Who was building in the 60s?

[CabDriver]

I’ve been casually researching old 60s building techniques…thread for plug wires, corduroy for tuck interiors, the old Testor’s square bottle paints…all those kind of things

I’d be curious to hear from builders who were building kits back in the ‘golden age’ of building what their favorite products and techniques were - glues, fillers, paints - anything cool that you used to do back in the day.

I’m interested in tools too - I guess the range of modeling-specific products to use was WAY different to what we have available today…I’m thinking of building a SOMETHING using as many period-correct tools and materials as I can, but I’d love to hear from people who were there doing it at the time

Thanks in advance! Can’t wait to hear some stories!

[Straightliner59]

I know a lot of guys used corduroy fabric for seat coverings and interior door panels. I didn't start building until '72-'73. I used thread for spark plug wires, once, and hated the look, so, I started using monofilament fishing line, and had to make anchors of bread tie wire, to hold them down! I drilled into the engine, and glued them in (I left one end like a pin, the other was an elongated loop, to enclose the "wires"). I would pick up phone wire, around the base of any pole I found it. As far as tools, pretty soon after I started building, I found a Globemaster vise in one of those cheap tool bins in an auto parts store. I still use it, today. Even then, if I thought it might be handy, at some point, I'd get it. I remember using washers for brake rotors. I'm sure there'll be a ton of more interesting stories, than mine!

[Old Nasty]

I started building about 1960 when I was a little kid.  As far as using thread for ignition wiring, I would run it thru bees wax to get rid of the "fuzzies".  Kit bashing was a common practice.  Back then, kits cost a couple bucks & I mowed all our neighbors lawns just so I could go down to Hettigers Hobby shop.  He actually gave me (a 9 year old kid) a charge account.  Most of my early subjects were drag racing related simply because that was all that was available.  Parts packs were a big thing back then too.  I remember my mom had to buy my glue because kids were huffing it to get high.  I would raid my mothers vanity drawer for tools (nail clippers & files, emory boards), etc.  My grand father was a doctor & I would get many tools from him.  I still have a set of bone saws that I use to this day.  Those were the days.

[Dave G.]

Much of what I use for tools today, is what I did back in the 60's. Actually I started building in 58. I won a ribbon in a model contest with an AMT 49 Ford, with felt interior, thread for plug wires and gold spray paint from the hardware store I could ride my bike to.. That was 1961 or 62, immediately before I discovered Testors and Pactra candy coats, which might have gotten me a notch higher in my placement. I always built with a combo of razor saw, same handle I put the blades in. Really I liked and still do, the industrial grade single edge razor blades for box cutters and such, no handle just the back of the blade to grip, it's very tactile lol. And some form of pin vice.. You can buy a 100 of the blades in a pack at Amazon. And for the pin vice I only bought the size bits I needed. A short bundle of left over phone workers telephone wire was a gold mine for decades. Finally lost it as the kids started growing up. It's solid core fine wire in a bundle that sometimes a strand with insulation is perfect but more often stripped to the bare core is the better option. You could always find scraps of this stuff in new neighborhoods/new construction, which was prevalent in the 50's and 60's..

The corduroy I used in a 32 Ford build. A fenderless coupe, that I cut the doors out to make opening doors, and then opened up the soft top. Upholstered the seat and door panels . I had discovered Testors metallic paint, so it got metallic burgundy paint. As I recall, I painted gold accents. But something about the build, it didn't seem substantial enough real estate wise, in my young mind to enter that one in a contest. So the next year, I made about the same plan layout in a 39 Ford sedan. Same paint, really nice paint too, surely a winner I thought. That was until my 3 yo cousin visited, who as soon as I turned my back decided to help me out by glue bombing it with the cap from a Testors orange tube smack in the middle of that long roof. So that was reduced to pieces in the original box one week before the contest, and when I recovered, long after the contest was over, I built that into a circle track racer with dents all over it. The most notable being a sunken roof dent !.

So you want to build 60's style.

Testors paints, bottle and spray.

A trip to the fabric store.

Testors glue ( by the way I still like the square bottle fwiw).

A couple spools of different thickness thread.

Bug the telephone guys for some scraps.

Get to rely on making things work, by kit bashing and what may seem a bit unorthodox today.

Oh and don't forget some flocking, common pins to work with and a sewing needle or two. Tooth picks, balsa sheets ( you never know). And sanding sealer for anything wood, say in a pickup bed or where ever. I don't recall the brand putty I used, except that it was grey and I wasn't too nuts about it. But later on in decades it was a product called Nitrostan.

Edited January 7 by Dave G.

[bobss396]

I started in 1960 or 1961. Of course I never had much money even to buy more than a 10 cent bottle of paint.

Tried using thread for wires, looked awful. We had no real tools, certainly not small drills or a pin vise.

When mom was not hone, we would use the gas stove, old knives or metal skewers to do real surgery. My dad had a sanding drum we used on his drill press to radius wheel wells. Gasser were cool even back then.

My older brother had a Zona razor saw, he never let us use it.

[NOBLNG]

Wow, you guys were a lot more advanced childhood builders than I was. It never even dawned on me to add plug wires. I grew up on a farm just outside of a very small town…so no contests to enter. The local Macleods or Allied hardware stores sold some model kits, tube glue and some Testors bottle paints…that was it for modeling supplies. So not much incentive to improve my skills. I did however hack an El Camino out of a Chevelle once and probably used wood filler for putty?🙄

[magicmustang]

I still have some of my Auto World catalogs from the 60's. Used my 9th grade biology kit (scalpel, tweezers, stick needles) for my modeling tools. Had to save my 50 cents weekly allowance for a month to afford to order a kit from the catalog.  

[Dave G.]

44 minutes ago, NOBLNG said:

Wow, you guys were a lot more advanced childhood builders than I was. It never even dawned on me to add plug wires. I grew up on a farm just outside of a very small town…so no contests to enter. The local Macleods or Allied hardware stores sold some model kits, tube glue and some Testors bottle paints…that was it for modeling supplies. So not much incentive to improve my skills. I did however hack an El Camino out of a Chevelle once and probably used wood filler for putty?🙄

In my case, fortune ( in kid terms) came young, in the form of a 108 customer paper route. In a time when layman's wages were all of $85- $100 or $125 a week, I was doing nearly half of that. I always had money, enough for models, supplies, a Fribble at Friendly's Ice cream whenever I wanted. And a new bike. I did OK as a kid, but worked for it too. Once I got that paper route I was out from under the pennies a week allowance for chores category. So happens I made a friend through church, a fellow modeller who had that route. I used to go on the route with him, ride the paper truck from the corner market to where the route was. I just helped out, got to know everybody, from the one kid, to truck drivers, even a visit or two from the paper manager guy. So when the kid's family decided to move out of town, I was already in position to take that route over, no charge ( in those days, they used to sell the routes). Well, lets face it, in those days kids were allowed to do the work ! Not today.

[Old Buckaroo]

1 hour ago, magicmustang said:

I still have some of my Auto World catalogs from the 60's. Used my 9th grade biology kit (scalpel, tweezers, stick needles) for my modeling tools. Had to save my 50 cents weekly allowance for a month to afford to order a kit from the catalog.  

I still have an old catalog that was given to me as a kid. My first mail order kit from them was a " Jo-Han Petty Belvedere"  I'm sure I drove my mom crazy asking every day if it had come in the mail.

@ Greg - I found out that the old "Durhams" wood putty that had a muscleman on the can and mixed with water made good modeling putty also !

Edited January 7 by Old Buckaroo

[gtx6970]

various sizes and types of thread for plug wires / heater hoses

fishing line for clear fuel lines.

Testors tube glue 

[TarheelRick]

I built my first model Christmas morning 1959, actually a couple of days later after I had a chance to go to town and buy some glue. For cutting I used my Dad's coping saw, broke a few blades which did not make him very happy. Never had a pin vise, had to hold the bits in my fingers. Did not do a lot of detail work, but did try the sewing thread pulled through a candle for plug wires - read about it in "Rod & Custom Cars & Models" magazine. I used whatever sandpaper Dad had laying around the house. Mostly used the Testors tube glue, small bottles of paint (some PLA), and their awful putty which would shrink and pin hole like crazy. I think I did get an X-Acto knife kit fairly early in my building years, probably after Mom got tired of me using her kitchen knives. It was all fun, now I look at my building table and wonder where all those tools that I never use came from.

[Dave G.]

17 minutes ago, gtx6970 said:

various sizes and types of thread for plug wires / heater hoses

fishing line for clear fuel lines.

Testors tube glue 

Ya and actually these days, thread is just fine for me once again. Just take the reading glasses off and there is no stranding making thread up lol !

But back in the day it's just how you did it. And that's assuming it wasn't a curb side build. Quite a few AMT kits were in the late 50's and into maybe 61 or so.

I also built 1/32.

[Ace-Garageguy]

All the above, but as I was a railroad modeler and slot-car builder too, I was aware of a lot of things the majority of car modelers apparently weren't...like small number drills and pin-vises, basswood for more scale-appearing bed stakes and slats without fuzz, NBW (nut-bolt-washer) details, etc. etc. The slot-car guys routinely rewound their motors, and I borrowed their small diameter wire for plugs, etc. EDIT: Learned to solder brass tube for slotcar chassis too. Probably lucky to have been close to real hobby shops within walking or biking distance before I could drive, and seeing what the older guys could do.

I tried styrene shapes and sheet fairly early (turned on to it by model railroader mags again), for things like de-blobularizing one-piece chassis, even built a monocoque slot car that was so light it out-accelerated everything, but went flying off the track when the nose lifted, destroying itself completely.

I was never a good brush-painter, tried Pactra and Testors rattlecans with mixed results (only one I was actually proud of was a black enamel job on an AMT T-tub hot-rod), fell in love with AMT lacquers after finding I could consistently turn out decent paint jobs with their stuff.

Last model I built before quitting for decades, in about 1969, was an altered-wheelbase flip-nose '55 Nomad with a Ford teardrop-style hood blister, painted with hardware store rattlecan flourescent orange, misted all over with silver.

Edited January 7 by Ace-Garageguy

[Dave G.]

12 minutes ago, TarheelRick said:

"Rod & Custom Cars & Models" magazine

Same here. Plus the real Cars  and Hot Rod magazines.

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

DELETE DUMB OLD GEEZER DOUBLE POST

Edited January 7 by Ace-Garageguy

[Dave G.]

12 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

All the above, but as I was a railroad modeler and slot-car builder too, I was aware of a lot of things the majority of car modelers apparently weren't...like small number drills and pin-vises, basswood for more scale-appearing bed stakes and slats without fuzz, etc. The slot-car guys routinely rewound their motors, and I borrowed their small diameter wire for plugs, etc.

I tried styrene shapes and sheet fairly early (turned on to it by model railroader mags again), even built a monocoque slot car that was so light it out-accelerated everything, but went flying off the track when the nose lifted, destroying itself completely.

I was never a good brush-painter, tried Pactra and Testors rattlecans with mixed results (only one I was actually proud of was a black enamel job on an AMT T-tub hot-rod), fell in love with AMT lacquers after finding I could consistently turn out decent paint jobs with their stuff.

Last model I built before quitting for decades, in about 1969, was an altered-wheelbase flip-nose '55 Nomad with a Ford teardrop-style hood blister, painted with hardware store rattlecan flourescent orange, misted all over with silver.

Somewhere in the 1960's, maybe 65 I did slot cars. There was a slot car track business in town, where you rented a speed controller and time to run your car on the track. I convered the Monogram Orange Crate Body to fit a slot car chassis. I altered the chassis to fit the big motor the road racers were using. Well the track was over under in design. After the big long straight, it whent into a broad U turn, then dove down under the overpass. You Ace, being a slot car guy, I'm sure already know what happened ! Ya, after that broad turn I nailed the throttle, the car went air born right into the side of that overpass . And that was the end of the Orange Crate.

But speaking of bass wood. At around 14 I designed and built a camper for the bed of an AMT pickup. I don't recall which kit. I used a combo balsa and bass wood. I recall how much harder the bass wood was in comparison. It came OK, nothing to write home about. But a year later I built the Big Duece, put in working lights. Painted Testers Black, it was awesome. After that I discovered girls in a bigger way than ever before, I should have stuck with the model cars, IMO.

[Anglia105E]

This is an interesting topic guys . . . I was building kits between 1960 and 1970, and these were almost entirely Airfix kits, mostly cars but also aircraft, ships, military vehicles and the miniature soldiers for wargaming . . . I did some Scalextric slot car racing, also racing diecast cars along a garden pathway. I seem to remember dabbling in control line RC aircraft and glow-plug aircraft engines. All of my pocket money from my parents was clutched in my hot little hand at the age of around 10 years, as I walked to the nearest newsagents where they sold a few kits(not many) . . . Glue, paints and paint brushes were hard to come by, especially when nearly all of my money had been spent on a kit for that week . . . As I reached my teenage years, I attempted things such as soldering brass tubes together to make a chassis for a 1:32 scale slot car, which had a clear plastic body that could be painted from the inside.

Happy days eh guys ?

David Watson  ( England )

[Old Nasty]

1 hour ago, TarheelRick said:

read about it in "Rod & Custom Cars & Models

Do you remember a guy named Don Emmons who wrote regular articles with helpful tips?  I wonder what ever happened to him.

[oldcarfan]

A little before my time, but I remember my uncle built and that's what eventually got me into it. He built actual race cars for the local short track racers. Most of the models he built were the cheap Palmer kits featuring sprue roll cages, painted with Testor's brush paints and with dents courtesy of his cigarette lighter. I started mostly in the late 70s when I was a kid and kept at it off and on ever since.

[Ace-Garageguy]

2 hours ago, Old Nasty said:

Do you remember a guy named Don Emmons who wrote regular articles with helpful tips?  I wonder what ever happened to him.

Here's a little bit, as recent as 2022...

 

[Muncie]

I'm surprised the Auto Cutter from Auto World hasn't been mentioned yet.  Basically, it's a pencil type soldering iron with an Xacto blade tip.  Kind of evil but with a little learning and practice (let it get real hot and just use the tip of the blade) it could make a good cut for customizing work.  It looks like there are a couple of threads around here about it.

Edited January 7 by Muncie

[Shark]

When I was a kid, my dad made us paint all the parts in a kit, guess so we didn't finish them too fast. Everything was brush painted with Testors or Pactra. Didn't see anyone else mention this, but we used to rub out the paint jobs with toothpaste.

[Ace-Garageguy]

17 minutes ago, Muncie said:

I'm surprised the Auto Cutter from Auto World hasn't been mentioned yet.  Basically, it's a pencil type soldering iron with an Xacto blade tip.  Kind of evil but with a little learning and practice (let it get real hot and just use the tip of the blade) it could make a good cut for customizing work...

Oh man, I remember those horrible things. If you wanted to open panels using one, you had to have 2 kits, because there was NO WAY you'd get a panel open without destroying either it or the panel next to it.

I remember trying to use thread to "saw" panels out too. More control, but took forever and still wasn't great until you'd practiced for weeks (pretty funny that spllellchick doesn't recognize "saw" as a verb; that tells you a lot about modern culture right there).

Then the old standby "the back of a #11 blade", which some people still try to use...and still end up with 2" scale door gaps.

[Ace-Garageguy]

17 minutes ago, Shark said:

...Didn't see anyone else mention this, but we used to rub out the paint jobs with toothpaste.

Yup. Been there.

[Ace-Garageguy]

5 hours ago, Dave G. said:

...You Ace, being a slot car guy, I'm sure already know what happened ! Ya, after that broad turn I nailed the throttle, the car went air born right into the side of that overpass . And that was the end of the Orange Crate...

Yup. And I had more than a few destroyed before I got a fast enough thumb to let off enough, early enough before turns.