Art Anderson

Yup Erik, For wheel halves that had nice flat back sides, the smooth block for the second mold half worked like a charm--especially as at times, I was literally mass-casting wheels. However, for a wheel needing a 2-piece mold, but that is not flat on the back side, then it takes some clay work. Art

Sure! For starters, the kit radiator has a tab in each lower corner of the radiator (designed to be hidden when assembled, this tab gets trapped between the ends of the crossmember and the frame rails). The problem becomes that you have to paint everything before installing the radiator and crossmember, which I didn't much care for--so I cut those tabs out, trimmed the curved area smooth--that won't show at final assembly. Then given the 1mm (.040") thickness of those tabs, it was a simple matter to glue in a pair of "fillers" of .040" Evergreen strip stock, and file to shape, to match the existing shapes on the fender unit. If you look closely, those fillers are the little white bits, which took about 15 minutes or so to add: Art

A tall radiator, and speed. Art

Actually, the rationale for using acetate plastic for promotionals was simply due to the "shatter proof" nature of the stuff. Back in the day, styrene was still a hard, and rather brittle plastic--early styrene toys got a bad name pretty quickly due to that--some of those broke into shards sharp enough to cut fingers. Once ABS was developed, around 1960 or so, that changed the game for promo's once AMT shifted to it--ABS (Cyclolac as it was first called) had the shatterproof characteristics of acetate, but isn't affected by humidity, and doesn't have the problem of shrinkage over time. Art

Reworked the front crossmember, front of the frame rails (which are molded in as part of the fender assembly), and the lower corners of the radiator, to make it possible to mount the front crossmember without having to use the radiator until after the chassis and fenders get painted. Added are the running board brackets with their truss rod braces, hand brake cross shaft & arms, and brake actuating pull rods. Art

Even if the wheel is flat on the back side, making a separate, flat mold (easy enough to do, just make a mold box with some Evergreen sheet and 1/8X1/4 inch Evergreen strip stock--that makes a smooth, perfectly flat block of rubber!) which can be pressed down on top of the female mold used to make the wheel--that will guarrantee very thin flash in any openings in the wheel castings, as well as giving a wheel that is as precise as the one used for the master(s). Something from years of experience resin-casting (and several thousand resin wheels) Art

To cast wheels (or any other parts) which need to have clean, open holes or slots really takes a two piece mold. Art

A pretty nice photo-spread (vintage pics) of the Wisconsin Spl. http://silodrome.com/sig-haugdahl-wisconsin-special/ Art

Bill, I got to see the Wisconsin Spl., when a friend of mine from Griffith IN called me, told me he had a commission from a well-known antique race car restorer to scratchbuild a model of it in 1/15 scale (Gerald Wingrove's preferred scale, BTW). I arranged to spend an extended lunch hour from the office to scope out the car, but given the short notice, didn't have time to run by home, pick up my camera. It's an amazing car, still almost all original, and it is HUGE! Art

Lee, there were any number of WW-I surplus Hispano-Suiza V8 aircraft engines cut down--easy enough to do, as those had separate cylinder blocks bolted to a common crankcase--by the 1930's, some Hisso powered dirt track cars being campaigned into the early 1950's. Art

I finally found pictures of the late Sig Haugdahl's "Wisconsin Special", one of the earliest aircraft engine powered race cars--it ran an unofficial 180+ mph on the sand at Daytona, unofficial as he was not an AAA-Contest Board licensed race driver at the time (1922). The chassis is an unidentifiable large touring car chassis built sometime in the late teens, with sheet steel bodywork, clearly hand hammered to shape (there are numerous hammer dings from the inside out on that nose. The engine is a 6-cylinder all aluminum affair, a preproduction sample 836cid unit built to meet contract specs for the US Army Air Service in WW-I, but only three or four were completed before the war ended in November 1918, and the project was cancelled abruptly. When I saw the car in 2003 (it was then owned by the founder of a fairly large industrial gasses distributor in Mishawaka IN) it had just returned from that year's Goodwood Festival of Speed--yes, it still runs. Art

And yet, Rolls Royce had to be begged, coddled, and coerced into bringing the Merlin to production.

Not to mention that Phantom III came into being before the Merlin. Art

And then, there were the legendary "Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang" cars of the early 1920's, all of which were former pre-WWI Mercedes GP cars, with stretched frames, and Various WW-I aircraft engines up front! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitty_Bang_Bang Art

I should have known that about the inline Ranger! After all, when I was a HS Freshman, taking metal shop--there was a Ranger 6 on an engine stand right there in the shop at West Lafayette High School--brain fade, I think! Art

The Ranger inline 4-cylinder aircooled engine (which powered such trainers as the Fairchild PT-19 and the Ryan STA/PT-22) was a formidible sprint car engine in IMCA for a lot of years, converted from an inverted mouting (aircraft) to upright mounting in race cars. Automobile engines in aircraft, you say? Well, the Pietenpol Aircamper of circa 1930 was a homebuilt kit plane powered by the Model A Ford 4-cylinder, and there were at least a couple of later kit/homebuilt light planes designed around the 21-stud Ford flathead V8--one even used a mofified '34 Ford grille in front of it's radiator. Art

Well, don't for get the Tucker--which was powered by a water-cooled version of the Franklin flat-6 aircraft engine, which itself powered many light aircraft, and was the engine in those "bubble-topped" MASH helicopters used in the TV sitcom by the same name. Art

Nice build though! In a way, it would have been cool if that engine had an orange cylinder head--that's the way Jasper Engine painted their rebuilds of Ford flathead engines that were sold through Sears & Roebuck back when I was a kid. Art

I didn't see any pics of that up on Modelhaus' website.

No more, no less than the driver and riding mechanic of any other racecar of the day. Art

Modelhaus (http://www.modelhaus.com/) still offers 4 1/25 scale '59 Ford models in their current online catalog: Customized 2dr hardtop, stock Country Sedan, stock Country Squire, stock Galaxie. The wagons are done from the excellently scaled PMC promos, but with glass, interiors chassis and wheels & tires, while the Galaxie is done from the also excellent AMT 1959 Ford Galaxie, also a complete kit. Modelhaus is legendary in our hobby for their excellent quality resin kits. Art

Incidently, the rear of each of the three years of Skyliners, from the B-post on back is proportioned quite differently from say, the Sunliner convertible (conventional fabric over bows convertible top) and the Fairlane 500 (for '59 the Galaxie) hardtop--all for the reason you mentioned, in real life, that folding steel hardtop took a lot of room out back for stowage. Art

Bill has it exactly as I found out years ago. Ghosting, such as you experienced, is the result of the difference in materials (styrene next to catalyzed putty) as styrene will be affected by the penetration of lacquer thinner into it, which causes it to swell up slightly, then shrink back as the solvents evaporate, while catalyzed putty (or for that matter, even CA glue) is not affected in the same manner as styrene plastic. My solution to this has been pretty much what Bill Engwer has pointed out--airbrushing light coats of primer over the corrected, modified surface, let that dry thoroughly to the point that the plastic has shrunk back to it's original surface, then lightly sand the area, just to remove all hint of the ghosting, but not through the primer, then repeat the process, until a coat of primer no longer causes the ghosting. A bit time consuming, but it does work! Art

Bob, Time appears to have the ability to fog my memory! You are correct. Art

The Gunze kits are all RHD. Years ago, Roger Sill of American Satco commissioned a resin LHD dash in resin, dunno who made it though. Art