Ace-Garageguy

Here is an answer I posted to this exact question on another forum a few months back. I hope it will clear up some mis-understandings. I've posted this before. I currently build 1:1 period hot rods for a living, and I'm an engineer. This is the true and complete answer from someone with 40 years of actual experience working with magnetos, etc. Mags were / are commonly run on period street / strip cars. They made a fat, hot spark at relatively high RPM before the days of capacitive discharge. A fair number of 'teens and '20s cars came with magnetos, and many early race car mags were adapted from AIRCRAFT parts. Small aircraft engines STILL use magnetos that look very much like those on '40s-'60s competition cars, and they use them because the engine will continue to run even if the rest of the electrical system fails. Small airplanes have batteries for starting, and charging systems ( generator OR alternator ) to run accessories and to keep the batteries charged for starting. TO RUN A MAG on a street / strip car, you'll need a generator OR alternator, and a battery , and a starter. You will NOT need a coil or distributor, of course. The advantage to using an alternator is that it will provide more current at lower RPM. They work better at running loads like air conditioning and lights at idle, or while sitting in traffic. Alternators began to become common in production cars in the early '60s. They appeared first on police cars because of the high electrical demands of the communications radios. Interestingly, most small aircraft alternators are adapted from CAR parts. The guys above are correct in that: 1) The magneto has an internal generator (sort of), points, "coil" (sort of) , and distributor cap, and provides its own spark to fire the plugs 2) A magneto does not provide enough energy to keep a starting battery charged, or to run any accessories 3) For STREET use, battery and starter motor will be required to start the engine. Old race cars (that didn't have batteries or starters for weight-saving) were push started, 'cause the mag has to be spinning to make any juice, and without a battery and starter, no spin, no juice. 4) A charging system will be required ( generator OR alternator ) to keep the battery charged and run accessories. AMT Chevy 409 specific: The mag in that kit isn't really very accurate. It sorta has a distributor cap molded on. Some mags had this, and you wire them to the plugs like you wire a distributor. No coil wire though. More common mags had little numbered "buttons" on top of the "cap", and the plug wires came out on the side grouped together. Do a google image search for "vertex magneto". You will see that what you need to do is file the nipples on the AMT Chevy magneto almost flat. Paint the "cap" black or red and the remains of the nipples silver. Also paint the body of the mag silver. They were all aluminum. Route your plug wires like in the photos on google. For a push-start car, you only need one small ground wire going from the mag to a kill switch inside the car. The only way to "turn off" a magneto is to ground it. For a battery start, street driven car, you could also simulate a starting-voltage booster with a small hot wire running to the mag. These would be two very small wires, much smaller than plug wires, coming out under the "cap", well away from the plug wires. The small hot wire could run to a little box on the firewall. There was also a unit called the Spalding Flamethrower, basically two, four-cylinder coil-type ignition systems in a single, usually red, case. It looks like a mag, but isn't. It had two groups of 4 plug wires on either side. Do a google image search for that. It was fairly common on really hot street cars, as was the Vertex ( Scintilla, Joe Hunt, etc.) Plan your work, work your plan. In closing, a mag won't blow out lights as posted above, because it's constructed so that it's spark discharge is directed to a SPECIFIC spark plug as the magnetic field collapses, and not into the car's general electrical system. The spark is created in a magneto when the magnetic field rapidly collapses inducing a high voltage in the adjacent wire windings. The spark is directed to a specific plug by the position of the rotor in the "cap", exactly as it is directed to the correct plug in a battery-type ignition system. A magneto is timed in much the same way as a POINT TYPE battery powered ignition system is timed, to make it fire with the correct amount of ignition "lead".

Quoting Wayne Buck: " I think I have more WIPs than there are Galaxies in the observable universe!" Finally, someone who has more WsIP than me..........

Thanks for the comments, gentlemen. This is something I'd build 1:1, exactly as it is, if I had the time and money. I have a 394 Olds, a 3X2 Offy manifold, and a pair of American Stamping '32 repop rails, but whether I'll ever be able to build the big one is anybody's guess. As with all of my model builds, I try to get most of the technical details right enough so you could actually build a 1:1 version, using the model as reference. Thanks again for your interest and kind words.

I use a piece of cabinet grade, sanded-both-sides, veneered 3/4 inch plywood, about a foot square. If you get a decent piece, it's about dead-flat, doesn't break when you drop pliers on it, and your parts can be pinned or clamped to it while working. Some home improvement stores will cut you a small piece. If you use glass, I'd seriously recommend at least 1/2 inch thick, with rounded corners and polished edges, like they make tabletops from. Most home improvement stores can set you up with someone who can cut and polish a piece of this.

Sanding basecoats and metallic color coats is fine, just DON'T SAND THE LAST COAT BEFORE CLEARING. As partially stated above, if you sand the metallic, the little sparkly particles in the paint will be unevenly uncovered, disturbed, and will look a right mess, and the mess will be trapped under the clear, and sometimes actually magnified. Sanding is fine if you're removing orange peel or trash between coats, but you MUST color coat over the sanded coat to get an even, uniform surface back before clearing. Experiment doing this on a test body, and you'll see exactly what I mean. Once you have that last perfect color coat, then you clear with NO SANDING of the LAST METALLIC COAT. If you get a little trash or orange peel in your clear, you can sand it out at the end, and polish. Try to make sure whatever trash that DOES get in the clear isn't a light or dark colored speck that will show up against your metallic color. Little pieces of colorless dust will virtually disappear when you sand and polish your clear, but colored specks must be sanded out of the first coat they appear in. Otherwise, you'll bury them in successive layers of clear, and never get them out.

Stunningly accurate, very beautiful work. And truly inspiring.

Yup, I like it. A lot.

Of COURSE you need another project going. Multiple projects force your brain to expand.......a good thing. You just reminded me I have one of these to get working on too. Let's see, how many is that.........brain hurt.

Some progress. Widening decklid and making up drip channels in rear of body....... Worked out the through-the-cowl steering linkage, and the ahead-of-axle tie rod layout. This would have been necessary on a 1:1 to clear the big Olds engine, and to accommodate the dropped axle. There was a starter relocation adaptor that put the starter on the right of the Olds and allowed the '32 steering gear to be used, but I like the racecar look of this setup. Test fitted the carbs and manifold, and it looks like I'll still have to dimple the firewall for the distributor. Having the steering linkage finalized also let me finalize the locations of the headlights, and it all worked out just like the mockup. Lucky. The headlight buckets will mount on 1" scale tubular brackets, and shock mounts will also be fabbed in behind them. Close to being ready for primer. Still have to do the quick-change, and see where that will put the rear rolled pan to allow the QC to show.

This setup has worked great for me, and it is relatively cheap, and VERY bright. On the left is a magnifying lens-lamp I got at an art-supply store scratch & dent sale for $15. It was designed to take a 100watt incandescent bulb, but I modified it (very slightly) to take a compact flourescent, which has the same screw base, and makes negligible heat. The compact flourescent bulb only takes 25 watts to make the same amount of light as a 100 watt incandescent. The other two swing-arm lamps I got at Goodwill for $5 each. They are rated for only 60 watt bulbs, but because a 100 watt comparable-light compact flourescent only takes 25 watts, I installed two of those. Compact flourescents come in soft white and daylight-balanced color temperatures, so you can mix and match bulbs to suit the kind of light you prefer. I use two soft whites (which are more blue) and one daylight (more yellow). It's very bright, like I said, and you can put the light exactly where you need it. The actual light falling on the desk would take 300 watts using incandescent bulbs, but only 75 watts using compact flourescents, so it saves on your power bill too.

Thanks a lot, Andy. I really appreciate it. ........and I just found one and bought it. Thanks again.

What they said...beautiful work.

Thanks gman. I'll be looking for one. I assume that the "fat fendered" version doesn't have a louvered hood, even though it's pictured on the box. Is that correct?

Wow. It's certainly not often in business that one encounters such a loyal and satisfied group of customers as have replied here. I've been getting around to making my first order from Modelhaus, and thanks to this response, it will go out this week. Probably. I'm ALWAYS late.

Fascinating........

What does the original issue box-art look like? I'd really like to get a louverd hood for this. 3" chop, 1" channel, Corvette C5 chassis, 4-cam Ford 4.6.......

Yup, and use this, with plenty of water. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Micro-Mesh-2-square-foam-Sanding-Pads-Made-in-USA-/320868289884?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab53d8d5c Start with the coarsest first, work your way to the finest. I usually finish up with a rubout using 3M Perfect It 6068 polish at the end. Do it right and it'll look like glass.

Yes, it should work. Vacuum is vacuum. At the rated 4.2 cubic feet per minute on the label, it should move enough air quick enough to de-gas your resin, especailly in a smallish mold. You really need some kind of vacuum gauge on the line, with a bleeder valve. i've seen people get carried away thinking more vacuum is better, and collapse a mold. It is important to be able to evacuate the resin quick, before it starts to gel. You need to experiment. Here is a link to some free online resin casting and mold-making videos.....highly recommended if you've never done this kind of thing before. http://www.freemansupply.com/video.htm

2000 is about the finest commonly available for 1:1 cars. It's fine enough to let you bring the gloss back up on a real car where you'll be using a power buffer. It's not really fine enough for models, where you'll be rubbing the polish by hand. Detail Master also makes very fine sandpaper and the MicroMesh polishing system, which is what I use now. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Micro-Mesh-2-square-foam-Sanding-Pads-Made-in-USA-/320868289884?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab53d8d5c This car was done with MicroMesh, as mentioned above.

Lots of cool stuff happening on this build. Very nice work.

Wow, absolutely beautiful. Really an inspiration to start working on my detail skills. Just love a 409 too.

Really cool. I've got a couple of '55 Chevy pickups that need to morph into something like this.

GREAT idea, and yes, it would make a teriffic model. Hope you don't mind if I put it in my ideas-to-steal file. I'll give you design credit if I ever get around to building it.

Man, I LOVE that chopped and dropped conventional Pete. Baddest tractor I think I've ever seen. Kinda overkill for hauling bikes, but everybody would sure notice whan you pulled up with that rig. Wicked.

You've definitely got talent. Keep at it, like the man said above.