Art Anderson

It does have a certain stateliness to it. Rather than "dowdy", I'd call it conservative, as this make of car found few buyers in more flamboyant areas of the country. As such, it definitely has the looks of a car built for the Upper Midweat, or for a client residing somewhere between say, Washington DC and Boston. Art

Well, it's very visible on a fully-dressed '61 Pontiac Bonneville, Catalina or Ventura! Art

Well, you'll have to wait for pics of the test shots, as soon as they arrive. Art

Scale Finishes does have Honduran Maroon/Coronado Red--I have a bottle of it waiting on my shelf! Art

I did a lot of box art, catalog, trade show display and presentation models (from kits) for AMT Corporation, and some for their successor Lesney-AMT between 1975 and the end of 1981. They commissioned the builds, specified colors, etc. and paid me for the work (AMT provided the necessary kits though) when I delivered them to the company. The box art models got traveled around, many probably were lost eventually; however some did show up at a GSL perhaps 25 yrs ago, and were auctioned off there, from what I have been told. Pretty much, when a modeler did work such as that, the model became the property of the customer. Art

Not matchbooks, but a cousin of mine has an extensive collection of tire company ashtrays, the glass ones having a miniature replica car or truck tire around them. Those are fascinating as well! Art

1962-65 Chevy II 2dr coupe! Art

There's a little feature of this kit that I think is gonna blow a lot of minds (not to mention inspire creative thinking!) Art

In addition, a quick wipe with some Vaseline Petroleum Jelly should keep the CA from sticking to the bondo spreader as well. No buildup of the stuff necessary, just a shiny surface of Vaseline. Art

Those plastic glue sticks that are used in glue guns (like women use for crafts) may well be another answer, as they are round, for starters, and I believe something on the order of either polyethylene or polypropylene plastic, neither of which is affected by any of the glues we use (they work by being melted, attaching to porous surfaces such as wood, paper and card stock. A package of those is actually quite cheap, at Walmart, Michael's etc. Worth a try I think! Art

1/24 scale is only 4% larger than 1/25 scale. Any trailer for a car will necessarily be wide, of course, especially if the wheels are completely outboard of the trailer frame/ramps. Art

For starters, CA glues will stick to ABS plastic. Perhaps the best plastic would be anything polyethylene (the stuff that cheap plastic toys are often made from) as no glue I have ever seen will adhere to that plastic in my experience, and that includes CA glues. Art

Tim, I hear what you are saying, yet I do happen to believe that virtually every model kit manufacturer now uses 3D scans in the kit development process (I've seen and studied several myself over the past couple of years). However, where it can break down is in the translation of those 3D scans toa 3-dimensional tooling mockup--and I've helped review and critique several of those in the past 3 years or so. Art

Geez, now I HAVE to get the Opel done, so I can start my test shots! Art

I first heard about this several years ago, from Tom West (the last product manager at MPC, BTW). It's been in gestation for years now. Art

Of course, the question was about small parts, which often defy sanding or polishing. I prefer to mount small parts, such as these taillights for the ICM Opel Admiral kit, on toothpicks (drill a small hole where it won't show) attached with a drop of CA glue: I then thin my paint a good bit more (in this case, Tamiya Racing White, decanted from the spray can, thinned with approximately 25% more lacquer thinner--measured by eyball). I then reduce the air pressure until my airbrush just starts to spray (no pressure gauge here, again by "eyeball engineering" --which I have been doing for almost half a century now). I tape the toothpicks to the sides of paint bottles, to give me a handle to hold the part with, and spray until I get the depth of color and finish I want. I think the results speak for themselves here. Art

Good call! I just got done prepping the tires in an ICM '38 Opel Admiral kit (1/24 scale) that had some thin but nagging flash around the middle of the sidewalls on one side of each tire. I could trim that with a scalpel blade, but there was still a bit of a line there, so I took your suggestion Jantrix! A Scotchbrite green scouring pad did the job, got rid of that unsightly parting line, and used all over ever surface, gave those soft PVC tires a perfect (to my eyes at least!) dull finish all over. Thanks for the hint! Art

One of the best stories out of my Grandpa Anderson's household was from the Great Depression: In January 1930, Grandpa and Dad (who was 26 at the time, still helping out on the 300-acre farm) came into West Lafayette to hear the US Secretary of Agriculture give a talk to farmers, about what to expect that year: "Boys (my farther's words here exactly as he related them many times), you will never see corn go below a dollar (per bushel)!" Dad said that by November 1930, corn was down to just 30-cents a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, and that winter, they burned ear corn in the heating stove at home, because coal would have cost 2-3 times as much as the corn would sold for. A lesson I have never forgotten. Art

And, FWIW, if writing on model car "glass" is difficult due to shapes, sizes, curvature, simply get some clear decal film (Testors markets it, as do a couple of other sources) and write what you want on that, let dry, and you have a decal. Art

I've always had model kits that I avoided building, for whatever reasons. However, with the passage of time, it's amazing some of the ones I dug out and built though. Art

There are also "micro-brush" artist's pens out there, very much like the artist's micro-fine tipped drawing pens, but with a very tiny, very sharply pointed bristle tip. They can be found at art supply stores. Art

13' 6" seems to be the height of overpasses either built before federal standards first came about with the start of the construction of the US Interstate Highway System (the Interstate Highway standard is 16'), certainly with highway overpasses first built back in the 1920's and 30's (lots of those still in use!), or due to either bridge settling or pavement overlaying (another helping of asphalt Mr Maindrag?). All those lower clearances probably stem from the fact that when those overpasses and bridges were first bulit, trucks and busses were nowhere near as tall as they are today; and of course the full name of the Interstate Highway System is "The Interstate and Defense Highway System" meaning they were designed to handle just about any military equipment. Art

I agree that the coupe Monogram did leaves an awful lot to be desired. That appears to have been a rather quickie modification--it never looked good to me at all.

Apparently there were louvered 540K hoods produced though! http://files.conceptcarz.com/img/Mercedes-Benz/39_Mercedes_540K_AutobahnKurier_DV-06_PB_06.jpg Although there might not be any 540K roadsters or kabriolet's having this hood today, it seems to me very possible that there could have been one so-fitted back in the day when Monogram first released their kit back about 1965 or so. And, here's a picture of a roadster with concave fender edges: http://www.supercars.net/gallery/119513/903/435654.jpg So, apparently your sources haven't scoped out all the possibilities. Consider this, every 540K was coachbuilt to customer order, and it is quite likely that Monogram had access to a car matching the one they tooled in model kit form--and somewhere in these past 50 years, that original real car could well have been re-restored, and a different hood mounted. Lots of possibilities there. Art

I've never heard of any tooling being considered inventory, as "inventory" in accounting terms refers to product available for sale, rather than the tooling and machinery necessary to produce that product. Machinery and tooling would have been taxed as just that, with a predetermined "useful life", at the end of which they were no longer taxed in most states (Indiana included). Art