Art Anderson

If you are seeing dimples in the casting, not at all likely those are from air bubbles, the most likely cause could be that the caster did not use a vacuum pump and chamber to draw all the air bubbles out of the rubber itself after mixing, but before pouring his molds. When this happens, the trapped air bubbles will expand if they are close to the surface of the master, as RTV rubber shinks ever so slightly as it cures, but those little air bubbles were mixed in at atmospheric pressure, so when the "hard support" of the nearby hard master is removed, the trapped air can and will expand, rasing a small "bump" on the inside surface of the mold--that translates into a dimple or small dent in the surface of the casting. Tthose "dimples" or small "depressions" in the surface (they look sorta like 1/25 scale hail damage, correct? If so, they can be filled with a touch of putty over the primer, and sanded smooth (but it's a PIA, I know that). The best resin casters, such as Modelhaus, or Detroit Resin Auto Group (there are others at their level as well) have invested some $$ in a proper vacuum pump and vacuum chambers which can pull mechanically perfect vacuums in mere minutes, which will draw literally all trapped air from the still liquid rubber--unfortunately many small, perhaps neophyte resin casters don't often go that far. Art

As Bill mentioned, pin holes in resin can happen due to improper mixing, which can stir air into the mixed, but uncured resin, but those generally are few and far between pinholes. If there are a LOT of pinholes,then more than likely the caster wasn't careful to keep his resin tightly covered in the bottles/jugs--THAT allows any moisture in the surrounding air to get into the resin itself (not the catalyst), which is fairly hygroscopic (meaning it readily attracts moisture)--that can actually make the mixed resin literally "foam" up if it's severe. The best resin-casters use a pressure pot or tank which can safely hold up to 75-100psi, as air compressed to that extent has the ability to crush any tiny bubbles down to insignicance (as those got stirred into the resin at the local atmospheric pressure, and once the casting is cured hard, those tiny bubbles will not return. The best way to fix pin holes that I found is to take a fresh #11 Xacto blade, and "twirl" it's sharp tip into the offending pin hole enough to just open it up--then fill the hole with a drop of gap-filling CA, followed by one of the various liquid accelerators. Once hard (which only takes a minute or so at the maximum) the CA "patches" can be sanded smooth--they will be about the same hardness of the surrounding polyurethane resin. Over a 12 year period, I produced hundreds of thousands of resin parts of all sizes--I think I learned a good bit doing it. Art

Considering the era when Go-Karts first became popular, they started out using either Briggs & Stratton or Clinton 4-cycle 1-cylinder engines (about 1956-57 or thereabouts)). By 1958 or so, 2-cycle engines became the standard if you wanted to be competitive, and that generally meant chain saw engines, either West Bend or McCulloch (they being the "Gold Standartd" back then. I believe the engine in the AMT "teaser" parts kit was a McCulloch. Art

FWIW, Jeff Ballard of Motor City Resin Casting is poised to start casting a reproduction of this go-kart kit! Art

Chances are, those tires are a harder compound of PVC, which was common with 50's promo's, even the '58-'59 AMT Annual Series 3in1 kits. However, that promo was probably molded in acetate plastic, given the shatter-proof qualities of acetate, as compared to the pure styrene that was the only styrene available in the early 50's. Art

Bill, the returnable (deposit bottles) beverage bottles went away perhaps 30 yrs ago, for several reasons: The cost of handling both at the retailers and the added fuel cost of the load going back to the bottling plant. Next, the demise of local bottling plants (your friendly local Coca-Cola bottler who had that really cool bottling line set up in the front window!) in favor of more regional distributors). And of course, health reasons--there was always the possibility of incomplete sanitation of reusable bottles, and that coupled with the rise of litigation for all manner of causes. This lead to the introduction of disposable glass bottles, which while recyclable, still added tare weight to the load of delivery trucks. Aluminum cans, of course are eminently recyclable (and in fact, several states require a deposit on all disposable beverage cans and bottles, helping to ensure that they will be turned in for recycling. The modern plastic beverage bottles are also quite recyclable, and being made of PET-G plastic, can be melted down, used for products way beyond just making new bottles out of them (for example, the so-called 'Micro-Fiber" cleaning tools (mops, dust and polishing cloths, dusting wands are very commonly made from micro-fibers spun from recycled PET-G). An added plus is the much lighter weight of a plastic beverage or water bottle, meaning that the delivery truck can carry more product for the same weight of cargo. Art

I have a Pace Peacemaker, which has a squirrel-cage blower and exhaust setup to extract overspray and paint fumes out of the house, through a window. To set this up, I simply bought a clothes dryer exhaust hose & vent kit (any hardware store or lumberyard will have this!), and a precut plywood shelf, that I cut down to fit the width of the window frame. Using a hole saw sized for the vent, I simply cut a hole in that plywood, installed the exterior dryer vent,installed that, then hooked up the dryer hose to my spray booth outlet and the dryer vent. When I need to paint something, it's as simple as opening the window,placing that plywood "plug" in the opening, then closing the sash down on top of it to secure the plug, turn on the exhaust blower and spray away. I NEVER get any paint fumes in my model room (I have an apartment in an older house which has a common HVAC system, and two apartments downstairs (occupied by elderly women with sensitive noses), and they've never noticed a hint of paint fumes. Art

For that matter, I too have great results decanting all Tamiya lacquer colors (TS-13 is simply their lacquer with no pigment added), and airbrushing it. However, due to the nearest hobby shop that stocks any Tamiya paint at all being an hour or more away, I simply use "Kleen Strip" lacquer thinner, which I can get at WalMart, Meijer, even a few paint stores here--it's never failed me yet! Art

When I need to set aside small parts (such as wheels, engine components, lenses and the like, NOTHING beats the inexpensive small (approx. 2" square) medication zip-lock plastic bags from Walgreen's or any good pharmacy. They even come with a printed white "box" on them for writing down what's in the bag, and what model they go to. These can then be put into multiple drawer cabinets or other storage systems. Art

FWIW, the most expensive part of the price of a bottle of paint (if a glass bottle) is the bottle itself, and the makeup of a glass bottle does not include petroleum. Art

Exactly. With inflation, not everything goes up in price of course, and those things that do don't all go up at the same rate. It's the same with deflation (drop in prices), as not everything can, or will go down in price, and certainly those that drop don't necessarily go down at the same rate as well. With a model kit, tooling is by far and away the biggest single check any manufacturer writes, and that money simply has to be replenished back into the "kitty" so as to be there to fund the tooling for the next kit, so right there is a cost that simply has to be recovered in order to move forward. Tooling costs and certainly manufacturing costs don't drop due to the decline in oil prices, in fact they are still rising. Art

Well, the cost of oil is but a portion of the cost of manufacturing styrene plastic, and the cost of styrene used in the molding of model kits folks. It's pretty much the same with the price of those little glass bottles that Testors uses to package paint in--oil is only a portion of the feedstock for that enamel--in fact the single biggest cost there is the glass bottle. Art

Yup, the rise of the dollar VS the fall of the curreny of other countries! Art

And, the original post in this thread talks about models of cars produced now almost half a century ago--no CAD files from the automaker there.

I decant and airbrush Tamiya lacquers all the time, including TS-13, never a problem, great paint!

Well,CAD files are CAD files, and they may or may not be accurate--after all,one of the very first lessons I learned in Computer Science 101 in college (Summer of 1969 if that means anything) is the acronym GIGO, which translates to "Garbage in, Garbage Out". Does that mean that all computer data as it relates to scaling down a real car to make a model of it is garbage? No, it does not. However, more often than not, such information simply has to be fed into the machine by a human or humans, who are actually translating what they (or other humans) have seen or observed. Simply put, the computer is but a tool (highly technical and perhaps complex, but nonetheless no more or less a tool than a hammer or a screwdriver). Bear in mind, that a model car (and the illustration starting this topic involves TWO real cars, the design and styling of which were done long BEFORE computers were anything more than electronic calculating machines! Unfortunately, model companies (and those within those model companies who do the actual work of product development) don't have the multi-millions of dollars worth of equipment, along with a very large staff of stylists, engineers and craftsmen at their disposal that the likes of Ford, GM, Fiat-Chrysler Automotive (or any other automaker), but have very small development teams, anywhere from 1 to perhaps a dozen in product development, with computer skills and computers of course, but it is NOT the same thing. So, the human equation steps in, and depending on the commitment of a particular model company to scale fidelity, up or down, does affect the final outcome. In all this, computer technology, at the model kit development level, simply has replaced the draftsman at his drawing board, the pattern-making tooling mockup sculptor with carving tools in hand, and the old-fashioned toolmaker at a 3-dimensional pantograph milling machine. The best that can be done with cars manufactured before digital technology such as is available today is simply old-fashioned detective work--the upcoming '65 Comet Cyclone stems in large part from perhaps 400 photographs taken of a real car, perhaps 30% with specially marked rulers and measuring tapes laid on or next to portions of the body to give exact dimensions of those parts--but unless one is referencing a rust bucket, it's just not possible to measure each and every body panel. As for access to 3D CAD files, even that can be problematic, depending on the depth of what a real automaker might provide (I still remember, when at Playing Mantis from 2002 to the end of 2004 (doing product development for Johnny Lightning diecast (1/64, 1/24, and 1/18 scale) we got a set of body loft drawings from Ford Motor Company for the 1964-66 Mustang which were TOTALLY useless--they were FULL SIZE drawings, the same actual size as the real car! Try working with something like that in a 12' square office sometime! And yet, when I was assigned to develop the Johnny Lightning 1/24 scale 1957 Ford Courier Sedan Delivery, Ford's then diecast model subsidiary and licensing office was able to send me a set of 4-view basic line drawings of that car, which along with the nearly 100 photographs we'd already found, were enough to make a very credible 1/24 scale model. As with any car designed before modern digital imaging, scanning, even CAD meant, and still means creating all of that data. And then, as hinted above, there is the level of commitment to making a correct scale model--some companies and some management teams (the former often outlive the latter!)--can make or break the final product. Now, as for the two differing Mustang model kits which started this conversation are concerned, they were done by two different teams, by competing model companies, with all the opportunities perhaps with wildly differing budgets. But on the flip side of it, there are numerous instances where a modeler has taken a body shell from Model Company A, played with it on the body shell from Model Company B, and found that it fit with little more than a swipe of a file here or there, or perhaps adding very thin strips of styrene to enlarge the hood the very small distance needed for a reasonably good fit. In short, Harry, the process as nowhere nearly as simplistic as you seem to suggest! Art

Dave, if ICM followed the pattern established with the Opel Admiral and Model T kits, you should find the G4 Staff Car kit to be VERY precisely laid out--it likely has a multi-piece body shell, again, SOP for this company. I would submit you should be able to build it with confidence that it will turn out quite nicely! Art

I suspect the initial price in the US will be somewhere in the $50-$60 range, but Squadron is already discounting the two earlier ICM Model T kits, so who knows? Art

You might Google the "Early Ford V8 Club" website--there is a ton of information there, and a forum where questions might be asked. In addition, the AACA (Antique Automobile Club of America) has an EXCELLENT set of forums as well--you do need to register there with a username and password, but it's free of charge. I've gotten a fair amount of great information from the AACA forums. Art

Harry, might I suggest you give it a try sometime, you might begin to think a little bit differently. Art "Factory Blueprints", truthfully, are of very limited usefulness in creating model kits--simply because they don't give nearly the information needed much of the time. It's more a matter of researching the actual car, ideally being able to spend some serious time with camera and measuring devices in hand. A reference photo shoot, for example, can involve a couple of hundred photo's, most of which are concentrated on portions of say, the car body, with measuring tapes and/or a folding carpenters' rule laid up against what is being photographed.

If you have never photographed and measured a real car for the purpose of shrinking that down by a factor of 25 in order to make a 1/25 scale model kit, you really can't begin to imagine how difficult, and often inexact a "science" that can become. While we all love to think that this is the age of computerized perfection, bear in mind that digital technology is but a tool, and ultimately someone's human eyes and mind have to decide what is correct and what is not. That was even more true back in the days before the likes of CAD, and certainly today's reliance on 3D scans made from CAD files. Art

By 1914, automobile tires were being made with gum rubber into which carbon black was mixed prior to manufacture. This made those tires a medium-to-dark charcoal grey, which can easily be replicated. There are artist's shading markers in several shades of muted greys, in art supply stores, Michael's, etc. that I have used on my ICM '13 T tires to make them appear as a light buff color (correct for early tires made from gum rubber but before carbon black). I simply mounted the tires on the painted wheels, then stroked the marker on them. As for the plastic color, every ICM kit I have seen and purchased has been molded in grey plastic. Art

I've always preferred to foil the molded in side marker lights, but I differ in that I find that Testors Stop Light Red Metallic,when laid on thickly enough to pretty much hide the reflective surface of the foil looks (at least to my eyes) far more like a red lens with no light on behind it, so that's what I use. Same with the front fender amber marker lights--they wind up looking more like an unlit lens than simply yellow chrome. Just my preference. Art

ICM just announced a 1914 Model T Ford fire truck. Art

Easiest, and the only accurate way to do it, as 'the 1941 Ford front clip is very different from the '46-'48 Fords.