Ace-Garageguy

I love the old kits, but what I enjoy most is taking an old gluebomb and rebuilding it with a more current level of detail, fit and finish. I've got some re-builds in progress that were first assembled over 50 years ago. For some perverse reason, making something beautiful from someone's horrible old mess has a special appeal for me. Though I certainly appreciate the results of the application of current technology to kit-making, like Moebius' fine offerings, there's something about the 'soul' of the older kits I find lacking in recent work. Probably just an old fossil thing.

I have several of the kits on your list. I tend to buy cars I found to be particularly historically significant from a racing or design standpoint, or that have some other special meaning to me. Lotus 7: The Tamiya Lotus Super 7 (I've owned one 1:1 and worked on a lot, both Loti and Caterhams) has some limitations. The fenders are molded in to the one-piece body shell, so if you want to build the cycle-fendered version you have some work to do. The kit has the Weber-carbed, English Ford engine and is buildable as a 'club-racer' version with Brooklands-style windscreens. I've always thought the hood top and nose molding to be a little too flat and sat-on looking. Jag XK-E: Owned 2, 1:1s. The first (?) Revell XK-E roadster (kit #1279) I think is generally well proportioned and builds up nicely if you're careful. The Aurora roadster version has some definite proportion issues whth the windscreen and hard-top. The Aurora XK-E coupe, on the other hand, has nice lines and looks good sitting next to the Revell roadster, though there's maybe a little wonkiness around the headlights, and for a purist it's obvious that things that should be identical on the two cars are not. There is a Revell-Monogram branded XK-E coupe, kit #0556 on the box and #2907 on the instructions, that is a repop of the Aurora kit. That's all I have of those. Corvette C6-R: The Revell C6-R was a disappointment to me. Though the engraving on the body shell is very nice (it has see through louvers on the front fender-tops and the door shells are molded separately, which is nice as a starting point), the engine and chassis detail leave a lot to be desired. Most of the engine and rear gearbox are molded into the chassis plate, so there's a limit to how far you can go in super-detailing. The exhaust-port spacing, I'm pretty sure, is noticeably wrong on the headers, but it's not painfully obvious on the built model. I wish Revell had done the C6-R the same way they did the C5-R. Porsche 911 GT1: I have the UT Models Porsche GT1 which is simply spectacular. I haven't started to build it because it looks so good on the trees. I have no idea how it goes together, but it looks like it would make an incredible model. I also have the Revell GT1, and though it's very nice, it's not as heavily detailed as the UT (which even has separate brake calipers). Mine had some serious warpage of the body sections, even though the box was sealed and not crushed. It looks like it would build to a beautiful model though, with enough detail to make opening all of the panels worthwhile. I have a few of the Ferraris and a couple of the Lambos on your list, but I'm out of time. I'll be back.....

That's an excellent point too. Changing tire height (diameter) will have the same effect as changing gear ratos. One of the reasons the whole big-and-little look for hot-rods came about is that the dry lakes racers (especially before quick-changes were available, and available gear sets for a particular junkyard-axle were limited) could tune effective final drive ratios by changing rear tire diameters. In drag racing, a tire that's too tall for the available torque will make the car bog off the line, while one that's too short will tend to spin and smoke and hook-up poorly and have the engine winding too tight through the traps. You don't have a whole lot of diameter choices in scale, but there are enough vintage ones available to get the right look. I really don't know what's available in resin or other aftermarket.

Wide whites, flipper hubcaps, scallops and a trick grille....it doesn't get any more traditional mild-custom than that. Looking great. Your carpet flocking is really exceptional too.

I have the AMT '41 and Revell '48 woodies, and the chassis are similar but different.....definitely useable as swap material with a little work, as are the bodies. It looks like THOSE two teams were paying attention....unlike me. I also just checked the '48 Revell convert against their '48 woody and some of the tooling is identical, and some obviously derived from the earlier kit, so they were doing their jobs too.

Wow. Perfection in its own way. Wow wow wow.

Man, that's a beauty. I'd be real proud to have that under glass. Like your wheel choice too.

It's okay man. I'M calling me an idiot. I know you're not. And the Ala Kart engine has been a topic of my discussions a well......I've actually measured a 1:1 Red Ram and scaled it to compare to the two offerings. The old one is closest, by far.

Brian, I tend to agree with you in principle, as I modify most everything and accept as a starting point pretty much whatever I can get. Still, it would be nice to not HAVE to modify a kit heavily to get back to the stock proportions that it is marketed to offer.

midnightprowler said: "Umm, Revell did not do a 41, AMT did. Revell has done a couple of 40's, neither a woodie, and a few 48's, the reagtop, the woodie, and the chopped one. AMT only did the woodie in stock and rodded form." end quote. Hey, you know what? I'm an IDIOT. I was so busy comparing the parts, I was too stupidly pre-occupied to look at the boxes and who made the damm things. Duh, duh, duh duh duh. And that's how mistakes get made. You caught me. Sure didn't take long to find that one. So, how do you suppose the approximately 1/32 scale engine ended up in AMT's last 1/25 issue of the Ala Kart? Wonder why nobody caught that. And I'm curious....does the chopped '48 use the same chassis tooling as the woody?

Like it like it like it !!! You sure got that old Ford blue engine color right too.

Skip, here's the flip side of that coin.....The '41 Ford is mechanically pretty much identical with the '48, chassis-wise at least. For some odd reason, the Revell '41 woody shares no tooling with Revell's '48 Woody. With all the endless carping about how expensive tooling is, who was driving the bus when it was decided to double the necessary tooling expenditure to get these two kits out? Every tree from the '41 could have been used in the '48 (or vice-versa), except for the main bodyshell.

A lot of Foose's work is truly spectacularly beautiful, and seems to me like a really good inspiration to crank up those scratch-building or customizing skills.

I agree about the 'look' aspect. I'm still building AMT's vintage '32s, in spite of all the bad press about the proportions, because I like the general 'look' and have good memories of the kit in simpler times, but it IS on my list to measure a real 1:1 '32 roadster. I'm still not convinced the Revell version is right either. When the measuring and/or scaling is off by enough, it's impossible to get the desired 'look'.

Casey, I understand the dynamics of business and cost/benefit ratios and all the rest. I'm not talking about hair-splitting perfection. I'm talking about GROSS inaccuracies like AMT's tiny little just-plain-wrong Ala Kart engine, or the fact that of all the available '34 Fords, for instance, no two have the same length hood and NONE of them are correct. I'm very happy with the majority of the available kits. I simply don't understand sloppy measuring. It takes EXACTLY the same investment to manufacture a kit to CORRECT DIMENSIONS as it takes to manufacture exactly the same kit, with the same level of detail, to wrong ones. PS. If my 1:1 work was done to the same standards as these two, my client's doors wouldn't close, the hoods wouldn't fit, and the engines probably wouldn't run for long, if at all.

You're correct in thinking that 10" slicks may be overkill for such a small displacement engine. Only a dyno sheet showing torque and power curves could start to accurately determine a 'yes' or 'no', but it looks to me like the real car in the NHRA museum had 8s on it, and Micky Thompson didn't miss a trick. More tread width than is necessary to adequately hook up the available torque is a waste of energy, in increased weight and rotating mass of the tire. Rotating weight affects acceleration more than non-rotating weight. Mass at the periphery of a wheel affects acceleration twice as much as non-rotating mass does; that is true irrespective of wheel diameter. You can show this with the formulas for rotational kinematics, or (more simply) by noting that a point on the outside of a wheel has a tangential speed equal to the forward speed of the vehicle. Mass at the axis of a wheel has the same effect on acceleration as non-rotating mass. Mass partway between the axis and the outside of a wheel has an additional effect on acceleration in proportion to the square of (distance from axis) / (wheel radius). E.g., mass halfway between the axis and the edge of the wheel counts 125% as much as non-rotating mass; 125% = 1 + (0.5 squared). All this means is that slicks that are wider than necessary will actually make the car accelerate more slowly. Of course the whole point of drag racing is......to accelerate more QUICKLY than the other guy. So too-wide tires are dumb, and slow.

This may seem like beating a dead horse, but the other thread about the relative merits of 1/25 versus 1/24 misses the mark as to what's important in a model to me. I've tried to get some responses to this question over there, but I decided to spin it off and start fresh. I build in many scales, a variety of subjects, and all scales have equal attractions, depending on several variables. BUT, the SINGLE most important aspect of a particular model, to me, is how accurately it portrays its subject. I'm well versed in the technicalities of CAD, machining, pattern-making and tool-making, and industrial production. I know what's possible with current and 'obsolete' technology. What I don't understand is how 3 manufacturers can produce models of the same car (the 1934 Ford is my example), and though in 1:1 the hoods on ALL common production '34 Ford body styles are the same length, NO TWO models in the same scale are the same, and NONE ARE CORRECT. How can this be? To a guy who spends every day looking at 1:1 hot rods, the wonky proportions of these models really spoil the presence of a finished build that the 1:1 has. I first started to notice the 'scale drift' while doing a chopped '34 drag car, and though I had measurements of the actual chop on the 1:1. nothing I did could get the right look. I finally figured it out while looking at photos of my model, and realized the kit proportions I'd started with were wrong....by enough to spoil the look. That's when I set about measuring a real 1:1 '34 Ford 5-window we had in the shop, dividing by 25 and comparing the results. So answer me this : How can 3 teams of supposed 'professionals' measure the same car and get 3 different numbers? And nobody catches it before it goes to production? And do you give a damm if your '34 actually looks like a '34, or is 'sorta' close enough?

Umm hmm. I wonder where the line is between obviously horrible in-accuracy like the old Palmer kits and sort-of-okay stuff most people seem to be satisfied with. What percentage deviation from accuracy in a 'scale model' is allowable before something becomes just a 'toy'? And why do so few really care? I know the answer is going to be "this is supposed to be fun", or something similar, but to me it's NOT fun to open a kit, full of high hopes and anticipation for building something beautiful, only to be confronted by a mis-shapen blob that will take many hours to even get the proportions right. If I did my own job as poorly as some of the tool makers, I wouldn't be able to get work in my field, period. On the other hand, I really have to say that MOST of the kits I've purchased over the years have been completely satisfactory, possibly because I'm willing to do the extra required to 'get it right', or to simply modify the car so heavily that the little stock-proportion problems lose importance in the course of the build. But there are several that I've had for YEARS, and haven't been able to come up with even a reasonable idea of how to go about correcting the deficiencies. They'll probably never get built, so in that case, I've paid good money for absolutely nothing of value.

Yup, pretty cool.

Looking really good. Nice proportions. Speaking of nice proportions, what is your avatar? It's got some good lines.

Yup, looks great. Keep it coming.

Beautiful job on all of them.

Love your Superstock Dodge lineup, and great looking job on the Flutterby.

Yup.

Great Willys. Love that kit and love your build.