Scale Car Modelling E-Book

Mat Irvine

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Cars have always appealed as model subjects as - unlike aeroplanes or military subjects - the real thing is likely to be sitting outside the modeller's house. From the first car kits produced in the early 1950s, mainly dominated by American machinery, we now have a choice of automotive examples from around the world. The joint scale of 1:24/1:25 dominates car models, and it is these scales that will mostly be found in this book, from stock builds to race cars to wild customs. In addition, although injection styrene is the main material of choice, there are specialist builds using resin, white metal and photo-etched parts. The book includes detailed step-by-step guides for Building 'out of the box'; Customs and conversions; Applying decals; Dealing with resin; Wiring and engines; Salvaging old kits; A dented ride for 007; NASA's Hot Road; Dirtying a dirt track racer; An alien homage to Roth.

Leseprobe

SCALE CAR MODELLING

MAT IRVINE

Copyright

First published in 2011 by The Crowood Press Ltd, Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire, SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book edition first published in 2012

© Mat Irvine 2011

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

ISBN 978 1 84797 406 8

Notes All the advice in the book is given in good faith and based on actual experience. However, neither the author nor the publisher can be responsible if something goes wrong during construction. If in doubt with any technique, paint or decal application, test first!Copyright is assignable to virtually anything that is drawn, designed or manufactured, varying in its lifetime from country to country. It is unlikely to apply to most techniques described here, except possibly if you are making your own decals from a source that is not directly your own, or if you copy a part, using a mould, to make a duplicate part. It is not allowable to copy a copyright-protected item, or to pass it off as your own, but reason, practicality and common sense should prevail. The casting of a few parts for your own use is likely to be deemed ‘acceptable usage’, but going on to use them in a product that is sold for profit is more questionable. The same applies to images or artwork sourced online, where establishing copyright is sometimes very difficult, if not impossible. However, this does not mean that copyright is not assigned somewhere. Again, common sense should be used. The above points are not legal statements, and the author or publisher cannot be held responsible for any infringement.

DEDICATION

To Paul Fitzmaurice, of little-cars.com, who has been tirelessly supporting the hobby over many years.

Acknowledgements

As is usual for any book such as this, a great deal relies on the help of companies and their products, and individuals who have supplied additional information.

Particular thanks go to Dean Milano for his Foreword and Paul Fitzmaurice of little-cars.com. Thanks are also due to Nick Argento of Glencoe Models; Vince Brown of Models for Sale; Peter Binger and Glen Pearson of The Hobby Company; Eliot Brown of Kingston Vacuum Works; Darrell Burge, Dale Luckhurst, Karen Redwood of Airfix-Hornby; Jeff Clark of Al’s Hobby Shop; Tom Carter of Spotlight Hobbies (formerly Hobby Heaven); John Greczula of Retro Hobby; Steve Hide of SCN Hobbies; David Jefferis of Scale Model News; Tony Landis for details on the NASA Pontiac tow car; Mark Mattei; Tory Mucaro; Ed Sexton and Bill Lastovich of Revell-Monogram LLC; Volker Vahle and Thomas Randrup of Revell AG (Germany); Tom West of Galaxie Ltd; Frank Winspur and David Metzner of Moebius Models; Andy Yanchus.

CONTENTS

Title Page

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

FOREWORD BY DEAN MILANO

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE:START YOUR ENGINES – HOW IT ALL BEGAN

CHAPTER TWO:THE TOOLBOX – THE WORKBENCH AND THE TOOLS

CHAPTER THREE:THE ASSEMBLY LINE – BASIC BUILDS FROM THE BOX

CHAPTER FOUR: STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD – PAINT, DECALS AND FINISHING

CHAPTER FIVE:GILDING THE LILY – BASIC DETAILING AND ACCESSORIES

CHAPTER SIX:RESIN RODS – THE SPECIALIST MATERIALS

CHAPTER SEVEN: CHOP AND CHANGE – CUSTOMIZING AND CONVERSIONS

CHAPTER EIGHT:THE SALVAGE YARD – RENOVATING AN OLD KIT

CHAPTER NINE: THE COLLECTIBLE AUTOMOBILE – THE COLLECTING PHENOMENON

CHAPTER TEN:SHOWTIME

REFERENCES

INDEX

Copyright

FOREWORD BY DEAN MILANO

As I write this, there may be someone, somewhere, who is saying, ‘Do we really need another book on model cars?’ I would urge that person to have a look at Mat Irvine’s book. This subject has been tackled by the best of them, and yet Mat finds a fresh approach, with new information and ideas that even we veteran modellers have yet to see.

Anyone who knows Mat should not be surprised at the quality of his offering. This is a man whose love of model making is unsurpassed. He excels not only in car modelling, but also in factual space and science fiction modelling. In fact, Mat is superbly competent in every type of model making that he tackles, and we reap the benefits of his vast knowledge in the modelling field.

I first got to know Mat at least fifteen years ago, when he was visiting the USA to attend the International Hobby Show (known at that time as RCHTA) in Rosemont, Illinois. I was working in Product Development for Revell-Monogram at the time, and Mat was asked by our company to shoot some photographs of our product line. Every once in a while, you meet someone who you instantly recognize as being on the same plane as you, and Mat was one of those people. He and I hit it off immediately as if we had always been friends.

Dean Milano (left) and Mat Irvine.

I was quickly impressed by his knowledge of the hobby and his amazing background in television special effects. As time went on, I learned more about him and it became clear to me that he was the type of man who becomes an expert in any field he cares to enter. He is also the kind of man who is humble almost to a fault, so that I have had to do quite a bit of research in order to find out just how much he has accomplished.

Over the years, Mat and I have shared many wonderful hobby-related experiences as well as vacation trips to Ireland with our better halves, and even a short jaunt down old Route 66 following vintage road maps, which we hope to repeat when more time is available. We both share a love of museums and when I opened my Milano Toy and Model Museum in 2002, Mat flew into the United States from his home in England to lend a helping hand. He ended up putting together a beautiful display of space and science fiction models that became one of the high points of my museum.

So, to those who ask, ‘Do we really need another book on model cars?’, I say, ‘Yes. If it’s a book written by Mat Irvine, I know it’s most likely going to be the only book we need on model cars.’ Mat is the kind of writer who will produce an excellent book no matter what subject he tackles – I am just thankful that he keeps tackling subjects that I love.

Dean Milano Elmhurst, Illinois

INTRODUCTION BY MAT IRVINE

Model making is a hobby that occasionally provokes odd comments from those who have never taken part in it. Exactly – or even approximately – how many people have put a model kit together is impossible to know. According to some research I did a few years ago for a television programme, a good percentage of the population – possibly as high as one in five – has in fact done some model making, or some associated hobby, at some point, even if only very briefly. With recent changes in life-style and work patterns, there is no reason to think that this has changed to any great extent; indeed, with the likelihood of greater time available for leisure activities, it could now even be higher.

We all have a fascination with the world around us, and building a model – of whatever subject – allows us to own in some small way an item that appeals. The twentieth century witnessed more technological feats than all the previous centuries put together, most significantly the development of the aircraft and the automobile. Inevitably, these two subjects have always been amongst the most popular with modellers. It is usually accepted that aircraft top this list of popularity, (though there may be a good number of railway and train modellers who disagree), but whatever ever is actually top, car modelling is certainly up amongst the highest positions.

My interest in modelling began early, well before I could actually drive a full-size example of any of my subjects. Being British, I naturally cut my teeth on kits from Airfix. At that time, almost all boys were keen on building kits, and most of us worked our way through everything the major British model player had to offer. It did not matter whether it was an aircraft, a ship, a tank, a railway trackside accessory, even a figure, or especially a car, we bought it and built it. At that time, we usually acquired the kits from Woolworths, which had done a deal with the original Airfix company and was allowed to sell a new model one month earlier than other shops. The building was invariably carried out as quickly as possible, and usually with no care in the painting, and no regard to the amount of tubed cement glue that got on to the kitchen table, or our school uniform.

The vast majority of the subjects issued by Airfix were British cars (at a time when there were British cars), maybe with the odd French or German interloper. They were quite small in size, as Airfix – which pioneered ‘constant scale’ in kits – had decided that 1:32 was the scale it would use for cars. At some point, however, I began to notice in the model shops (which could be found on every high street at the time) that some new car kits had begun to appear. These were larger in size, and had the wondrous inclusion of ‘rubber tyres’ and ‘chromed parts’. They were also of American subjects, the vast majority of which would very rarely be seen driving on the streets of Britain. The first kits I recall seeing were from a company called AMT, which was unknown to me at the time. The first one I bought was either the 1962 Ford Fairlane or the 1957 Ford Thunderbird – whichever was the first, the other was the second – and it was a revelation to me. Being 1:25 scale, it built up into a model that was quite a bit larger than my Airfix kits, and I was much impressed by the rubber tyres and bright shiny chrome parts. Maybe it was because of these first kits that I developed such an interest in American cars; the larger scales appealed to me, and the majority of these were American models.

Over the years, other kit companies around the world introduced their own range of car kits, some using 1:25 scale, but most using the far more universal 1:24 scale, which was almost identical to anyone other than a real purist. They offered all makes of car, so that the Americans no longer had it all to themselves, but my interest in the Americans remained with me. As a consequence, although this book is not intended only for builders of American car kits, it does feature a good number of them.

A busy scene at one of the annual IPMS Scale Model World shows.

There are differences between British English and American English, particularly in reference to the automobile, so that an American car has a hood, not a bonnet, and a windshield, not a windscreen. In this book, the most appropriate term is used, so that in Chapter 3 the Corvette has a ‘hood’, while the Austin Healey has a ‘bonnet’. (Spelling, though, will remain British English, so it will be ‘tyres’ not ‘tires’.)

The whole idea of this book is as a general read about building model cars. Not only does it give a range of tips on building and detailing, but it will also hopefully appeal to all modellers, from a complete beginner to those with far more experience and building ability than me. (Maybe I can slip in the odd tip that even they have not thought of!)

Many sources emphasize the educational aspect of model making – it helps with assembly ability and hand–eye co-ordination, reading and understanding skills, and design and colour choice – but it can also be great fun. Everyone should build what is right for them, at the level with which they feel happy. Although there are many tips given here for super-detailing and conversions involving unfamiliar materials, these may not be suitable for all modellers – there is no harm in simply building the kit ‘out of the box’.

What will happen to model making in the future? The hobby industry has certainly had its ups and downs over the last half-century, with many of the familiar names from earlier days swallowed up by rival companies. Many have all but disappeared, except in the long memory of a few enthusiasts, or (more likely these days) on online auction sites, with the sale of long-gone but unbuilt kits. The voices of doom have declared that the model industry is dead, because kids today do not want to be bothered with actually ‘doing something’, preferring instead to stare at a computer screen. However, that does not seem actually to be the case, with model shows around the world reporting good attendances, and even a growth in attendance, with the whole family getting involved.

Kits admittedly cost comparatively a lot more than they used to. In the old days, you could buy an American kit for 49c or a British kit for 2/-. Today they start at around $8, £5 or €6 minimum, and can go up to many hundreds. Many kits, and not only those from specialist companies, run into three figures in whatever currency, which would have been totally unheard of in the 1960s. However, the model companies that have managed to survive mostly seem to be doing reasonably well. Kits are still being made, are generally available and, more to the point, are being bought and, presumably, being built. In addition, a number of new small companies using injection styrene techniques have emerged over the last decade, widening the range of kits available.

And what about the future of our particular interest, in model cars? The first years of the new millennium arguably saw the greatest-ever change in what we drive for real, and how we drive it, particularly with an increased awareness of carbon emissions and the introduction of alternative power sources. However, as long as we still can drive something that resembles an object on four wheels, which is controlled by its driver, there will almost certainly still be an interest in building it in a much smaller size.

CHAPTER ONE

START YOUR ENGINES – HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Model making is not exactly new – in various forms it has been around for millennia. Maquettes – simple basic model forms – have been found in Egyptian tombs, there is evidence that the Ancient Greeks built miniatures of their various inventions, and that greatest of technicians, Leonardo da Vinci, certainly built many of his designs as models.

What is thought of as the modern model construction kit industry has its roots in the early twentieth century. Model kits of sorts were available in the early decades, although their main material was wood, maybe with some metal parts. Some well-known kit company names such as Hawk in the USA began in the 1920s with balsa-wood aircraft, and that time also saw the beginning of Frog in Britain. The first Frog kits followed the Hawk style in that they were mainly wood, but as early as November 1936 Frog introduced what would be the first all-plastic scale model construction kits. These were the famous Frog Penguins, with the first kit almost certainly being a Gloster Gladiator.

The material used for those first Penguin kits was cellulose acetate, different from the type of plastic that is familiar today. As a moulding material, cellulose acetate had, and still has, many advantages. It could be injection-moulded to quickly produce finished parts ready for assembly, it could be made in many bright, even lurid colours, and it was cheap and generally widely available. As a result, it continued to hold sway until well after the Second World War. There was, however, one potential major disadvantage to it, especially when it was being used for a model kit: it was not a very stable form of plastic and it easily lost its shape as it warped. After the Second World War a new plastic – polystyrene – was introduced, and this was a far more stable material. The invention of polystyrene actually went back much further, to the mid-nineteenth century, when both German and British chemists discovered the basic compounds of this very stable material through various experimentations with hydrocarbons. However, although the German company BASF had started to manufacture products using polystyrene in the 1930s, it was not until after the Second World War that it became generally available. It is still uncertain exactly which model kit company was the first to use polystyrene as a construction material, instead of cellulose acetate, although the first polystyrene model aircraft would probably have been either a Hawk, Lindberg, Monogram or Strombecker.

THE EARLIEST CAR KIT?

Is this the earliest car kit, or, more accurately, a kit of the earliest car? This ‘mechanical cart’ was among the innumerable designs invented and sketched by Leonardo da Vinci. There have been a surprising number of model kits of Leonardo inventions, including examples from AMT, Doyusha and Revell. This ‘car’ is from Academy, also issued by Italeri.

The world’s first car? Maybe, if Leonardo da Vinci had had the technological base to build his creations.

One of the world’s first plastic kits – the Frog Penguin Spitfire – using not polystyrene as a moulding material, but cellulose acetate.

A selection of promos (promotional models) from over the years. Some promos – such as the Buick Regal on the right – have never been made as a conventional kit, but one of these could be disassembled and built up again, in the style of the very first Annual car kits.

In the field of model cars it is equally uncertain: memories fade, records are lost and the information that does exist can be contradictory. Two companies certainly led the field at the beginnings of what would become this industry. In 1948, a toy designer, West Gallogy Sr, took a friction-powered toy of a 1946 Ford sedan that had been made in Denmark, and converted it into the 1948 version, so it could be re-moulded and copied. Gallogy’s idea was to cater for the growing demand for automobiles in the USA after the Second World War, and to produce for the kids an accurate scale toy version of what Dad was buying full-size. In order to make these toys available in showrooms alongside their full-size counterparts, Gallogy sought cooperation with the main car manufacturers, particularly Ford. The models would also serve to promote the new full-size cars, and thus came about the idea of ‘promotional models’, which soon became known as ‘promos’.

However, at the beginning the manufacturing material was not any form of plastic but aluminium, which, due to the scrapping of war planes, was readily available and cheap. The name of the new company reflected this and Aluminum Model Toys was born. After a year or so, with moulding in plastic taking off in a big way and, eventually, polystyrene completely taking over, a name change became necessary. Only the initials were kept and the company became the AMT Corporation.

THE BRITISH ARE COMING

Around the time when West Gallogy was working on his 1948 Ford, two Britishers, Jack Gowland and his son Kelvin, were making their way to California. Jack had originally taught art but had moved into inventing toys for his UK company, Allied Toy Industries. Kelvin had also studied art, but, while he was on National Service in the Second World War, his destroyer had put into Boston, Massachusetts, for repairs. There, he determined that America was a far better place to start a new company than war-torn Britain. He persuaded his father that they should move to the USA, and they ended up settling on the west coast.

Comparison between Gowland & Gowland (left) boxes for the Highway Pioneers, and the very early Revell boxes (right). Note the tiny ‘Gowland & Gowland’ logo with the balloon on the Revell box, at far right on the lower edge.

At that time, Jack Gowland was still keen on the toy market, more or less as a continuance of his company back in the UK. Consequently, many of the products of the new company – prosaically named Gowland & Gowland – were toys, animals and the like, many with cable-operated action features. One of Jack’s ideas that was different was a car, a Maxwell, almost certainly inspired by the vehicle used by Jack Benny in his radio series (later a television programme). The toy car mimicked the features for which the Benny car was famous, and everyone knew what it represented, although the connection was never formally acknowledged. Even in those early years, royalties would almost certainly have been due.

The Gowlands decided to expand the range of their company, with a set of smaller toy cars. The Maxwell had been made to a scale of ¾in to the foot, a common imperial engineering scale that is also 1:16 scale (there being 16 x ¾in in every foot). This was to prove significant. In order to avoid drawing up a whole series of new plans, the existing 1:16 scale ‘toy’ plans could be utilized, simply being halved to 1:32 scale. These were initially produced only as built-up toys, but they did not sell that well and in 1951 the Gowlands decided to change direction and sell them in unassembled form as kits. The very first all-plastic car kits, which were at that point moulded in cellulose acetate, were almost certainly the Gowland & Gowland Highway Pioneers from 1951.

Jack and Kelvin Gowland were first and foremost designers and, not being born-and-bred Americans, really needed someone who knew about selling into the American market. They entered into an agreement with Lew Glaser, a toy salesman in Los Angeles who ran a company called Precision Specialities. It was Lew Glaser more than anyone who saw the potential in model construction kits. He was more aware of it than the Gowlands (whose first love was really the traditional toy industry), and he really wanted to get in on the act, as a kit producer instead of just as a distributor. Looking for a snappier name than ‘Precision Specialities’, he turned to the company’s inventory. Although modelling myth has it that the name ‘Revell’ was invented at this time specifically for the new kits, in fact it was already being used by Precision Specialities on a range of plastic goods, including a ladies’ powder compact. As these new goods were also made in plastic, they began to be distributed under the Revell name.

For a time, Glazer’s company continued only as the distributor of the Gowland kits, which now went under the name of ‘Highway Pioneers’, but ‘Revell’ received equal credit on boxes and instruction sheets. Eventually, in 1958, Gowland & Gowland sold out their kit line to Revell and so the Highway Pioneers were also available just with the Revell logo.

Even in the mid-1950s, the moulding material was still cellulose acetate. Kelvin Gowland recalled, many years later, that his father preferred the readily available bright colours of acetate, rather than the drab polystyrene that was around at that time. Painting models was almost unheard of then, and modellers wanted something that was ready to display as soon as it was assembled. The move to polystyrene came about gradually, and its use was indicated by an ‘S’ on the boxes of the new Revell kits. Much later, this led to the naming of the famous Revell S-series sub-set, which became collectibles in their own right. The ‘S’, for ‘styrene’, alerted the modeller to the fact that a different type of glue was needed; acetate kits had an ‘A’ on them.

An early Revell ‘S’ series kit (the Cadillac Eldorado Brougham show car), the ‘S’ indicating that the kit was moulded in styrene, not acetate, so required polystyrene cement.

PIONEERING KITS

Over the decades the Highway Pioneers have also appeared under the ‘Revell Germany’, ‘Minicraft’ and ‘Dapol’ names, which has to make the range some of the oldest and most-travelled model kit tooling ever.

AMT, REVELL, AIRFIX

For most of the 1950s, AMT continued only with the making of promotional model cars. The normal procedure was to manufacture a number of parts, normally around fifteen to twenty, and then to have them built up into the finished promo by an assembly line of workers, usually women. This continued for most of the 1950s. In 1955 AMT joined forces with the Revell company, which was now independent, and made several contemporary car kits. These were not in the promo scale of 1:25, but in 1:32 scale. For a year or so, the kits carried both company names on the box.

In 1958 someone at AMT came up with the idea of putting all the parts of the unassembled promos in a box and selling them as the first AMT model car kits. Adding a few extra parts created the first customizing car kit.

One of the earliest AMT Annual kits. This is the 1959 Lincoln Continental, and shows the limited number of parts.

Through the 1950s a number of new modelling names appeared, producing car kits and, in most cases, all other classic modelling subjects. Airfix, which had begun as a general injection-moulding company as early as 1939, produced its first kit a decade later in 1949 – a Ferguson Tractor. This was issued, in the style of AMT, both as a ready-built promo (although the term was never used in the UK) and as an unassembled kit. The first Airfix car kits came in 1956. The first was almost certainly the 1905 Rolls-Royce, a type that had already been made as a Gowland & Gowland Highway Pioneer, also in 1:32. Clearly, there was some connection. The two Rolls-Royce kits were not identical, but the Airfix kit was almost certainly inspired by Gowland & Gowland’s version.

Airfix’s first kit, the Ferguson Tractor, in approximately 1:20 scale. It was in effect a ‘promo’, although it was never described as such.

The mid-1950s were generally significant for the model industry. In 1954, Monogram, which had started in 1945 with kits that were mainly ships and aircraft made of wood, produced its first car kit – the Midget Racer. Jo-Han issued its first promos in the same year for Pontiac and Chrysler. Like Airfix, Jo-Han had begun, in 1947, as a general moulding company, producing anything in plastic that could be put through an injection-moulding machine. Kits were originally produced under the name ‘Ideal Models’, and the range included semi-scale aircraft models that could fly as well as scale models of kitchen equipment. The latter were intended as the girls’ answer to the boys’ model cars; emphasizing a woman’s place in the kitchen was certainly less problematic in the 1950s!

When its car promos began to appear, in 1955, Ideal Models was approached by the Ideal Toy Company, which sold kits as ‘ITC’, with the suggestion that perhaps a change of name might be a good idea, in order to avoid confusion. The implication was that the much smaller Ideal Models should be the one to rename itself. This was taken on board and the company founder John Haenle simply took his own name and shortened it, coming up with Jo-Han.

The first Monogram car – the Midget Racer – on a replica of the card store displays that were common at the time.

Jo-Han was also very early into producing annual kits, although the company did also specialize in using a variety of lurid coloured plastic.

COMPANY CONFUSIONS

Gowland & Gowland is generally acknowledged as being the first producer of car kits in plastic, but at around the same time the Hudson model company had, totally independently, also decided to move away from making its antique car kits in wood and metal to plastic kits in 1:32 scale. Clearly, the notion that Gowland & Gowland produced the first all-plastic car kit may not be entirely accurate, although it is likely that the Hudson kits came slightly later. In the late 1950s, Revell acquired the Hudson tooling, which meant that many of their kits got mixed in with the original Gowland & Gowland ‘Highway Pioneers’. Often all the kits were assumed to be Gowland & Gowland originals, whereas the origins of some were entirely separate. The confusion is compounded as Premier in the USA and Merit in the UK also produced 1:32 scale antique car kits.

Best Products started with a series of Indianapolis racing cars in the early 1950s, the tooling of which was later acquired by Aurora. Aurora also acquired the car kits of the Advance Molding Company, which gave the company the start of its range of 1:32 sports cars, to which Aurora added more of their own in both 1:32 and 1:25 scales. (This acquisition of the tooling of other companies – and, in many cases, names – may seem like a relatively recent phenomenon, but it is in fact far from new. It really began virtually as soon as the industry itself had started.)

A number of other companies, no longer in production, were also part of the beginnings of the model car kit market around this time. These included Berkeley, an American company that mainly produced wood and cast-metal car kits, but also made a General Motors Firebird show car with a vacuum-formed body.

Since the inception of the modern plastic kit of the automobile, many other companies have arrived – and many have left. The 1960s saw the growth of Revell, Monogram, Jo-Han and AMT in the USA, plus the establishment of MPC (the Model Products Corporation), to bring together the ‘Big Five’ of model car kit production. For other companies, including Aurora, Hawk, Hubley, ITC, Lindberg, Palmer, Premier, Pyro, Renwal and Strombecker, the car output was a more minor interest. On the other hand, some companies, such as Eldon and IMC (the Industro Motive Corp.), dealt almost entirely with cars. These companies tended to be far smaller.

In the UK, one of the original names, Merit, used 1:25 for its racing cars, but mimicked Airfix and Gowland & Gowland by using 1:32 for its antique range. When Frog introduced a series of car kits, these were mostly in 1:16 scale and motorized. When Matchbox – best known for its die-cast toy cars – started producing kits, its car range also followed the example of Airfix, using 1:32 scale.

A MATTER OF SCALE

Today, although 1:32, 1:20, 1:16, and even larger scales, are used for model cars, the hobby is dominated by the joint scales of 1:24 and 1:25. The slight difference between the two does not worry the vast majority of builders, but it does irritate some purists. Of course, the difference is minimal, but there is none the less a difference (always assuming that the kit company has done its scaling correctly in the first place). The reason why this difference came about is because the scale chosen by AMT for its promos was 1:25, which has become the model car scale, especially for American machinery. Intriguingly 1:25 is really a metric scale, which is odd in a country that is the last bastion of imperial measurements (or, as most Americans still say, ‘English measurements’). It came about because the pre-CAD-CAM clay models for the full-size cars were always done in 1:10 scale (which of course is also metric). As the resulting model would be rather large for a toy, some scaling down had to be done. There were instances when the scale was simply halved, to 1:20, but in the majority of cases a two-and-a-half-times reduction was made, and the 1:25 scale was born.

However, the 1:25 scale was not used by all car kit companies. AMT, Jo-Han, MPC and Revell all at some time had dealings with promos, or similar, and so opted for 1:25. Monogram, on the other hand, did not have any tie-ins with promos and the car companies at all and so settled instead on 1:24 scale, or, as it was initially termed, ‘half scale’, because it was an imperial scale of half an inch to the foot. This was the scale that Monogram continued to use until the 1990s. IMC also started in these early years and used 1:25, as did Aurora, but Lindberg used 1:24 (although at that time they made precious few larger-scale cars).

This slight differentiation in scales continued with the advent of some new kit names: Accurate Miniatures and Testors (starting its own range of car kits, alongside its paint and accessories) both went for 1:24 scale, while Galaxie, Polar Lights, new kits from the re-established Lindberg and, most recently, Moebius Models, all opted for 1:25.

The extremes of model car scales demonstrated by two from Monogram: one example of its smallest plastic car kits, in 1:43 scale, sitting on an example of one of its largest, in 1:8 scale. Both are examples of the first version of the Corvette Stingray shape.

The scale problem was exacerbated further when other manufacturers around the world entered the model car field. Old and new companies in Europe and Japan started to make car kits, invariably of anything and everything (except American subjects), but they all chose 1:24 scale. It is a strange anomaly that virtually all countries of the world use the metric system, but their companies went for an imperial scale, while companies in the USA, which sticks to the imperial system, mostly opted for a modified metric scale!

MAKING A KIT

The decision to produce a particular model kit (of any subject) is not taken lightly. Vast sums in any currency can be run up by the design and manufacture of the tooling, let alone the production of the parts, plus the box, plans and decals, and any advertising and shipping (the latter is very likely these days to be from one side of the world to the other).

When the kit industry started, many of these costs – even taking into account the considerable changes in the costs of living – were far lower. Wages were less, and practicalities were greatly helped by everything being done in one factory on one site, in the same town, or, at the very least, within the same country. Tooling was cheap to cut, and the raw plastic material for the moulding process was also readily available. Consequently the idea that the 1960s in particular were the heyday of the model industries is probably not that far off.

Making a kit also involved detailed consideration of subject matter. Given that the first cars kits were made in the USA, which could be seen as the home of the automobile, it might seem surprising that the first model cars produced were veteran and vintage examples. However, the US companies soon moved on to the modern (for the time) automobile, with the introduction of AMT’s Annual ready-assembled promotional car models, and then the equivalent kits. Since then, the modern American car has tended to dominate the model car industry in the USA especially, although exotic motors from around the world have also had their fair share.

Over the years, subject matter has gone in cycles. The idea of the Annual kit survived into the 1970s, but now the only ones generally available will be Mustangs and Corvettes, and the odd sporty sedans such as the Dodge Charger. Pick-ups, which disappeared from the Annual ranges in the late 1960s, still come and go in new and old types; 1950s cars remain popular, with a number of brand-new kits tooled in recent years. ‘Muscle cars’ of the 1960s and 1970s came and went, but more recently many have seen a revival, and they aren’t all 1969 Dodge Chargers painted bright orange with the number 01 on the doors; there have been many other examples.

Sports cars – including many classic British examples – have made their appearance, alongside the ubiquitous American Corvette, and, more recently, its rival, the Dodge Viper. The entry of the Japanese companies ensured that modellers would never run short of not only their home-grown products – many with names that were strange to Western ears – but also some from Europe, especially Ferrari, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, and even the odd Jaguar.

The 1960s was the era of the wild custom show cars, then interest in that field dwindled to be replaced for a time by a fascination with ‘concept cars’ from the manufacturers. (Of course, it is worth remembering that as long ago as the mid-1950s, Revell had come up with a couple of concept cars – the Lincoln Futura and Pontiac Club de Mer.) Things have now come full circle, and the wild concepts, from customizers such as George Barris, Dean Jeffries, Darryl Starbird, and especially Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth, have found a new favour. Some have even reappeared as re-tooled kits, as the original moulds are long gone.

Whatever the subject matter, the model will have been produced in roughly the same manner. Once the subject has been decided, plans will be drawn up. These days this will almost certainly be done digitally, and transferred directly via a CAD-CAM (computer-aided design, computer-aided manufacture) program to the tool-making machinery. It is a long way from drawings being put down on paper by a draughtsman but, either way, the processes remain much the same.

REFERENCE MATERIAL

Producing a kit of a model car is simpler than making one of, say, an airliner or a naval ship. It is somewhat impractical to dismantle an Airbus A380 or the USS Nimitz to get all the details absolutely correct, but it is quite possible to do this to a car. Tamiya is one company that has employed this technique in order to make the patterns almost direct. Anyone who has ever spent hours underneath a full-size Mini will be impressed by how close to the original Tamiya’s 1:24 scale model is! Even without actually taking the car apart, it is a straightforward matter to photograph the car from every possible angle, and take measurements of every detail. When Monogram wanted to produce a kit of the Buick Grand National, it found that one of its employees drove a 1:1 scale one, and borrowed it. During AMT’s ownership by Ertl, based in Dyersville, Iowa, a pristine 1966 Chevy Nova was noticed cruising the streets of the town, and that became the reference material for a new kit design. Alternatively model-company employees will be dispatched with a camera to take as many photos as possible of the next project.

A 1:10 scale wood model of a Revell short-track racer. These were always used to make the first models, which were then scaled down to the 1:25 scale model. These days much is done solely on the computer, with CAD-CAM programs, but these types of model are occasionally still made.

PATTERNS, MOULDS AND TOOLS

Patterns used to be made in wood or resin in 1:10 scale (mimicking the clays of the full-size companies), which could then pantographed down to the smaller scale. Although much is done digitally these days, and transferred direct to a tool-cutting machine, real 3D solid originals can still be made.

A typical injection-moulding machine, at the Revell-Monogram facilities in Illinois. It is currently turning off clear parts, in this case the bubble canopies for the Monogram 1958 Ford Thunderbird, a pile of which can be seen lower right.

Usually the moulds are made from high-grade tool steel. In earlier times some tooling was cast from beryllium, a gold-coloured metal that started relatively soft but hardened under continual use. It was particularly useful for producing non-regular parts, such as figures, and was particularly popular with Aurora. It is the main reason why much of the older tooling no longer exists as the metal was expensive and, when the kit was no longer selling and was deemed to have reached the end of its life, the beryllium could be reused to make a new kit. In one of those cycles often seen in the industry, most tool-making passed to high-grade steel exclusively, then, in the more recent years, some companies – especially the smaller and more specialized ones – have returned to using beryllium.

Besides the cavities for the parts being cut, the channels where the plastic flows into the cavities also have to be made; the point at which these pass into the cavity is called the ‘gate’. The plastic flowing along these channels remains with the kit and is commonly, but inaccurately, referred to (even by seasoned modellers) as the ‘sprue’. In fact, it is the ‘runner’ (or possibly the ‘tree’). The ‘sprue’ is actually the main inlet of plastic into the whole tool and is part of the material that can be recycled back into the system.

Most tooling consists of two halves that fit very tightly together, moved by hydraulic rams under immense pressure, then clamped while the injection process takes place. If undercuts are unavoidable, sliding sections can be produced, called ‘side action’, which automatically move into place for the injection process and then move back to release the part. However, this procedure is very expensive and companies try to avoid it where they can.

The polystyrene material, as ‘beads’, is heated to a temperature of around 200°C (400°F) and injected as a liquid at high pressure – 300 tons on average – into the mould cavities. It is rapidly cooled – the tooling has built-in chambers for this, like a car engine block – and the halves are then pulled apart and the newly moulded plastic parts rapidly ejected by pins.

Then the process starts all over again. Modern machines are capable of recycling in as little as thirty seconds, so it is not difficult to imagine that the tools come under extremes of temperature and pressure. Many are running on a 24-hour cycle for popular kits and they do consequently have a limited life, although a properly made tool can go through millions of cycles before it needs major attention. Tools also need to be stored correctly, to avoid surfaces rusting, and injector pins can jam and snap off when the tool is next used. With the increased re-use of old tools to cater for the collectors’ market, correct storage is becoming more and more important.

MANUFACTURING FAULTS

Even with the immense stresses on the tooling in a single cycle, faults with the finished plastic parts are few and far between. If they are present they tend to be either flash, injector pin marks, short shots or surface pitting due to rust.

Flash tends to be the most common problem with any kit. It occurs where the mould has failed to fit together well enough, the pressure is too great, or the clamp that holds the two halves together during the actual process is not strong enough and a thin ‘flash’ of plastic has flowed between the surfaces. It happens more often with older tools, where the mould has worn, but it can also be found with some of the most modern kits, perhaps where the pressure to hold the two halves together has been set too low. Unfortunately, if it is due to the wearing of an old mould there is nothing that can be done about it, apart from totally re-tooling the section, which is unlikely to be cost-effective. Although it is irritating, especially in a new kit, flash is easily cured with a sharp knife and sanding.

Older tools may also show up injector pin marks, where, usually because of the age of the tool, the injector pins that push out the moulded plastic are not adjusted well enough, or have simply worn. They may be either proud of the main cavity, where they will leave a slight depression in the parts, or slightly too short, where they will leave a bump. When designing a mould, the usual procedure is to ensure injector pins will push on the ‘back’ of a part or on the runner, so that slight misalignments will not pose a problem, as they will not be visible on the finished model. There may be occasions when the marks can be seen on a part that is visible in the finished model, and this makes sanding or filling necessary.

In short shots, the plastic has failed to reach the end of its cavity. This can be due to the temperature or the injection pressure not being high enough, but it is most likely due to mould design and should be picked up during the test-shot stage when the new tool is being tried out. Short shots are usually cured by adding an extra cavity beyond the main cavity, to allow the plastic to flow completely through the main section.

Surface pitting due to rust is really only associated with old tooling that has been incorrectly stored, allowing the inner surfaces to rust. Some cleaning up can be done, but there comes a point at which the tool cannot be cleaned any more and the manufacturer has to decide either to issue the model ‘as is’ or not at all. Overall, it is irritating and requires some work with wet-and-dry to clean the surfaces, but it is rare. However, with the ever-growing interest in classic kits, it might become more of a factor in the future.

Polystyrene in its raw state is a clear, brittle substance, but for use in kits it is mixed with other materials. Most polystyrene used in kit production is described as ‘high-impact’, which means it has a certain amount of rubber and lubricant added, plus an appropriate colour, around 1 per cent by weight. To this a certain amount of recycled styrene can also be added.

Some items in most kits have to use the styrene in its raw state – ‘crystal styrene’ – which is clear and is appropriate for the glass, headlamps and so on. This can show up the main difference between ‘raw’ and ‘high-impact’ polystyrene. Sawing through both clear and opaque parts shows immediately that the clear is far more difficult to cut with clean edges, and may craze or even shatter.

There is lubricant in the styrene itself, but the mould is also usually sprayed with a silicon compound before each injection process, to help the parts come out of the tool more easily. This silicon can sometimes remain on the surface of the plastic, so it is advisable always to wash parts in warm soapy water, clean with mineral spirits or use a proprietary cleaner before attempting any painting. For more on this, see Chapter 4.

CHAPTER TWO

THE TOOLBOX – THE WORKBENCH AND TOOLS

The place where you do your model making, and the tools you use, tend to be a matter of very personal choice, but it is worth at least giving some general guidelines.

WHERE TO WORK

Building a model car will take up less space than, say, making a 1:24 scale aircraft, a large model galleon or a 4-foot submarine, and can usually be accommodated on a standard-size table top. The location of that table – kitchen, dining room, spare room, or a dedicated area – will be dictated by your surroundings. Maybe you work from home and have an office area within the house, or maybe you are lucky enough to have one of those rather grandiose garden sheds, or a spare garage, loft, attic or basement. With working at home becoming more common, domestic space is having to be made available for a variety of tasks, and having a modelling bench next to the computer may become the norm. Some modellers who travel a lot even have a portable workbench that can be set up in a hotel room.

ON THE MOVE

Modellers who travel a lot can take their hobby with them, devising a compact travelling modelling case to hold tools and the model itself. Unfortunately, security regulations in air travel have tended to curtail the transportation of many modelling materials, particularly glues and knives, in hand luggage. In many cases, cheap spares can be bought at the destination, even if they then have to be abandoned for the return trip.

Assuming no totally dedicated area is available, some base-board or tray is likely to be required. A practical working area needed for a car kit is really not going to be more than around 2½ feet by 3½ (around 750 × 1000mm) and can be constructed from any suitable wood. Blockboard, plywood or MDF should all serve this purpose although you will probably need to seal both sides to prevent warping, or the soaking in of spilt paint, thinners and glue (which will happen). Alternatively, the surface of the board may be made smooth with a glue-on laminate, such as Formica. Even easier, buy one of the finished wood surfaces from a DIY store, although even this will probably need additional sealing.

A lip around the edge will prevent small parts rolling off, which may be a problem, especially if the work area is on the small side. If the board is to be moved a great deal – out of the way of young children and cats, for example – handles could be a useful addition, and maybe even a cover. The tools of the trade – paints, knives, glue and the like – will also need to be stored, and there is a wide variety of suitable carrying cases available, ranging from those that are specifically intended for this purpose, to those designed to store fishing tackle, which normally have lots of useful small compartments.

As a practical surface to work on directly, a sheet of thick card is useful; look for mounting board in art and craft suppliers, or seek out a purpose-made cutting mat, which should be available in a range of sizes. On top of that a supply of kitchen paper on a roll is invaluable, not only for drying brushes and mopping up the odd spill, but also as a top layer. After finishing some messy work, the sheet of paper can be thrown in the bin. This layer is also very useful when working on parts that have been painted, as it avoids scratching.

A typical modeller’s work bench? Sometimes they do get a bit untidy…

It is worth spending some time now and again to tidy up – you can find more that way. Here, clean sheets of kitchen towel are used on top of a cutting mat, itself on top of a sheet of mounting board. This gives better work conditions for the application of Bare-Metal Foil (right) to an AMT 1965 El Camino (see Chapter 8).

A snap-together kit of a Lindberg Ford Grand Victoria, built as a police car. Snap-together kits are still occasionally made.

STICKING TOGETHER

The vast majority of model kits need fixing together in some way or another. Unless it is designed as a ‘snap-together’ kit, this will involve some sort of glue; in fact, the snap kits can be glued too. When injection polystyrene kits first came about, in the 1950s, the next thing the manufactures had to do was to supply plastic cement. Styrene plastic is joined by welding the parts together with the glue melting the edges, which in theory produces a seamless join.

Originally the glue came in a tube – the classic ‘tube of polystyrene cement’ – and it can, if needed, still be bought. However, tubed cement consisted of a solvent, usually one of the methyl-based compounds, plus some dissolved styrene. This meant that the cement had ‘bulk’ and would leave a residue. At the very least, this needed to be removed when dry, involving extra work filing and sanding; at worst, it could remain ‘active’ inside parts that otherwise appeared dry, sometimes for many years! This could lead to the strange phenomenon of the outer surfaces caving in under some mysterious influence.

As a result of these shortcomings, liquid cement was devised. Very basically, it is just the solvent and tends to be far more controllable than the ‘tubed’ type. It can be applied with a small brush – various sizes should be kept dedicated to the task as they do tend to rot after a while – or a small pipette. One slight disadvantage of liquid cement over the tube type is that it will evaporate rapidly. This is part of its job, but it is advisable first to keep it in a tightly closed container, and then to use it via a dedicated dispenser, which will keep evaporation to a minimum. The fumes for these liquids can also be toxic, or at the very least unpleasant, so they should be used in a well-ventilated area.

There is a third type of styrene cement that is really a cross between the old tubed type and the total liquid variety. Produced by such companies as Humbrol and Revell, this is rather like a thick version of the liquid and is useful when you want the glue to stay ‘liquid’ for slightly longer than the pure liquid, say, for cementing small parts, spotlamps, wing mirrors and the like, into place.

With the growth in multi-material kits involving parts that may not be made of polystyrene, new glues have had to be involved. Perhaps the most useful is cyanoacrylate, or, as it is more commonly called, ‘superglue’.

Superglue is very useful for the multi-materials kits, and invaluable for metal-to-metal joins (white-metal or photo-etched), for attaching metal to a different material, or for applying very small plastic parts to a plastic body. A superglue join is a mechanical join, not a weld, but this is usually sufficient. As with any glue, less is better and this applies even more so to superglue; usually, the tiniest of drops will suffice. Accelerator (also called ‘kicker’) is available for superglues, to speed up the curing process, although it can make the join very hot and affect some painted surfaces. (It also weakens the join, but this is not really an important factor for a static model kit.) Superglue can also be useful for cementing those items that are most likely to get knocked off, such as wing mirrors. As the superglue does not actually dissolve the surfaces, it is strong mechanically but fairly weak when subject to a shearing force. If the model is accidentally brushed and the wing mirror hit, it will tend to snap off at the join if attached with superglue. Providing you can find it, it can be easily re-attached.