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Art Anderson

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Everything posted by Art Anderson

  1. Geez, I must have missed that warning--as I airbrush all my models with acrylic lacquers, from primer to finish--never a problem! Art
  2. FWIW, (and I am coming to this conversation with more than 6 decades of model car building experience (started building at age 8, in 1952), be it enamel, acrylic lacquer, or straight nitrocellulose lacquer, cheap lacquer thinner, such as can be found just about anywhere (outside of Kalifornia), works not only just fine, but IMO, the best possible thinner for airbrushing any of those still common automotive paints. Been doing it since the middle 1960's. with great results. Art
  3. Bear in mind, if you will, that the process of shrink-wrapping didn't really hit until about 1967-68 or thereabouts. So, any kits older than that, that are now shrink-wrapped have been done much more recently. For that reason, if I am looking at an older kit with the idea of buying it, I much prefer it to be completely unwrapped, unsealed. Art
  4. Not to mention, that with old decals, if one has ANY concern about them splitting, breaking up during the soaking and application process--an airbrushed coat of your favorite clear model lacquer does an excellent job of making those decals very workable indeed! Years ago, in my Indy Car modeling time, I latched onto a small stash of decal PAPER, that is, the paper backing, with the gelatin glue already applied, but NO DECAL FILM WHATSOEVER. I simply airbrushed clear acylic lacquer on that paper, then hand-painted such graphics as I needed, and when dry, cut out the graphics, and applied my own hand-painted decals as usual!
  5. That Indiana State Police Impala cruiser was one of approximately 50 that were built for service on the Northern Indiana Toll Road, Which extends from the Indiana side of our state line with Ohio, just outside the small Indiana town of Angola; to just east of the City of Gary Indiana, and is the majority of the Indiana leg of Interstate 80. That toll road operates separately from all other routes of State and Federal highways in Indiana--for decades operating under the control of the Toll Road Commission, and for the past roughly 20 years, by a private consotium who leased it for 99 yrs from the State of Indiana. There is one known example of that fleet still in existence, at the Indiana State Police Museum at Stout Field at Indianapolis. Art
  6. Mark, I'm pretty sure MPC (in those days, a subsidiary of Kenner Toys) did change over from vinyl for model kit tires--there were other soft plastic compounds readily available, more than likely black-pigmented polypropylene, which can be made reasonably soft and pliable. Art
  7. For the "Blueprinters" series of kits, there was never a need for a UPC bar code on the packaging, as the Blueprinters kits were never distributed to hobby shops, direct to subscribers of the Ertl Blueprinter.
  8. Actually, much more serious an issue! Many of us can recall the almost paranoia (not entirely unjustified BTW) over "carcinogens" (chemicals, materials or compounds found to cause cancer), and late 1975, polyvinyl chloride was determined by federally funded investigators to be carcinogenic--particularly when vaporized during the injection-molding of vinyl (PVC), being released into the air in the injection-molding process. That finding threw much of the US plastics industry into a frantic race to find ways of limited the release of PVC monomer vapors into the air that factory workers had to breathe. This affected, of course, model companies using soft PVC to mold into tires, but it was seen as a real threat to the automotive components industry, particularly those companies supplying wiring harnesses (which had molded PVC pin plugs for splicing harnesses together. For nearly 18 months or so, injection molding facilities producing PVC components were racing around, trying various methods of greatly reducing, if not eliminating this industrial hazard. Hence, the various ways that US model kit producers worked around it: 2-piece polyethylene tires, one piece polyethylene tires, you name it. Fortunately, manufacturers using PVC in injection molding came up with very efficient ways of removing the harmful vapors from the air in and around their molding operations, and ultimately, PVC feedstock suppliers discovered that there were other, safer plasticizers which could be used to replace a fair amount of the PVC monomer itself. It took a few years for the legal staffs at the likes of AMT, MPC, Revell and Monogram to apparently decide that the worst was over, and one-piece PVC tires began coming back into model car kits. I was directly involved in all that scare, being the Human Resources Director for a large Essex Group Wire Assembly Division plant here, which produced thousands of wiring harnesses for Ford, Mecury and Lincoln, as well as replacement harnesses for other makes of cars needing to be rewired. In addition, I was then doing box-art, trade show display, and presentation models for AMTCorporation, so I got to see that whole thing both inside the factory and out in the marketplace. Art
  9. Except that the Hudson(s) have been issued now, in several variations, stock '52 convertible, stock '53 Club Coupe, stock '54 Club Coupe, stock '54 2dr Sedan, Matty Winspur's drag-racing '54 sedan, a few Nascar versions--the Chrysler's have done very well, particularly the '56, in Nascar versions, as well as stock. In today's model kit market, the more possible variants that can be done from tooling that has been planned for those variations, the more likely the kit(s) will be very successful. Art
  10. Chuck's got this pretty much right, folks: Of all the dozens of 1970's cars that could be kitted, for the most part, the luxury cars, even the more mundane full-sized cars of the 1970's, would unfortunately, even amongst themselves, simply would not attract enough buyers in plastic kit form, to pay for the tooling, let alone turn any profit for the model company who might do them. The problem is, each one of them, one its own, would be a stand-alone subject, with little if any potential even "modified" releases (unlike say, muscle cars, sporty cars and the like). That was just as true back in the 70's as it is, IMHO, today. If it had been different, say back in the 1970's, we'd have seen just about all of them having been kitted back then (all those JoHan 70's Cadillac kits would not have come to be, had it not been for Cadillac Motor Division of GM wanting to buy 1/25 scale promotional models all the way out to 1979 or so). Art
  11. Uh, skip the clearance aisle, and go to the artist's supply section: You can find all manner of permanent (India) ink drawing pens, with points down to at least .010-.015", and yes, those work very, very well (plus, they come in colors other than black. Art
  12. Actually, it was never, ever termed a "hardtop"--in fact, "hardtop" as a generic term (for a 2dr or 4dr pillarless steel topped car) didn't even come about until the first postwar GM "hardtops in 1950-51). Cord called this body style the "Westchester Sedan". ARt
  13. Here is an original All American Models '37 Cord Sedan (this one is the flat-back, non-supercharged version). Bob Shelton, with my express permission, began recasting the two AAM Cord Sedans several years ago. Art Anderson
  14. Lincoln Futura, not a Ford Futura (which was a Falcon HT).
  15. If you are trying to replicate the paint colors of those very early Hot Wheels cars, bear in mind, that Mattel had the diecast bodies plated, then sprayed with transparent colors (a/k/a Candy Colors). In order to replicate that would be to have the bodies, hoods, and any other "sheet metal" panels which would be the body color, chromed, then use candy colors to get the effect of the actual Hot Wheels cars. Art
  16. Walid, there's a great difference between "running" an old tool, such as the '59 Ford Skyliner, and the necessary expectations of upwards of 100,000 units of a newly tooled model car kit (about what it takes for a new-tool model car kit to pay for itself, put some money back into the bank account for tooling the next all-new model kit). I rather doubt that any "reissue" production run of the old Revell '59 Skyliner has ever been more than perhaps 10,000 kits (if that) in any production run in recent memory. Art
  17. Check me if I'm wrong, but I seen to recall the AMT White Freightliner, Road Boss, and Autocar kits having wheels very similar to the 30's 6-spoke style, but with "webs" between the spokes? Art
  18. Considering that probably the majority of 1950's semi-trailers were smoothsided, fluted aluminum siding just coming into the marketplace by the very late 60's, a 40's or 50's round-nose Fruehauf trailer should be rather doable, IMO. Art
  19. Bear in mind, that in today's model car kit market, a lot of thought has to be given as to just how many units of a kit (which invariably means different versions of the same basic tooling) can be projected to sell. It can take, easily 150,000 units of any kit subject sold, in a fairly short period of time 2-3 years, for today's model car kits to be truly profitable, put enough $$ back into the bank account for enabling the development of new kits. In truth, relatively few car subjects can do that as strictly a "one hit wonder". Generally this means that the subject has to be readily adaptable to different body styles, perhaps even 1 or 2 different model years (with hopefully lower cost of tooling than the original!). While not every potential "modified reissue" of a newly tooled kit may be obvious to the average model builder, if it can be planned at the outset, or easily so done after the fact, as long as the tooling is laid out so as to "leave the door" open for future developments, that's a big plus. But, for this reason, very few "one hit wonder" subjects make any real business sense to do, given the substantial investment required for any all-new model car kit tooling. Art
  20. Uh, that's because both kits were originally laid out and tooled in the 1960's, aimed at the-then principal market for model car kits--the 10 to about 15 or 16 yr old crowd, who at the time made up, by far the vast majority of model car builders. Art
  21. Tape-sealing (or gummed printed "Sticker-like" strips to keep the boxes closed, stem almost from the very beginnings of plastic model kits--all the way back to the early 50's. Somewhere, about 1961-62, Aurora and Monogram began maching wrapping kits with Cellophane (and later a clear plastic wrap that was still machine-wrapped, with shrink-wrapping coming into use by, I want to recall, about 1966-67 or so. This "umiversal" use of shrinkwrap was probably due to the rise of the "discount department stores", such as Korvette's, K-Mart and the like--who wanted merchandise that kept its clean look, and resisted what is known in retailing as "shop-wear", with the added benefit of discouraging the pilfering of desireable parts from model kits on virtually unattended store shelves. the now-amost-standard practice among model kit mfr's of sealing parts trees into polybags before boxing the kits didn't really begin until the very early 1980's, IIRC. The now almost universal practice of acknowledging the ownership of car names, the real car manufacturer, and the use of those designs (styling or appearances) came about, for real, in the middle 1980's after GM won a "Landmark" US Supreme Court decision, regarding unauthorized, counterfeit replacement parts being flooded into this country from places like Taiwan--SCOTUS ruled that in order to prevent such counterfeits from appearing for sale in the US, GM (and by association, virtually EVERY OTHER manufacturer of cars, machinery, consumer goods) had to take serious steps to "protect"their trade styles (designs), technical specs (patents), and images (copyrights), with the vendor of such items (other than the OEM) required to denote on their packaging that they had acquired the rights from OEM's to manufacture likenesses..
  22. True, to a point. Back before plastic model kits began hitting store shelves, it was balsa, spruce or basswood, even Strathmore Board card stock, often with rather crude wheel/tire units made from Bakelite plastic (later Acetate and much later on, styrene). However, relatively few kids built such model car kits, and it was pretty much the same with balsa wood, and those solid spruce Strombecker aircraft kits, most builders then were adults, and even they were fairly few and far between. It was, more than likely, Hudson Miniatures who began popularizing model car kits--their first ones were kitted in Strathmore Board card stock, with roughly preshaped wood parts for frame rails and such, with injection-molded plastic detail parts--such as wheels/tires, steering wheels, radiators and lights (nearly all of Hudson Miniatures kits were of pre-WW I brass era cars, and thus aimed at adult builders, most of us kids coming up in the early 1950's shied away from them. Then it was Revell's Highway Pioneers, which had fairly broad popularity in the early 1950's, but tended to be overshadows (for the principal reason we shied away from Hudson Miniatures--they were model kits antique cars. Additionally, when plastic scale models of both aircraft (mostly military) from the likes of Aurora, Lindberg, Revell, even Strombecker, the "Highway Pioneers" subject matter started to fade to the background. In 1955-56, Revell brought out a small series of 1/32 scale modern Detroit iron, but with multipiece body shells, and early on, no plated parts, and never any molded windshields and back glass. In 1955-56, Monogram brought out their larger scale 1955-56 Cadillac Eldorado convertibles in what, 1/16 scale or thereabouts--fantastically detailed for the day, but their price tag (seems to me that was $2.98 or so) was a rather princely sum for a lot of us, and those kits didn't sell very well at all. But the real growth spurt of both the model car kit industry and the hobby of building model cars came with the introduction of 3in1 customizing kits, in 1/25 scale from AMT Corporation (along with their almost "sister" company, SMP), followed by JoHan in 1959 (both companies had limped along, doing promotional models for the auto industry, and toy-store versions of the same subjects, but as ready-assembled and somewhat painted, and the rest, as they say, is history. But along the way, building model cars, as a "kid" thing, elicited just about the same "attention span" for most kids back then, as kids today exhibit. We didn't have smartphones, of course, but we did have television, and that took up far more of our free time than our parents would have liked. In addition, our desire for the "instant gratification" of being able to complete a model kit in a relatively short span of time was little different than that of kids today. Art
  23. The vast majority of Tamiya (indeed all model kits!) arrive at your LHS via a 3rd party, a wholesaler, and thus Tamiya cannot control the final selling price at the cash register, end of statement.
  24. Ahhh, but Tamiya, like most every other model kit mfr, almost NEVER interfaces with any retailer, be that a storefront, or a mail order/internet order outfit. This smacks of so-called "Fair Trade Laws'" which were a series of price-fixing protections. passed, and ultimately declared unconstitutional, in the 1930's. In short, Tamiya doesn;'t have a leg to stand on, in this issue. Art
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