Art Anderson

I still use one-part (AKA lacquer-based putty for small fills, where I have to be careful to not compromise any nearby surface details. On the '38 Opel Admiral I'm building (progress pics go up this weekend), I used little dabs of the stuff to correct things such as ejection-pin marks, a small sink mark here and there, a couple of file "dings". One thing I have taken to doing when using one-part (or air dried) putty is to cure it out in my food dehydrator--in an hour or two, those little spots of putty are as dry and hard as they would be if they were let dry in the open air for at least a couple of weeks. Art

Well said, Scott!

Perhaps the major reason diecasts at least seem to have such high-gloss paintjobs is the sheet thickness of paint on them. Having stripped paint off numerous diecasts over the years, I've been amazed at the crisp detail many exhibit in their raw metal surfaces, which one would ordinarily never see, buried is such detail often is, under more than a scale 1/4" thick coat of paint. Something else to ponder as well: Many, many diecast models are of subjects that when the real car was built and finished originally, the paints and processes in use in their era were both quite incapable of resulting in an almost "hand-blown glass" shine. Art

There's also the original "model car body putty" from the now ancient times of the late 1950's! Back then, we early model car builders, in order to have a putty that worked on plastic (stuck to styrene), was sandable and paintable in the bargain, made our own: Tube glue, such as Testors (or whatever tube styrene cement is available where one lives), with ordinary talcum powder mixed into it (baby powder makes a really sweet-smelling putty job!) to a paste-like consistency, can be spread on styrene, and once dry, can be sanded and finished very much like any commercially available putties. Art

To be exact, Packard advertised this as the "Station Sedan", and incidently, was one of very rew postwar Packards to appear in print advertising featuring a family with children. Art

Surprising that nobody's mentioned one that neither AMT Corporation, nor Revell ever did (and both produced multi-versions of the basic car on which this station wagon can be based: 1940 Ford Station Wagon which can be kitted in both Standard and Deluxe Versions. Art

In the decades since cyanoacylate glue was discovered at Eastman Kodak, many variants of the stuff have been developed: Thicker consistency grades, slow-setting varieties, even now "flexible CA glue". Accelerators generally are used with the thicker viscosity CA's, which almost always tend to set slower. In addition, some of us like to use these thicker viscosity CA glues as fillers, meaning that they go on as open "puddles" of the stuff. Since CA glue does not "dry by evaporation" or by some sort of chemical reaction triggered by a catalyst, they would just sit in that "puddle" for extended periods of time--so these are all reasons for the development of accelerators by the mid-late 1980's (about 20 yrs after the introduction of Eastman 910. Art

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: "The rate of inflation" is but an AVERAGE! Some things have gone up far faster than others over the decades, other things have "inflated" far less than the "rate of inflation", and still others have remained flat, or perhaps even gone down in price when that's adjusted for inflation. It's called "The study of economics 101", a course which most people prefer to ignore, from High School onward. Art

I think the answer would be: "not quite". "Chopping" the top of any closed-body vehicle generally refers to cutting the roof pillars, then removing a section of metal from each, then welding the previously cut away top portion back on, effectively giving the entire "greenhouse" portion of the body or in this case, truck cab a completely lower roof, with correspondingly shorter windshield, side windows and rear window. Art

Jim, With the scripts you mention, I'd be pretty sure those were/are a cost issue. Bear in mind, that with raised detail such as lettering, scripts and the like, it's almost imperitave that they be molded "straight on" by a die or die section that moves BACK away from the particular surface. In the case of cars such as the '50 Oldsmobile, that likely would have meant an extra, separate die section for the front surfaces of the hood, and almost certainly for the rearmost portion of the trunk lid. That adds tooling cost, in addtion to creating a couple more tool alignment issues that have to be dealt with first at the production level, and second (and perhaps most aggravating) by the modeler himself (filing sanding, etc. to get rid of any parting lines. Additionally, the Oldsmobile lettering, in scale, is so fime, and would be so thin in section as to frustrate a lot of modelers wishing to foil them--so that may well have been part of the decision as well. Not an excuse, but certainly in the realm of possibility as reasons as to why no engraved scripts as you would have liked to see. Art

Well, ultimately, every model kit is designed by human beings--computers, etc. are but a tool. And, even in the best of situations errors can happen, and do. Remember, with a model car, someone is charged with the job, the responsibility of creating in miniature, something that millions have seen in real life--and that model, just by being quite small in relation to the real thing, can never be viewed in exactly the same way as the real car (angle of viewing, human "binocular vision", the differences in which we perceive depth model VS a real life car--all of that!). Additionally, while of course, injection molding has its limitations with respect to exact scale of many small, delicate parts (I'm almost shuddering at having to remove the windshield wipers for assembly on my ICM '37 Opel Admiral Kabriolet--they are barely .015" thick, by that measurement wide in cross section!). Even a model car body shell has compromises, most visibly in thickness--20-gauge sheet steel would be membrane thin (almost anyway) in 1/25 scale, and that alone translates into thicker-than-scale details. Windshield glass, in scale, would be about .005" thick were it actually scaled down to 1/25 scale thickness. All of those things come into play as well.. There are further limitations due to our demand, as model builders, that car bodies be molded in one piece, where the actual car body surface can be a dozen separate sections of sheet metal, all welded together. So, some errors happen due to limitations, others may be visual, especially if a model car is EXACTLY numerically accurate, due to the human vision factors mentioned above. Art

I've been using Bob Smith Industries (BSI) CA Accelerator for a good 25 yrs now (same stuff you pictured), and it's the best accelerator I have ever found. Art

Heller's kit was tooled in the late 1980's, or about 30 years after the Merit kit.

To "flesh this out a bit", I'll draw on my 50 years of being in, and around, the hobby industry: That includes working in, and owning my own, hobby shop for a total of 17 years, building box-art and trade show display models (and a bunch of "presentation models" for giving to licensors etc.) for AMT Corporation and its immediate successor Lesney-AMT. Along the way, I spent some time in the model car aftermarket "cottage industry", along with a few years directly in product development in the diecast side of things. Lately, that sort-of resume' includes being in a voluntary advisory place with a model company--from product ideas to researching for information on particular cars, to helping evaluate drawings, 3D scans, and perhaps more importantly reviewing test shots of upcoming kits (including a couple of times where I've taken razor saw, putty, files and sandpaper to make a needed correction very quickly. In addition, I've attended more industry trade shows than I can almost count, from the former Hobby Industry Association of America (HIAA) to wholesaler-sponsored trade exhibitions, to RCHTA and one iHobby show. Along the way, I've interfaced with "Executive Suite" management who couldn't have cared less about the product beyond numbers on a spread sheet, to glad-handing sales reps who intended to convince me that "such and such" model was going to be the one that "every kid is got to have!". But that was then, this is now. Today's industry people who interface directly with modelers/consumers at shows are very much personally invested in their product, believe me. Even though they may sound at times disinterested in what someone might be saying to them--they do listen, they do filter the tidbits down, process them in their minds, looking for those customer-generated ideas that just might be the next great thing (be that a small detail or an entire model kit subject!). Anymore, it's no longer the disinterested sales rep at trade shows--even at a company display at an NNL nearly as much as it is people who are directly involved with the day-to-day job of developing new product, deciding which older tooling to get off the shelf for squeezing styrene into for that reissued kit. For the most part, those people ARE personally invested in the hobby to some level, in some scale. So to intimate that somehow, the only thing that matters to them is the next quarterly report to stockholders is just a bit disingenuous, in my opinion. Art

Greg, There's a good number of cars from that era (and later!) that were produced in FAR fewer numbers, that generated a great amount of interest, both with restorers, and those who write and publish research and reference materials. It's just that the '32 Ford, being as it was considered, right along with most other cars of the 1930's, little more than a special interest car in the old car hobby until well into the 1970's. Additionally, among Ford restorers, the Deuce never quite carried the title of "The New Ford Car" anything like Model A did. Art

Bill, some excellent references there! One thing to consider when researching such information to consider: From sometime in the mid-30's onward to the late 50's, even into the 60's, automakers sometimes came out with so-called "Spring Colors" (Ford, for example actually termed them that for a few years!) which were mid-model year new colors and even 2-tone color schemes intended to "spruce up" their lineups going into the final months of the production year--which by the end of the 1930's tended to end in mid-late July, with a plant shutdown for at least a couple of weeks to get set up to produce the next-year's new models, allow for dealer inventories of the outgoing year's cars to run down, and build up a stock of new cars for introduction by early October. "Spring Colors" didn't always show up in the larger dealer brochures--often shown in print advertising, and perhaps a smaller, thinner flyer type brochure, given the much shorter selling period for those newly unveiled paint schemes. Art

With water-borne acrylic paints (think for example, the old Polly S paints), Windex is one of the old standby thinners that the IPMS types hit on back more than 40yrs ago when Polly S first came out. The waterborne "craft paints" such as Deco-Art, Apple Barrel, and of course the now-discontinued Polly S line are, in their basic chemical formulae, the same kind of paint as the "latex" waterborne paints people use indoors and on the exterior of houses. The advantage of say, Windex (or other similar glass cleaners) is that it "wets" a hard slick surface such as glass, metal or styrene far better than does plain water. Art

Hmmm, Well, NEVER is a long, long time! Art

I submit that's a little bit subjective, frankly. Perhaps the folks in whatever passes for the "Executive Suite" might not grasp what modelers do with the kits they produce, but I think you can "take it to the bank" that those in the product development side as well as the marketing types are often quite impressed by what they see when they peruse such message boards as this one, or read the model magazines (and they do that!). In a very real way, while of course, initial sales success of any new model kit is what's hoped for, it's when those people see what modelers actually do with the kits when they get them home that often gives a real "gauge reading" as to what the potential for continued sales and popularity really might be! Art

Some thoughts here, from the "factory stock" perspective: With Fords, while reams of information, stacks of books (both soft and hard cover) have been written about Model T's and Model A's, once past those, into the V8 era of the 30's and beyond, good printed information can be hard to find. Why? When the restoration of antique automobiles really started to take off, in the late 1940's, collector interest (and restoration as well) truly centered around cars of the so-called "Brass Era" (not counting the so-called "Classic Cars"--those luxury cars mid-20's to the late 30's). With Fords, that meant 1916 and earlier Model T's, the all black T's being pretty much a stepchild. Even the Model A, as late as 1950, was still just a "used car", then being only 19-22 years old (their time in the sun would start for real a few years later). 1932 and later pre-war Fords, at least here in the US, were considered pretty much hot rod fodder, or at best, what old car buffs called "special interest" cars--not yet really considered worthy of serious restoration, which is what tended to "spark" any sort of serious books showing production line photographs, etc. This almost "prejudice" against nearly all mass-produced cars of the 1930's continued, in the antique car hobby, well into the 1970's, by which time early writers and publishers in the old car hobby, such as Floyd Clymer, had either retired completely or had passed away. Publishers such as Clymer had been mainstays of the reference material for old car restoration from just after WW-II until they reached their personal "end of the line"--and the soft cover books they put out pretty much faded away. When restorer interest in such as cars of the 30's hit, in the 1970's, a lot of reference material that might be of interest to modelers was pretty much in the form of specialty magazines, such as "Special Interest Auto's", "Car Collector" and the like, or was generally available only in the periodic journals published by marque-specific clubs. In particular, this seems to have hit the '32 Ford "harder" than any previous Ford, and for that matter, even the '33-'48 Ford, due I suspect to two things: First of all,the 1932 model year was the lowest production year for Ford since 1912--only slightly more than 250,000 Model B's and Model 18's (the latter is the V8 designation) were built, less than half of 1931's production of Model A's. Second, and probably more important, the 1932 Ford was not considered to be a very good car, certainly on the used car market, due primarily to engine troubles with the early V8, and also its having a fairly weak frame, that having a rather serious problem with twisting on rough, uneven roads (very common in those years), because of old Henry's insistence on a K-shaped center crossmember in the first Ford frame with "double dropped" open channel side rails--that made for an awful lot of flexing of body shells resulting in embarrassing sheet metal cracking at places such as the base of the windshield posts (A-pillars) and at the rear corners of the bodies themselves. In fact, Ford's 1932 Service Bulletins had frequent notices of body reinforment plates becoming available, with instructions on how to install them, then leading in the unsightly body cracks followed by repainting (this probably caused the rather low resale value of the Deuce, making it all the more attractive to early hot rodders as a lightweight car, fully V8 compatible, at very cheap used car prices!). In addition, the relative scarcity of restorable examples of 1932 Fords by the mid-late 60's, when 30's cars began being considered as antiques rather than just "used cars", or at best, "special interest" cars, probably meant far fewer technical and historical articles in magazines devoted to the restoration of flathead V8 cars in general. I know, because I've looked high and low for reference pics showing as much info on the stock Deuce as is available for Model A's, for a stock configuration '32 Ford project I have in mind. Art

Of course, the "shine" on diecast model cars will vary, depending on whether it's something made for the mass merchandising trade (you know, those models made to sell in the $15-perhaps $30 price range), or the ones produced by Franklin or Danbury Mint, costing $100 and up. Basically, most all diecast models are painted rather heavily, often with the same type of "production spray guns" used say, in the autobody business. Most generallly, enamel paints are used, and the body shells then are baked to dry that to very hard, which serves to at least protect the shine. The two "Mints" I mentioned, along with the likes of GMP and Highway 61 as a rule have the factories polish out their paintjobs, and wax them. With most budget-priced diecasts, however, secondary colors (think 2-tone paintjobs here) are not baked, as at least in my experience doing product development for Johnny LIghtning diecasts back 10-13 years ago, it was impossible to bake a second color without ruining the first, or basic color of the model--so often that white roof on a 2-tone Chevy didn't come out with the same level of shine as the first, or lower body, color. But in the end, it's the much thicker paintjobs that tend to make them appear so shiny. Along those lines, it is perfectly possible to get as good a shine, even depth of color on a model car you build and paint yourself, which of course means learning techniques that will help you achieve such results. Art

I remember reading a book about an advertizing photography studio, named I believe, Boulevard Photographic, who did, among other things, photography for the Detroit Big Three automakers back in the 50's through at least the 70's. One trick they came up with was a special type of lens that would elongate the image of a car! Their trick was to elongate the image just to the point that the wheels and tires barely began to show a noticeable oval shape--it apparently worked, as hundreds of thousands of new car brochures were produced back then, with their "elongated" photography! Art

I'm currently in the middle of building the ICM '38 Opel Admiral. Not only are the trees of parts impressive, but it also is building up very nicely! Art

I'm very impressed with the ICM '37-'39 Opel Admiral kit. Even though it has a multi-piece body, in this case that is a plus, not a detriment--and it is a very precisely done plastic model car kit in the bargain! Art

Except, MPC's '27 & '28 Lincoln kits were never produced by Monogram. Rather, they fell under the AMT/Ertl brand, after Ertl bought MPC in the late 1960's. Art