Revell '62 Corvette Roadster 2'n1

[Chuck Kourouklis]

Looking at the '62 Vette nose, it's clear a better job could've been done when it came to aligning the nose and top/hood mold sections/pieces, but with the deep coves on either side of the grille opening, the nose mold piece needs to hit the face of the car square on, so the coves are square and so the mold and body can separate easily. I'm sure there is a lot of engineering related math and experience in tool design necessary to figure out exactly where the mold's body sections should be located and why, how the sliding pieces align and fit together, what the limits of injection molding a one-piece body are, and so on.

It would be interesting to see/compare the Revell '58/'59 'Vette bodies, and see if they had the same or similar mold parting line locations.

Thought this was a good assessment, glad to see you brought it over here.

[Casey]

I can see both sides of the argument, and I completely agree that the area over the driver's side headlights is going to be very difficult to even out, especially in the concave area, as indicated by the black arrow below. You're going to need a round needle file, some patience, and good lighting to make both sides of the parting line even, without introducing any irregularities into either of the headlight bulges:

For me, that area would be a bigger problem than the center of the nose, as I've never been able to detail such separate letters nicely with BMF, so sanding them off and replacing with photoetched letters is something I would do regardless of how good or bad the mold seam is.

[Erik Smith]

Casey - that area actually won't be that bad. The headlight bezel piece includes the end of the fender top trim which covers the line in the cove fairly well:

Edited November 3, 2012 by Erik Smith

[Casey]

Piece of cake, then.

[Len Woodruff]

Anyone building one of these yet?

[sjordan2]

Just got my kit today. Beautiful piece of work with very crisp molding and next to no flash, excellent chrome work. Just great.

Except I will stand by every criticism I made previously about the body. Those mold seams are ridiculous, and only advanced modelers who want to shave off the scripts and emblems and replace them with aftermarket PE will disagree. That nose seam is so close to the corvette script that it's going to be extremely tricky to sand away for even an average builder. It would be OK if the seams went down to the grille opening, where sanding would be easier and less noticeable, instead of what's supposed to be a very smooth piece of the body.

The seams along the upper body from front fenders to tail are acceptable, and I guess you can't avoid such things, even with 21st century tooling. However, there is a big honkin' sink mark on the right side of the lower nose valance that doesn't belong on a Revell kit. And I assume that Revell was being purposely conservative on the barely-there door panel lines, which is fine. I just feel that this is not a kit for beginners or average builders who aren't ready to do a bit of bodywork - an amount which I consider unnecessary.

So I'm not just whistling Dixie. I've got the kit.

Edited November 8, 2012 by sjordan2

[Guest]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have an AMT '62 Corvette body handy to compare where and how they placed the mold lines? From what I've seen so far, this kit has terrible mold lines especially for a newly tooled kit. To me, the mold line at the headlights should have at least been at the very edge then 45'd into the edge of the top of the grille opening.

[cruz]

I am planning on using a P/E set for mine so I am not worried about eliminating those letters at all. I am working on one right now and so far I added the front bezels and painted the model also. All I need is to polish that clear.

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[Erik Smith]

I am planning on using a P/E set for mine so I am not worried about eliminating those letters at all. I am working on one right now and so far I added the front bezels and painted the model also. All I need is to polish that clear.

Are you going to pin the PE lettering on Marcos? I just noticed the holes on the nose of the 'Vette.

[cruz]

Are you going to pin the PE lettering on Marcos? I just noticed the holes on the nose of the 'Vette.

The holes were made to give me an idea where to place the P/E letters, you will not see them after that because the letters will cover them.

[ChromeIt]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have an AMT '62 Corvette body handy to compare where and how they placed the mold lines? From what I've seen so far, this kit has terrible mold lines especially for a newly tooled kit. To me, the mold line at the headlights should have at least been at the very edge then 45'd into the edge of the top of the grille opening.

I have an AMT '59 vette here - no mold line on the nose, because they designed it with the lower pan as a separate piece.

The instructions for the AMT '62 show the lower pan as a separate piece too.

[Harry P.]

I have an AMT '59 vette here - no mold line on the nose, because they designed it with the lower pan as a separate piece.

The instructions for the AMT '62 show the lower pan as a separate piece too.

So they figured out how to do it right years ago. But not so much now?

[Harry P.]

Actually for me, and I know I'm one of the exceptions, I build out of the box over 90% of the time. Having said that, I dont see a few rough mold lines to be that big a issue. You can sand carefully around the script, sand the script off , use the decal, or foil cast the script, or use pe. It's not rocket science.

It's also not rocket science for the kit designer/manufacturer to get it right in the first place so that the buyer doesn't have to fix the manufacturer's mistakes.

Just sayin'...

[Rob Hall]

So they figured out how to do it right years ago. But not so much now?

That was 50 years ago when the cars were new and they had manufacturer access, though.

Edited November 9, 2012 by Rob Hall

[Harry P.]

That was 50 years ago when the cars were new and they had manufacturer access, though.

Manufacturer's access has nothing to do with designing injection mold tooling. A model car is made in a completely different way than a real car. Having access to the manufacturer's design info, drawings, specs, etc. might make it easier to create an authentic-looking replica as far as accuracy and such, but it would do nothing to help design tooling without big honkin' mold seam lines running all over the place. Back then I guess the guys who designed the tooling either were better at it than the guys today are, or they cared more and sweated the details, or both. There is no way anyone can rationalize giant mold seam lines running across a newly-tooled model kit when they had that exact problem solved years ago.

[Casey]

I just feel that this is not a kit for beginners or average builders who aren't ready to do a bit of bodywork - an amount which I consider unnecessary.

This kit is aimed squarely at the very experienced adult builder IMHO. If the Pro Modeler label was still en vogue for Revell automotive kits, it would've been slapped on this kit's box without hesitation. This kit follows in the footsteps of the Pro Modeler '58/9 Corvette kits which preceded it, and if a less experienced builder wants to build a Vette, I doubt a '62 would be her first choice.

IF Revell aimed this at the VEAM (very experienced adult modeler) as I believe they did, then sanding away the nose nameplates and replacing them with photoetched parts (as shown in Marcos' build above) would almost be expected. For those who don't want to spend the $15.00 or so for the p/e fret or aren't comfortable going that route, Revell provided two options- use the molded nameplates and BMF them or paint them, or use the supplied decals. I don't think it was a coincidence Revell-Monogram included a p/e fret with some of it's Pro Modeler kits.

I wonder if the nose mold seam was specifically placed where it was because of the nose nameplates' locations, which prevented the seam/joint from being placed in the "best possble" position from a production/quality standpoint.

I also think comparing it to another similar year range kit with a separate valance panel is akin to comparing apples and oranges. The mold design is going to be very different for the nose area of those two (with integral valance and sans), so how the mold seams end up on one doesn't really apply to the other. The new Revell '62 mold section for the nose has to slide in and out (assuming that's how the sliding section of a body mold function...where's Art?) perpendicular to the car's longitudinal axis, and when there's no valance present (i.e. no deep, hollow coves), the mold section can come up from below. I may have that all wrong, but that's how my mind sees it.

[mikemodeler]

I was so excited to pick this kit up the other day at the LHS and now after reading this topic, I think I better return it because of the issues pointed out here. Do you think the nice man at the LHS will refund my money if I show him these posts??????

C'mon guys, it is a model and we know how to get around these problems, don't we? Cruz has it figured out by looking at his posts above.

Does this kit have some issues? Sure it does, just like every other one that is on the shelves at a hobby shop!

[niteowl7710]

The idea that making a model "harder" to deal with out of the box is the result of it being geared towards a more experienced (or Very Experienced) adult modeler puzzles me.

Please list me another career, hobby, or anything that the more experience you garner in it, the less quality/ease of use one should expect. It's not like R.C. planes are more likely to crash the more experienced you are in flying them. Model trains are harder to track the larger your layout. Hey congrats on that promotion at work in addition to more responsibilities we've hired Bruce here to pre-sabatoge everything you do.

I bought this kit last weekend, and there are 3 paths to solve the "problem" of the mold lines, but if treating adult modelers to that kind of "quality" is Revell's idea of stepping up their game or offering something extra (as in the Pro Modeler Series) then they aren't aiming at VEAM, but a mediocre middle of the road customer who is willing to accept whatever they dish out and be happy with it.

[Chuck Kourouklis]

Well, I don't know how far it stretches feasibility that somebody said "yeah, advanced kit, advanced modelers can file these lines/fix this fit/correct these arches/do a sedan conversion to legitimize the decals."

But comes to this...

...but if treating adult modelers to that kind of "quality" is Revell's idea of stepping up their game or offering something extra (as in the Pro Modeler Series) then they aren't aiming at VEAM, but a mediocre middle of the road customer who is willing to accept whatever they dish out and be happy with it.

*boom*

The bull's eye blown out by that one is probably three miles down the road.

[Casey]

I'm not making excuses for Revell if the nose seam issue is due to a lack of quality control issue, which, looking back at Erik's pics in post #126, it appears to be. As I said, I'd be interested to see or hear (Mike?) if other kits produced at a later date than Erik or Craig's (and I think this is where the laser date thing might come in handy) have the same body mold misalignment issue or not.

Have any of you with "bad" bodies contacted Revell and let them know the body quality is sub-standard?

It's a Skill Level 3 kit, and while that doesn't excuse mold misalignment, it does provide a heads up to the potential buyer regarding the degree of difficulty involved with building the kit.

[blubaja]

Manufacturer's access has nothing to do with designing injection mold tooling. A model car is made in a completely different way than a real car. Having access to the manufacturer's design info, drawings, specs, etc. might make it easier to create an authentic-looking replica as far as accuracy and such, but it would do nothing to help design tooling without big honkin' mold seam lines running all over the place. Back then I guess the guys who designed the tooling either were better at it than the guys today are, or they cared more and sweated the details, or both. There is no way anyone can rationalize giant mold seam lines running across a newly-tooled model kit when they had that exact problem solved years ago.

Thanks Harry!

[250 Testa Rossa]

A hardtop and parts to do a race car would be a great followup 2nd version of this kit...I'd like to do something like this:

or this

I'm with you on that one!

[Greg Myers]

Edited November 10, 2012 by Greg Myers

[tim boyd]

I can speculate that the hardtop roof will be in a subsequent issue of this kit. I can also speculate that there might a gasser-type version, but how much it might actually be changed from the stock version tooling would be a big question in my mind. TIM

PS - no insider knowledge here, just guessing! TB

[Danno]

I'm with you on that one!

Hear, hear!!