Ace-Garageguy

With all those flat panels, it shouldn't be too hard to scratch-build, and there are sales brochures available cheap that have all the specs and dimensioned drawings. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-International-Harvester-METRO-Step-Van-M-1100-Brochure-Specifications-/380857812803?hash=item58ace50743:g:LkMAAOxy0bRTGLV6

That roofline works remarkably well on the Talbot, much better than it did on the 'Bird.

International Harvester Metro Mite / M700 / M800 / M1100, circa late '60s, '70s. These have steel bodies. The somewhat similar looking Grummans have aluminum skins. This is the familiar Grumman...

Exquisite.

Certainly. http://www.hobbylinc.com/model-car-garage-085-stainless-steel-photo-etch-saw-blades-plastic-model-accessory-1:24-1:25-scale-2238 EDIT: I don't know what the .085 is supposed to refer to in the listing. These things mike at .008", and regular X-acto saws come in at around .013". EDIT 2: Ebay has 'em

For anyone who's into hot-rods, I think there's enough to recommend this kit just from the early photos to easily justify buying at least one to carefully check out. Frankly, there are a few things on the recent '29 kit I would have done rather differently, and that I've already changed, but again, there's enough good stuff in the box for me to already have bought 4 of the things. Of course, I look at what's in the box, usually, only as a source of parts for something quite different from what the kit is intended to build, so my perspective may be different from most. And IF the distributor has only 7 plug terminals, it's kinda beyond belief...but it's certainly not a deal-breaker. There are other things I'm going hmmmmmm about that I'm still going to keep silent on until I actually have the kit.

You're right about them getting dull fast on composite materials, but I've got a couple of X-acto razor saw blades I've been using for years on plastic that still cut...maybe not as fast as new, but they are still viable tools. The harder photo-etched blades seem to last well, but I haven't seen them in the long razor-saw lengths.

Really depends on how deep it is. If it's just surface abrasions from rubbing on something else, it WILL polish out relatively easily, as Snake and drgstk say. If it's "tire burn" from the old vinyl tires melting into it, it will STILL polish out, but you'll have to do some pretty aggressive sanding to get down to the bottom of the pit, and you'll need to use a sanding board or stick to avoid getting a wavy low spot in your window.

This is really excellent advice, and I swore I wouldn't comment on anything this time 'til I had the kit in my hands. Shoulda kept my word on that.

A lot.

Ain't no "maybe" about it. Look at the late '50s-early '60s American Racing ad I posted above. It clearly states "16".

True enough, but I usually file 'em off almost flat, and use the remains to start the holes centered with a pin, and drill 'em with a .013" bit in a pin vise. It works very well and gives nice, evenly spaced holes. Can't do it like that with a 7-fire...so either you gotta lay em out evenly yourself (would have been just SO easy in the design phase, seein' as how model companies have been building V8 distributors for more than 50 years), or you gotta rob another kit, or you gotta buy aftermarket. Counting up to 8 must be another one of those pesky number things that's harder than I thought it was.

So many double entendre jokes, so many of them too inappropriately tasteless to present here. What a pity.

That's about as close to chrome as you're going to get with Alclad. That said, naturally the more perfect you get your parts before shooting them black, and the more perfectly you lay out the black, the better it will look. You probably want to take care of the attachment points before you shoot any finish products too, and find another way to hold your parts. That will avoid having to touch up any areas after you cut your parts free. There are some other chrome processes on the market now that look better...exactly like chrome...and cost a lot more, made for real-vehicle use. And just FYI, "sprue" is the thing the parts are molded on. "Spruce" is a kind of wood.

I was gonna say something along those lines, but i figured i'd probably be banned for life.

Only CA. It has no effect on regular solvent type glues.

I've made a couple of good overseas trades, where the other party wanted something that was very rare over there, and I wanted something that was equally hard to find over here. Shipping was reasonable for both of us, everybody wins. Every deal is different, some not worth doing, some that work out well for both parties.

Some sellers on ebay have also obviously bought collections, or at flea markets, yard sales or estate sales, probably not having paid more that a couple bucks per kit. Buy a kit for a buck, sell it on for $15, buyer pays shipping...not a bad profit. I came across a couple of kits recently in an 'antiques' store that routinely trade for over $100 on ebay, the asking price here only $50. Then you've also got people all over the board on ebay, one guy's asking right now $175, for the same kit someone else is asking $17.

Well, no, it isn't all the same. The reason I recommended THIS specific brand is because, unlike MOST debonders, it's NOT mostly acetone. Acetone will craze the plastic surrounding the bond you're trying to undo, making more work to restore a model. You can get it from Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Satellite-City-US-1-Super-Solvent-Ounces/dp/B003L0XBCK

Yeah, that's it. Cool.

Love it. Perfect old stock-car vibe, very believable weathering for an as-raced, not-yet-cleaned-up look.

This is probably very good advice from a business standpoint. It would also allow you to get to market quicker, and would allow you to better gauge the amount of real (as in spending money) interest there is out there. Then, if it looks like there's a market for an upgraded offering with all the bells and whistles, you're already half way there, and you'll have income from the first version as you develop the upgrades.

I have no idea what it is, but I think I know what it will be when it grows up.

No, really, space for eight plug wires would have been simply too expensive and would have delayed the project for months. Or...um...eight just didn't look right, so an 'artistic interpretation' of a distributor cap was made...

七，八，谁在乎呢？玩具车。