Art Anderson

Ford's exposed door hinges tended to be about 3" high from Model A forward, IIRC. As for their "width", if you mean standing out from the body surface, that all depended on the year of the car, curvature (tumblehome) of the body in question. Generally though, the upper hinge of say, a Roadster, stood out from the body surface about an inch, while the lower hinge had to stand out considerably farther from the sheet metal, in order to have a door that would be level when opened, assuming that the car was standing on level pavement, so that varies with the year and body styling. Another reason for the exposed hinges needing to "stand out" away from the body surface is, that car doors, just like the doors in your home, are "plug" doors, in that they must close INTO a cavity, as opposed to being merely a "flap". Art

He has it listed under Monogram, who owns the tooling Art

I'd love to see the plastic model car kit that is completely free of even little niggles. frankly. Simply put, I submit that would be darned near impossible. Art

And yet, I have a hard time thinking of any Checker as a sort of "Icon"--interesting cars, to be sure, but other than a taxicab in a major city, most of us in the era when they were produced, likely would not have wanted to be seen driving one as our personal car. Art

Add to this list: Jaguar D-type, 1/24 scale, Strombecker MGA Twin Cam 1/24 scale, Strombecker Rolls Royce Phantom II Henley Roadster, 1/24 scale Monogram Rolls Royce Silver Ghost Touring Car 1/32 scale, Revell MG TC, 1/32 scale, Revell Aston Martin DBR 1/24 scale, Merit, Smer Humber Drop Head Saloon 1/32 scale, Airfix (FM Montgomery's WW-II staff car, but a stock Humber) Heller produced the BMW Dixi in 1/24 scale, which was the Austin Seven, built under license, and I believe very much a copy of the UK-built car, save for left hand drive?) Jaguar E-type Coupe, 1/25 scale Aurora, later reissued by Monogram Jaguar E-type Roadster, 1/25 scale Aurora Jaguar E-type Roadster, Revell 1/25 scale (completely Revell, issued about 1965, also by Advent) Jaguar XK-120, 1/10 scale (?), Doepke metal kit Jaguar XK-120 Coupe (approximately 1/20 scale) Ideal Toy Corporation (yes, this was a plastic model kit!) MG TC 1/10 scale (?) Doepke metal kit Austin/Nash/AMC Metropolitan 1/25 scale Hubley The only differences between the US Metropolian and those sold in the UK, were the grille badge, script on the right front fender, hubcap emblems, and LHD vs RHD. Ford Prefect 1/25 scale Premier (crude, but noticeably a Prefect) Rolls Royce Silver Ghost "Balloon Car", 1/16 scale, Bandai Triumph Spitfire GT 1/25 Lindberg Art Art

Harry, you make this sound as though any new model kit is full of mistakes? Art

Have you tried Walthers (the model RR people)? www.walthers.com Art

Gerry heard some pretty sound stuff, and rather candid, frankly. Something else to consider as well: There's not a model kit manufacturer on the planet that is as large as say, Ford, GM, Chrysler, Toyota or Nissan--most any mass-production automaker is so exponentially larger than any of the companies producing plastic model kits of cars, that they do as much business in less than a day than some model companies do in a year or so. Another thought here: No matter what any model company produces in cars, be they full-detail w/all manner of PE parts and the like, just a plastic full detail kit, a curbside glue kit, or a snapper, they are going to please those on one side of the street, upset those on the opposite sidewalk, with some in the middle who will go either way. Thus, the question becomes: "Who do they make happy enough to buy lots of that new kit without completely "turning off" the enthusiasm of others? That is almost always the question in product planning and development, no matter what the product line or market is. It only makes sense, from a business point of view, to please the most people most of the time, so they will spend their dollars to buy what any company sells--no sales, no business, no business, no model company, plain and simple. Art

That's the $64 thousand dollar question that has to be answered with just about every proposed model car kit, and pretty much always has. Aside from the Checker Taxicab chain, some Yellow Cabs, perhaps smaller independent cab companies, along with a handful of TV/Movie prop Checkers, what else besides perhaps a privately owned passenger car (I remember a couple of eccentric University professors here who bought Checkers, based on their legendary "durability") what else can be built OOB from a Checker plastic model car kit? Art

Another pic: And, one more:

Finally the chassis is coming together, and all engine detailing is finished (plug wires, fuel and vacuum lines to the carburetor, corrected ribbing on the valve cover (the kit comes with a breather in the middle of the cover, but reference searches show this engine Opel Admirals both with, and without that breather (early Chevy 6's simply had a few small louvers in the front of the valve cover with a sheet metal baffle behind them). The spark plugs were done as if they had rubber boots covering them, not unusual back then, so that was telephone wire, with just a short section of the insulation remaining, wired according to the firing order. Brake lines are running from the frame rails (where they were pretty much hidden from view inside the channel section rails), with the rear brake crossover line yet to be added. The best thing? This model, for all the complexity of the chassis assembly (some 23 parts --each frame rail is three parts!--in frame and suspension), with it's Dubonnet Knee Action front suspension system, borrowed directly from Chevrolet and Pontiac, both of which offered this same suspension. Incidently, this is the only kit I've ever seen having Knee Action as originally offered by Chevy 1934-1939. Some pics:

But, they all seem to get nailed by the bean counters, who only consider costs! Makes me glad I never went for my MBA! Art

Harry called it an off-beat car, but it really is not! In the day of this car, Opel was wholly owned by GM (since 1929), and the Admiral followed US General Motors practice. The chassis is very much like a '36 Buick, the engine is the '37-'52 Chevrolet 216 inline 6. Here's the chassis, finally on wheels--after all my hassles with the kit, all four wheels touch the 1/4" plate glass which is my preferred building stage! More to come, as this project is moving along rapidly now! Art

There's a thread out there someplace on this very piece. It seems that it was/is made in nylon, which can be a bear to paint. In addition, the builder notes that the surfaces are quite porous, what appears to be a frosted finish is apparently a myriad of tiny holes. Other than that, it does look interesting indeed. Art

Steven, I've used ChromeTech many times in the past, and found that "timing" is everything: Robert takes in his run of plating somewhere in the neighborhood of once a month or so. If you can contact him, find out just when his next run will be, and how soon you need to get your parts to him, that cuts down the lead time considerably. Art

If you mean "chrome plating" of plastic model parts, there are only two that I am aware of in the US who do this. It's a very specialized process, called "vacuum plating" in which a micro-thin layer of pure aluminum is deposited, electrostatically (at least I think that would be the description) onto specially prepared plastic pieces (prepared by their being coated with a shiny lacquer surface), in a vacuum tank that is drawn down to a mechanically perfect vacuum. It's not something that any of us are likely to do at home, on our workbenches. Chrome Tech USA is Robert Shebilski in Wisconsin. Bob pulls together a run of parts that modelers send in, delivers them to a vacuum-plating shop which actually does the plating, then sends the plated parts back to his customers. The other vendor is Little Motor Kar Company, in Pennsylvania, who actually does the work in his own shop. Art

Apparently Humbrol has several types of gold enamel--the one I picked up gave a very rough, grainy finish. First Humbrol paint I'd used (both the green and the gold trim) in perhaps 30 years or so, which makes me wonder if I might have forgotten just how to use the gold. Art

I've never taken a pic of one of my distributors alone, but here's the engine from my '50 Olds 88. It's the kit distributor, with the raised sockets shaved down, then drilled using a pin vise and a #76 drill bit (.020"), all eight points plus the center hole for the coil wire. As this distributor is nearly hidden beneath that very large oil bath aircleaner that Olds used back then, I didn't worry about firing order--you really cannot see it clearly enough to trace the plug leads. In addition, I cross-drilled the wiring loom stampings on the valve covers (made the mistake of using some Humbrol metallic gold on those (NEVER again!), so that the plug wires appear to go through the looms as they do on the real engine. The wire used is .014" bead wire purchased at Hobby Lobby in their beadwork department. I won't say that it's the easiest thing I do on a model car kit, but it can be done, as long as one's hands are steady, and eyesight doesn't interfere (being severely near-sighted since childhood, I find that to be a great advantage, I can simply take my glasses off, move in close and see what I'm doing in a small space or part very clearly. Now I do realize that others may not have quite this level of close-in vision, certainly that's something that does go away with age (been wearing bifocals since my late 30').

Jason, I'm 70 yrs young, and neither of my parents were EVER into any sort of model building back when I started. My brother is 8 years older than me, and while he dabbled with building balsa & tissue flying model airplanes, a few solid wood aircraft kits, and a ton of wood hot rod kits in the late 1940's or so, he was no influence on my taking up this hobby when I did in 1952 at the age of 8. In a real way, I was in on the "leading edge" of this hobby as we know it today--and while many of my schoolmates at least tried to build a plastic model or two, today I am the only one out of my HS graduating class (1962) who ever kept up in this hobby. But, they did at least try, "test the waters" so to speak. When I look around at some of the contests I attend every year, it seems to me that at least at the contest level, the entry age seems to be about your age to perhaps early 20's or so. That said, there does seem to be new blood coming into our hobby, otherwise it would have gone well into decline several years ago, as age, infirmity and passing away have surely thinned out the ranks of modelers my age. Art

JoHan was well-known for using leftover styrene pellets of whatever colors for molding parts trees that were to be plated. After all, who really worried about what color the plastic was if the tree of parts was to be plated? Art

Two-fold problem I think, as not always are wheel "hobs" removable from the larger tooling which created the original model kit. In a model kit tool, often wheels, wheel covers and hubcaps are tooled as separate pieces, round, and simply lightly pressed into the larger dies, but not always can they be removed, transferred to other molds for say, a parts pack. That had to have been planned from the get-go, and we've all seen where a chrome tree has been done with that in mind--every once in a while you will see a curved "parting line" in the sprue that attaches to a wheel, which is a dead giveaway. But not always. And I suspect that most certainly all those "Annual Series" 3in1 kits from 40-65 years ago really weren't tooled with any future releases (including modified reissues) in mind. Art

Probably not, as most licensors, including the US "Big Three" have licensed model kit engines of their brands, yet installed in a hot rod or custom car of a competing make for years and years now. More that likely, it was either a decision made at a reissue time, likely that Monogram or Revell decided that for cost reasons, paying a royalty for the Cadillac script on that engine simply made no financial sense ("How many more kits will we sell because the valve covers say 'Cadillac' is a type of question I heard frequently when in product development for Johnny Lightning diecast cars, believe it or not!). Art

William, Are we REALLY too old to accurately place the center of a hole to be drilled in a distributor cap? Quick, somebody please tell this 70-yr old he's too old!

Lemme see: IMC's 1963 and 1965 Lotus powered by Ford Indy car kits, Merit Lotus 11, Cooper Formula III, BRM GP Car, Strombecker's Jaguar XKSS (1/24 scale shelf/motorized model, not a slot car!), Heller's 1930 Blower Bentley, Monogram's Duesenberg SJ Town Car, Monogram's Green Hornet show rod, Heller's 1:24 scale Cooper Formula II, Revell '69 Mustang Grande, Renwal Revival Series '66 Packard.... .....Just to name a few. Art

Tim, I would say you are right on target. Art Anderson