Remember Your First Model Car?

Hello,

Our first model custom car was an open roadster with an SBC motor. But, the stock pipes in the kit were ok, but, it was supposed to be a custom build. So, I got a hold of some jewelry store “lost wax casting rods” to create some nice side pipe headers for the exposed motor.

Similar rods used to create a separate header pipe system

When I installed them, they were soft enough to shape into a nice set of headers. I flared the ends to create a slight wider opening on each pipe. They were soft enough to shape into headers, but for the long run, sitting on a shelf, they were a failure. Why? Well, during the winter, our house heater warmed up the den where we did our model building. When it got warm, the solid wax rods got soft and started to droop. That was not going to work. But, no model kit had made nice set of headers for any motor let alone a SBC motor.
Lost wax casting rods came in all sizes and were used to create any shape of design for casting projects in jewelry. The “lost wax casting rods” were available at our local hardware/supply store and jewelry/hobby shops.

(in jewelry making, the label, “lost wax casting” was a term that virtually melted the wax shaped rings and necklaces when the hot melted gold or silver was poured into the sand casting hole. Therefore: the wax disappeared due to being melted away… a lost wax casting…)

(In our high school metal shop, we used a finished shape of molten metal Lincoln head. Packed it in a wet sand mold, cracked open and took out the original solid shape. Then put the mold back together, gingerly, and then stood back as the melted, hot liquid metal got poured into the little holes in the sand mold. There was no lost wax as the empty hollow molded shape was the “lost wax,” nothing to melt, the solution was already liquid.)

(In jewelry making, the wax rods are pliable to shape any angle or shape. If the shape needed a knife edge, then an X-acto knife blade made the wax shape smoother. Once the wax shape was ready, then the sand got poured all around the wax form. When the liquid molten metal is poured in… then it is shaped by the sand making the outside shapes and only the wax get melted by the hot liquid… therefore: lost wax casting…” your original design is lost and now your have a custom shape of molten metal to shape and clean up. )

Blue insert is the backside view of the silver wax headers. The side of the headers shown to the public is stock, smooth and no rod showing.

The wax rods in themselves are stiff, but pliable. So, my header pipes needed a stiffener to keep the shape of the rod curves and straight pipe angles. The solution was to melt thin metal wire into the wax surface not seen by having the model hot rod sitting in any angle. Once that was done, the wax rods stayed up all winter and even in the hot summer months.

Jnaki

Our next version of models with headers had the same shaped lost wax casting rods bent to fit any header placement and we installed those thin wires for support. YRMV

 

Interesting and very inventive. Use what you have available. Today you can buy styrene sheet, strip, tube and rods in various thicknesses and diameters. The rod can be bent to shape. Keep in mind there is some spring back.

 

Here it is, built, right out of the box. the only thing I changed, was to add radiator support rods.

 

Ever since I was a kid, I've built models for fun. Cars, aircraft, Roth Monsters, whatever struck me. Here's a Roth kit "Mother's Worry", an original '63 kit that everyone told me to not build it, that it was worth more pristene unopened in the box. No way, I like to build and display.

 

I like aircraft as well, and it gives me the opportunity to use my airbrush. Cars, I can get good results from a spray can, but aircraft flat tones take more finesse.

 

This isn't a well focused photo, sorry. But I have done so many cars over the years, some more than once. This is the only other car model photo that I have. I've always liked the older Funny Cars.

 

Snap together 55 Chevy I believe by MPC. Actually quite detailed for a snap kit down to the tilt nose. Saw American graffiti right after so it helped fuel my hot rod interest lol

 

i forgot to mention, my first un-opened kit was a Mustang II that I had won at a grand opening of a parts store, I was only 13 and won a set of Crager wheels but I wasn't old enough to get them,so they gave me the model kit instead.. I am number nine of 10 kids so money was tight and I only got model junk my older brothers were junking, that could be why I love glue bombs like this build, this is my 59 Impala. I have over 350 built models and around another 400 that need built and 100s of glue bombs that need redone.

 

Not a model car, but a toy car; a '36 Ford stock car racer. Perhaps explain what happened 10 year later in 1961.
And this, in 1991.

 

Happy to see this Post is alive and well in the year 2025.
I believe my first kit was 64 GTO AMT kit and remember that it came out quite nifty even for limited skills I had at that point in time.
Still building and restoring kits and enjoy every minute and am not sure how many I have collected but every one holds a special memory from first model to my last.