Tom Daniel's Railroad Modeler year

Tom Daniel's M. Bezler & Company from Railroad Modeler Mar '72

I was reading some old Railroad Modeler magazines over the weekend, and came across an interesting kitbash, M. Bezler & Company, by Tom Daniel in the March 1972 issue. As well as a few odds and ends, it's built from our old friend the AHM Grusome Casket Company kit, and Vollmer's Two Story Factory, item #5610.

This wasn't the first article penned by Tom Daniel that I'd seen in my reading, and I started to wonder if this was the same Tom Daniel who designed all those awesome 1/24 scale showcar kits. Vince has got an extensive library on this subject, so I asked him. And he did the logical thing and asked Tom Daniel directly via email. Mr. Daniel replied quickly, and confirmed that he was the author of those articles. I'm a big fan of Tom Daniel's kit designs, and have featured here the T'rantula, Rommel's Rod, Ice 'T', and the Hot Wheels Red Baron - and I've got a 1/24 scale Red Baron kit stashed away in the basement awaiting assembly and a post. I didn't know he had an interest in model railroading too. 

So far I've found 8 articles in Railroad Modeler published over a 1 year period from December 1971 to November 1972. Most appear to deal with improving and modifying kits, as well as kitbashing. Here're the Tom Daniel stories I've found so far:

Dec'71: A Modified Mallet (modifying AHM's 2-8-8-2)

Jan'72: Shortline Combine (shortening AHM's 82' combine)

Feb'72: A Winterized E-8 (making AHM's E-8 diesel ready for winter operations)

Mar'72: M. Bezler & Company (kitbashing AHM Grusome Casket & Vollmer Two Story Factory)

May'72: An Inside Look at Boxcar Details (adding loads to boxcars)

Jun'72: Elephant Eared Berkshire (detailing AHM's Berkshire loco)

Sep'72: up to date depot (converting Life-Like's convenience store kit into a modern station)

Nov'72: Locomotive Riptrack (Diorama from a Kitmaster J3a Hudson & a Hobbytown 0-4-0 tank switcher)

In the story, An Inside Look at Boxcar Details, Mr. Daniel mentions in his younger days, this author unloaded many, many boxcars, and each had its own mystery and intrigue. Working inside one was ALWAYS at one of two extremes...hotter than a steam room or colder than a refrigerator. I always used to wonder at all the states, cities, towns and lonely spurs the average boxcar must visit during its travels.. which to me hints that there is more to his interest in model railroading than meets the eye. I'll keep you posted if more turns up, but for now, where's that Red Baron kit :-)

[4:09pm Update: The first issue of Railroad Modeler was September 1971, but it wasn’t until the March 1972 issue that they included a list of contributors on the index page. And in that list is Tom Daniel, and there he remained up to and including the May 1973 issue. In June 1973 he was gone, and it looks like the contributors list was shaken up a bit. Some old names were gone, some new ones appeared. Maybe there was a staff shake-up? Maybe some veterans had simply moved on? Was Tom Daniel a founding contributor? Questions, questions, questions.]

Inspection, Take 2

I sprayed some Dullcote on the figure's pants to see if that would kill the shine. It did, sort of, but maybe not really :-) Although the sheen is much reduced, there are still highlights under the LED photo lights. I should repaint the figure and take a few photos outside in natural light. Now that the good weather's approaching, I can move picture taking outside without freezing.

Inspection

Li'l Aqua

My Li'l Aqua water delivery show rod is a combination of AMT's Li'l Gasser and Amtronic kits. I think I built this back in 2005, or maybe a couple of years earlier. I submitted some pictures to Starship Modeller back then and they graciously posted them. Since I've been thinking about show rods these days I thought I'd take some new pictures. 

A couple of parts fell off while I was handling the model and taking the pictures, but they were easily re-glued. Overall, it still seems fairly solid after all these years.

The front end of the Li'l Gasser kit got used on the Li'l Overlook project, and the back end of the Amtronic was the basis of the Amtronic Ranch.

Ice T anyone?

Vince and I were chatting recently about show rods and during the conversation he mentioned that I start many posts with "Vince and I were chatting recently about .....". I agreed I was getting sloppy and was now relying on overused phrases. Let me start this post again.

I was discussing the sociological implications of the sub-category of automotive technology known as 'Show Rods' with an esteemed colleague and member of the 30Squares editorial board. There was an inquiry as to whether I had ever built the Show Rod known as Ice T. I retorted that I had many odd years ago in my halcyon days. It was assembled in a naive manner with a brushed-on application of paint highlighted with primitive dots stippled on in a Jackson Pollock-esque style with a Sharpie pen. Art Brut? Homage to juvenile art of a lost era? Or maybe it was just a way to have some simple fun :-)

Hot Wheels Red Baron

I was mentioning to Vince that in childhood days I thought the Red Baron was one excellent vehicle. Frankly, I can no longer see the attraction. What was I thinking? Although, when the plastic kit was re-issued a few years back, I eagerly bought one from the local hobby store – some sort of unfulfilled primal urge I guess:-)

Also, going through all the Hot Wheels photos I notice that the ones that are missing a single wheel are all missing the rear wheel on the driver's side. Coincidence or pattern? Can't tell.

Bad Actor

There's an awful lot of black-and-white photos at the blog these days. I thought I'd add a little colour by diving into the old retroDynamics blog and pulling out the posts for the Bad Actor build from the first couple of months in 2013. It's one of my favourite model car projects.

Part 1: A good start to the Bad Actor

I made a start over the Christmas holidays on Tom Daniels' Bad Actor kit I've had in my stash for quite sometime. The paint on the body is a deliberately uneven finish of blue, silver and black that I sprayed outside during a snowfall to get a mottled finish. I'm currently working on the engine and wheels.

Part 2: Bad Actor, Good Chassis

I spent some time building the Bad Actor's chassis and getting it up on its wheels. For a relatively old kit - I think this version dates from 1980 - the parts fit together fairly well without too much filing and fitting.

I didn't do any engine detailing. Just painted it with what I thought were interesting colours and gave it a wash of thinned flat black to highlight some details.

These are all the chassis and exhaust parts. Any that were chromed had the chrome stripped off with SuperClean. Everything was painted with a flat aluminum.

Here's what it looks like after the engine, exhaust and chassis parts are installed. Some thinned black wash was brushed over everything to tone down the colours a bit. Later I plan to weather things a little before finishing.

Here's what it looks like before the radiator assembly is dropped in, and below is the rear wheel assembly - it'll be obscured once the body is installed.

Part 3: Bad actor with the lid off

I've been doing some work on the Bad Actor and luckily I'm getting near the end. Once I had the hood installed it struck me that it looked interesting without the body, so I thought I'd take some photos before finishing up.

Not much more to do on this one. Just some body work and getting it installed.

Part 4: Bad Actor is done

It's done! It was a rather fun build. Not too many pieces, fun to paint, and all the parts fit together quite well. 

Hopefully, once the grey skies clear, and the light is better, I'll take a few more pictures in bright sunlight.

T'rantula rides again!

The T in T'rantula doesn't stand for Tesla because even though it's a green machine there is nothing environmentally friendly about this gas-guzzling monster.

The model went together fairly easily and all the parts fit with a minimum of flash to be removed. The above photo shows it up on its wheels awaiting the engine and windshield.

The double-blower engine is the most prominent feature of this model, so I thought I should add ignition wires to the distributor since that part was front and centre. The kit's distributor unit is made of two parts: a body and cap. I discarded the cap and drilled out the body to accept the wires. 

The wires are some leftovers from packages I bought from Model Car Garage a number of years ago. I used red and black because I didn't have enough left of either colour, so I went with 4 red and 4 black. The wires were bundled together and glued into the distributor body with some medium thickness super-glue.

Some holes were drilled in the engine to accept the wires - the positioning is all guess work, nothing prototypical or accurate. They're held in place with some Krystal Klear.

Jumping ahead a bit, you can see how that side of the engine looks when the whole thing is seated in the body.

I did the same procedure on the other side. There's nothing fancy about this engine. Other than ignition wires, there weren't any other after market details added. The only detailing was merely painting various components. Ok, well, the ends of the exhaust pipes were drilled to open them up.

You can sort of make out the opened up exhaust pipes in this view from the back. There's also a packed-up drag chute glued to the back of the cab.

The kit comes with a deployed drag chute - that's it in the photo above with an N-scale figure. It might make an interesting passenger shelter for a streetcar turn-around. Although, now that I see it, it might be better in HO than N.

Dusting off the T'rantula

Tom Daniel's T'rantula dragster - a Monogram model - was the first model kit I built as a kid. I think my parents bought it for me. As the years went on it was cannibalized to make other custom car models. Whatever was left was eventually tossed out, or given to my cousin in order to clear things out prior to a move. 

I bought a re-release of the kit a couple of years ago and started to build it last summer. Ok, "started to build it" is a bit of a stretch. I bought some Colors by Boyd Lime Pearl to spray it with, glued a few engine components together, and then pushed it to the back of the workbench as I started on some other projects. A few weeks ago I dusted it off and started again. It's about half done, so it's likely to get finished. Soon I hope :-)

Those are the engine parts from the truncated first round of building last summer. They're quite well molded. This is one of the few projects where I didn't start by immediately stripping off all the chrome plating.

That's the body all glued up and drying in the dish rack after a little washing with soap and water. The tricky part was figuring out what to do about the interior and roof. After much head scratching, I built-up and painted the interior, then installed it and covered it with masking tape. The roof was then glued on and the roof-body seam was sanded out until smooth.

I used a bent coat-hanger as a paint stand and sprayed the body in the backyard on a nice day. Wrapping the interior with masking tape worked well and kept the interior from being coated with green paint. However, I had to be extra careful in pealing off the tape to make sure the steering wheel, shifter and pedals didn't get broken.