Art Anderson

Bill, not in my book! I'm using Dublicolor Primer (the very same stuff you use) all the time, on new kits, older kits, even ancient ones. and given that I always airbrush both primers and finish colors, I have virtually NO problem with any "crazing" beyond a very light, fine "frosting" effect with my very first pass of the airbrush. 50 years ago or so, I "coined" my own term for this--"shock-proofing" the plastic surface". I came to that conclusion simply because on subsequent passes with my airbrush, not only was (nor is there still!) any further crazing of the plastic surface, either with successive coats of primer, nor with any lacquer finish colors I have ever used. The key to my success is (and I believe I have explained this a couple of times before) that I always use rattle can lacquer primer (Duplicolor has been my favorite for decades!), decanted into my airbrush jar, and then adding a bit more lacquer thinner (I use the really "high-tech" KleenStrip stuff--nothing exotic). Well thinned out, Duplicolor's red oxide primer, airbrushed on in very fast passes, seems to work by allowing only minute penetration of the lacquer thinner into the plastic surface, and seemingly (for me at least!) "shockproofs" the surface so that succeeding passes with my airbrush just do not further affect the outcome at all negatively. Once the primer is dry, and I've checked the body shell over for any imperfections, and corrected those by whatever filler I seem to think will do the job, and having sanded those areas out smooth--I simply repeat the process, by spot-priming--again with little if any truly visible crazing. My next step with the primer is to actually polish it, using 8,000-grit Micromesh cloth, generously wet, to actually bring the primer to a dull shine (Oh I know, HERESY!). and then washing the body down with ordinary Dial hand soap (I'm glad I use DIAL, wish everybody did!). rinse, pat dry with a piece of clean 100% cotton tee-shirt knit, blow any lint off the body surfaces with compressed air, and paint the danged thing with either lacquer or enamel (I thin my enamel paints for airbrushing with that same Walmart-sourced Kleen Strip Lacquer thinner (again, the HERETIC in my is sticking out all over!), which works just fine. My secret is really NO SECRET here: For starters, I have used nothing but external mix airbrushes since my first Binks Wren, purchased in December 1961 (been using a Paasche H #3 for the past now 30 years or so). Second, I thin alll paints, lacquers and enamels, to the consistency of 2% milk--observing that consistency by seeing how the thinned paint "sheets down" the sides of my glass color jars as a final check. That "sheeting" effect should approximate the sheeting action of 2% milk down the insides of a glass of the stuff, as you drink it!). Next, I use very low pressure to the airbrush--I worked this out years ago, after I had a very square body shell turn out with a finish at the rear that looked as if it had been painted in a SANDSTORM. Analyzing that failure, I noted that with full air pressure from my diaphragm compressor, overspray toward the rear end of the body sides, tended to swirl around, landing on the rear surfaces about half-dry--it didn't flow out, just sat there like so many 1/25 scale grains of sand. Reduce the air pressure (and I do not use a pressure gauge--I simply bleed air off at the moisture trap, to the point were the paint just srpays out of the airbrush, but yet is very soft in velocity--the thinning out I described above facilitates that very nicely! The third leg of this milking stool, is "Close". I do my airbrush paintjobs with my Paasche H #3 no more than 3/4" to a full inch from the model surface. This gives me a spray fan at the model surface that is no more than a half inch wide--almost a 1/25 scale professional spray gun pattern! i also move the airbrush over the surfaces only moderately fast, just fast enough to avoid any puddling, or runs, but slow enough so that even the first pass results in a smooth, if semi-gloss sheen--succeeding passes like this will result in full color coverage with only minimal polishing required for a very high shine. In the bargain, by doing it this way, I can keep raised detail, such as chrome body trim and badges/scripts standing out prominently, not drowned beneath a really thick coat of paint. This entire process is what I have come to call "TSC" (Thin, Soft and Close). It's worked for me since the middle 1960's and virtually never do I have a failed paintjob due to crazing, or er even runs or sags--generaally I can completely skip the range of Micromesh polishing cloths, and go straight to using their liquid polishing compound and a piece of 100% pure cotton tee-shirt knit. Art.

Hobby Lobby sells Badger paint bottles all ready for paint storage! Art

I use a food dehydrator to "bake" all enamel finishes to a click-hard surface, as enamels do take much longer to cure out than lacquers. With 5-6 hours in my dehydrator, my Scale Fiinishes Acrylic Emamels come out hard enough that I find myself concerned about their "chipping", not being soft or even slightly tacky feeling. Art

I also suspect that when AMT was tooling up their '27 T Touring (probably starting on that project in late 1962/early 1963 for a 1964 new release kit) they probably didn't have access to a real Riley-equipped engine for reference--thus relying on photographs of one. Revell, on the other hand, being based in Venice CA (coastal suburb of LA) back then more than likely were able to find such vintage speed equipment to reference--given that LA was still pretty much the epicenter of hot rodding then--and that going back well into the 1920's and 30's. It's rather hard to realize now, in 2016, that back 50-some years ago, while certainly vintage speed equipment did exist in real life, and a great many period photo's existed of such, but they were nowhere nearly as available for researching for a model kit as all that stuff is nowadays.. Also, it's well to consider that in the early 1960's, the model car hobby was still just developing--AMT had the edge on "buildability" while Revell began going a good bit "farther out on the limb" with amazingly intricate and super-detailed model car kits which really did "move the needle" out there a good bit with intricately designed and molded model car kits that sadly so many pre-teen and young teenaged model car builders (back then, the vast bulk of the market for model car kits) all too often found very intimidating. AMT Corporation's formula did work back then: By 1964, they were as big (if not bigger than) pretty much all the other American plastic model kit manufacturers combined, manufacturing some 15-million model car kits alone in 1964 (Wall Street Journal, in early 1965 published an article on AMT Corporation, nothing that they produced almost as many model cars in 1964 than the entire World's production of real cars that year. Art

Let's put this in perspective just a bit: Revell's offices (even the warehouse of their corporate owner Hobbico!), along with Round2 and even Moebius' product development guy Dave Metzner are ALL in Tornado country, folks. And before their buyout by Monogram back nearl 30 years ago, Revell was in both tsunami territory (Venice CA) and earthquake land as well. Now, we all know what happened to each of these--NOTHING whatsoever, as of yet in the way of natural disasters. Art

Dave and I are planning on being at Detroit NNL, but not at Sylvania ththis year.

Tom, go to Walthers website. They are the primary source of basswood in scale strips for the HO model railroading hobby. Look up the O-scale "lumber" sizes there (1:48 scale) and simply double the size from O-scale which will give you 1/24 scale lumber sizes. In other words, an O-scale 4X8 is a 2X4 in 1/24 scale, and so on. Art

As for any paint particles that might get through the filter--I have yet to find any paint dust in the exhaust hose, on the inside of the dryer vent, or on the window screen beyond that, and that's after 7 years of using my Pace booth. Art

With a squirrel cage blower, the motor is COMPLETELY outside of the air stream in my booth--in fact, the motor is completely outside of the booth itself, up on top of it. In addition, it's completely sealed up. It's exactly the same unit that is in my gas water heater, down in the basement as well. Art

The Revell kit of Roth's Tweedie Pie has a stock '32 Ford front axle and spring in it! Art

A valid point. However, as discussed in this very forum, practically to death, a properly designed and built spray booth will use a "squirrel cage" blower to move the air--those have the motor (almost always a sealed, sparkless electric motor) OUTSIDE of the air stream. That is the type of system used in gas furnaces and gas water heaters, for what should be very obvious safety reasons. My Pace Peacekeeper spray booth has this very type of explosion-proof unit. Art

Those who've seen me unpack most models I take to shows have noticed that I use ordinary baseball card storage boxies, except where the model is too tall which may require another solution (such as larger fold-up "mailer boxes" which are fairly available (look for a shop that sells mailing supplies, with a specialty in shipping and packing boxes. For cushioning models, I use only tee-shirt cotton scrap, which is sold by the bag at stores such as Walmart, as DUST CLOTHS for house-cleaning. Paper toweling, when dry, can be very abrasive to a model car paint job, but the cotton tricot knit (that is what 100% cotton tee shirts are made from) works perfectly well for me, and has for years now. (and I have moved a lot of model cars from one apartment to another for years). A 550-card count collector's card storage box will hold most any 1/25th scale 1949-later model car--and baseball card boxes do come in longer sizes. Art

Every spool of copper "beading wire" I have (and I see at either Michael's of Hobby Lobby) is labeled with its AWG size. In addition, that's perhaps the least expensive model detailing material I ever buy. Art

My Pace Peacemaker uses ordinary furnace filters, and exhausts outside. Now, those filters can be had for VERY little money (I avoid the ultra fine filters meant for removing allergens from the air--as with exhausting to the outside through a dryer hose & vent in a plywood "plug" that I put in an open sash window, truthfully I get virtually NO paint fumes inside my workroom, and NEVER any overspray dust. The HVAC filters I buy (furnace filters, if you will) cost me a couple of bucks apiece, and get changed quite regularly, so air flow is never a problem. Art

Here's a chart of American Wire Gauge sizes, in decimals of an inch. Bear in mind that all wire is made by drawing the metal through a cutter (die) that is the size the wire will be--they start with fairly large copper bar stock, and draw that metal through succeedingly smaller dies until the desired diameter is reached. Rather then use dial or digital calipers to determine the diameter in inches or millimeters (or fractions of either one) simply go with the size indicated on the spool. (in addition, if you must put calipers on the wire, use the flat area of the calipers, rather than the sharper, keen edges--as those can crush into soft copper very easily, which will give incorrect readings pretty much every time. AWG chart: http://www.rapidtables.com/calc/wire/wire-gauge-chart.htm Art

Uh, IF you do that sanding wet, there will be NO dust--just sanding "mud"that you can rinse down the drain with water, my friend! (Been doing it for decades now!) Art

Two things: 1) A digital caliper works much better and much more easily than a micrometer--unless one is a precision machinist. 2) Bear in mind that all wood is both temperature and humidity sensitive, the more humid the conditions, the more the wood will swell up, and with temperature this is also true, but to a lesser extent. On another note: When building two dissimilar model subjects, such as a barn in wood to be presented with a plastic model car built from a kit--is a silly little millimeter's difference in exact scale measurements of that barn or any of its timbers or boards REALLY going to make a serious difference in the overall diorama--probably not--as again, that "silly little millimeter" isn't likely to show up as being way inaccurate, IMHO. Art

For most all 1/25 scale modeling purposes, I simply treat one millimeter as .040" (which is on inch in 1/25th scale EXACTLY), because in actual measurement, the difference is about the thickness of a gnat's hair--only about 1/1000 of an inch or so--too small to be noticeable for most of our purposes (really, how many of us are dealing with dimensions that are is minute as needed in really fine "instrument" machining? Answer is, IMHO, not even close: One swipe of 400'grit sandpaper on a piece of styrene MIGHT equal a thousandth of an inch--and when working in basswood or styrene, I rather doubt that any of use EVER get that precise--nor for most applications, would we even worry about. Art Anderson

Tom, and Mark, I too first attended a Toledo show in 1988, and went back there every year through 1999--so here's my read of it: When Carlisle an others began promoting "toy shows" aimed at collectors, there were any number of truly classic toys--many vendors peddling antique toys from the late 18th and early 19th Century, up through the 1940's and into the 1950's.By 1995 or so, I noticed that there were very few vendors at Toledo offering such stuff--for who knows what reason? The next Toledo show I attended was in 1993 with the members of the model car club in South Bend--and it was light-years different. Toledo had shrunk to less than half what it was just 10 yrs earlier, even though the NNL was as well-attended as any I had been to in years previous. This really DID coincide with the rapid growth of online auction sites, eBay being by far the largest. When eBay really took off, it took many of those antique toy dealers out of the "Show" business, simply because they could sit at home, photograph their wares, and put them up online, reasonably expecting hundreds of thousands (if not millions!) of browsing enthusiasts to let their mouse's do the walking--and the only mileage those vendors might run up was to drop off packages at USPS, UPS and/or FEDEX--and NO motel bills either! Swtch to 2015: I attended the "Toledo Collector Toy Fair" which is kind of a misnomer, as it's been in the neighboring city of Sylvania for several years now. Toy venders were there, but far too much of what I saw was mere garage-sale fodder--and a lot of real junk at that. The NNL was a mere shadow of what it was just 10 years earlier as well--saw a number of old firends and acquaintances in attendance. In November 2015, I was a guest of Dave Metzner and Moebius Models at the Detroit NNL--far better crowd, the very large building at Macomb Community College was full, the aisles were full of people looking around, looking to buy. Very little in the way of "junk" there. Dave and I went back up to the DAAM model car show & contest earlier this year, and it was even better than the Toy Show as far as vendors and traffic. And, for those who feel they must complain about having to pay an admission charge to visit the NNL Natonals--bear in mind that it's John Carlisle who rented the facility, John Carlisle who rented all the tables up front that were used, and John Carlisle who paid for such liability insurance for the event as necessary. At the original Maumee County Recreation Center location, I would be quite sure that each of the two major buildiings cost him separately, in addition to the smaller banquet hall that was used for the NNL. Regardless of any feelings I might have about Mr. Carlisle, I do believe he was entitled to charge the promoters of the NNL for the use of that banquet hall that Saturday afternoon and evening, and the organizers of the NNL had every right (and necessity) to charge admission to the NNL separately from the admission charge to the Toy Show. Art

Actually, for years, Goodrich was the sole producer of CA glue--as it was their invention (they held the patent on the stuff), and they simply shipped the stuff in bulk to whomever would package and brand it. It's hard to believe now, but CA glue was developed, rather by accident, in 1942! Here's the Wikipedia on the stuff! (rather interesting read, BTW) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanoacrylate Art

While not having built any of the Revell '48 Ford kits, it sounds as if you are trying to assemble it incorrectlyh--Revell has a pretty strong reputation of making their kits rather precisely--a 1/4 inch gap in that area would be quite unusual for them--in fact I don't know that I have ever heard of such a thing--and their '48 Ford kits have been around since what, 1998-99? Art Anderson

OK, then the answer is easy! That kit was first released in 1962, and back then, almost nobody making plastic model kits added part numbers to their sprues. So, why not add them later, afterwards? The simple answer is that most all model kit tooling is cut in steel, and once that steel mold tooling has been approved for production, it gets "case hardened", after which any new engraving is not only hard to cut in, but also can raise the spectre of the tool (molds) actually cracking in service--given that molten plastic is injected into them at several hundred PSI. But, even with the somewhat limited instruction sheets in that kit, the various parts should be pretty easy to identify--we kids did it back in 1962, at anywhere from 10 to my then age of 17. Art Anderson

Delton, that would have been an oddball then. I grew up knowing Midget Racing Photographer, car owner, and Historian Ed Hitze (writer of the first history of both Frank Kurtis and Kurtis Kraft)---who had not only a pair of rail frame midgets in his garage, but also a 1949-vintage Kurtis Offy midget. In addition, I met, broke bread with Frank Kurtis here in Lafayette a couple of times when he was visting Hitze--much of what I say here comes from those long visits, and not a few beers, BTW. Consider that Kurtis-Kraft produced approximately 1,500 Midgets from late 1945 until Frank Kurtis sold that part of his business to Johnny Pawl of Crown Point, Indiana in the early 1950's. Of those approximately 1500 Midgets, about 340 were complete cars, with the rest being chassis only, chassis with bodywork, evven kits for chassis )the frame tubing cut, bent to shape, even "fishmouthed" for tee-joint welding. Hiis early cars did use Model A Ford front spindles & hubs (I got a set of refurbished Model A Ford brake shoes from Robert Rice, the father of USAC Midget Champion Larry Rice (the Larry Rice of Saturday Night Thunder) who lived just 20 miles south of where I am sitting writing this. When Crosley cars hit the streets in 1947, a transition was made to Crosley front spindles,, even the pioneering Crosley front disc brakes. In the late 1940's, Ted Halibrand introduced his "Quick Change Rear End", which was engineered to bold up directly to 1928-48 Ford rear axle assemblies. In addtion, NO Model T Ford had any front brakes of any sort--the only drums were on the rear axle, and those were parking brakes only. As for those "rivets" in a Model T hub, the writer is 6 "rivets" short, as all Model T Ford wooden artillery wheels were 12-spoke, and they were NOT assembled to their hubs with rivets, but BOLTS. In addition, a Model T front axle had a C-shape at each end, with a kingpin going through the spindlle, AND both teh upper and lower "ears" at the ends of that axle--exactly the opposite of every other carmaker's solid front axle, and certainly 1 pin or bolt more than any Ford passenger car hub 1928-48 (Ford did make 5-lug spindles for Model T's in 1926-27, for those cars mounting the then-new Ford "Welded Steel Spoke Wheels". From what you describe, the midget in question as written up in "Open Wheel" had to have been very much a home-build, with a Kurtis frame and bodywork. Along the way, Kurtis sold, as I mentioned above, raw chassis and body panels, to any and all comers--which accounted for the majority of what today are called Kurtis Midgets. A real reason for this was the production of 12" rims by Crosley, a size that was much harder to find beforehand--until Halibrand began production of magnesium alloy wheels for racing, in 1949. With all those midgets having been produced, complete, or at least in chassis form, by Kurtis, it's little wonder that many car owners (and Midgets were, at their outset, a low-bucks operation, particularly if an owner opted for a Ford V8-60, or a Drake (built by Dale Drake of Meyer-Draike Offenhauser beginning in 1945) which were water-cooled conversions of the Harley Davidson Pan Head Vee-Twin of the 1930's), even Elto 2-cycle outboard motors dating from the 1920's. Midget racing was, for many outside of AAA (American Automobile Association) and even California Racing Association (CRA), coupled with the ready availability of a fairly low-cost state-of-the-then-art tubular frame and essentially a mass-produced body shell (Kurtis had made stamped aluminum panels for P-51 Mustangs during WW-II, and had a small stamping press--his midget noses and tail cones were made by welding two stamped halves in aluminum!), with hoods, side panels and belly pans hand-formed by the legendary racing body craftsman, Myron Stevens) to fit each individual car or chassis sold. At any rate, the vast bulk of Kurtis Midgets used Model A and later Ford V8 spindles and hubs though. Art

Except that there were no 6-lug wheels used on Model T's--the first all steel wheels were wire wheels almost exactly like were used on the very earliest Model A's--and were 5-lug. Prior to late 1925, Model T Fords came with only non-demountable wooden wheels (after about 1917 or so, demountable rims could be had, but still the wooden wheels were more or less permanently attached. However, most Midgets with drum brakes did use Model A Ford brake drums along with narrowed Model A rear axles, and up front, Model A Ford spindles--even Model A Houdialle hydraulic shock absorbers. Art