Why aren't all model kits awesome?

[Tom Geiger]

Way back I said if I was in charge of AMT, I'd put a huge overhead door on the side of the design studio and roll in a car that would stay there for the duration of the project. Note that it wouldn't need to be a pristine example, just complete and stock so that it could be measured and photographed. Now with much of the work being done off shore, the tough part is that the designers and tooling guys have never seen these cars in person. They are working off photos and dimensions taken by third party people here in the USA. So there could be something lost in the translation when work is being done on two different continents by people who don't speak a common language.

[Ace-Garageguy]

......... Now with much of the work being done off shore, the tough part is that the designers and tooling guys have never seen these cars in person. They are working off photos and dimensions taken by third party people here in the USA. So there could be something lost in the translation when work is being done on two different continents by people who don't speak a common language.

Entirely possible. So, there's no one in the chain-of-command who's aware of this potential for problems, and who has the responsibility to head them off? Kinda hard to believe. If I ran a model company and saw this kind of stupid mistake coming out my door, in a product that was mass produced and would have the error repeated tens of thousands of times, there would be several folks fired for cause. AND, if there was any way to do it, I'd have the responsible party foot the bill to correct the tooling.

Mistakes of this magnitude are simply NOT ACCEPTABLE.

Edited March 9, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Harry P.]

Way back I said if I was in charge of AMT, I'd put a huge overhead door on the side of the design studio and roll in a car that would stay there for the duration of the project. Note that it wouldn't need to be a pristine example, just complete and stock so that it could be measured and photographed. Now with much of the work being done off shore, the tough part is that the designers and tooling guys have never seen these cars in person. They are working off photos and dimensions taken by third party people here in the USA. So there could be something lost in the translation when work is being done on two different continents by people who don't speak a common language.

That excuse doesn't cut it.

First of all, there is always someone speaking a common language, without that it would be impossible to communicate at all!

Secondly.. Everything is made in China these days, while the R&D is done here. You don't see I Pods with the covers installed upside down or toasters with the slots on the bottom.

[Jordan White]

...toasters with the slots on the bottom.

Oh my god...you should patent that Harry! Just imagine, a toaster where you would put the bread in the bottom, and then you would place the plate underneath, and when the toaster's done it plops the toast right on your plate!

[Ace-Garageguy]

Oh my god...you should patent that Harry! Just imagine, a toaster where you would put the bread in the bottom, and then you would place the plate underneath, and when the toaster's done it plops the toast right on your plate!

More likely, the slots wouldn't be quite high enough to allow the toaster to completely eject the toast (due to communication problems and measurement discrepencies and Chinese production etc. etc.), so the toast would get hung-up, the toaster would overheat, set fire to the toast and burn the house down. Oops.

[Harry P.]

[Ace-Garageguy]

The result of too much file sharing and not enough oversight ??

[niteowl7710]

The insult to injury with the 6.1 Hemi is that it's a new engine in new cars. That should be all CAD files, it's not like we're talking about a 60 year old Studebaker or something. It shouldn't be wrong in ANY way, let done vastly different.

Edited March 9, 2013 by niteowl7710

[Greg Myers]

I think one big financial difference between military and car models is licensing costs, which may have something to do with how much bang for the buck you get in a kit. In military, companies like Grumman, Northrop, Bell and Dassault, for example, are contractors to governments whose property belongs to the people, while car companies are brand-sensitive private corporations and protective of their marques.

Well, these are questions that can only be answered with any authority by the powers that be at the model companies.

and traditionally they don't talk.

[Art Anderson]

Way back I said if I was in charge of AMT, I'd put a huge overhead door on the side of the design studio and roll in a car that would stay there for the duration of the project. Note that it wouldn't need to be a pristine example, just complete and stock so that it could be measured and photographed. Now with much of the work being done off shore, the tough part is that the designers and tooling guys have never seen these cars in person. They are working off photos and dimensions taken by third party people here in the USA. So there could be something lost in the translation when work is being done on two different continents by people who don't speak a common language.

Tom,

Interesting you said that! Way back in the 60's, the former Car Model Magazine visited MPC in Mt.Clemens MI--kinda one of those "show modelers just how a model kit comes about" articles. A very prominent picture in the article showed a 1927 Lincoln Roadster having been rolled in, through a garage door into what may well have been the warehouse/shipping & receiving area of their facility--and several people were studying the car, over-under-around-and-through, with measuring tapes and CAMERA's.

Art

[Brett Barrow]

TO CASEY: Yes, I understand all of that and always have. I should have clarified by adding one more word: GROSS. How are GROSS dimensional in-accuracies and proportions in any way excusable? I mean like 4 scale inches on some of AMT's and Revell's engines.

Case in point: BOTH of these are recently tooled Revell 6.1 Hemi engines. The white one is correct. If I made mistakes of this magnitude, I wouldn't be employed. I'm not talking about subtleties and 1/4 inch mistakes. I'm talking GROSS incompetence.

The transmissions aren't the same either, even though they represent the same trans in the same scale. But you know what? To me, they're close enough. But the engines ?? Give me a break.

What if the project lead told you "make that engine bigger - it needs to fill up the engine bay"?

Aesthetics often trumps accuracy. Measure 15" model wheels against a real 15" wheel, I'll guarantee you the best looking model wheels are bigger. Bigger wheels and bigger tires and lowered ride heights look "right" on a model. Sometimes you have to choose between what IS right and what LOOKS right.

[Harry P.]

Bigger wheels and bigger tires and lowered ride heights look "right" on a model.

But that's your opinion (not that there's anything wrong with it). A model car should be an accurate miniature representation of the real thing. It should be accurate and look like the real thing, not like someone's opinion of how it should look.

[Ace-Garageguy]

The things we build are called "scale-models" last time I looked, not caricatures-of-cars, or kinda-artistic-representations-of-cars, or toys.

And one man's opinion of what "looks right" is rarely another's. Who do you think is the most beautiful woman ever? Probably not many of us would agree.

Give us reasonably accurate representations of the real thing and leave the creative interpretation to the builder.

And give us a correctly-scaled engine that fits a correctly-scaled engine bay. Either that, or just forget about the scale-model concept and call them something else.

PS: If the Magnum engine and engine bay were correctly scaled and the engine fit the bay the way the real one does (which it would HAVE to if they were correctly scaled), do you really think anyone would go "ewwww, I wish they'd screwed up the scaling so the engine would look bigger" ?

Edited March 9, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Art Anderson]

Bill, you know exactly how this happens. Say in your shop you and a co-worker are told to copy a Deuce grille shell apron, based on a genuine part on a Deuce in your shop. You can't tell me you both will end up with the exact same piece when you're both finished. How exactly, without any high-tech computerized measuring to you measure and recreate the exact shape of the part? You can take measurements for 24 hours straight, and even share measurements with your co-worker, but the two finished parts will never be identical, and it's simply not realistic to think you can measure every single point on a surface as complex as an apron, or harder yet, a crowned roof on a '56 Chrysler 300.

I get your point and I understand the frustration of seeing about gross errors being missed along the way, but scale model masters (at least at Revell, and it appears Moebius, too) are made by humans, then scaled down (one of the circa 2000 issues of SA had an article with images covering this very topic), and yes, pantographs were still being used for this process. I recall Lindberg's '66 Chevelle SS and Revell's '40 Ford coupe were two of the featured models.

Let's say for discussion's sake Revell has the ability and opportunity to 3D scan an original '32 Ford Phaeton in Jay Leno's collection (no idea if he has one, just an example), then your shop is contacted because it also has a gennie '32 Phaeton. Let's say Rad Rides by Troy has a third original '32 Phaeton, which Revell will also 3D scan, so they have three original cars from which they will obtain 3D data. There is NO WAY all three will share the exact same coordinates in the X, Y and Z planes, so which measurements do they use? Car A's LR fender has a 1/4" larger wheel arch radius than Car B's, and Car C's is 1/16" smaller, Car B's cowl's max width is 3/16" wider than Car A's, and Car C's is the same width as Car A's, but has 3/32" less crown, and so on. There HAS to be a human element involved when these models are designed, and that means interpretation on the designer's/model maker's part. No single "perfect" example of a mass produced car exists in the real world, therefore, there can never be a perfect model, especially when the model is viewed and interpreted by many different people, each of whom sees things differently than the next person.

We also have to consider the effect of proportionately decreasing the measurements, such as when a 3/32" drip molding radius is shrunk down 25 times times to .00375". That type of precision isn't possible at 1/25 scale, neither by injection molding nor 3D printing, so again, there's going to be a compromise. They add enough thickness to allow the detail to appear on the 1/25 scale model, but that scale incorrect drip rail trim may make the roof look flatter to someone's eyes since the model's drip rail trim to roof proportion is no longer true to the real car's.

Again, I understand how things should be in an ideal world, and gross errors should not be tolerated, but human involvement can never be eliminated at all points from idea to finished product, so for that reason alone, perfection is not possible.

Casey,

Some flaws in your otherwise excellent and quite correct message here: For starters, in the now-largely departed era of hand-carved tooling masters--before the digital revolution reached the design studio and tool shop, the camera was the researcher's principal tool. Add to that some very basic hardware store tools: Folding carpenter's rule, a pair of measuring tapes (steel tape where it can be used, and a non-stretching dressmaker's cloth tape measure for stretching across a painted surface (funny how owners of real cars don't want a steel tape on their thousands of dollars paint jobs!), a notebook and ball point pen for making notes about this-and-that. Even a common stepladder can be handy IF one has a vehicle with room to carry one! In almost innumerable ways, 3D scanning can take much of the work away from such "analog" methods, but still, anyone researching a real car for creating a miniature is wise to take hundreds upon hundreds of pictures from every angle imaginable (and with high-quality digital cameras, this has become less expensive than a cheap suit!). Why so many photographs you might ask? Well the answer is quite simple: Photo's that show the crown of a roof from all angles go a long way to confirming (or denying) the accuracy of what the digital 3D scanner might see, and can aid in making such small corrections of shape that make the miniature believable to the human eye (bear in mind that our eyes, given their "binocular" vision, with the visual field of each eye overlapping that of its neighbor can make an EXACTLY accurate shape in miniature appear not quite the same as the full-sized 1:1 scale original. As for such small details as a drip molding, that can be tooled exactly to scale, but it can also become so small as to make it simply disappear under even the thinnest coat of paint (one of my pet peeves has always been scripts and badges engraved so faintly in scale that they simply disappear, when only a slight adjustment in just the depth of those details will make them pop out in a decently done paintjob, even with a rattle can).

Now, with measurements: Never a good idea to rely on equipment to give exact dimensions crack out of the box. Wherever possible, measuring tools need to be used, to establish firmly what correct height and width should be. A carpenter's rule (and I have a couple of them!) having every other inch blacked out, and laid across say, the '32 Ford firewall you mention, will give, instantly, in a photo,the width of that panel--and it's pretty easy to figure that down to a fraction of an inch just from the picture (bear in mind, at .040" to the inch in 1/25 scale (or 1mm to the inch--doesn't much matter) a scale quarter of an inch comes down to .010", which is pretty nearly the tolerance any modeler can achieve with a needle file or 400-grit sandpaper. That same, marked up carpenter's rule, or even a dressmaker's cloth measuring tape, similarly blacked out every other inch, can clearly show the placement of chrome trim, scripts, badges, even door handles and lock cylinders; in addition to confirming the height of say, the windshield, side windows, even the lengths of such.

With engines and all the other greasy stuff, it gets more difficult: While of course, there should be little tolerance for major dimensional errors, simply finding say, a 392cid Hemi OUT of a car isn't always as easy as it may seem. It would be great if they were just sitting around, on engine stands, just waiting for a model company researcher to come around, measure and photograph it. Every once in a while, one does find an engine in such a situation: The 308 Twin H-Power engine that Moebius was able to reference IS on display at the Hostetler Hudson Museum in Shipshewanna IN, about 35 miles or so from Dave Metzner's front door (I have a full walkaround photo spread of that engine that I took on Labor Day Weekend in 2011, and it helped immeasurably when I bullt my two Hudsons (and will get the call once again, when I decide to superdetail one!).

While I cannot vouch for what happens at Revell, the Moebius tooling mockups are done IN 1/25 scale, not in say, the old-fashioned manner of 1:10 scale which would require pantographing down to 1/25 scale injection molding dies. That alone removes a huge set of steps in the tooling process. In addition, they do have the appearance of having been carved out by CAM, with probably some small detailing added by skilled hands, but I won't speculate as to what or which.

Enough of that. One thing I learned when doing major body conversions for resin casting was to ALWAYS evaluate shape and countour by studying the body shell during that work by holding it as nearly exactly the same angle as the car in a picture which I was comparing it to. Additionally, I also closed first one eye, then the other, so I could see the body shell in my hand as close to the manner in which the camera saw it--one-eyed, or monocular. Given the curvatures of any car body, that's the best and most accurate way of judging shapes of the model that I was ever able to come up with.

Economics do necessarily come into play with the development of any product, be that a model car kit or anything else you can think of in our world. There are definite limits to the money that can be spent, at all stages of product development, and tooling costs are but one factor. Time constraints also do come into play, just as they do with the real car.

Art

[Ace-Garageguy]

IT DOESN'T TAKE ANY LONGER TO MEASURE CORRECTLY THAN IT DOES TO MEASURE WRONG. ECONOMICS IS NOT THE ISSUE. IT'S SLOPPINESS, PURE AND SIMPLE.

EXPLAIN TO ME HOW A 4" DISCREPANCY IN THE LENGTH OF AN ENGINE HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH ECONOMICS, OR BINOCULAR VISION.

Edited March 9, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Harry P.]

IT DOESN'T TAKE ANY LONGER TO MEASURE CORRECTLY THAN IT DOES TO MEASURE WRONG. ECONOMICS IS NOT THE ISSUE. IT'S SLOPPINESS, PURE AND SIMPLE.

EXPLAIN TO ME HOW A 4" DISCREPANCY IN THE LENGTH OF AN ENGINE HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH ECONOMICS, OR BINOCULAR VISION.

Some people just don't want to hear that, Bill.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Some people just don't want to hear that, Bill.

Yeah, the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome, I guess.

[Brett Barrow]

But that's your opinion (not that there's anything wrong with it). A model car should be an accurate miniature representation of the real thing. It should be accurate and look like the real thing, not like someone's opinion of how it should look.

Find me one person who thinks Revell's 06+ Mustangs look "right". They are right. Wheels, tires, and ride height all scale out pretty close. Nobody has ever said they look right. They look awful. A good designer knows when and where to fudge it.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Find me one person who thinks Revell's 06+ Mustangs look "right". They are right. Wheels, tires, and ride height all scale out pretty close. Nobody has ever said they look right. They look awful. A good designer knows when and where to fudge it.

How close is "pretty close"? To get the stance I want on my own models, I'll often make adjustments of less than .010". That is 1/4 SCALE INCH. So again, how close is "pretty close"? It makes a difference, ya know??

And I'm still waiting for a convincing justification to "fudge" FOUR SCALE INCHES on the Magnum engine.

[Guest Johnny]

Some people just don't want to hear the unvarnished facts about it as told by someone who knows what they are talking about because they have experienced it Art.

What more can you say other than watch out for the MCM tag teams!

[Casey]

EXPLAIN TO ME HOW A 4" DISCREPANCY IN THE LENGTH OF AN ENGINE HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH ECONOMICS, OR BINOCULAR VISION.

The silver engine was supposed to be a V-10? That is a good example of an extreme case, though. Which two kits are those engines from?

[Ace-Garageguy]

The silver engine was supposed to be a V-10? That is a good example of an extreme case, though. Which two kits are those engines from?

Silver engine is from the 2006 1/25 Revell Dodge Magnum SRT8. Can't be a V-10, as it's only got 4 exhaust ports per side and the instructions state it's a "6.1liter Hemi".

White engine is from the 2009 1/25 Revell Dodge Challenger. Instructions state it's a "6.1liter Hemi".

As far as ECONOMICS goes, it would have been CHEAPER to share the tooling for the engines, plus a lot of the underbody and suspension detail, as the two cars are on the same platform in real-life.

The logic of what I'm saying is self-evident, and it's not opinion from someone who doesn't have to be PRECISE, daily. It's "unvarnished fact", about as obvious as it gets.

If a model isn't going to be a scale-model, with ALL the parts in the same scale, then say on the damm label on the box "kinda close to 1/25 or so scale, but artistic opinions and understandings of scale vary, so it's, you know, well, most of the parts are in some scale or other so everything will look right".

Edited March 9, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[Harry P.]

Find me one person who thinks Revell's 06+ Mustangs look "right". They are right. Wheels, tires, and ride height all scale out pretty close. Nobody has ever said they look right. They look awful. A good designer knows when and where to fudge it.

If a scale model is an accurate representation of the real thing, it will look like the real thing, only smaller. The ride height will look the same, the wheel diameter will look the same. If a model looks different from the car it represents, that means that there have been mistakes made in the model.

A scale model is a scale model. There is no need to "finesse" the sizes or shapes. It's either an accurate copy of the real thing (only smaller) or it's not. If you took a real car and magically shrank it down until it was only 1/25 it's original size, it would still look exactly like the full-size one... without any need for reworking body contours or shapes, or changing wheel sizes or ride height. All dimensions would have been shrunk down to 1/25 their actual size, everything is 25 times smaller. That's the "ideal" scenario for a model. Of course, in engineering a plastic model kit, certain compromises have to be made... certain details on the full size car would almost disappear if they were scaled down 25 times so they are slightly exaggerated on the kit (like wipers, dash details, the thickness of upholstery seams or welting, etc). The thickness of the kit's body can't be correct in scale thickness, etc... but the dimensions, curves, angles and contours should be no different from the 1:1 other than the fact that everything is smaller.

If the real car's wheels are 17" in diameter, the model's wheels (assuming 1/25 scale) should be .68" in diameter. Not "sort of" .68", not .75" because it "looks cool." If the space between the street and the sills is 8" on the real car, that space on the model should be .32". Not 1/4" becaue it "looks cooler" if the car sits lower.

Like Bill said... make the model dimensionally accurate and leave any changes or alterations to the modeler.

[Art Anderson]

Bill, I have wondered over the years, why such components as an engine assembly aren't tooled from the same mockup as a previous kit using the same engine. While of course, it may well not be possible to do that with every car subject using the same engine, given the kit layout engineering that may have to be different one kit to another, but in so many instances (pre-WWII V8 Fords come to mind here, that should not be a problem. But in any event, it's sad (but not a terminable offense) when an engine (or any other major component) that is used in more than one real car cannot seem to be exactly the same when installed more than one model kit, especially when that is both an accurate installation.

Art

[Casey]

The logic of what I'm saying is self-evident.

I'm still not sure how the whole tooling insert things specifically works, at least in relation to interchangeable inserts which could be swapped into the exact same size cavity in a mold base for a different kit. I agree with your logic/thinking regarding why/how the same 1:1 engine could and should be shared between kits which use the same engine, but there's probably something we aren't aware of which explains why they don't do just that. Maybe the inserts would wear more quickly than the rest of the individual tools, but then why couldn't they cut the exact same insert and use one in each kit? I think we need a guided tour of one of the model companies molding facilities. Who has an "in?"