It's here!

 

From the Time Machine's Glove Box: Three Things I've Learned

After finishing off Variation No. 3 I got to thinking about a post from back in 2013 about three things I thought were important about how I approach to model making, and wondered why I wasn't applying those to the A&A project. I seem to have forgotten about items #1 and #3. However, after suitable remembering, I'm diving back in to get it finished.

From the Time Machine's Glove Box: A Not So Gran Turismo

As I continue to clean up and reorganize the workshop things keep getting delayed as I find stuff I'm compelled to stop and reminisce about. I found the old box for Revell's Gran Turismo kit that I built up many years ago. I lusted after this kit as a kid, but never found one in a local store, so dreams of building it were shelved. Well, shelved until 10 or so years ago when I found a 1997 re-pop at a hobby store. I built it up and posted it at retroDynamics. I learned it was tough project and I don't think I could have been successful if I had built it as a kid. Even the box says: Some Modeling Skills Helpful If Under 10. Let me tell you, they're also helpful if you're over 10 :-) Here's the post from retroDynamics in all its glory.

I think Revell first released this kit back in the early ‘70s. Well, all I know for certain is that I first saw it in their 1974-75 catalog. For some reason I wanted to build that kit, but could never find it in a local store. This one I bought a few years ago at a hobby store in Montreal. The instructions have a 1997 date, so it’s no doubt a re-pop from the original molds.

Back in the ‘70s I had a love / hate relationship with Revell kits. I loved the automotive subjects they produced and I built a few: Porsche 911, Datsun 610, 1955 Chevy, 1955 Chevy panel van, and probably some others that have slipped my mind. And there were a few I wanted to build, but never did: the Gran Turismo, Spark Bug, Barris Rolls, among others.

But, I hated the quality of the kits at times; back then their quality seemed to be always hit-and-miss. Sometimes the bodies would have warps and molding imperfections that were difficult for an inexperienced modeler like myself to correct; the tires were always two-piece affairs that had to be glued together, but struck me as not being very ‘tire-like’ for some unknown reason; chrome plating seemed brittle; parts had fit problems; and so on. Well, this Gran Turismo is no different. In fact, it’s probably the worst I’ve encountered, and it’s so bad that I’m glad I didn’t attempt this build as a kid.

Look, I’m not dumping on the kit, it’s just that, if you’re going to build this one, it’s good to know it’s a product from a different era that hasn’t aged well. I found that the parts are not crisply molded, have fit issues, have lots of flash that needs cleaning up, are peppered with circular dimples from the molding process, and need a more thorough than usual cleaning with soap and water to prep them for painting. On the other hand, it’s a relatively simple build with few parts and lots of scope for trying out some of your own ideas, which I did.

The first thing I did was strip all the chromed parts in SuperClean. The plating was terrible: a bit flakey, non-uniform, and very toy-like. Usually it’s clear sailing once this step is done. Not so this time. I jumped into assembling the engine and chassis, but every single part required extensive cleanup to remove flash from molding and burrs from the parts trees.

Even after all that work the parts still looked blobby and misshapen. This bugged me and I’m not even close to being a stickler over the crispness of moldings. So, instead of carefully cleaning, pre-painting and gluing up assemblies as is my usual approach, I decided to switch to something more aggressive: very, very basic parts preparation and then straight to gluing. I figured I’d build it up fast and try and tune-up the look to something not too horrible with some broad brush painting supplemented with some detail and weathering washes.

The body was another story. It wasn’t too badly molded. It was fairly crisp in appearance and wasn’t warped. I sprayed it with Krylon Hammered Nickel Silver. I like the results, although the fit of the lower body panels isn't that great.

The sorry state of the parts was a great incentive to do some customization. I replaced the wheels and tires with items from a Revell Honda Civic kit. The seats are also from that kit. They had to have their floor mounted seat-adjustment moldings ground off to fit on the floor pan, but the seat adjustments won’t be seen as missing-in-action once the seats are installed.

For reference, the kit allows you to install either a VW or Corvair engine; I chose the Corvair. Not that it’ll make much difference to the final look.

Don’t look too closely at what I’ve done with the wheels and tires – it’s not very realistic; it’s just an expedient approach to fixing a problem with getting the wheel-base to look right.

But, after all my grousing I still like how this kit turned out.

Ok, well, even after the rushed final assembly and misalignment between the body and chassis that resulted, I’m still happy with the build.

Back last Sunday I looked around and saw that the project was just about done, and I figured a little concentrated effort on my part would finish it off. It did, but as usual it took me longer than I thought: a few minutes here-and-there all throughout the day meant that it didn’t get finished until the early evening.

One thing that didn’t turn out quite right was gluing the body to the chassis / interior. I did a few trial-runs, and on the last fateful one I applied some superglue to the appropriate parts and went for it. Ooops. In my haste some misalignment occurred and it couldn’t be corrected. In some views – pure front and rear views – it’s very noticeable, but not so much in others. I accepted it and went on with attaching the little windshield and taillights to finish off the project.

The Gran Turismo is some sort of kit-car, or maybe even a dune-buggy, so it looks a little insubstantial compared to other car models. To me it has a squished Honda del Sol or Pontiac Fiero look to it. Not too bad, but the box art gives me the impression of a somewhat more sleek and streamlined vehicle.

If I came across another Gran Turismo kit I’d buy it just for the body. I think when combined with a more conventional chassis and interior bucket it might build up into an interesting little sports car.

In the end, I’d say if you have a sentimental attachment to this kit as I did, give it a try, but be warned that there’s lots of tedious work ahead. Now, if I could just find one of those old Revell Spark Bug kits…………

From the Time Machine's Glovebox: Light Ray Blues

Before I started on the E. L. Moore series, the most viewed series here at 30Squares was the multi-part pulp novella, Light Ray Blues. 

Light Ray Blues was posted as two series, with part 1 of series 1 published in September 2012. Series 1 turned out to be the most popular of the two. Here's Part 1 of series 1, and part 1 of series 2.

These days the all-time, most viewed item is the Index to the E. L. Moore models posts. 
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*The non-existent pulp magazine cover over there was created on the PULP-O-MIZER.

**There was also a pulp fiction / E. L. Moore mash-up short story where I tried to get the best of both worlds in One day in July of 1967.

From the Time Machine's Glovebox: In Praise of Cheap & Cheerful Kits

This post got its start in the same way a lot of others have: an interesting discussion with Vince.

Well, ok, there was also another reason. The Art Curren post got me thinking that cheap and cheerful kits once had a place in the hobby. Some people bought the kits, built them as intended with varying degrees of skill, and put them on their layouts, but others, like Mr. Curren, used them as convenience items for kitbashing structures that were more to their own liking. And his preference, if his "Stratchbuilding"-with plastic kit walls in the June 1977 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman is anything to go by, was for the readily available E. L. Moore plastic kits that had been on the market for a number of years by that time.

At this blog I've built a few of those E. L. Moore kits, but more from the straight out-of-the-box perspective, than with a kitbashing intent. They aren't the most high fidelity kits, but with a little work, they can be rather attractive.

My first builds here at 30 Squares - Ma's Place and Speedy Andrew's - were the subject of this 3 part series: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

What got Vince and me talking was that as well as the kits directly made from Mr. Moore's RMC articles, there's a whole other set of cousin kits that were manufactured based on the parts from the original 9 (there's a list of The Original 9 over at my Wikipedia article). Speedy Andrew's over there - really, an auto repair garage, not a surf shop - is one. You can see it's based on Ma's Place. I think it would be quite a lengthy investigation to track down the entire lineage of kits as the molds have changed owners, and the kits have gone in and out of production over the years.

It turns out, unbeknownst to me at the time, I did buy and build a couple of E. L. Moore kits back in the '70s. Ok, I knew I bought the kits, but I didn't know who designed them :-) That one is the Ramsey Journal Building that I tried to convert to a Home Hardware. A lot of the parts are now missing, but it was a semi-sensible conversion, although very basic on execution.

A couple of years back I bought this kit at a swap meet with an eye towards getting the parts I needed to restore my Home Hardware. I think I paid a loonie for it.

You can see the indications on the AHM kit that this was designed by E. L. Moore are long gone on this Tyco version.

Good thing I didn't pay too much, because it looks like the original owner took Art Curren's advice to heart and used the walls to build something else. Luckily, the walls are what I have, and it's the other parts I need.

Also back in the '70s I built E. L. Moore's Village Smithy kit. And, again, back then I didn't know about the E. L. Moore connection. I think somewhere along the line I cannibalized the kit to make something else, hence the missing parts. 

I have bought a few more E. L. Moore kits in this century. Over there is the W. E. Snatchem Funeral Parlor which interestingly enough, the manufacturer left the W off the sign, so no one will get the joke if they're not in-the-know - like you are :-)

I was so happy when I found an intact kit of the Molasses Mine. It was the subject of a build post and I was also lucky to see the original.

But, the rest of the kits I've bought over the last few years are still in boxes. That one is the sister project to W. E. Snatchem:  The Grusom Casket Co. That one apparently was for the German market because those red boxes announcing the kit was designed by E. L. Moore are in German.

I bought that AHM version of Grusom's because this Pola version I bought about 6 months earlier didn't have all the walls - half were missing. I didn't check the kit when I bought it, so my fault. Once again, someone was using the kit's parts to make something else a la the Art Curren philosophy :-)

I was more cautious when I bought this Busy Bee Department Store kit and opened it soon after it arrived. I was lucky to see the original this kit was based on back in 2015.

Just to prove that I opened it, I did an unboxing video.

Finally, I have this kit of E. L. Moore's Schaefer Brewery - retitled by Model Power - awaiting my acquisition of a second so I can build Art Curren's Perry Shibbel Fruit & Produce Co-Op that you can find in his 1988 book, Kitbashing HO Model Railroad Structures. I've studied the plans a bit, and it turns out I think Shibbel's could be built from a single kit with a strategic substitution of styrene brick sheets here-and-there.

Even from this small selection of E. L. Moore designed kits, you can see the masters have been owned by a few companies over the years, so compiling a list of them all, and their derivatives, would be challenging.

Studio tour

The video is a tour of my friend John Belt's studio at SUNY Oswego. After 43 years he's retiring from teaching Tech Education, and the video is a last look at the studio before dismantling. This is not a single sitting video. It's long and detailed and needs a few short sittings to see everything. There's a few objects in the video that I too have, and no doubt while I'm holed-up here, escaping the heat, I'm going to look through my shelves to see if I can find them.

The video got me reminiscing about the old posts from 2011 on the Museum-Gallery-Studio classification system of model railroads. Over the years the ideas discussed there morphed into something called The Trains Preserve in 2016, and then this year I got to thinking of other variations when it struck me that Bill Schopp was the amateur scientist - in the Scientific American sense - of model railroading and his layout was his studio/lab. That's the kind of thing I'd like to build: free-form, easy to change and try things, but with areas for setting up photos that can be changed around as ideas change. A sort of model-making / model-streetcar-system Exploratorium (or at least an Exploratorium as I remember seeing it at the Palace of Fine Arts in the '80s.)

In the Key of C

President's Choice Organics Caboose

HO^c: Casualized HO scale.

Usage: The club held a display of 2'x4' HO^c layouts at its annual meeting.

Source: The result of applying the philosophy of casualization across an entire HO scale layout. Casualized variants of other scales, like O^c and N^c, are also possible. Distortions, exaggerations, compressions, gauge shifting, and other transformations are allowable, but are performed in service of creating a feeling or impression. 

HO^c shouldn't be confused with freelanced HO, where freelance implies the layout isn't being built to represent a real life prototype. In Latin, hoc means "this", which is a useful thing to keep in mind when viewing an HO^c layout as the focus should be on this that's on view instead of comparing to absent prototypes and references. Does this get the maker's intent across? What does this have to say.

from The Dictionary of Non-Existent Model Railroad Terms, 3rd ed., 2019.

E. L. Moore, Interior Designer

The post with the enhanced interior photo of E. L. Moore's Elizabethton Depot got me thinking that I should enhance all the interior shots I have of E. L. Moore's models. When I first posted them I tried to keep them naturalistic, but in many cases details were obscured by strong shadows. In the photos that follow I have deliberately gotten rid of as much shadowing as I can, and overexposed the images a bit to highlight interior details and finishes.

The colour photos posted below are ones I shot back in 2015 of a collection of E. L. Moore original models, and the black & white photos came from either: ones shot by E. L. Moore that I restored in 2016; or ones provided by Paul Zimmerman that accompanied a number of lost E. L. Moore articles - I'll make note by each image regarding the source.

The model above is Mr. Moore's Schoolhouse and so is this one below.

Village School (Paul Zimmerman collection)

This is one of E. L. Moore's mountain cabins.

Apple Cider Mill

Wells Fargo Store mentioned in Crossroads Store article (E. L. Moore archive)

Crossroads Store (E. L. Moore archive)

Crossroads Store (Paul Zimmerman collection)

Central Warehouse

Norfolk and Southern Yard Office

Firehouse

Home for Small Locos

Elizabethton Depot

Either the Grizzly Flats or Blue Lake Depot (E. L. Moore archive)

Tuscaloosa Depot

Elizabeth Valley Cabin

Green Cabin

Cal's Lumber Yard (E.L. Moore archive)

Background Building

Another Mountain Cabin

Uncle Sim's Snuffery

Second floor of the Red Eye Saloon (E. L. Moore archive)

Church

Log version of the Little Church on the Hill (Paul Zimmerman collection)

Fort

Sandhouse

Small MFG. Plant

Molasses Mine and Factory

Ground floor of the Clarabel Hotel (E. L. Moore archive)

Brick Enginehouse

Spumoni Club Coach (E. L. Moore archive)

Outhouse for the Elizabethton Depot

C. Reid for Feed & Seed

Dilly Manufacturing Co.

Major Hoople's Brick Warehouse

Branch Line Station

Branch Line Station (E. L. Moore archive)

Mountain Water Wheel Mill

The number of models with detachable roofs is surprising. Not all interiors were detailed, but many were finished to a degree that would allow for later detailing. I sometimes wonder why he went to all that effort to make a clean interior, but never got around to detailing it.

If you're interested into other deep dives into E. L. Moore visual arcana you might want to check out Moore Green, The Adventures of Baby Spumoni, or The Adventures of E. L. Moore, Train Photographer.