 T station wagon and delivery van--those just don't stand the test of either time, nor the visual test for accuracy. Fender beadrolling motifs that are a full inch tall in scale, outrageously heavy-handed wood wheels, with questionable PVC tires (the original AMT '25 kits came with gorgeous one piece wheel/tire assemblies, that have the correct Firestone tread, and are right on the money for 30X2 1/2 clincher tires--nice to see that Round2 is bringing those wheels and tires back--it's been a LONG time. As for the '25 T Fruit Wagon with the TT C-cab, that variation was produced in 1965-66, the C-cab and the fruit wagon insert for the already existing pickup box were from a separate small tool, the resulting parts dropped in the kits. They had the same chassis, fenders, suspension, wheels and tires as the previous issues of the kit. But the bottom line is, without those reissues, we'd likely not have any Model T Ford kits today, period. I rather doubt that the perceived sales potential of such subjects today would not permit the expenditure of many 10's of thousands of dollars to develop and tool truly accurate kits in today's state of the art. So, now you have my $2 worth (I won't write this many words for two cents, sorry!). Art

Back in the day, AMT Corporation got the deal to produce promo's of the '69 Camaro HT and Cvt for Chevrolet, while MPC had to be content with the Pontiac Firebird. Somewhere along the way, MPC sloppily retooled a '69 Firebird into the Camaro, in both HT and convertible form, but it was nowhere near accurate, as you correctly observed. In contrast, the AMT Annual series '69 Camaro's were as correctly done as any annual series 3in1 kit was ever done, but along the way, through bankruptcies, buyouts and mergers, apparently the old AMT tooling has been lost, or at least is unidentifiable today. When AMT/Ertl bought out MPC in late 1986, they simply put the bastardized MPC'69 Camaro back into production. Revell's 1990-vintage tooling for the '69 Camaro is very nicely done, in contrast, although it suffers from not having correct tires, but that is a problem with just about everyone at some time or another. Art

AMT's "Salt Shaker" '37 Chevy coupe was a unique mix of deleted parts, with a few added to the kit to make a Bonneville Speed Week coupe a possibility. This one happened in the summer of 1976, during the years when I was involved in doing as many builtups for AMT Corporation (along with Dennis Doty and Phil "The Tidewater Trucker" Jensen. I happened to deliver about a dozen box art builtup models to the AMT Plant at 1225 Maple Road in Troy Michigan, and was accosted by Bill Brown, Vice President of Marketing, and Tom Valmassei, head of the art department. They had this cool notion of what to convert into a salt flats car, and together we all came up with the '37 Chevy coupe. But what for tires? I simply suggested they do exactly what Bonneville racers had done for decades, go to Firestone, who would mold up a batch of their old-style, tall and rather skinny Firestone Speedway Tires, then buff off the Speedway left-turn oriented tread pattern, and the siping along the juncture between the tread and sidewall--presto! A tire perfect for high speed runs on the salt! AMT simply inserted a set of their then-two-piece-Firetone 500 Champion tires from the reissued '63 Agajanian Willard Battery Spl/'63 Lotus Powered By Ford Indy cars, added a few bits here and there, deleted just about all the stock parts, for Salt Shaker. I built and painted the box art model a few months later, they added the graphics for the box art pics by custom-made dry transfers. A short story about how that kit came about. Art

Well Dave, this one will progress rather quickly. With the Knox, the engine was going to be the tough part going in, the rest of the truck is no more complex than a hammer and a 10-penny nail. The only real challenge left is laying out the fore-and-aft leaf springs, making sure that they have exactly the same arch side-to-side, and allow for the correct wheelbase. Art

As a 50's kid with a morning paper route, I had two competing body shops as customers. From my memories, red oxide primer was, for all intents and purposes, universal in the 50's. It was one of my "scores" as well, to catch a haulaway unloading at one of the car dealerships as well (until 1961, every new car dealership in Lafayette was in the downtown business district, save for the Chrysler-Plymouth store, and a small Studebaker dealership). It was kinda cool back then to look at the new cars coming off the trucks, and I sure don't remember anything on the undersides (regardless of make--if it was sold in Lafayette, I saw them at some time or another). Of course, the red oxide got buried very quickly in black tar undercoating, given that this is the midwest, and we get snow with sand/salt every winter. About the only thing that varied marque-to-marque in those years was the shade of red oxide, from very nearly red, to a dark brown. Even autobody shops seldom ever used anything but red oxide, given that apparently virtually all paint mixing formulae were created for use over this color of primer (just like on a model car, the color of the substrate can affect the final color of the paint that goes over it). With any factory stock build through the 1950's, you won't go wrong with red oxide on the undersides of the body shell, with lower-body overspray along the rocker panels, and across the bottom of the firewall, where the angled toeboard mates to it. Just keep in mind, if it was body-on-frame, the frame didn't get that overspray--bodies were painted prior to being "dropped" onto the chassis on the assembly line. If a unit body (not many of those, beyond Nash or Hudson) until Lincoln & Thunderbird in 1958, and Chrysler Corporation in 1960 though, and all those early unibodies had all subframing welded into the body structure, so they got the red oxide treatment as well. Art

Andy, Yeah, I drilled every single hole. For those who don't know, I finally sprung for a Sherline vertical mill, with about $700 worth of toys to go with it, one of which is the rotary milling table, which is screw-driven, indexible to 1/10 of a degree. Each hole required two drilling operations, as I was too chicken to buy carbide center drills longer than their diameters (those things break almost by looking at them!). So, each .020" hole was deepened to .040" with an ordinary #76 drill bit, using the same setup. Just drilling the holes took a total of about 8 hours. Each brass pin is a light press-fit into its hole, needle nose pliers, and my sprue nippers got a workout. Truing up the ends took a lot of thought, get them all to the same length, and nice and flat on the ends. Finally, I came up with the idea of using a pad of 400-grit sandpaper, held against the side of a tool post on my Sherline lathe (which I've had for nearly 30 years), and GENTLY advancing that tool post against the pins, which I rotated at a fairly slow speed in the lathe. As you can see, that worked perfectly! The crankshaft was also simple. It's made with 1/8" square brass bar stock, milled down on one side to .080", then drilled for 1/16" rod stock, to make the crank throws. The crankshaft itself is 3/32" round stock, actually K&S tubing over 1/16" rod (that made for easier drilling of the crank throws). The connecting rod was milled out of the same quarter-inch bar stock, fishmouthed at one end, for the big end of the rod, the other end crossdrilled for a wrist pin, and inserted into a dummy piston, for proper alignment in the cylinder bore--all this for looks, the crank won't rotate, and the piston is in a very short bore, but I think I captured the look I want. These engines, like most early internal combustion engines, was lubed pretty much like industrial/agricultural steam engines, with mechanical lubricators where needed, the rest by either drip or splash. The crankcase you see will remain open, as those early engines were "total loss' oil system units--again, steam engine technology. Oh and yes, this one will be a complete vehicle--a 3/4 ton canopy delivery truck. Stay tuned! Art

554 cooling pins, 9 1/2 feet of .020" K&S brass rod used: Art

A lot depends on how far you are moving (across town? Or, across the continent?) and how you will be moving. Are you doing the move yourself, or is a professional moving van company getting the call? For a move across town, I've found that nothing beats, for either cost, space, or security than baseball card collector's boxes. These are corrugated boxes that you fold up yourself, 3" high, 4" wide, and come in all manner of lengths. I've used 550 (card) count sports card cartons like these for years, with great results, as they will hold most any ordinary, average sized 1/25 scale model car. To protect the paint, I use the highest grade of paper towel I can get (Bounty is a great choice, soft as a pillow, and very fine paper to boot. I lay 4 sheets of the stuff across the box, folded in half, so that I have a double layer. I then set the model on this, letting the weight of the model push the paper towel to the bottom of the box. I then simply fold, gently, the remainder of the paper towel over the top of the car, from both sides. If I feel the need for cushioning at the ends, either a folded up couple of sheets of Bounty, or good quality (but not with any lotion) toilet paper does the trick here. I then place these cartons in a larger box, for ease of transport, and to keep the smaller boxes from sliding, or rolling around in my car on the way. For larger, or taller models, go to a box shop, look for what are called "Mailers"--which are exactly the same concept as sports card boxes, only they come in taller and wider sizes, even long ones, if you have a trailer or similar out-sized model. At any rate, if you can, MOVE YOUR MODELS YOURSELF, IN YOUR CAR. The rough ride of a U-Haul trailer, Penske or similar rental truck is just too harsh, parts will get shaken or knocked off. If you are going just a few miles or so, it won't hurt to make several trips, unless you have friends who are willing to help you transport your models. Art

AAM did the '91 F350 Crew Cab, along with a Dually bed, 1-ton truck wheels & tires, and the extended chassis, for the Monogram F350 Supercab kit. That was done in 1993, and fewer than 40 were ever sold--just not that popular. Art

The pic of your real ride gives it away, Harry! The mystery pic shows a windshield set into the inside of the body shell, noticed from the A-pillars being OUTSIDE of the windshield glass, where your real car shows the windshield as it should be, FLUSH with the exterior surfaces of the surrounding sheet metal. Also, the "glass" on the mystery car is perfectly clear, not a hint of any tint, which is another dead giveaway. It's a model, likely a diecast. Art

Correction. That's not a '28-'29 Model A Roadster Pickup cab at all, but rather it's a shortened Tudor Sedan body, with the top cut away completely. Art

As all the principals of both AMT and Revell at the time are now deceased, I believe, any definitive answer may not be available (both companies were relatively small enterprises, even back in the mid-50's). However, some have suggested that Revell wanted AMT's marketing, but that makes little sense, as in 55-56, AMT Corporation was first and foremost, a maker of promotional model cars for the auto industry, spinning those off as flywheel toys for the toy store side of retail--they were not model car kit makers yet, not until 1958 (save for a handful of 3-car screwdriver kits which were essentially knocked down flywheel cars). What makes more plausible sense is that by 1955, AMT had installed their own vacuum-metalizing department for plating bumpers, grilles, taillight bezels and wheel covers--and that process wasn't yet something being used outside of the novelty industry, save for AMT. Were I to guess here, I would say that Revell was shipping the parts tree with the parts to be chromed, to AMT (then in Birmingham MI), and hence, the AMT co-branding. Art

I'm guessing that engine covers have more to do with product liability issues than anything. Anymore, there is very little under the hood of a car that is user-servicable, unlike the cars of yesteryear, but a lotta stuff there that can hurt you if you don't know what you are doing. Someone, someplace, has likely figured out that it's best that you be encouraged to keep your fingers attached to your hands perhaps? Certainly, hybrid cars, with their high voltage electrical current, need some sort of safety shielding. Art

For starters, corporate management hasn't really been looking at the bottom line all that closely in recent decades--it's the stock price that keeps stockholders happy, not the dividends. So, anything to make the stock value rise quarter to quarter gets you a promotion, at least lets you keep your job. But, in all that, GM and it's union all forgot, years ago, how to maintain sustainability. Art

The tires were a no-brainer for me. Those are Denman tires, well-known for their straight tread grooves---while Denman has stuck with that tread style for about 50 years (they were the first aftermarket tire maker to produce tires in all the odd sizes for antique cars), companies such as Coker Tire Company are producing much better tires, with reproduction zig-zag tread patterns which grip the road far better than anything Denman ever came up with. As for the radiator, for starters, the Brass-era T radiator is what you see--no separate shell, as with say, a Model A Ford. That polished brass is the top tank, the bottom tank, and the side frame. Good clean, straight originals are almost nonexistent today, but several makers have produced exact reproductions just like the one on this car. The fenders, hood, chassis and running gear of this car are stock Model T Ford. What little bodywork there is, is reproduction done in the 80's or 90's. Art

I voted REAL, given the looks of things such as the brass radiator--would be VERY hard indeed to replicate the FORD Script in brass on a model, and the only plastic kits of brass-era Model T's simply don't have this quality of radiator, were it a model using styrene parts, the brass would have been yellow-toned "chrome". FWIW, though, Ford never made such a speedster on their assembly line--every one you see with this configuration today is either a modern-made "replica", or a restoration of a home-built speedster from decades ago. Real or model, there is one thing severely missing: The headlights are the acetylene gas type (look at the square chimney on top of each one, dead giveaway). As such, there should be a Presto-Lite" Acetylene Generator on the running board--almost always those are on the driver's side, for ease of operation. This would be a brass tank, with a band indicating the divider between the water supply, and the gas generation section. Acetyline gas was generated in those by dripping water over pellets of carbide, which produces the gas, which is then piped to each headlight, where it's burned as an open flame inside the headlamp itself. Not only does a Presto-Lite tank not show in this pic, but neither do the rubber hoses and brass piping show, making me wonder if its headlights were converted to electric. Art

Valve stem is clearly visible on the right front wheel rim, just the barest nub of a valve stem visible on the left front. Art

That same Firestone tire (BTW, the only brand of tire installed at Ford as OEM, except for about a year or so, late 1940 to the end of production in early '42 for the War effort, when Ford produced their own FORD branded tires) is in the Revell '40 Ford convertible and coupe kits as well. Art

Harry, the short answer is yes (but since when am I given to short answers?). Model A Fords were all the same wheelbase, used the same chassis, engine and suspension, wheels and tires, the "Commerical Cars" (Station Wagon, roadster and closed cab pickups, Sedan Deliveries, and the standard 1/2 ton Panel Deliveries getting slightly heavier front and rear springs. All front end sheet metal was the same as the passenger car, with the pickups and panel deliveries using a black painted radiator shell and headlight buckets (for 30-31, the commercial radiator shell also had its opening straight across, no "widow's peak" shape at the top of the opening, as with the polished stainless steel shell). The heavier springs made no noticeable difference in the stance, nor the ride height of any of these, except that pickups sat slightly higher in the rear when unloaded, due to their heavier rear spring. BTW, the Revell '31 Station Wagon, or the Revell (old Monogram) 30 Woody would make a perfect reference model for building that body shell in a larger scale--both are quite accurately done. Hope this helps! Art

Well, I turned 18 in the summer of '62, and was into customs and rods, but NOWHERE near your level, Dave! Nice work, especially given the times, the kits available, and the primitive materials we had to deal with. Art Anderson

David, I think, based on the simple fact that 1/16 scale model car kits in general have a very spotty history--some great kits there, but they seem never to have held any retailing space for very long, any of them. Perhaps the story might have been different had model car kits gotten their biggest start in this scale, but as I think most would agree, that never quite happened, and modelers in any area of plastic building tend to be very scale bigoted--we all seem (whether it's trains, planes, ships, armor or cars) to want our collections in all the same scale, whichever one it is that we really sunk our teeth into. While 1/16 scale is one and a half times larger than 1/24-1/25, and offers the possibility of greater detail, the sales numbers of kits in this scale are, frankly, abysmal, otherwise we'd have seen lots more in this scale than we ever have. That said, to do a Deuce in this scale, would be a total scratchbuild, chassis, suspension, driveline, body, hood, grille shell, even wheels and tires. To have any chance at sales success, I submit that it would have to be nearly a complete kit--simply due to the lack of donor kits for most modelers, and the sheer non-existence of aftermarket components beyond a few photoetched parts that may have been done over the years. Art

To understand the demise of superchargers and fuel injection in Nascar in 1957 is to also understand the climate surrounding motor racing world-wide in the middle of the decade. It really stems from 1955, the year that the great Bill Vukovich died, in a spectacular crash at Indianapolis, in front of thousands of people, his car flipping over the wall on the backstretch, narrowly missing dozens of spectators. Then in June, the French driver, Pierre Levegh, driving a 300SLR Gullwing for Mercedes in the 24 du heurs de LeMans, was unable to avoid an Austin Healey that slowed suddenly in front of him for a pit stop. Levegh's car ramped up over the back of the slowing Healey, catapaulting into the crowd across from the pits at LeMans. Levegh was killed, along with some 87 spectators, and a hundred or so more were injured. A media/political/governmental firestorm ensued, not just in France, but across Europe, Scandinavia and here in the US. American Automobile Association (AAA) disbanded their "Contest Board" at the end of the 1955 season (replaced by USAC), there were calls in Washington for the banning of all forms of motorsport, Time Inc. (primarily through LIFE Magazine, carried on a campaign for legislation outlawing racing altogether. In short, a huge hue and cry from all quarters for a few months. Some countries, most notable Sweden and Switzerland, passed laws banning racing altogether (Switzerland's is still in effect I believe), and after a disaster (similar to that at LeMans in 1955) at the Mille Miglia in Italy in 1957, even the FIA dropped its sanctioning of open-road racing. It even affected the "Horsepower Race" between the US Big Three for a while as well. It was Ford who proposed to the AMA (Automobile Manufacturer's Association) that they come to an agreement banning factory-supported auto racing, in the interest of promoting safety (this after Ford's unsuccessful push to promote safety in their 1956 models), which all the existing US carmakers signed on to in the late spring of 1957, right alongside NASCAR's banning of superchargers and fuel injection. Ford and Chrysler (Studebaker and AMC went along, seeing as neither one was sponsoring any racing activities to speak of) went along wholeheartedly, but at GM, racing stuff continued to flow out the back door surrepticiously for the next several years. This kept on, particularly with the arrival of "Wide Track" and the 421 at Pontiac, until it became once again a full-blown factory support of both Pontiac and Chevrolet at GM. Finally, Ford, then Chrysler, had had enough, and by 1961-62, all of the Big Three were back into factory supported racing, both NASCAR and NHRA, with Ford going all the way-"Total Performance" at Indianapolis, in NASCAR, International and domestic Sports Car Racing, and the Monte Carlo Rally. In the meantime however, government and the press had moved on to other issues, so that resurgence was pretty much a non-issue, except for a certain "bump in the road" in the person of Ralph Nader. Art