Art Anderson

Uh, it might well be you! Seriously, beneath the bodywork of a WW-II MB, 1945-the 60's CJ2/3, Korean/Cold War M38, and the 1954-about 1970 M38A1 lies the same basic chassis, same wheelbase, same frame rails, you got it It went sorta like this: First, after the Bantam, Willys and Ford prototype "Jeeps" came the Willys MB (Ford GPA built under license from Willys Overland), then the very first CJ's (Civilian Jeep) in 1945, which was little more than a demilitarized MB. For 1946, however, Willys Overland made some changes, some to get away from the military look (CJ2A had the indents on the driver's side for the trenching (foxhole) tools smoothed out, a gasoline filler pipe was added to the fuel tank (still mounted under the driver's seat, the auxilliary military fuel tank under the right front seat being removed) which exited the body shell just behind the driver, but in a sheet metal indentation, to protect it from being sideswiped in traffic. A pickup drop-tailgate was added (MB had none), and to facilitate this, the spare tire mounting was moved to the right rear corner of the body, mounted up high as you see on my model. The military style trailer towing pintle was removed, and provision made in the rear of the frame for mounting a conventional ball-style trailer hitch. The military-style looped spring steel push bar bumperettes were also eliminated. Mechanically, the engine oil filter was moved from the lower right side of the cowling, to it's position seen in my engine bay. The dual-range transmission was replaced by a more conventional 4spd, with a single shifter, and a second lever was retained to control the transfer case. The dash was greatly civilianized, there being no need for the large, heavy tube-style military radio. In other words, a completely "civilized" CJ came out of the MB/GPA. However, once the Cold War became a very serious confrontation in Europe, and Korea became a major war with the entry of the Chinese People's Liberation Army in Korea in late 1950, it was soon apparent that the then 6-9 year old MB's were fast wearing out, and battlefield attrition, along with huge surplus selloffs meant more Jeeps were needed for the Army--so Willys simply remilitarized the CJ2A, bringing back most of the WW-II fitments, along with some improvements. The Hogan's Heroes Jeep kit has all the parts to do a pretty credible M38, complete with your choice of Browning .30 cal machine gun on a vertical mount, or the awesome firepower of the new 106mm Recoilless Rifle (for firing the early RPG). In addition are a pair of Army issue stretchers, to turn the M38 into a battlefield ambulance. In addition, almost all the details are in the kit to make a pretty decent CJ2A. Come 1954, Korea was in truce, tensions had died down somewhat in Europe, and the Army wanted some inprovements in the Jeep--enter the M38A1, and in 1955, its civilian counterpart, the CJ-5. Now, if you want to build either of these, look no farther than the AMT/Ertl (ex-MPC) Daisy's Jeep--it has the stuff to make either the M38A1 (sans military lug style tires), and also the 1955-59 short wheelbase CJ-5--both these jeeps still used the 1927-introduced, Willys engine first installed in their Whippet low priced passenger car. So there you have it. Art

Thought I'd share this one, done from the Hogan's Heroes Jeep kit: Art

Chris Etzel closed up shop here in Lafayette in mid-year 2002, and moved to Indianapolis, where he was taking some college classes. His parents gave me a contact phone number of him, but I was never able to make contact. I've not seen nor talked with Chris in 7 years, have no idea where he is now, or what he's doing. Art

As of 2004, when for 6 months I was employed by the then Playing Mantis Division of RC2, AMT and MPC tooling was still stored in Dyersville IA, most in the former Ertl diecasting plant building in the town of Dyersville, the remainder in a warehouse just outside the city limits. Only those kits being run, or that had been run, in China, were overseas. I believe the same was true for the rather brief period of time that AMT/Ertl tried molding kits in Mexico. Art

John, Comparing say, a model car body shell with an airplane kit is like comparing apples to oranges--both "taste good", but the interpretations are different. It's pretty hard to put stuff inside an airplane fuselage in a model, when that fuselage is all one piece--in fact, pretty near impossible to even mold one that way to begin with. If you look at say, a model ship hull, most kits of ships WW-II and later, the kits have one piece hulls, molded in either 2 or up to 4 section slide core molds. Once you get beyond our passion for one-piece body shells (OK, with front and rear fascia as separate parts sometimes!), the rest of the model car kits we like are of the same concept as nearly every other model kit subject on the planet. On the economic side, there is a vast difference between a plastic model kit company (today, anyway) and a producer of injection molded plastic parts for a production 1:1 automobile--that gulf being in the sheer number of the same part produced. In addition, I would submit that while the tooling for the most complex automotive plastic molded part may be in itself extremely complex, it can be replicated very quickly, as this is the perfect area for CNC (which isn't used all that much in model kit tooling construction, for reasons too numerous to go into for the purposes of this discussion). But, the economics of plastic model kit tooling today, with the current sales levels, just don't justify a relatively small company such as Revell or Auto World spending the 10's of thousands of dollars to create a second set of molds, when a whole year's expected sales of most any model kit can be run in a matter of days, perhaps 2-3 weeks at most. Another factor to consider is that model kit producers have many more tools to run than they have machines, at their peak, AMT Corporatin had perhaps 15 full-sized injection molders, to cover upwards of 100 kit subjects of all kinds in any one year's catalog. So, any run made has to cover many months of projected sales demand. In addition, unlike most industrial parts molding operations, model kit companies have, after the molding stage, an assembly line to operate--it's how they make sure that all the sprues get into the kit boxes, in a particular order for proper packaging, and safe shipping, along with instruction sheets and decals. This makes it possible, of course, to hold bagged shots of kits or kit parts until more kits are needed in the pipeline. At best, in their peak years, AMT Corporation had perhaps 3 kit assembly lines (by the mid-1970's, when I was going into the Maple Avenue plant in Troy MI every 4-6 weeks with builtups to deliver, they had but two assembly lines for packaging kits. So, all those baggies get stored in huge corrugated cartons in a warehouse area, until they are needed. More of my observations. Art

The story of JoHan's beryllium copper tooling inserts is apparently quite correct, according to my sources, but rather than not being paid at all, they were not being paid well at all, and many of them apparently had problems with chemical dependency, both solid and liquid--and it was said that there were a couple of unscrupulous scrap dealers in the area of the JoHan plant who were more than willing to "cooperate". Yes, some of the old tooling still around has suffered rust damage. Light surface rust is one thing, that can be polished away with little effect on the mold surfaces, but deep pitting is quite another matter. Circa 1990, Minicraft managed to find, in an old warehouse in Venice CA, several of the old Gowland & Gowland Highway Pioneers tools, which they arranged to acquire the use of. Minicraft put, on their instruction sheets for these sets of cars (4 per set, with the Cord 812 and Duesenberg Model J Phaeton being paired together), a disclaimer stating that the tooling was run as found, and that where there might be a stray chunk of plastic on the surface of a part, as in a body panel, it was from rust pitting, due to the humid conditions in Venice CA, which is down right on the harbor's edge. As for the old Aurora tooling--most of that, once Monogram got the tools to Morton Grove (yes, there was a train derailment, which did dump some of the tools on the right of way--again, according to folks I've talked with, who were there at Monogram at the time), upon surveying them, they determined that there were a lot of tools that simply didn't fit the standards Monogram held for themselves (Monogram by then being the premiere model kit company in the US), and when the recession of 1981-82 hit full blast, those "substandard" beryllium copper tools were sold for scrap, to raise capital to keep Monogram afloat. Art

I guess I'm the old guy here. I can still remember when AMT 3in1 kits went from $1.29 to a pricey $1.39, with nothing at all added to the kits, just a one year later series of cars (1959 vs 1958), and then up to $1.49 in 1960 (for the Corvettes and Thunderbirds, which got opening hoods and engines--not a bad deal, an engine for a dime?). By 1964, 3in1 kits were still being pre-priced at $2.00. Now, 1964 was 45 years ago, and if a $2.00 kit from then is now $24.00, what else can you think of that has gone up by a factor of 10 in that time frame? Let's take a look here: Real cars, wage rates, housing (and that was way more than 10X until the market bubble burst a year or so ago), clothes, movie tickets, sports event tickets, even gasoline prices for a little while last year at this time. I've heard this sticker shock tale for decades with model car kits, and I don't worry about it. I either pay the price, or I don't, and that is the bottom line. But one thing is for certain, I sure want to see LHS's keep on keeping on--when they go away, there goes our supply, and quickly so. Art

Nahhhh......none of us Indiana builders would ever bother with a place like this! Seriously, I'm from the heart of Boilermaker Country. Art

For starters here, there is really no such thing as "no assembly line production" in model kit production--in other words, no run of say, 10 kits, then put the tooling away. The sheer effort to pull a tool base out of storage, purge all the preservatives out of it, check it out, then mill-wright it into a mold press precludes that sort of thing, except as part of a checkout process to put it into production. The time-honored break-even point on a new tool was 60,000 to 75,000 units sold in the first year of sales, just to recoup the development costs. With a reissue, where no new tooling is cut, only maintenance and tool restoration an issue, the breakeven point for such a model kit if sold at normal retail prices as a regular item has always been far lower than for a new tool. But then, the expected sales of a reissue almost always can be predicted to be far less than for a new, never-before-produced subject. Now, as for things such as tool wear: While styrene (and PVC as used for tires) is pretty abrasive (all you need do is remember how dull your razor saws and needle files get working on model car parts), it really doesn't wear the tooling if that tooling is made from hardened steel (which almost all regular production model car dies are made from), but other parts of the tooling equation do wear--principally those areas were there is metal-to-metal sliding contact, or significant impact of one die against another. Such is the case with ejector/alignment pins in the dies, the slides for sliding core molds (these are used for body shells, where almost always, a 6-core mold is used--inner core, upper surface core, left side core, right side core, front core, rear core), obliquely angled mating surfaces of those slide cores (this is where mold parting lines on body shells come from, and where body misalignments happen over time). As for multiple duplicate tools. VERY uncommon indeed, as it is quite possible for a mold press to squeeze out a year's worth of sales of almost all model kits in a manner of days, perhaps a couple of weeks of continuous production. AMT did do multiple tools of a couple of kits, one of those being their Original Series Star Trek USS Enterprise NCC-1701, simply due to the insatiable demand for this model for a long time. I was told, back in the late 1970's, that AMT actually had cut 5 different sets of tooling for this one, the first few having been done in hard aluminum alloy simply because the figured the kit to be a short-lived TV model (almost all TV or Movie model kits traditionally have very short legs), that only when they came to realize that USS Enterprise had become a staple item in their product line did they spring for the added cost of hardened steel. The biggest issue facing any steel model kit tool isn't wear, but deterioration over time. Unless that tool is well coated in a preservative, such as cosmoline, upon being retired to the Tool Bank warehouse, it will rust, and rust is the enemy of the surface of any finely done mold. Significantly visible rusting generally renders at least the body tooling part of any mold unusable, due to unrepairability. The other issue would be missing tooling sections. While a lot of an older AMT, MPC, Revell or Monogram tool got cut into the tool base itself, a lot of the parts were tooled in smaller, separate blocks of steel, and those blocks fitted into the much larger tool base. This was done in order to be able to make smaller parts detailed more crisply, or as in the case of wheels and hubcaps, so that the "hobs" to make these could be done on milling machines where the work could be rotated. If significant tool blocks are missing, and cannot be located--it's either fuggedaboudit or pop for the $$ to retool the missing sections--and often the costs associated with that nix the project. Art

Izzy, Rod & Custom was printed, I believe, on 8" X 10.5" format, which is a very standard magazine size (perhaps Luke could measure the size of his copy just to make sure?). Standard printer paper is 8.5X11 inches, so size your print down by that percentage difference, then simply measure the wheelbase on the printout, see if it comes out right. Oh, and it's far easier to think Metric, if you are doing 1/25, as 1"=25.4mm--and when you divide that down, 1mm to the inch in scale is plenty close enough--so use 116mm for the wheelbase, both on the drawing, and on your model. As for the bodywork, there are no compound curves whatsoever on that car. Every piece of sheet metal was run either through a rolling brake, or done in a bending brake (for all those angular "creases" in the tail sections. Also, it might be interesting to make the rear section of the tail as a separate component, just as it is on the real car (There are at least a couple of pics of the Wasp without it's "stinger" tail extension--the forward section is actually the fuel tank). But, given the simplicity of shapes, it's just as easy (or so my late friend, and Co-Indy Car modeler Alan Bingaman said, way back in the days of our annual hobby shop window displays of the cars of the Indianapolis 500 said---see the 1977 Carl Hungness Indianapolis 500 Mile Race Yearbook, our window display was a feature article that issue! Al did the Wasp twice, the first go-round was done in Strathmore Board; Al wasn't satisfied with the finish on that rather rough paper--so he built a second body shell on it, entirely in sheet styrene (.020"), and it worked out just fine. Making that bodywork in brass should be almost as easy, it's just rolled and folded sheet metal anyway. Art

Luke, You didn't do anything wrong here! By clicking on the pic in your album, you will enlarge it, and it can be saved either to one's computer as a resizable picture, or to say, Fotki, which also allows for resizing. Also, it can be run through a decent photo-editing software to do the same thing. (I've already done it). And, BTW, THANK YOU for doing this for all of us (along with your great Nascar models). I know I have that article someplace, but finding it could take months! Regards, Art

John, There are a couple of reasons at least, why so many think the Wasp was a darker orange. For starters, a very common description of the color yellow, if it was on the red or darker side of that color, among contemporaries of Ray Harroun, was either Orange Yellow, or light Orange, the latter of which we today think of as the lighter of a red-orange color, while considering Yellow Orange to be just plain Yellow--also this is a color that is very much affected by light conditions--for example, the trademark McLaren Orange actually will appear as a very brilliant yellow in strong sunlight to the human eye, but may very well have photographed as an Orange on the very same day, same sky conditions. And yet, the same car, same paint, can look rather pale yellow if seen indoors under a skylight or artificial light. But a great many people living in those years would have called a "Yukon Yellow" (long running GM commercial color, and USDOT mandated color for school busses) school bus as being orange, rather than yellow. Second are the several photographs taken during and after that first Indy 500 of the Marmon Wasp. They appear to show the car as having been quite dark, the white border around the black numbers being very stark indeed. With the black and white film most all of us know, an orange car would have photographed as rather dark (and yellow appearing as a much lighter scale of grey), but the earlier emulsions used on glass plate, even early film cameras of the era around 1911 photographed yellows as being very dark on the grey scale--times, and B&W camera films do change. In the film of the 1946 Indianapolis 500 (paid for, and sponsored by, Firestone Tire & Rubber, of whom Speedway President Wilbur Shaw had been a vice president during the war years), the Wasp appears, in professionally shot footage, IN COLOR, still in its original 1911 paint, having had extra lettering handpainted on it shortly after the 500, denoting its status as "Winner Of The First Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, May 30, 1911" on the sides of the tail. The car was apparently retained by Marmon for years afterward, and then also apparently passed into the hands of Howard Marmon (founder of Marmon Automobile Company) when he left Marmon shortly before that company's demise in 1932-33, residing in a barn on Marmon's Indiana farm while Marmon himself kept busy with the newly formed Marmon-Herrinton Company (of Ford flathead V8 4X4 fame). Now, enter Anton Hulman Jr, who bought IMS in November, 1945 from Eddie Rickenbacker. Hulman was one of the founders of AACA (Antique Automobile Club of America) in 1935, and by the 40's was one of their most noted antique car collectors, digging up cars that were both in excellent original condition, and having considerable historic provenance. The Wasp made its first public appearance in many years that May (1946) along with a couple of dozen other antique, even Classic Cars. The car, as I noted, appears in the films of the celebratory events of that race month, in a rather tattered, but YELLOW color, with some peeling and flaking of it's 1911 vintage yellow enamel paint (hand brushed in those days), with patches of raw aluminum sheet metal bodywork showing through it. This is what leads me, and many others, to concur that the yellow shown in that film is the correct, original color and paint. So, when the car was cosmetically restored for the first IMS Museum, which opened at the original Main Gate of the track, at 16th Street & Georgetown Road in Speedway City, IN in 1956, it could be proudly displayed, and was run in hte commemorative 50th Anniversary ceremonies on May 30, 1961. Also, the name "Wasp" was never official, but rather the result of someone commenting that with its long, stinger-like, streamlined tail, it looked like a wasp, and in Indiana, wasps are also known for having a lot of yellow in their natural coloring. Hope this begins to lay aside some of the controversy. Art

Luke, Great that you still have the article! One cautionary note on the color of the car though! The writer for R&CM says that the Marmon Wasp was an "off shade" of orange, but it was definitely a yellow-orange color, pretty much as restored and displayed. I have a DVD of the 1946 Indy 500, which includes a comprehensive set of interviews with Ray Harroun, sitting in the Marmon Wasp, still in its original paint, and it IS YELLOW-ORANGE, almost International School Bus Yellow in the film. Other than that, the article is great, but I would suggest using the AMT/MPC '14 Stutz Bearcat (and if one wants the engine, start with two of the Stutz engines), and either the Stutz wheels, or the 1921 Beverly Hillbillies Oldsmobile. Art

Do any sanding wet, when done, wash off the "mud" at the sink, and away go troubles down the drain!" Now, what was your problem? Art

You might try a local trophy and awards shop--lots of those are now into laser cutting and engraving, on wood. However, just as with CNC machining, most all this is done with the aid of a computer and requisite software. Art

I'm guessing that it was the chain drive system that was the weak point in the Snow Motor, frankly. Also, the 20's weren't years of the adoption of most of the mechanical masterpieces that were tried out. However, with all that, do a Google for Snow Motor, and you will find pics of the same basic screw-threaded pontoon snow vehicles, built in the 60's and 70's by none other than Bombardier, you know, those good people who build Ski-Doo's. Art

All true of course, but I think some of what you suggest is a bit overkill for machining for scale model parts. For example, when making say, an axle housing, a wheel, a brake drum, that sort of thing, for what is essentially a static model, a micrometer really isn't necessary, but a decent dial caliper sure is--the tolerances for a model car that isn't going to run just aren't that tight. As for lathe chucks, again we are talking about scale model parts, not high-precision industrial tooling or production parts needing a wide variety--if nothing else, the swing of a Sherline or similar miniature lathe isn't that large, their 3-jaw, perhaps their 4-jaw, even their Jacobs chucks will work for 99.9% of all scale model machining. Even the now-retired, legendary Gerald Wingrove (he of those magnificent 1/15 scale scratchbuilt masterpiece miniature cars) used a Unimat 7, which dated from the middle 1970's, with NO CNC, and no more sophisticated attachments than you might find in a well-equipped high school metal shop (see his various books that he wrote on his profession). As I think I alluded to before in this thread, CNC, all the modern rapid prototyping stuff and technology is neat, but really overkill for what we do, frankly--both in price AND complexity. Even the tooling masters for the model kits we love to build is STILL done the old fashioned way (although the Chinese pattern makers like using ordinary styrene for making tooling mockups for model cars, and the Japanese at say, Tamiya still use wood for body patterns), given the low investment in equipment needed compared to high-tech, and the emphasis on as much the artistry rather than the science of it all. And pretty much that is the way of the model car aftermarket industry. Also, one simply has to consider not only the per-part unit cost to manufacture (and that is in both labor and materials) AND the amortization of any and all equipment used to make such aftermarket parts. Were price no object, ceiling unlimited, we wouldn't be having much of this discussion, and I wouldn't be making these comments now. However, there is a limit to what modelers will pay for aftermarket stuff, be they complete resin kits, body shells, conversion parts or body sections, or detail parts, pure and simple. Most are likely unaware that Don Holthaus was a tool and die guy before he went into resin casting, for example. However, very little in the way of machine-created masters show up in his product line, beyond wheels and tires. The legendary Chris Etzel of Etzel's Speed Classics (whom I have known since he was about 3' tall) did all the mastering of his fabulous Indy cars (and before them, his Medallion Models series of 1/48 scale aircraft transkits) by two methods--Sherline Mill and Lathe (with all the appropriate attachments for what he was doing), and the time proven, tried and true "hand and eye coordinated with knives, files, Dremel and sandpaper" method. It's all in the artistry, when you get down to the bottom line--not micrometer accuracy, and to do that, a learning curve that doesn't really need CNC to accomplish. Art

Indy cars, for decades, have relied on portable electric starter units (for years, built by Joe Hunt, of magneto fame). By Indy cars, I mean cars that are Indianapolis-legal. In the front engine years, the crankshaft had a quick connect/release coupling (much like the center nut on a Model A or flathead V8 Ford engine) which would be engaged by a long steel shaft having a pair of pins set perpendicular to its centerline. That starter rod was supported by a tube or collar on a subframe out in front of the rest of the chassis (see the AMT '63 Agajanian Willard Battery Spl--Parnelli Jones' 1963 Indy winner to see this detail--it sticks out through the left-hand "nostril" of the nose of a Watson Roadster) and connected by a similar affair to a very stout aircraft electric starter, powered by multiple 12v batteries (almost always on a rollaround cart). Insert the starter rod, then push the starter against that rod, press the button, and it spun the engine over until it started. Simply back off the starter, pull it away, and pull the shaft out of it's tube, and get out of the way. Rear engine cars (from the first one to make the show--Dan Gurney's Mickey Thompson Harvey Aluminum rear engine Buick clear through to today) use this same basic system, but connecting to the input shaft of the transaxle, which extends through the housing all the way to the rear cover plate of the transaxle, much like a PTO on a farm tractor (these are generally covered with a swing-away plate, for safety's sake and to keep dirt out). On the famed Novi V8 Indianapolis cars, due to their having been originally set up for front wheel drive, that V8 engine had its starter drive set at a right angle, off the front (if rear drive, rear of the engine in the earlier front drives) engine mount (this used an Offenhauser/Miller style single front engine mount) by means of a bevel gear set--the starter drive (originally a hand crank) inserted from the left (pit wall) side of the engine bay. While an Indy car can be towed with another vehicle to start the engine, they almost never can be pushed fast enough by human power alone--too much compression, need too many rpms for humans to accomplish by themselves, and the lack of really stout rear push bars or nerf bars (the old roadsters) for push trucks. So, it was either hand crank the things (back in the 30's) or portable electric starters (beginning in the late 40's) all the way out to today. Watch the start of the 500 on TV sometime, you will see the crewman inserting the starter, pressing the button, and then pulling it away once the engine fires. Art

This firm foam rubber block was a part of the LMG polishing kit as well as being available separately. LMG was the first to bring to our hobby the Micro-Mesh Polishing Kit system, and Micro-Mesh sold those to any and all comers, and still will. Have you checked Micro Mark Tools? Art

Jody, I just got finished putting my almost 30yr old Sherline lathe back into operation (needed a heart transplant, after the original solid state AC speed control conked out, so replaced speed control with their current digital speed control and constant torque DC motor), and am still amazed at the accuracy, the close tolerances that can be achieved with it after all these years. In my never-to-be-humble opinion, even my early Sherline beats anything that Harbor Freight, or Micro-Mark sells, hands down! I've scoped out those Chinese low-end lathes and mills on several occasions, and frankly, for doing the fine work, small parts that we modelers like, they are little more than expensive boat anchors (things like excessive runout, sloppy bearings, and an apparent lack of any broad range of accessories for them. One of the neater things about Sherline, particularly for the modeler, are its features: The headstock rotates for easy setups when cutting tapers, for example. Both self-centering 3-jaw, and independent 4-jaw chucks are readily available. Same with screw thread cutting attachments; their list of possibilities is simply EXTENSIVE. In addition, if one does not want to spring for the cost of a free-standing vertical mill, no problem! Sherline sells the attachments necessary to convert the lathe to a vertical mill. Perhaps the best accessory they make for milling is a screw-thread adjusted indexing head, which will work in both horizontal AND vertical axes--perfect for making say, wire wheels (indexing and drilling the rims and hubs, this head dials accurately to one-half degree increments). Sure, you will lay out more money for a Sherline than for any of the others (except of course, for Unimat--and those are EXPENSIVE!), but the difference in price is well worth the extra $$. And, in the bargain, technical assistance is as far away as an email or a toll-free phone call. Now, as for cost, say CNC vs the parts you might make: In order to determine the dollar viability of such a setup for making parts for sale--you really should consider the price per part you might be able to charge, along with a reasonable sales volume of those parts. Consider that you, in order to come out not just even, but ahead of the game, need to be able to amortize such a machine in fairly short order--I think the maximum depreciation schedule for a machine such as this is 5 years--that's a portion of the depreciation each year over a 5-year period--check with an accountant to be sure. Now, obviously, the more parts you can run and sell in that given period of time, the less money per part you need to charge back to recoup your investment on the equipment, and that is before you factor in your time, plus a profit percentage. Now, if one looks at the model car aftermarket, there really hasn't been a successful, long-running line of machined parts (much beyond a few engine fittings) that has ever come about. The closest might be Machined Auto Specialties (MAS), and in that, only their wheel rims and hubs are machined, all else is photoetched, and even that has been a tough go for them over time, I think. It seems to me that the best use for a lathe and mill is for mastering parts for resin-casting. I did this with some success with my '35 and '37 Ford 1.5 ton conversions, and my 1-ton dually wheel/tire sets. Beyond that, I made several component parts for resin kits that I couldn't dig up from some other source, but then, not even that much. I want to see you make a small fortune, but I sure don't want to see you having started with a large fortune with which to do so; but I would suggest that in considering machine tools, look at all of them, and go for the best quality you can get away with--you are talking about "betting the ranch" here, by your own admission. Art

...I just got done rebuilding my old (1981 Vintage), after the solid state AC speed control died. Sherline in the meantime has replaced their AC motor and speed control with a DC unit, with constant torque DC motor (tremendous improvement!). A project I've hankered after for years is to do a Marmon-Herrington AWD conversion for the 1935-48 Ford passenger car/pickup/panel delivery. Basically, M-H modified Ford rear axles by lengthening one axle shaft & housing, then shortening the other, so that when flopped upside down, the torque tube would run alongside the right side of the engine, to a transfer case (M-H's own design, meant to clear the X member in the frame), using a shortened driveshaft & torque tube. The transverse front spring was replaced by a pair of semi-eliptic leaf springs, mounted parallel, at the outside of the frame rails, and a new rear spring made, with much greater lift. I turned the parts seen here from clear acrylic plastic bar stock, drilled to accept 1/16" brass rod for locating pins: Art

That Frontenac DOHC 16 Valve conversion is a feature of every AMT '27 T Touring car kit. It needs only a proper upper radiator hose and water outlet (in the middle of the upper part of the timing chain housing) to be accurate. Joe Henning, in the old Rod & Custom Models magazine 45 years ago, showed a neat body shell for that dirt tracker, using two of the upper halves of the streamlined dragster body shell nose, glued together, to make the rear part of the body, and the tail. Art

The kits with the whiskey (bootleg) bottles, Thompson Submachine Guns etc, were the MPC Gangbusters series kits ('27 Lincoln Roadster, '28 Lincoln Sport Phaeton, '31 Chrysler Roadster, '32 Chrysler Imperial Convertible Sedan, and the '32 Chevy Cabriolet/Sedan Delivery double kit. Art

The "Key Word" here, for any hobby shop is "Pre-Order", which apparently the shop you questioned didn't do. Art