Art Anderson

Ford started producing C-cabs and truck bodies about 1920 or thereabouts,but for the TT 1-ton trucks only--with their introduction of the first mass-produced pickup trucks on the Model T assembly line in 1925, they did one that fit the standard passenger car frame (which cab may well have been the same as used on TT trucks. These continued in production, with a cowling change for 1926-27, of course. Your picture shows one with the shorter 1922-earlier cowling and low firewall, which is a bit different than the 1923-25 sheet metal. AMT Corporation, of course, tooled this added body choice for the '25 T kits almost 50 years ago, and probably used only line drawings to do it from, given the "flat panel" multi-piece construction of the kit cab. The one in your picture more than likely is an aftermarket street rod body shell, rather than a real Ford steel cab, which could also account for the differences. Art

Dave, You make my point even clearer! I've done a ton of model car conversions, even scratchbuilt more than a few--and yes, a single photograph (even more than one!) can lie without meaning too. I guess there's a difference between those who do, and those who build primarily models of horseless carriage subjects (not that there is anything wrong with that genre'!) having little or nothing in the way of serious bodywork. Art

Feedback is always welcome, but get your freakin' facts straight, Harry, is all I ask! Art

Wherever the chips from the axe fall, Harry! If you are gonna critique a model car, then learn how to do it right--got that? Art

As for "ghosting" of mold parting lines, or even where filler has been used to smooth out plastic body surfaces, this is where an airbrush and patience come in. A little lesson I learned over the years is what lacquer thinner really does to the surface of styrene sometimes: Lacquers (even shellac) all are a "penetrating" finish at least to some extent. That is, if nothing else, a second, or further coat of lacquer laid on top of the first one will actually soften and partially dissolve the first coat (technically, you could take lacquer thinner to a real car painted with lacquer, and wash all the lacquer off the body, and respray it!). Most of the commonly available industrial lacquer thinners will also "penetrate" styrene (on pure styrene plastic they will do that with a vengeance!) and polystyrenes, causing it to swell up (when lacquer "crazes" a model car body, that is because it penetrated the surface of the plastic, causing it to swell up, but only on the surface, and having no place to go, the surface of that plastic simply has to wrinkle up!) This is rather prominent with any auto body lacquer paints, but the likes of ModelMaster and Tamiya lacquers are made using so-called "non penetrating solvents", meaning that while those solvents will penetrate previous coats of the same finish, they almost never attack the styrene/polystyrene that model car kit bodies are molded in--hence "non penetrating". Now, a bit more technical: Even if the lacquer in question doesn't seriously craze the surface of the model body shell, it often will "release" some of the built-in stress of the plastic having been injected into the molds under tremendous pressure (upwards of 40-tons pressure) which are locked in as the plastic is chilled to harden the styrene parts so they can be demolded. This is what, in my observation over the decades I've been using lacquers on models of what causes sanded off mold parting lines to actually swell up when lacquers are sprayed on say, the body shell. Of course, as the lacquer thinners evaporate in drying, that swelling tends to shrink back, but still leaving a mark. So, what to do? This is where an airbrush is unequaled, in my experience! I always use a lacquer primer when painting a model car body shell. I thin the stuff to at least the consistency of 2% milk (by observation in the color jar--I have no viscosimeter here), and spray the primer in fairly light coats. The first pass or two on the body shell will generally result in a light "frosting" of the surface (meaning I can see VERY fine crazing, just enough to be visible, but not so coarse as to be a problem), more so on old AMT bodies having been molded in a much harder grade of styrene, far less on more modern model kit parts made with softer grades of plastics (some brands of Japanese model kits tend to have that much harder grade of plastic which can craze much more easily). By laying on thin coats of primer, I've noticed that the "frosting" or fine crazing tends to stop, which I term in my own mind as "shock-proofing" the surface of the styrene, which allows me to get a decent, if fine "build" of the primer. After the primer has dried, I can sand the body surface to a satin finish, and almost always shoot color coats over that with impunity--no more problems. Now, if I've done any filling, with either putty or CA glue (I tend to use both!), that alters the equation a bit. Lacquer-based putties (the "Spot & Glaze" stuff) will change that tendency of the plastic to "swell" ever so slightly, while any dissimilar fillers (CA, catalyzed putties in particular) DO NOT SWELL UP, as they are not penetrable by lacquer thinners, while the surrounding polystyrene will and then shrink back. What to do? This is where the airbrush really shows its advantage: Airbrushes are simply miniature (or sub-miniature) spray guns, nothing more--nothing less. They can be used to spot-prime a troublesome area on a model car body, just as in a body shop, a production spray gun gets used for the very same thing. I simply spot prime such areas, let the primer dry, and wet-sand out the primer, then re-spray. Eventually that swelling up of the plastic areas is overcome, and the primer surface blends across the boundaries of filled areas of the body shell. An airbrush, well used, has the capability of doing this kind of work while not creating heavy buildups of material in the process as well. For wet sanding primer in this process, I tend to think in miniature here: 400-grit wet or dry sandpaper is to a 1/25 scale model surface as a very coarse grinder is to the real car--so I use the coarser polishing cloths from Micro-Mesh--seldom coarser than 3600-grit. This allows me to work down the surface imperfections caused by lacquer thinner penetration around filled areas, and across mold parting lines without simply burying the surface detailing on the model car surfaces. In addition, by essentially polishing out the primer to a satin sheen gives a very smooth surface for airbrushing the color coats--often times I can get away without doing any color sanding of the color coats overall, just where there might be some surface roughness (slight orange peel, for example). Art

Both Dave Dodge of MCW and Jameston Kroon go with finer metallic powders than used in the 1:1 colors when mixing their colors (Dave started doing that perhaps 20 years ago or so. With "bronzing powder"--the old technical name for all metallic powders--going back well over a century--this stuff comes in a pretty wide variety of "fine-ness". Witness the metallic silvers used on say, Mercedes-Benz cars as compared to the metallics used say, by Detroit over the years. Ever notice how "smooth" M-B's silver colors have always tended to be? Dodge told me once when we were discussing this in my hobby shop (Dave started MCW while living in Valparaiso IN where he was a counter man at the local NAPA store there that he had to alter the mixing formula's when doing this, as merely changing the grade of metallic powder often changed the shade of whatever color of paint he was trying to mix, which does make a bit of sense, but he managed to get it pretty right. Art

Bill: POIFECT!!! For that matter, I learned a long time ago that it became very easy to scale things down once I fixed in my mind "40-thousandths of an inch in 1/25 scale equals an inch in 1:1, which makes the common fractions of an inch pretty simple--don't often use even a piece of paper and pencil to calculate dimensions in scale any more. (I have been known, however, to consult my Dollar Store hand held calculator on occasion, just to confirm the math though!) Art

I've watched this thread since I got to the La Quinta in Andover on my trip to Classic Plastic, but without my password, all I could do was read some of the comments. Harry would do very well to take some lessons in comparing a model to a photograph, as he's way, way wrong in his assessment of the dimensions and proportions of the Pontiac, period--I have a set of the test shots, which I showed at the contest, and I've scoped out the body--comparing it to pictures. I'm quite comfortable that it is the correct length, width, height and is in proportion. Laying lines on a pair of completely disimilar photographs will never tell the story, UNLESS the model car body shell is placed/held as close to the exact same angle as the real subject--anything less is an exercise in futility at least, and at worst results in useless information--period. FWIW, over the past 40-45 years, I've done probably close to 200 model car conversions, even a few scratchbuilt Indianapolis 500 cars, and this is something I had to learn to do, if I was going to do a conversion (not all that much different that developing a new plastic or diecast model car body shell to be even close to accurate. Art

NIce kit, if extremely fiddly! Art

OK, NOW I can reveal the "Mystery" feature of the '61 Ventura kit! Of all the models of Pontiacs having the 8-Lug wheels, NOBODY has ever done one correctly. It was something that got discussed at great lengths, and Moebius has done it: Correct 3-piece 8-lugs! Brake drum, SEPARATE rim with lug detailing, AND a separate plated hubcap! YESS! Art

Exactly. Big Lots/Odd Lots buying distressed merchandise does not mean they buy junk all the time--rather it's factory overruns, leftover stock from wholesalers, large retailers, discontinued or out-of-season/last year's new stuff. Art

Just another "Big Lots/Odd Lots" kind of store, dealing in "distressed merchandise". Art

You might do a Google image search for "1950 Ford Truck" and see what turns up. Art

Regulations yes, for sure--but motor vehicle safety regulations in 1950 were very much the province of the 48 individual states--Federal safety regulations really did not begin coming into play until the 1960's. Look at any contemporary pictures of trucks in interstate use from that era, and you will even see a whole set of state permit decals or stickers on the cab, meaning the truck had been permitted in each of the various states in which it operated. Art

Consider too, that an annual trade show is not the absolute necessity that it used to be, when buyers literally had to attend in order to be up to speed on what was coming out in the next year. Nor are, for the most part, hobby manufacturers under serious deadlines with the Big Box store chains to have such and such product in those stores by the next "reset". That makes shows such as iHobby much, much less important--even the public days when last I was at that show (2004) were quiet enough you could have rolled bowling balls down most of the aisles, and hit only a table leg. Art

Clearance lights were around back in 1950, mostly either dealer or owner-installed, and just about every auto parts store stocked them, sometimes in several different styles. As for requirements, 1950 was still almost two decades before the advent of the US Department of Transportation, motor vehicle regulations including lighting being left to the various (then 48) states. I don't know if the ICC had any requirements as to lighting, but the rules seem to have varied all over the place, state-to-state. Art

Of course, you could always build this up in 1/8th scale--but whoa Nellie! That could get EXPENSIVE, what with the price of a Monogram Big Deuce, and I'd hate to think what a Momongram Big Jag kit would set you back! Art

Are you talking about real wicker, which is a woven pattern made from reed, or are you talking about canework (like a caned chair seat)? Canework has been done on car bodies, mostly back in the so-called "Classic Era"--those high end, mostly custom-built luxury cars of the era 1925-48. Faux canework was done on cars back then, by means of laying a tan paint on from a tube, painstakingly one layer at a time. It won't be easy, but that can be done by decal, if you know someone with an ALPS printer. Heller's kit of the Hispano-Suiza H6 Town Car has canework on the body sides, with decals that sort of replicate this kind of pattern. Art

I do each leg of a vent window separately, and after I work the foil down, I cut the excess away at the corners diagonally--been doing that since the 70's, so it works for me. Art

When Pyro got out of the model kit business, Life-Like, the HO model RR scenery company, bought up their entire tooling--and then later was bought up by Lindberg, so Pyro kits have appeared in Pyro, Life-Like, and Lindberg boxes. Airfix and MPC had a tool sharing agreement for several years in the late-60's/Early 70's, so several Airfix kits, including aircraft, ships and cars appeared in MPC's line, and vice-versa. Art

Bill, In all my years working in, and owning my own hobby shop, I never saw any 1/12 scale '32 Fords of any body style. Art

Hubley did their series of Model A Fords in 1/20th scale, but never produced a '32. Art

Time was when a master for a model kit was literally that, a master from which the tooling was cut, by old-fashioned analog means (using the human hand and eye), so what you got was based directly on a tangible, 3 dimensional object. There are no masters of that sort used anymore--it's almost ALL digital, even the so called tooling mockups are just that, mockups to give a look at what the forthcoming kit should look like, before the first flake of metal is cut from that block of tooling steel. Art