Kit engineering question

[Jantrix]

It seems over the years, the biggest flaw that keeps being repeated in kit after kit over the last 50 years is ride height. Corvettes, TransAms, Camaros, exotics, heck even stock cars. It's crazy to see a kit of a car that is from the factory, pretty low, sitting way up in the air like something from the 50's. What is it about a model car that keeps the kit engineers from getting the ride height correct? The thickness of the material? 

Any insight would be welcome if you have some ideas.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Material thickness is often cited as the "reason" for all sorts of things in the modeling world, when in fact it is only an excuse.

The real reason? Incompetence, pure and simple.

If "material thickness" really had anything to do with it, or if the reason was anything other than sloppy laziness on the part of the designers, ALL models would sit like 4X4s, and we lowly modelers wouldn't be able to so easily correct wonky stance by simple expedients like re-positioning stub axles on spindles, or lightly shaving material from leaf springs, would we?

 

 

[El Roberto]

I build aircraft, and armor as well as cars and I've noticed that the engineering on car kits is awful in comparison to the other kits.  If a modern aircraft kit's fit and detail was as bad as with a car kit,  people would be howling and the manufacturer would probably be out of business before long.  

I realize that there is a pretty big price difference between the kits, but I'd be willing to pay more to have a decent car kit. 

 

[Erik Smith]

In addition to incompetence, unfamiliarity with subject matter could contribute to errors in properly positioning the running gear of a vehicle in the design process. In a way, it’s incompetence again, but often people don’t know what they don’t know, and you could definitely find somebody responsible that should know.

Remember those 1990s AMT boxes with the Corvette and Taurus riding sky high in the actual model kit photos? That’s incompetence all the way through (although it is more indicative of actual box contents and what you are able to build!)

Another slightly contributing factor may be the kit manufacturers reluctance to produce realistic, properly sized tires - yeah, they’re not all guilty, but for years we’ve had to deal with many kits getting the same tires that have been in many other kits - generic enough to fit multiple vehicles but not really great for any of them.

[935k3]

I think some of it scale measuring. Sometimes the measurement is right but just not look right in scale. Also somebody said and is right the tires don't have the weighted radial bulge as on a real car. I adjust all my cars so they look right. An important to look at space between the top of the tire and the fender opening. on some race cars there is no gap and the tire is covered by the fender opening. Porsche's 935 is a good example of that.

 

 

[Mike999]

10 hours ago, El Roberto said:

I build aircraft, and armor as well as cars and I've noticed that the engineering on car kits is awful in comparison to the other kits.  If a modern aircraft kit's fit and detail was as bad as with a car kit,  people would be howling and the manufacturer would probably be out of business before long.  

I realize that there is a pretty big price difference between the kits, but I'd be willing to pay more to have a decent car kit. 

 

Good points. I build aircraft and armor too. At places like Missing Lynx and Armorama, a couple of missing bolts on a tank and they're ready to bring out the guillotine.  Especially if it's a German tank.  As for kit engineering/fit, there's an old saying about Tamiya armor kits: "Pour glue in the box, shake it and the built model drops out."

Price can make a difference but not always. I'm thinking of kits like the old Hobbycraft 1/48 scale aircraft.  They weren't Tamiya quality but they generally went together well and looked good.  Most of those kits still go for low prices, sometimes less than $10 even on eBay.

Model car companies might learn something from the way Hobbycraft milked its molds.  The 1/48 scale P-35 fighter kit begat the Seversky racer.  The P-36 spawned a whole line of US, British and French versions like the Mohawk and Hawk 75.  I think Hobbycraft was the first company to take on every version of the Bf-109, from the pre-war Condor Legion to the post-war Czech and Israeli fighters. Etc.

[Metalbeast]

Ride height and diameter of wheels and tires. ertl was the worst at that. I remember that a wheel that would have been 14" in real life would be the same diameter as a wheel that was supposed to be 17" in real life. That was probably a cost cut so they could use the same five or so sets of tire molds they had. Sheesh, I think the 1992 F150 kit originally came with old MPC bias ply tires! I think they went back and fixed the ride height on the Taurus SHO.

[peteski]

1 hour ago, Mike999 said:

Model car companies might learn something from the way Hobbycraft milked its molds.  The 1/48 scale P-35 fighter kit begat the Seversky racer.  The P-36 spawned a whole line of US, British and French versions like the Mohawk and Hawk 75.  I think Hobbycraft was the first company to take on every version of the Bf-109, from the pre-war Condor Legion to the post-war Czech and Israeli fighters. Etc.

Unfortunately this does not translate into automotive subjects. Sure with models of stock cars (or other similar ones), you can produce one model and then reissue with dozen different deal sets.   But for mode average passenger cars, you can't do that.  You can do only so many variants of 1965 Ford Falcon sedan.

[martinfan5]

1 hour ago, 935k3 said:

I think some of it scale measuring. Sometimes the measurement is right but just not look right in scale. Also somebody said and is right the tires don't have the weighted radial bulge as on a real car. I adjust all my cars so they look right. An important to look at space between the top of the tire and the fender opening. on some race cars there is no gap and the tire is covered by the fender opening. Porsche's 935 is a good example of that.

 

 

 

Dale, you brought up a very good point, and if I can find it I will link it, but there was an interview with one the top guys that worked at Tamiya and then went to Ebbro models, within that interview he spoke about the challenges of designing a kits and that is the suspension and ride height because its very hard to transfer the weight of a car on the tires to scale, or something on those lines.

[Bainford]

One of the biggest problems I've seen lately are wheels that are too big. Several of my most recent builds have had wheels with excessive diameter, and they were stock builds. My current build, the recently tooled Fujimi Lotus Esprit is a perfect example. The Esprit should have 14" wheels, but the otherwise excellent kit wheels measure over 15.5" diameter. The kit tires have the correct profile for the wheel, but that makes the combination much too large in diameter for a stock ride height. The thing sits on its tippy toes, and no amount of lowering will stuff those big tires/wheels far enough up into the wheel well to give a proper ride height. The only solution was to fit low profile tires, but the final appearance is not stock.

I recently built the Aoshima/Airfix MGB, which has the same problem; 14" wheels that scale out to almost 16" diameter, and give an unavoidable tippy toe look. I lowered it some to improve the look, but a wheel/tire that is too big, looks too big. Both of these kits are not inexpensive, and modern-era tooled by fastidious Japanese kit makers.

[afx]

[randyc]

I've wondered about this as well.   Could it be that model companies, especially US makers, do this to enhance the "play" value to kids?  I mean, really, when we were young and played with our models, would we have wanted the tires to rub or to be too far up in the openings for the car to play well?  IDK, just a wild guess.      If you didn't play with your models, this doesn't apply.  But when I was a kid, metal axles were the BESTEST kits becasue they were tougher when built.  To play with.   I built the snappers with my kids and them turned them loose to play with.   Still have some of them.  Did you know an AMT "Slammer" model, straight from the box, makes a great door stop if you have interior doors that won't quite stay open?  

As an adult, how hard could it be to fix from the makers instead of us having to deal with it on the building end?

The Mints gave us all sorts of working features at the ends of their runs.  Why could the model makers not incorporated some of that tech into plastic kits?  I mean I have diecasts with working suspension, properly opening doors, scissor hinges on the hood.  Trumpeter tried, but I could never assemble those.  Maybe that's why they didn't offer those features.  Answer my own question, right?   I know plastic isn't as durable, so maybe that's part of it too.   But seems like the plastic kit makers could have done more for the adult collector segment.   Kinda like how Fujimi tries with the EM series.  

The struggles are real... 

 

[Mike999]

12 hours ago, peteski said:

Unfortunately this does not translate into automotive subjects. Sure with models of stock cars (or other similar ones), you can produce one model and then reissue with dozen different deal sets.   But for mode average passenger cars, you can't do that.  You can do only so many variants of 1965 Ford Falcon sedan.

It sort of translates.  Hobbycraft had to cut different nose "plugs" and other details for its Bf-109 kits, so some of their kits weren't just a decal job.  The link below shows how they did that, for anyone interested. 

Those kits weren't  "Hase-miya" quality, but the aftermarket fixed that with resin detail/correction sets, engines,  etc.  By the time you added all that stuff, the kit cost as much as a "Hase-miya."  Except Hase-miya didn't make a P-35 or P-36, so that was a moot point. 

Sort of like if we want a 4-door or station wagon car model today, we buy a plastic kit and add a resin body. 

Moebius is doing a good job of "milking the molds" with its Belvedere/Satellites, Comets, Ford trucks etc.  I just wish they'd milk them a little more and turn out some "mainstreamers," 4-doors, wagons, police cars, taxis etc.  I realize cutting a separate body mold is way too expensive and before that happens, we'll all be vacationing on Mars. But I can dream...

https://modelingmadness.com/scott/axis/luft/me/109/hc109e1preview.htm
 

 

Edited January 30, 2020 by Mike999
goof

[Ace-Garageguy]

10 hours ago, martinfan5 said:

Dale, you brought up a very good point, and if I can find it I will link it, but there was an interview with one the top guys that worked at Tamiya and then went to Ebbro models, within that interview he spoke about the challenges of designing a kits and that is the suspension and ride height because its very hard to transfer the weight of a car on the tires to scale, or something on those lines.

I'm sorry, but if you stop and think the least bit critically about this, it's ridiculous.

If a given car's static ride height in reality is, say, 6 inches, the ride height of the model should be 6 scale inches.

Maintain the same numerical relationships, and models will look correct every time.

The often repeated notion that models have to be warped and dimensions juggled by some super-secret oogy-boogy factor that can only be seen and interpreted by magic kit designers to "look right" is sheer gibberish too.

Yes, I know this from personal, highly critical real-world experience.

For simple proof, consider this: a small photographic representation of a real full size car looks "right" without any magic manipulation of dimensions. Why? because all the spacial and numerical relationships are maintained exactly as they are in reality.

The stupid too-tall and too-wide tire issue is something else that makes no sense.

Measuring and dividing isn't hard. At all. Especially if that's what you get paid for, because you're supposed to know how.

 

Edited January 30, 2020 by Ace-Garageguy

[Bainford]

On ‎1‎/‎30‎/‎2020 at 9:21 AM, afx said:

Thanks Mr. AFX. I do appreciate the info. I am, though, aware of how to properly measure the diameter of a 1:1 wheel and how to scale a kit wheel. I am also a  keen proponent of scale fidelity. If it's in scale, it's right. If it's not, it's not. Cheers, sir.

Edited February 1, 2020 by Bainford

[martinfan5]

7 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

I'm sorry, but if you stop and think the least bit critically about this, it's ridiculous.

If a given car's static ride height in reality is, say, 6 inches, the ride height of the model should be 6 scale inches.

Maintain the same numerical relationships, and models will look correct every time.

The often repeated notion that models have to be warped and dimensions juggled by some super-secret oogy-boogy factor that can only be seen and interpreted by magic kit designers to "look right" is sheer gibberish too.

Yes, I know this from personal, highly critical real-world experience.

For simple proof, consider this: a small photographic representation of a real full size car looks "right" without any magic manipulation of dimensions. Why? because all the spacial and numerical relationships are maintained exactly as they are in reality.

The stupid too-tall and too-wide tire issue is something else that makes no sense.

Measuring and dividing isn't hard. At all. Especially if that's what you get paid for, because you're supposed to know how.

 

Ahh, so I found the article , here is the piece from the article I was referring to.

The person that I am quoting is "Interview with Masato Kiya" he worked for Tamiya and at the time (2013) Ebbro models

I mis quoted him and I couldnt remember word word or in what context, but in the interview he was talking about kit design, he said this

Of course.  Tires are always a bother…  Where you put the wheel centers changes the impression that a car makes considerably.  But the tires don’t squeeze down under their own weight, as they do on real cars.  Even though they’re made of rubber.

You can find it here

http://f1modelingcorner.blogspot.com/p/ebbro-interview-part-4.html

 

Well, I know there are some people who go by the re-arrangements-aren’t-necessary theory, and I can understand what people like that are saying. 

 

But, just as we were saying about “where to put the wheel centers” before, if you just shrink down actual car blueprints and transpose them onto a 1/24 or 1/20 model as-is, you don’t get that “realism”.  So, there are times when you have to do some re-arranging, to kind of emphasize realism.

 

But you know, with the Honda City R for example, I made some adjustments by lowering the waistline and widening the window areas a lot, but none of those no-adjustment-theory people even noticed.  So I “get away with” things like that, but in the end with models, and with car models especially, I think it has to be that way.

 

That is to rephrase, models are sets of tridimensional volumes, aren’t they?  So I think that feeling of volume, that comes from the lines and surfaces, is what’s most important.  So whether the cabin is big or small, the window areas are wide or narrow, or the tires’ ellipticity mass is large or small, of course I draw out those things with lines and attach my surfaces to them, but it’s in the way the surfaces lie, I think.  And that’s the fun part of designing.

That is from here

http://f1modelingcorner.blogspot.com/p/ebbro-interview-part-5.html

[El Roberto]

Another problem I have with car kits has to do with doors, hoods, etc.  Some of the kits have lines denoting door or trunk openings which are so out of scale on a 1:1 car you could put your hand in them.   That's one of the reasons why I don't try to cut open doors or trunk lids. There seems to be no way for a tight fit on the door without a huge scale gap.  

I guess I get hung up on scale because of the other stuff I build.  

[Ace-Garageguy]

3 hours ago, martinfan5 said:

Ahh, so I found the article , here is the piece from the article I was referring to.

The person that I am quoting is "Interview with Masato Kiya" he worked for Tamiya and at the time (2013) Ebbro models

I mis quoted him and I couldnt remember word word or in what context, but in the interview he was talking about kit design, he said this 

Well, I know there are some people who go by the re-arrangements-aren’t-necessary theory, and I can understand what people like that are saying. 

 

But, just as we were saying about “where to put the wheel centers” before, if you just shrink down actual car blueprints and transpose them onto a 1/24 or 1/20 model as-is, you don’t get that “realism”.  So, there are times when you have to do some re-arranging, to kind of emphasize realism.

 

But you know, with the Honda City R for example, I made some adjustments by lowering the waistline and widening the window areas a lot, but none of those no-adjustment-theory people even noticed.  So I “get away with” things like that, but in the end with models, and with car models especially, I think it has to be that way.

 

That is to rephrase, models are sets of tridimensional volumes, aren’t they?  So I think that feeling of volume, that comes from the lines and surfaces, is what’s most important.  So whether the cabin is big or small, the window areas are wide or narrow, or the tires’ ellipticity mass is large or small, of course I draw out those things with lines and attach my surfaces to them, but it’s in the way the surfaces lie, I think.  And that’s the fun part of designing.

 

So this guy's saying he has the magic calibrated eyeball and spidey sense that he uses to "interpret" the actual dimensions and numerical relationships, totally subjectively, into what he thinks they should be to represent vehicles realistically in scale.

I call bovine exhaust on his approach. If he wants to design cars, he ought to be working as a real-car designer, not stretching and reshaping something that already exists to present it the way he thinks (completely arbitrarily) HE wants it to look.

I'm sure every misshapen mess on the market has some equally arbitrary set of "artistic reasons" that it looks more like a young child's toy than a scale model.

I've had industrial model makers try to pull this crapp with MY designs. I spotted what they were doing immediately, and kicked their backsides out the door. I ended up building my own models directly from the prints in several cases, and guess what? The models looked exactly as they were designed to look with no "artistic interpretation" from some doofus third party required.

But hey...most people building models just don't have the artistic talent, particularly in 3D, to spot the things that are wrong with many kits. We routinely see people say "I just don't see the problem", and others saying "I don't care anyway".

So it's easy for these "artistic interpretation" designers to get away with this stuff, 'cause most modelers aren't going to catch it. And those of us who really do have accurately calibrated eyeballs have to take what's made, and accept it as wrong, or waste our time correcting it.

 

Edited January 31, 2020 by Ace-Garageguy

[89AKurt]

... magic calibrated eyeball and spidey sense ...

I use that all the time, because I don't have a fancy digital micrometer. ?  Ride height has always bugged me too, manufacturer makes no difference.  When I built the Tamiya Mercedes 600SEL AMG, box said big wheels, I measured a size smaller, *had to* lower too because it looked stupid.  Usually the first thing I do when opening a new kit, is look at how easy it will be to lower.

[jaymcminn]

I recently built the Hasegawa Jaguar XJ-S Twr version. They snuck unrealistically low-profile tires into the kit and left the ride height sitting at stock XJ-S level because somebody during the development process realized the wider TWR wheels and lowered suspension would never clear the bodywork unless a lot of the original kit was redesigned. After a lot of fiddling and some truly ugly (and fortunately invisible) surgery I was able to use tires with a slightly higher profile and got the ride height where it should be. I'm fighting the same battle now with my Monogram C4 Callaway Speedster. I wanted to widen the rear wheels to use the steamroller rear tires that the real cars used, but doing so would require more work than I'm willing to put into what I'm looking at as a quick, fun build...mini-tubs and fairly major suspension mods at least. Fortunately the old Monogram kits tend to lend themselves easily to ride height mods so I can get the stance right...If I can't get accurate than I guess I can live with easy to fix!

[SfanGoch]

On 1/30/2020 at 5:35 PM, martinfan5 said:

But you know, with the Honda City R for example, I made some adjustments by lowering the waistline and widening the window areas a lot, but none of those no-adjustment-theory people even noticed.  So I “get away with” things like that, but in the end with models, and with car models especially, I think it has to be that way.

Yeah.......that's the ticket. Use "dimensional adjustments" to get this

from this

Nobody'll notice.

[Ace-Garageguy]

13 hours ago, SfanGoch said:

Yeah.......that's the ticket. Use "dimensional adjustments" to get this

from this

Nobody'll notice.

Looks fine to me. I can't see any difference at all. Dammed rivet-counting nit-pickers.

[Tom Geiger]

3 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Looks fine to me. I can't see any difference at all. Dammed rivet-counting nit-pickers.

 

I'll add in the perfect Caddy!     It looks like something Stewart Little would drive!   

BTW... if anyone has the missing trim, I'd love to complete this car, just for giggles...

[FredRPG]

On 1/30/2020 at 8:34 PM, Ace-Garageguy said:

So this guy's saying he has the magic calibrated eyeball and spidey sense that he uses to "interpret" the actual dimensions and numerical relationships, totally subjectively, into what he thinks they should be to represent vehicles realistically in scale.

I call bovine exhaust on his approach. If he wants to design cars, he ought to be working as a real-car designer, not stretching and reshaping something that already exists to present it the way he thinks (completely arbitrarily) HE wants it to look.

I'm sure every misshapen mess on the market has some equally arbitrary set of "artistic reasons" that it looks more like a young child's toy than a scale model.

I've had industrial model makers try to pull this crapp with MY designs. I spotted what they were doing immediately, and kicked their backsides out the door. I ended up building my own models directly from the prints in several cases, and guess what? The models looked exactly as they were designed to look with no "artistic interpretation" from some doofus third party required.

But hey...most people building models just don't have the artistic talent, particularly in 3D, to spot the things that are wrong with many kits. We routinely see people say "I just don't see the problem", and others saying "I don't care anyway".

So it's easy for these "artistic interpretation" designers to get away with this stuff, 'cause most modelers aren't going to catch it. And those of us who really do have accurately calibrated eyeballs have to take what's made, and accept it as wrong, or waste our time correcting it.

This is the difference between an engineer and an artist. As an artist that works with engineers all the time, I’d like to say you’re both right.  I recently had a discussion about illustrating a missile coming straight at the viewer. To most people it looked like a hubcap, to the engineer it was just right. In 2d or 3D often you have to cheat to get things to look right, but no one notices because it looks right.

For the missile I cheated the angle down a bit and exaggerated the perspective compared to the Apache in the background. Most everyone agreed that it looked like you were about to be hit, except the engineer who thought it was going to miss by several feet.  He wasn’t wrong literally, but he was visually.

[peteski]

1 hour ago, FredRPG said:

This is the difference between an engineer and an artist. As an artist that works with engineers all the time, I’d like to say you’re both right.  I recently had a discussion about illustrating a missile coming straight at the viewer. To most people it looked like a hubcap, to the engineer it was just right. In 2d or 3D often you have to cheat to get things to look right, but no one notices because it looks right.

For the missile I cheated the angle down a bit and exaggerated the perspective compared to the Apache in the background. Most everyone agreed that it looked like you were about to be hit, except the engineer who thought it was going to miss by several feet.  He wasn’t wrong literally, but he was visually.

I'm not sure if I agree.  A flat (2D) graphic of a missile is not the same to me as an accurate 3D scale model of a car.  Like Ace said, the model should be accurately scaled down without any artistic license.  Well, there are some compromises (for example the thickness of the plastic, and slightly exaggerated size of some very small details might be oversize.  But the overall shape should be accurate scaled down version.

 

Otherwise, slightly exaggerating your example, we end up with something like:

 

Edited February 6, 2020 by peteski