Ace-Garageguy

Most excellent.

Looks like a nice tool. I believe I need to add that to my own arsenal (though I assume it's .046" rather than .46")

Agreed 100%. And I'm not advocating that EVERYBODY go out and buy this stuff and get up to speed. It will only take a few motivated individuals to combine the available technologies to change the landscape of modeling dramatically. PS: I know a couple of guys who are so fast working with CAD, they can turn out a design for an individual printable part in short order; when they're working, the cursor's just flying around the screen (though I'm NOT one of them). But the potential is there for some really obscure stuff to be made available for "reasonable" money. Fireball's exceptionally fine stuff is the shape of things to come.

I've already done some slice-N-dice on one just to get a feel of what a major correction would take. It's not that hard. And, as I bought several of the Aurora-boxed kits with the gorgeous box-art illustration based solely on the box-art (and my own ignorance at the time), I'd kinda like to be able to get something on the shelf that's not an embarrassment (to my highly critical-for-proportion-and-line eye). I also have the "good" kits, and the sad little Monogram model CAN compare favorably, ultimately, if one assumes the result to represent a heavily used race car that may have had some expedient repairs and mods during its competition career.

Yup, and for around $450 nobody should expect everything to be perfect, especially at this point in the game. This is still new tech, and the prices will continue to come down as print quality goes up. Again, I stated in the opening blurb that the machines I presented weren't state-of-the-art. I suppose I should have also said this is an entry-level machine. But the real POINT of the three-part post wasn't to extol the virtues of any particular machine. Rather, it was to demonstrate that instead of endlessly complaining about what's not available from the manufacturers, and opining that a Borgward Hansa 1500 kit would surely sell a million units and make everyone in any given model company rich beyond their wildest dreams (if only the model companies weren't so lazy and blind to the tremendous market potential), that it's now entirely possible for somebody who's motivated and skilled to produce, for a tiny fraction of the cost of old-school design and tooling, anything their little heart might desire.

I dunno, but at least it actually looks like the warped and distorted model that's in the box...which IS correctable into something reasonably OK with enough effort.

And endorsed by the Soccer Mom Association of America, Yuppies-R-Us, and Parents of Little Lawyers of Tomorrow. But unless they have tires with automatically-deploying studs when the first snowflake hits the windshield, or an app that calls a friendly roving technician to come install the chains (for all the can't-do-anything-but-type-and-talk types), there will be just as many of them upside down in ditches here as there are Lexuses and Jeeps and Mercedes, etc. whenever the roads get slick.

Yes, Olds, but specifically the first-generation Olds OHV V8 engine, built in displacements of 303, 324, 371, and 394 from 1949 through late 1963. It's an extremely strong engine, and was fairly popular with drag racers. The famous Stone-Woods-Cook '41 Willys (first version) ran one with a blower, and won consistently. All the engines are visually very similar, and in 1/25 you can pick a number. The engine is an entirely different design from what Olds built later on. And of course, a race car engine can be painted any color the engine builder or team owner wants (though light colors are often favored because leaks show up better than they do on dark colors).

This may be old news to some. Though he left us back on May 21, I didn't know until today. I figured he needed to be remembered here. For those who don't know, he was a metal-shaper at the top of the pile. Really nobody any better, and sculpted the bodies for some of the best cars ever built. Hemmings obit here: https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2018/06/13/master-metalshaper-marcel-de-ley-dies-at-age-89/

Yup. The above reseller was at a recent show here, and I purchased several items from his remaining stock. First rate product, and first rate seller. I hope the guy gets well. He sure makes nice stuff.

Do I remember correctly that you're the guy who made a foldable convertible top for a 1/24 scale model?

Buying wire-gauge drills from eBay is a crud-shoot at best. Some of the garbage sold there is so soft, it won't even drill into brass. Last set I got from an industrial supplier (probably MSC or Grainger). Kinda spendy for as tiny as they are, but hey...they actually drill holes in stuff.

One of my most used tools on the model bench is the little X-Acto 3"X4" #X7726 square. I also keep a couple of 6" stainless rules handy, an old one from Western Auto marked in 32nds and 64ths on one side, with a decimal-equivalent scale on the reverse, and another oldie from General marked in 10ths and 100ths on one side, with 32nds and 64ths on the reverse. Those two, plus an 18" steel rule with a no-slip back for cutting longer styrene or wood strips, marked in inches (16ths) and metric (mm) do pretty much everything I need for models. I also picked up a set of assorted angle templates in stainless for model work somewhere, handy to have if you need an accurate 45 or 30 or 15 degree cut on the end of a strip, of to use as a temporary fixture. Naturally, an OK quality digital caliper with easy switching readouts from inches to metric is indispensable too.

I'm with you on lusting after that one, Bill. Here's a shot of some of some of the guts, just to whet the appetites of the click-challenged. Outstanding detail, with the big Marelli alternator and York AC compressor easily identifiable. Painted and photographed in daylight, it would be difficult to tell this thing from a real one.

Too cool !! Glad she found a good home. Hope to see progress photos from time to time too.

^^^ Tasty. I want one. In other news, a decently built Johan '60 Olds arrived today. Can't tell yet what it's painted with, but the original builder sanded it a little prior, and whatever it is, it's well stuck to the car. A vigorous rub with 90% isopropyl alcohol at least got some black on the cloth, so I have hope she'll strip completely. Pardon the blurry seller shot. One of the guys I work with occasionally has been a fixture in the Atlanta area sports-car scene for decades. He owned an Alpine A110 way back when we were both wild and crazy, so when one came up for about half of what they usually go for, I kinda had to jump on it.

It'll depend on exactly when it was made. Monogram used exactly the same tooling for their acetate and styrene versions on the little midget racer shown several posts back. The acetate one I have is molded in red, as are most of the later styrene issues. The acetate on my first-issue Monogram midget hasn't warped (much) because of the way it was stored. Acetate models don't necessarily self-destruct if they're stored in an environment that doesn't kill 'em. Anyway, the only way to really tell is to try a solvent bond test on a hidden area, or a piece of sprue. And whatever it is...styrene or acetate...you can use CA or epoxy. It's just the styrene glue usually doesn't work well on acetate (in my experience). Another note that bears repeating: some of the early "high impact" styrene formulations were quite solvent resistant. The tube goo most kids slathered on back then would stick 'em together, sorta. But I bought a '61 Johan gluebomb a while back that was so solvent resistant (and it was styrene), I had no choice but to use epoxy for assembly and repair. The solvent-type liquid glues, even the "hottest" one I had, would slightly dissolve and adhere broken ends of parts together, but with subsequent handling, the joins just fell apart.

Guess you missed it...

Pretty cool ! Honestly, I've done enough of the costing (back-of-napkin) to have a pretty good idea of what it would take to get going with this, but much depends on the desired direction (full kits or aftermarket only). I know people who have the one necessary skill I have but am not sufficiently proficient in currently (developing 3D models from a wide variety of data), and again, the whole thing is doable. Starting with aftermarket "parts" would make the most sense, bootstrapping the business to produce limited run kits as income grows. But like any other manufacturing enterprise, success or failure depends on the final market acceptance of any given product, and many folks who say "yeah, I'd buy that at such-and-such a price" don't actually cough up when the thing becomes available. I even have someone willing to back me in a venture, but I don't want to retire from what I'm doing now just to go into another full time business with model cars. I have too many real car projects I want to do in the limited time I have remaining. But the potential is there for anyone who wants to pick up the ball and run with it.

Glad you got the point. Something I should elaborate on...it is also possible to take the models shown in the first video AFTER they've been primered and are slick, and cast two-part injection molds from from a high-performance catalyzed casting resin...much like silicone molds are made of masters for resin cast replicas. Hand-made masters can also be used for the basis of injection molding tools. If the parting lines are handled carefully, current kit-quality is achievable.

A little applied science and striving for repeatability would be good if you really want to try to make this work...which I believe at this time to be not likely. To control part-quality-destroying shrinkage, you'll need to determine the absolute minimum amount of solvent required to liquefy a given mass of styrene scrap. Accuracy matters. For instance, if you get something like a 20% volume increase with the liquefied material, you can, of course, look for a 20% shrinkage rate when the stuff dries. So, in that case, a mold that's made from an existing part would produce a copied part that's 20% smaller than the original in overall volume. Not really acceptable (and this is why tooling for many metal-casting processes is made larger that the desired finished part...to compensate for shrinkage). On the other hand, if it's only around 5%, you might get away with making small parts.

An in-depth cost analysis would likely cost more to produce than buying all the equipment, modifying some of it, and producing a run of parts. And it would take somebody with my particular combination of skills and knowledge base to produce anything that was accurate and realistic. I'm available as a consultant...or will be as soon as I finish the two 1:1 client car projects I'm committed to. PS: I will say this. I've researched these processes and materials sufficiently (and have sufficient technical background to understand them completely), and my gut (which is usually right when it comes to seeing what's possible) tells me that a combination of the three technologies presented in the videos could be made to work cost-effectively in either an aftermarket-parts or short-run-kit setting, if the principals had the right skill-sets and knowledge base.

PS: The little injection molding machine was available for $3500 or so when I first became aware of it. Nothing in it is rocket-science, and something like it could be fairly easily reverse-engineered form the video alone by a competent mechanical engineer or a skilled technical hobbyist-machinist. And don't forget...this thing can easily be scaled up to a size that could do one model car body, or a complete average kit sprue.

Suffice it to to say it's entirely doable, cost effectively. I've researched everything here sufficiently to be 100% convinced of that. See part 3 for more tooling information that goes farther, and pulls the first two videos together in terms of what's possible with some effort. There are many companies capable of making injection-molding dies in the US, and there always have been. I've talked to some, and most have been very willing to try to compete cost-wise with the Chinese. But this isn't currently my job. I'm not a paid consultant to anyone at the moment, and I'm simply not going to do all the numbers and present an exhaustively researched and documented set of instructions just because I'm a nice guy. I've presented sufficient information for anyone motivated and net savvy to go as far as they would like with this stuff... ...or, I AM available as a paid engineering, product-and-process-development consultant.

That's really interesting. It would stand to reason that Kellogg's got the boat from Monogram as well (the other models are almost certainly the Monogram kits I showed above, 99.999% probability), as the "art" style of the figure is just like the driver figure style in the little Midget racer, and their slightly later Indy car. Man that's cool. Now I'm going to have to try to find one.