Art Anderson

Haven't really made a decision yet, but I'm thinking of two possibilities: Metallic charcoal grey lower body, with a division at the belt line molding, then metallic silver above (one of the George Whittell Dusenbergs --body by the Walter Murphy Company -- has that color combo), the other is a medium green body (muted green though), with darker green fenders & splash aprons. Any suggestions?

Chevrolet 6-cylinder engines were a dark grey from their inception in 1929, though 1953, when the "Blue Flame" version was introduced for the then-new Corvette, and optional on Bel Air's, which were Chevrolet Engine Blue. Chevrolet Engine Grey is so very close to US Navy Engine Grey, which can be found in the Model Master Military Enamel series of model paints. Art

While studying this project, I had a very uncomfortable thought: As the resin body already had its firewall installed and I had cut it out, when I mounted a fresh firewall, I realized that the firewall on these kits attaches TO THE FRONT of the cowling not "inside of it", thus making the overall bodyshell a good 1/16" longer. What if this made fitting the hood in between the body and radiator shell? Fortunately, I have a new badly deteriorated Duesenberg Convertible Coupe model on which the body had come loose, along with many other parts--why not test fit the Berline body and non-supercharged hood on that, see what gives? Phew! body and hood fit perfectly for length,

I've not had a lot of time to work on this Duesenberg since I started the topic (work, plus some free-lance stuff) but here goes: As the car is to be non-supercharged, I had to plug the exhaust ports in the Monogram kit's right front fender. While I used chunks of thick Evergreen, glued in with Zap-A-Gap, filing and sanding those to shape gave me fits due to making for a very thin section where the fender meets the splash apron--hence the putty work there. In this process, the thin chrome bead around each spare tire well had to go, which is unlamented, as this Berline is to be a bit understated as to brightwork. The body presented some problems, mostly due to my inattention when I received the master from Lee--I really should have tested the master on a mule kit, made sure that the cowling and front quarters mated up and blended into the hood as they needed to--but no matter now! After some filling, filing and sanding, and corrections to body moldings, it all blends well together, even though you cannot see it in this picture. I did add raised moldings to the hood top panels and at the bottom of the side panels, to carry those lines from the body forward to the radiator shell. Fiddly, tedious work, but I think I am going to like the end result!

I can add to what Bill Engwer said: The common alloy used in casting diecast model cars is called ZAMAK, which has been around since at least the 1920's. Commonly called "Pot Metal", ZAMAK is an alloy of Zinc,Aluminum and Copper, which if done correctly, with no contaminants, can be quite hard and strong ( (such items as inside and outside door handles and window cranks for cars have been made from it since the 1930's), it really doesn't withstand much in the way of "bending" or re-forming, as it has a rather crystalline texture. You didn't state what it is you want to achieve, but were I a guessing person, some recontouring or reshaping of a diecast body or panels thereof--in which case the best bet is to use a catalyzed body putty (AKA Bondo) to do this. Catalyzed polyester body filler will bond very securely to ZAMAC, once you roughen the surface with say, a fairly coarse file, and will file, sand and "feather-edge" quite well. Once primed and painted you should not be able to tell where the raw ZAMAK ends and the body filler begins. ARt

1:1 Scale Modeling at its best!

Every "Cling" wrap I have ever seen or used has been PVC, and a soft PVC at that. Soft PVC's WILL damage even as well-dried paintjob, just as easily as the stuff can do when molded into model car tires! Art

AMT 1907 Thomas Flyer (the car that won hte 1908 New York to Paris Race. Art

What the writer of this attached piece omitted, if he even knew, is that Frank Kurtis' Midget was the most-produced open wheel race car of all time, Kurtis having produced more than 500 rolling chassis, plus nearly a thousand pre-cut and formed chassis kits to be assembled by those who bought them. Kurtis, having been an established hot rod and custom car shop in LA by 1940, found himself subcontracting for the likes of North American Aviation, where during WW-II, he stamped out or formed hundreds of wing-root fairing panels and wingtips for such planes as the P-51 Mustang. That left him with a small sheet metal stamping press that otherwise might have been worth the price of scrap iron. Kurtis had a pair of dies made in order to stamp out the two halves of the midget tail, as well as 2-part nose panels, which could be heli-arced into one-piece body units (he had a pretty strong spare parts business for those, given the 7-day-week midget racing seasons of the first 6 or 7 years post WW-II. MIdgets pioneered a few things race-car-wse as well: Kurtis' welded steel tube frames came about at a time when virtually all race cars were still being built with channel section rail frames (Kurtis himself enlarged his midget design to build sprint cars, and by 1949 had built the first successful tubular space-frame Indianapolis car (which won at Indianapolis in 1950), and his influence was felt all over--from oval tracks, to Formula race cars overseas, to the drag-racing world. In addition, the first use of caliper-type disc brakes on race cars was on a Kurtis Midget. Where virtually all open-wheel race cars in the US used leaf spring suspension (most derived from Fords), Kurtis introduced torsion bars. They pioneered the now-classic quick-change rear axle center section, and got Ted Halibrand into the business of making cast magnesium racing wheels. Joe Hunt magneto's? First used on Offenhauser midget engines. Hilborn Fuel Injection? Pioneered an Offy midget engine. Considering that Ollie's is a fairly small regional close-out store chain--I doubt they got all that many midgets--Ollies here in Lafayette had none of them. As for reissues--I'm willing to bet that in 4-5 yrs time, there could well be another production run of these kits. Art

OK, for starters, you say "1952 Buick Special/Olds 88". Both of those were GM B-bodies, so more than likely the same windshield trim was used on both. However, as Bill Engwer has stated, those parts are not likely to be reversible side-to-side, due to the difference in angle between the A-post and the upper edge of the sheet metal of the roof. That feature is pretty visible in the photo to which Harry P. linked you. Art

That ranks as one of the rarest, if not THE rarest of all American-made plastic model kits--was one production run only, for Chevrolet, in 1961, as part of Chevy's 50th Anniversary Year. As with any auction, the item being bid on may well be worth what you see, at least to the persons bidding it up there. That said, Missing Link Models has an exact copy of that in resin, for a mere fraction of what's been bid on the actual SMP plastic kit! Art

Second-generation Mopar Hemi's had no wiring loom on top of the valve covers--rather each plug lead goes down into a tube that leads to the plug, with a rubber boot to cover the opening on the top surface of the valve cover. Therefore, drilling a hole into the model kit valve cover is correct! Art

The "glass" in the last picture is the color it is, not "stained" or aged. A clear look at it shows that the "tint" goes all the way through the plastic. For whatever reasons, that did happen on occasion, back in the day. Vacforming a new set of glass is pretty much the only way to get clear "glass" for this model. Art

The finest polishing compound you can find (Novus or any other) followed by a good Carnuba wax---been doing that for more than 40 years now!. It is NOT rocket science folks! Art

That's a Superior Ambulance, which I do not believe was ever done on 1/25 scale. Art

Hmm, I have the Aurora Racing Scenes complete set, like 4 of the AMT '28 Ford Sedans, and that double kit. So what does that make me? A stingy hoarder?

Did some work on the engine this week: First up was to correct some deficiencies in my exhaust manifold casting (note: the original Model J exhaust manifold is quite different from the SJ supercharger manifold, and different from later-year manifold as well--having it's "exit" at the center rather than at the rear end of the casting) Done, but not visible in this picture of the unpainted engine is my "defining" of the cam covers. Even though a DOHC engine, a Model J straight 8 has THREE cam covers, due to the distributor being driven off the middle of the intake camshaft, and non of the cam covers are at all defined on the model engine. So, my trusty razor saw to the rescue, to scribe the joints between cam covers and cylinder head, which will show up once the engine is painted (Apple Green for all the cast iron parts, varying shades of silver for the aluminum parts.

My experiences and memories of those times EXACTLY!

No, not directly! I did cast, from a Lee Baker master, the Judkins 3-window Model J coupe, and for that one, Lee used a Monogram '30 Model A coupe "greenhouse" as the basis for that portion of the Judkins body--but it bears no clear resemblance to anything Ford ever did. Art

LONG out of production, unfortunately. I stopped resin casting in late 1999, when I reluctantly took on a full time job at the University here.

Pretty much the way many cross-torsion bar setups work on oval track dirt cars.

Working on the engine right now! Art

Uh, finally someone nailed it! That body was done, by the late Lee Baker, out of Chattanooga TN back in 1997--from FOUR AMT 1932 Ford Tudor Sedan bodies! Great call, Richard!

Hmmmm!

Not even close!