Ace-Garageguy

Sorry. The #28 blade fits the wider handle (approx. 9mm slot) I also found these Excel blades in the bought-but-never-used tool stash. They take a specific handle and won't work in X-Actos, but the steel is absolutely gorgeous, looks to be higher quality (more chrome in it) than X-Acto blades. It looks like genuine "surgical" steel.

Kinda wanting something for this evening, and having found several of these hooked blades that I've never used, I'm experimenting with grinding the tips to get that nice fine curl as mentioned above. I have, by the way, found this design blade to be good to use for opening doors and decklids, or for starting curved lines to be scribed deeper with a different tool. Possibly because of the way my own particular fingers and wrists are hinged, these work better for me for following curves than a standard straight-tip X-Acto blade.

Yup. I needs a set of these. Few years back, there was a master aircraft modeler who had posted the best YooToob scribing video I've ever seen (or imagine ever I will). It's gone now, but the guy had ground some tools very similar to these from hard tool-steel stock, and was very good at explaining and showing how to use them, in both directions, and on a variety of shapes and surfaces. The idea of having a tip that's considerably thinner than the old standard (but fat) #11 blade or razor saw, and will pull a nice "curl" on the backstroke, has much appeal. The last significant scribing job I did using a razor saw was just barely acceptable from my perspective. Not blaming the tool, but something that is better suited to the job would certainly be easier to get good results with, consistently.

Having a couple of each now, and enough parts-packs to build several more of each (except the Fiat), and having paid not-quite-stupid money, but definitely kinda a lot for the boxed kits, I'd STILL be happy to see them reissued...though I'm not really familiar enough with the level of interest across the car modeling spectrum to make a decision (or recommendation) as to bringing them back (IF the tooling even exists) if it were my own money or job on the line. An interesting aside...I just got another one of the Fiat double kits, which I haven't built in decades. While reading through the instructions and smelling the old-kit nostalgia scent emanating from the 55 year-old box, I noticed the instructions call out using the headers from the Chrysler on the nailhead Buick. Interesting, because the exhaust-port spacing on the two engines is entirely different. While Revell's tooling gurus got the port-spacing on the nailhead dead-on-the-money in 1962 (as opposed to the Chinese tool makers who got it wrong on Revell's latest version of the same engine), the fellers who did the instructions in '63 weren't quite so careful.

Depending on the specific body, it actually will work on some full-fendered cars where the cowl/nose intersection is narrowing as you go forward. It may be very tight, but it's often doable. In general, on the ones where it will work, the distance between the lower rear inner corners of the fenders has to be just a tick wider than the door front edges or cowl (as the rear of the nose piece arcs up-and-forward). On "envelope bodied" cars like the '49 Ford and most everything built later, you're absolutely correct. With a single hinge point, it's about impossible to get upward and forward movement happening quickly enough to avoid having the front clip sides foul the doors as it flips up. Some kind of scissors hinge is required, but it's tough to do the secondary hinges in the smaller scales. That's why I usually just do what a lot of the real car guys do...either make the nose come off entirely, or hinge it as above, but carefully 'spread' it at the back while opening to avoid nicking and scratching the doors.

The early Chrysler FirePower Hemi uses a separate valley cover, with discrete manifold castings usually. The eight-carb manifold for the Chrysler engine in the AMT double-dragster kit would adapt nicely as this setup ^^^ with Parts by Parks short velocity stacks. Competition Resins has one for the later 426 which could also possibly be adapted... Far as the flip-nose hinge goes, I just bumped a tutorial I did some time back that has some general tips that work on just about anything. It might be of some use to you.

Bump.

Thanks for the confirmation, Art.

^^^ Nice. Very nice.

And HERE, including a discussion of what it most closely resembles...

You should do a conspiracy video on YouTube.

Pen springs can be given a much more realistic appearance by simply dipping them in one of the commercially-available products like this: https://plastidip.com/our-products/liquid-tape/

Movies routinely make all manner of technical mistakes, no matter what the subject or genre. And it's getting worse. Some of the utterances I've heard about cars, aviation and science are so stupid, one really has to wonder how ignorant the producers think the audience is to have failed to hire a guy for a few hundred bucks to get the tech stuff right. One of my favorites from every film era is constantly referring to "automatics" (handguns with a slide and a removable clip) as "revolvers" and vise versa.

After taking a look at how Revell's sedan body fits its fenders (and having measured and compared the dimensions of all these kits with real cars) I'd personally add some meat to the wheel cutouts on the MPC body, and extend the forward third of the lower body line to close the gap at the frame, to match the height of the Revell hood. The rear door on the MPC body may need to be shaved slightly as well, as mentioned by Phildaupho. The idea is to get the character line running down the side of the car oriented correctly, with no odd slopes or joggles. This is the Revell sedan.

I had a fried Spam and cheddar sandwich.

...except for traditional rally cars...

Nice work. I had no idea that one was ever kitted. Giorgetto Giugiaro, the master designer at Ital, did quite a few cars in his (at the time) signature lotsa-straight-lines-and-angles style, the first VW Rabbit/Golf, the Fiat X1/9, and the DeLorean being very well known production cars. Much criticized at the time for this style (which his incessantly-parroting detractors said was due to an inability to draw in perspective), all anyone has to do to see the true measure of his talent is to look at other cars he did, some notables being the DeTomaso Mangusta, Iso Grifo, and Maserati Ghibli.

Carney Plastics https://shop.carneyplastics.com/Dragster-Display-Case-Single-Car-Black-Acrylic-Base-with-Mirror-Inset-P548.aspx Or...it's not really too difficult to fabricate clear acrylic display boxes from sheet and MEK solvent glue. Many cities still have plastic-fabricator or plastic-supply companies that stock the necessary materials. Make up a nice wooden base, maybe top it with fine sandpaper to represent blacktop, paint some lines on it.

I suppose it would be nice, in an ideal world, to have easy categories for everything. But over the years, I've shown several "lakes" and LSR cars here. As they don't actually belong in either NASCAR or drag-racing, I just post them with the generic "cars". Never had any shortage of lookers and comments, so I don't really see the need for additional complication.

Bear in mind that if you want an accurate '32 Ford, this ain't it. Besides having a frame that looks nothing like a real '32, the cowl side is also too short (in height), falling somewhere between the old AMT severely sectioned version, and Revell's series of '32s which are reasonably close to correct. NOTE: I'm NOT bashing the kit. I like it. It builds up into a really good looking model with some effort. The Switcher bodies aren't a bad fit on Revell's '32 underpinnings either, so there's a lot of potential here.

Just to be clear, the Tudor and SD kits were derived from the original issue that included the Woody body as well, shown immediately below. All the subsequent 1/25 '31 Woody-only issues (as shown above by Greg, and including the "Woodstock" and Advent issues) include the Riley parts as well.

Yeah, one of the reasons I haven't gone far with this is because the wires ultimately get captured between two plastic rims. I actually went so far as to buy a miniature (vintage) lathe to make clean, round rims on, but haven't had the time to work with it much. The straight-in spokes on the T wheel outer ring is also a problem. BUT...I think you'll find monofilament to be plenty strong once the entire wheel is assembled. The forces acting on it are identical to those acting on real wires, just much much smaller. Even building up individual spoke wheels in 1/8 scale using the Pocher jigs can be a hair-puller, but Pico Elgin has managed to do it in 1/24 scale using printed rims that have .010" holes for the spokes. And they look really real.

There are three decent looking turbines in the AMT Amtronic kit. They were supposed to make enough power to fly the thing in fantasy land, so using one for a surface vehicle powerplant isn't too far fetched. The front engine is a scaled-down version of the Chrysler style, while the rear engines have annular combustion chambers.

The little Howmet rig (from the AMT kit above) mounted in the tail could work, assuming you can live without a trunk full of Bat-gear. It's small, makes around 400 SHP, IIRC, and puts the extremely hot and high-volume exhaust behind you. Actually, that entire chassis could work. Might require widening the body. Hmmmmm...what Cobra kit are you starting with? I could check some dimensions for ya, as I have several Cobras and the Howmet in stock. Another kinda doable idea would be a sidesaddle rig like the pregnant-snake Indy cars ran. Of course, that would kill any passenger carrying capability, and if I were Batman, I'd sure like to take Batgirl for a spin every now and then.

Dangity handy to have the actual kit #. I knew one of them had a turbine, but not which one. Also, the '89 B-mobile kit is said to have a turbine engine, apparently re-released by R2. Any dope on that?