Ace-Garageguy

Great info, Dennis. Here's something else interesting. In the one major area I've researched carefully so far, the new Revell body shell is MORE accurate than the old AMT '29. I've been looking at and building the AMT '29 for so long, and just blindly accepting the body shell was right, I thought the body in the new Revell offering looked off in the rear. Comparing the two on the bench, I found the old AMT body begins its downward slope behind the cockpit just AT the cockpit rail. The new Revell kit is noticeably flatter out to the forward edge of the decklid. So, which is right? This is particularly important to me at the moment because I'm starting a build of a very famous car that is subtle and beautifully proportioned. Body-line flaws ain't gonna cut it on this model...to look right it's got to BE right. Surprise, surprise...the new Revell kit is dead-on in this critical area. After making measurements of a 1:1 gennie car last week, and carefully photographing a new Brookville shell, plus finding every clear, scalable profile shot of a '28-'29 body shell I could online, printing some out, and comparing them to both the old AMT and the new Revell '28-'29 body shells, the Revell work is the clear winner in at least this one major area. If I had used the old AMT shell, which I thought I'd have to when I noticed the differences between the two, I would have ended up with a model that just didn't capture the look of the original...and I wouldn't have known why. Sometimes being an obsessive "rivet-counter" (with an objective outlook and an open mind) reveals that a kit is BETTER than first appearances suggested. Thanks again, Revell.

Cool.

Beautiful job with a kit many find to be terminally challenging. Superb.

If old men gurgling about rivet counting offends your delicate sensibilities to the point you become irked, one would respectfully suggest you just ...don't pay it no never-mind. Me? I'm gonna listen to some Thelonius, Miles and Toots, and work on a model of a fast car. Gonna be 100% irk-free momentarily.

I do sincerely hope that feeling sorry for me makes you feel as superior and justified as must be necessary to your continued existence as you know it. As Mr. Most said above, and with whom I agree in entirety, ..."is it wrong to point out a kit's flaws? Nope. Isn't, wasn't, never will be. But on the flip side, it's not wrong to accept a kit's flaws." Funny thing here, though I posted the incendiary notification that the Revell '29 Ford nailhead was indeed flawed, I also "accepted" it, voted with my wallet and bought one, posted positive remarks about it AFTER actually having one in my hands, and have ordered two more. Who's being the baby? There's lots of nice kits out there. Many have instantly visible flaws. Many of you just don't care. I get it.

I know it's a PITA to have to clean out the vac afterwards, but there's really no better way to get the oily gritty FOD out of those tubes...and you DON'T want it in your engine. Replace the filter in the VAC, and just wash the inside out with dishwashing-grease-cutter like Dawn, and hot water. Unplug it first.

Well you know, one man's tripe is another man's really good eatin'. Rock on, Mr. Definer of What's Important and What's Trivial. Rock on.

The extensions used to define the character lines and wheel-opening lips are just made from sheet styrene, 010" for the lips and about .030" for the character lines. Yes, using a particular kind of putty matters. TWO-PART automotive finishing/glazing putty is really the best. It cures all the way through by catalytic action in about 20 minutes, sands and shapes very well, and you can put in on thick. I use this Bondo-brand stuff now. It also comes in small, modeler-friendly tube-packs. BE SURE TO GET THE TWO-PART "PROFESSIONAL" stuff.

Sadly, shop-vacs tend to get dirty inside when actually used as shop-vacs. They're also easily cleaned.

See, there's this thing called "irony" in writing...oh, never mind. As usual fellas, a total and complete failure to respond to the issue of inaccuracy, and continued pokes at the poster's personality. Nice. Very nice. I'm getting a chuckle out of all of it.

And I, sir, don't have "page after page" of complaining about ANYTHING. The "page after page" you refer to is answering so many people chiming in and telling me 1) there's nothing wrong and that the measurements are all correct 2) I shouldn't criticize the model companies because they're holy and they'll all quit and go home if anyone says anything negative 3) I should offer my services to all of them for free because I think I'm so great and 4) amateur philosophical psychologists telling me that it's just not important and I have my life priorities all wrong. If it had stopped with "well, now that you mention it, I see it, but I'll accept it and buy the model anyway", I wouldn't have said another word. This entire discussion has been primarily about the DISCUSSION, my failings as a human being in the eyes of the defenders, and very little about the FACT of the inaccuracy. Have a look at Sledsel's thread about modifying the '57 Ford to actually LOOK like a '57 Ford. Yeah, he can do it, I can do it, but we just shouldn't HAVE to do it.

This is one way I do it. Read through to the bottom...pix are pretty well self-explanatory. Try to completely understand what you want to accomplish, than extend the character lines and wheel lips to where you want them to be. Fill and shape until you get the desired contours.

Modify the ports on the heads and modify the headers to look CORRECT to folks who look at a lot of nailheads is exactly what I'll be forced to do...if I choose to even use the engine. BUT...the nailhead is one of the MAJOR TALKING POINTS OF THE KIT. The exhaust-port spacing is THE instant identifier of the nailhead engine. The engine SHOWS as a focal point of the kit, as designed to be built. It SHOULD HAVE been right. No "tooling compromises" or modifying things to "look right" , and no "too expensive to make a perfect model" gibberish applies. 2 minutes with a measuring tape would have solved the issue before it ever arose. Pretty damm hard, eh?

Point taken, Lee, but again, I respectfully ask how is it YOUR prerogative to define what SHOULD be important to anyone else? Once again, my contention is that kit manufacturers do what they do as a JOB, and as a JOB, accuracy in performing that JOB is a reasonable expectation. Period.

"Carbon resistors" are frequently used to represent in-line filters. These are obviously about 9mm long, a little too large (depending on scale, of course) but this design is usually VERY cheap and available in quantity.

And some here are far more upset by the discussions than the folks who posted the criticisms in the first place are upset by the inaccuracies. I've already bought one of the Revell '29 Fords I criticized the port-spacing on, and I already have plans in the works to use up several others. Thing is, I'd have bought SEVERAL more just to get the nailheads...IF they had been right.

And see, here's the thing. The implication is that you are somehow superior to those of us who have FUN building ACCURATE representations of things, because YOU don't let little things like poor proportions bother you. Or maybe the implication is that WE can't possibly be having FUN because we strive to get things near-correct-to-prototype appearance and practice. For "fun", I personally prefer to build models that look very much like real cars, not warped "interpretations". But no one in my recollection has EVER said that folks who don't care are inferior to those of us who do. No one has ever said that EVERYONE should take scale-fidelity seriously. No one has EVER tried to define how YOU get fun from this hobby, but you are constantly trying to make YOUR definition of "fun", and how the hobby should be approached, the universal standard. My contention is simply that, to the kit manufacturers, it's a JOB, and as a JOB, it's not too much to expect instantly-visible proportions and dimensions to be portrayed accurately in scale. It's like expecting your phone to actually make phone calls. That is what we pay them for.

Just don't use it to baste a turkey again...

Pretty poor design if the seals are made integral with the cover. I'll take your word for it. I thought the PT Cruiser had some really stupid detail designs, but at least the seals (similar design) were available separately, or came with just the gasket set. If I had your car, and couldn't get the seals, I'd probably just carefully clean the old gasket and use the old seals, with a careful, even coating on both of Permatex UltraGrey. You can make a mess with the stuff if you're not really used to using it though, and you don't want too much to squeeze into the engine, or too little to let the leaks remain. http://www.permatex.com/products-2/product-categories/gasketing/gasket-makers/permatex-ultra-grey-rigid-high-torque-rtv-silicone-gasket-maker-82194-detail A way to thoroughly clean the tubes before taking the plugs out is to use a shop-vac with a thin nozzle of some sort. Squirt plenty of brake-cleaner (make sure it's a non-flammable variety) into the tubes and suck it back out with the shop vac. Do this several times, and blow the tubes out with compressed air, if you have access to it, before removing the spark plugs.

I think your 'auto parts' guy may be a moron, or a crook. Though I really don't have time to research this entire question right now, it looks to me like the cover, gasket and seal set is only about $75-$110 for the 2.5 liter engine, you certainly DON'T have to replace the entire valve-cover (unless it's cracked), and you are correct in thinking you need to go ahead and replace the plug wires as well (cooking in oil for a time will damage the insulation). Just the gasket and seal set should be in the $25-$50 range. Use something like a turkey-baster to suck most of the oil out of the plug tubes before you start taking things apart. Then get absorbent rags pushed down around the plugs to soak up the rest. You'll need to clean the oil off of the plugs as well, which means removing them. Leaving the outsides of the plugs oily will almost guarantee you'll have the high-tension spark tracking down the residual oil film, and you'll still get a mis-fire. Clean the outside of the plugs with electrical or brake-cleaner spray, or generous amounts of 90% isopropyl alcohol. Clean the top of the engine BEFORE you start taking things apart too, so you don't get grit and FOD in the inside. Also thoroughly clean the surfaces of the head and valve cover where the gaskets and seals contact it. Check the cover THOROUGHLY for cracks, and don't over-tighten things when you put it all back together.

It works both ways, you know. What about when someone who DOES know what he's talking about posts a critique and is immediately inundated by 'opinions' that have no basis in FACT, called names, has his credibility questioned and insulted, and is finally vindicated by OTHER posters who did the same measurement or research the original critic did, PROVED him RIGHT, but the truthfulness of the original criticism is never actually acknowledged? The criticisms of kit flaws usually start out as polite pointing-out of a fairly visible inaccuracy, backed by a credible reference or extensive first-hand experience with the subject. It's when the uninformed, groundlessly-opinionated or just plain childish and RUDE defenders of the Holy Model Companies go on the attack that the arguments get nasty. Go back and actually READ the critical posts, and see where the BS REALLY starts.

I'd pay a dollar to see that. Well, maybe not a WHOLE dollar.

Re : First post in the thread. I always wondered about the guys with the pirate scarves tied on their heads. I didn't know there were any pirate ships on dry land. This is pretty cool. Much more of life makes sense to me now. Thank you Greg.

Those are some great looking hot-rod Fords, Tim. I just had a chance to sit down at the bench and briefly go through the kit (arrived today, school tomorrow). First impression...fine kit, as you can of course tell from all of Tim Boyd's photos. The parts tooling is very clean and crisp. The brake drums are just beautiful, and the '40 Ford "juice" backing plates look good too. The engine and trans also look good, and the header-spacing issue (for those of you who see it) is a relatively easy fix. Honestly, it's not as obvious in the flesh, on the bench, as it was in the photos here. No surprise though...I've often caught huge-looking flaws on my own models after posting here that I'd never noticed while working on the things. What I was REALLY curious about was how this kit would mix-and-match with the junkyard full of old AMT and Revell model-A kits I have. The answer is that anything you should want to swap will be pretty straightforward if you're comfortable doing a little styrene surgery. The AMT soft-tops fit like they're made for it, almost, and the AMT hoods do too, almost. There's a very slight forward-slope at the bottom of the new Revell cowl, but a couple licks with a file will cure it. Though the dimensions and shapes of the new Revell '29 body are mostly very close to the old AMT kit's part, the Revell body won't fit the old AMT or Revell '28-'29 fenders...primarily because the rear wheel-well is opened up higher on this new body shell. Fill the wheel-cutouts with styrene (and a little tweaking here and there) and you're back in the game. The way the new Revell model-A frame is zeed in the back makes it easy to graft in an AMT buggy-spring crossmember, if you're so inclined. The new '32 chassis, with stepped rails, will also accept the old AMT buggy-spring rear crossmember easily. Just like in real cars, either an A or a T rear crossmember (and spring) is necessary of you want to drop a '32 into the weeds while running a quick-change with the transverse spring. Really, the interchangeability of the parts from these manufacturers is why accurate scaling is important. And it's why parts from kits tooled over a 50-year-plus span fit together reasonably well. All the manufacturers did their work to a decent standard. Speaking of the '32 frame in this kit...it's by far the nicest '32 rails in styrene so far. The side reveal stamping, one of the signature '32 ONLY styling features, is clean, crisp, and looks right. This is going to be THE frame to use if you're building anything on '32 rails that show. All for now. Time for bed......

OK, I'll bite. What could have possibly come packaged in that ?