Art Anderson

Only one problem: The Johnny Lightning Courier is 1/24, and truly so--that bumper will not fit the 1/25 scale Del Rio very well. In addition, bear in mind that bumper guards were optional back then--not every '57 Ford had them. Art

All plastic model "chrome" is applied over a high gloss coating--that's what makes it adhere to the plastic (hopefully), and gives it that high level of "shiny". In most cases, this clear coat can be removed, but only by using a caustic solution--sodium hydroxide, which is also called "lye". If you want to get rid of that, a soaking in anything containing lye (up to and including Lewis Red Devil Lye--which is still avaiable in ANY well-stocked supermarket or big-box store. Lye, also called "caustic soda" was for decades, the most effective paint remover, and it will dissolve the micro-thin aluminum coating we know as model car kit "chrome" in mere minutes. It does take some "manning up" to use the stuff--what with all the politically correct rhetoric out there, but with proper protective gloves and eye protection, it WORKS! I've been using the stuff for more than 50 years--just maybe I might know something about it? Art

In all honesty, there are almost no paints that can be brushed on without any brush strokes (marks) showing. Virtually all hobby/craft paints, be they enamels or acrylics, simply dry too fast to allow them to "flow out" (not since Pactra discontinued their "Namel line of 4-hour enamel hobby paints--those took a couple of hours to become tacky, fully overnight to dry to the touch!-- has any domestic American company offered modelers this type of paint). Humbrol enamels, which come from the UK are still this slow drying enamel though--not a lot of shops carry this line, but they are available online--not expensive either!. Another line of paints is "One Shot", which is a line of very high quality enamels for professional sign painters (itself once an almost lost art, but has made a comeback in the last 20-30 years or so). One Shot paints are enamels, in the classic sense--high quality, high pigment content, but very slow drying--24 hours or more. But, with practice (IF the OS color you see is one you can use) they can make a fantastic paint job, be that brush or airbrush. The same is also true of paintbrushes--even the finest, softest brushes will leave at least some brush marks--the higher the quality of the brush, the less visible brush marks will be--but under close inspection, they WILL be there--it's inevitable. The best paintbrushes will be those made from natural bristles, such as Camel Hair (not sure those are really made from the hair of a camel, but that's what the call them), squirrel hair, and the best of the breed being Sable. I've taken to, over my fairly long years of building model cars (started in 1952 when I was just 8yrs old!) to spray painting body shells, then in January 1963, got my first airbrush setup--ever since, I've airbrushed first model car bodies and hoods, graduating to masking and painting interiors, airbrushing engines, chassis and all the greasy parts--to the point that the only brush work I do anymore is fine detail, "picking out those little thingies" too small to airbrush. Still though, I scope out the artists' paintbrush displays every time I am in Michael's or Hobby Lobby--and more often than I would like to admit, a new detailing brush follows me home! Art

It may already have been said, but JoHan was definitely the minor player in the age of dealer promotional model cars, and the 3in1 kits that spun off of them. While it's fairly easy, I think, to understand the low popularity of virtually anything AMC back in the 1960's among the kids whom many of us were--they just weren't cool. The same can also be said of those Cadillacs, even Oldsmobiles (yeah, even Cutlass 442's were truly "Your father's--or even your Grandfather's cars--seemingly so back 45-50 years ago. While many younger heads may be under scratching therapy, Dodges & Plymouths as model car kits were perhaps a bit more popular than their Chrysler or Imperial stable-mates--those kits really didn't set the cash registered in hobby shops on fire exactly. For this reason, JoHan kits never saw the massive production numbers of almost every model car kit that AMT produced back then (the same could also have been said about much of MPC's product line as well back then!). The relatively small production figures from JoHan meant fewer "Survivor Kits" today, while there is at least a serious demand for most of the old JoHan stuff today--even though not likely enough to warrant anyone tooling up new kits of most all of them. That's my take, based on more than 50 years, in and around the hobby industry, at many levels, including behind the counters in a pair of hobby shops. Art

Aircraft-grade paint stripper. it's made for stripping paint from non-ferrous metals, and won't damage Zamak, which is the metal alloy used in casting pretty much every diecast model car. Art

Personally, I have used 6000-grit polishing cloth from Micromesh for as long as those polishing kits have been in circulation. As I tend to use lacquer primers, this gives me a satin-finish surface, which is, in scale, about as close as I would come to a wet-sanded primer surface on a real car body. Seldom have I ever had paint, either lacquer or even Testor's/Model Master enamels, thinned for airbrushing with lacquer thinner fail to adhere to such a surface-and in the bargain, I get a far smoother, thinner finish straight from the airbrush, requiring a lot less polishing to get a shine. Art

CA glue really doesn't set up by evaporation, rather it crystallizes upon being stimulated by such things as heat, pressure, even the addition of moisture or reacting with simple chemicals (baking soda, for example). In actual use, that crystallization process happens rather quickly. However, as it ages, CA glue can get thicker in consistency, which means it's already started to set up. I've had medium viscosity CA glue lock up solid in the bottle within a few months, while the current bottle of Goldberg SuperJet medium viscosity glue that I am still using has been on my workbench for more than a year now--gotta be some kind of record that! Acetone may well extend the life of thickening up CA glue, but the only way to find out is to try it, see what it does. After all, it is the active ingredient in most CA Glue debonders. Art

Rick, I think we all know at least one critic who passes himself off as an expert, and sadly there are those "experts" who simply cannot achieve, but they want to be seen as highly knowledgeable--"An expert? An "Ex" is a has-been, a "spurt" is a drip under pressure" is an old cliche' I've heard more times than the almost 71 years I've been metabolizing food, water and air. Art

To me, it all depends! If I want to avoid "softening" or hiding all the raised detailing on a factory stock build bodyshell, airbrush it will be. On a custom that has had virtually all factory trim shaved off, then why not the "dipped in syrup" shine that can be gotten from the much heavier, wetter spray pattern directly from the aerosol can? Art

Real.

Hmmm, even in the real car world, there isn't any such thing as a standard wheel mounting setup--if nothing else, think of 3-lug (yup, there have been cars made with just three lug bolts per wheel), 4-6-even 8-lug attachment. In the world of knock off spinner hubcaps and their hexagonal shaped predecessors, many, many variations as to how the wheel mounts, from varying numbers of splines in a hub and its corresponding wheel, to numerous layouts of pin drive.. If one thinks about it, adapting different wheels with their different mounting systems, as found in kits made by diffferent, competing model kit makers, just isn't that hard to do. As for "paddle blades" for locating model kit tires on wheels, I rather like that, although I was quite unsure after being taken aback by the first time I saw that setup in a model kit. I see that system in this way: The old, traditional way of creating a wheel rim with at least a lip on the outside, and carried further in more recent years by the introduction of two-piece wheel rims in model kits clearly leads to wheels having the bead of their rims appearing as thick as 1/2" in scale (.5mm or .020"--take your pic, due to the limitations of injection molding, and a need to have a wheel rim bead that will withstand handling and assembly without simply evaporating (the bead on a steel wheel rim is seldom more than 1/8" thick in the real world, which scales down to just 5-thousandths of an inch in 1/25 scale. "Paddle Wheel" locators, even a raised rib around the circumference of a model kit wheel (something that diecast manufacturers figured out years ago BTW) makes for very positive location of a tire on a wheel, and if the wheel was tooled correctly, can leave a much more scale appearing bead to show--AND eliminates the possibility of a two piece, split wheel, coming apart down the road in the assembly process. Art

I found no exact Chrysler chassis images in a Google image Search, but this page does show some basic details of the '56 Plymouth chassis, which followed pretty much the same practices as used on the larger Chrysler. The brake lines appear to be mostly hidden within the boxed frame side-rails, down the left side of the frame to the rear, with a flexible line exiting the frame rail on the inner side of the left frame rail at the highest part of the frame "kick up" over the rear axle. This flexible hose goes to a fitting on a steel line, atop the left side axle housing, with those steel lines exending along the axle housing to the left and right brake drums. https://www.google.com/search?q=%221956+Plymouth+chassis%22&lr=&newwindow=1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=7kORVYDxLsTSsAX24IHQCw&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=599#imgrc=_ Up front, the flexible brake lines appear to exit the frame rails immediately across from the front brake backing plates (there is a decent image on this page of the '56 Plymouth setup, again which probably is very close to what was used on Chryslers, DeSoto's, even the Chrysler Imperials of 1966-56). I found no images of the emergency brake cable, but there was only one, as Chrysler Corporation's tradition, for better than 30 years, was to use a single emergency brake drum, mounted at the rear end of the transmission housing (it's there, on the Hemi engine in the '55-56 Chrysler kits BTW), connected by an armored steel cable to the emergency brake handle which is at the bottom of the left end of the dashboard, and more than likely exited through the firwall on the left side, with a gentle, sweeping curve back to that brake drum. I would also suspect that the fuel line, from tank to fuel pump (that's on the lower right front of the engine block) follows the inner side of the right hand frame rail, from tank to the front of the floorboard, where it would have to have had a flexible line attached to all for the slight rotational movement of the engine under acelleration and deceleration (remember, Chrysler Corporation introduced the concept of flexible engine mounting--they called that, back in the early 30's "Floating Power"). As for connecting the line to the fuel pump, I would think that was pretty much the same for most all diaphragm type fuel pumps back in the day. Art

Model car builders have been using paints made for RC car clear lexan bodies on plastic models for as long as those paints have been around, and quite successfully too. Of course, being made for spraying on the inside of clear plastic (Lexan) body shells, these paints are flat finish, which will require a clear coat afterward, but yes, the stuff does work on styrene plastic--there have been some stunning custom car paintjobs done with it. Art

I have an Oster Food Dehydrator (bought at Walmart 4 years ago for approx. $30), and use it for curing out all my paintwork, be it Testors enamels, Modelmaster or Tamiya spray lacquers, even automotive acrylic lacquers and acrylic enamels. It's worked for me every time I've used it! Art

Not even close, Gerry! Where the '56 Fords were based, believe it or not, on the 1952 Ford chassis and even the body (heavily facelifted for 1955), the '57 was, save for powerplants, an all new car from the tires upward. Longer, lower, wider, and with the then radical Ford "Fishbelly" frame. Art

This one, while out of my scale parameters, is getting to be quite interesting indeed! Art

Prior to the 1930's and the introduction of all-steel body construction, "styling" as we know it today was very much limited. While many cars before about 1930 had a "sameness", most makes at least tried for distinctive radiator shapes, perhaps the most notable being the likes of Rolls Royce, Bugatti, Mercedes, and of course, Packard's distinctive "Ox-Yoke" shape. Art

If I've not said it before, let me take this opportunity to thank, EMPHATICALLY, Eric MacLeod, for his INVALUABLE help in my authenticating this model kit. I consider myself so very fortunate in having Eric as a resource person, as well as someone understanding where I had to go with some of the minor kit inaccuracies (Model T Fords really don't exist in Ukraine). So, this is my SHOUT OUT to Eric--thanks so very much for all your encouragement, your willingness to put up with my often stupid-seeming questions, my frequent pestering. Folks, what Eric has done to help me out, information and reference-wise, is proof positive of the existence of a "Fraternity" of car modelers, indeed the FAMILY we really should consider ourselves to be. And, thanks to all of you here on MCM Forums--more than 8100 views of this model in progress, and the more than 100 replies, most all of them very constructive. You kept me going on one of the longest (almost 6 months start-to-finish) model car projects I have ever done. I really appreciate that, folks, more than you can imagine! Thanks once more! Thanks, Eric, for all you have done! Art

They are produced by the manufacturer of the 1913 T Runabout kit I built for this thread, ICM--from Kiev, Ukraine. Squadron has the figure set, along with several other online sources, even a lot of LHS's. I have the figure set now, and the figures are exquisitely done! Art

Hmmm! I'm gonna have some fun with this one! Monogram PC-1, Offy Midget, Monogram Kurtis Kraft Indy Roadster, AMT 1963 Agajanian Willard Battery Special Indy Roadster, MPC 1968 Rislone Spl, AMT 1973, 1974 & 1975 McLaren Indy Cars, AMT 1973 & 1974 Olsonite/Jorgensen Eagle Indy Cars, Revell Kurtis-Kraft Offenhauser Midgets. Those ALL have engines with hemispherical combustion chambers, in essence, Hemi's! Just to stir the pot while I chuckle! Art

Very nicely done! FWIW, the difference between the Monogram kit and a "convertible" (Ford still termed this body stye "Cabriolet) and a "roadster" is that roadsters did not have rollup side windows, but rather they still used snap-on side curtains for inclement weather. In keeping with tradition, Ford's roadsters, 1933-36 used a bolt-on windshield frame that was chrome plated, while their last couple of years of roadsters had windshields built integral with the cowling in much the same manner as a cabriolet (convertible) and 4dr convertible sedans. Art

There certainly are seams in the top fabric, right where the kit parts come together. The piecing together of fabric pieces in a roadster or convertible top haven't changed all that much (if at all) from buggy days out to today, the 21st Century. Art

Any artist knows where the flaws in the artwork really are. Anyone viewing it may well not see the same things. Art

I believe that most everyone in the injection molded plastic industry still does this--especially with the very large, thick "sprues" resulting from the initial input "ports" in the tooling. I suspect however, that such reground and recycled plastic is mixed in with fresh material though--probably has been all through the history of injection molded plastics of all kinds. Art

R&R is no longer in business. Ray Parsons died months ago.