I’m in the process of making my Christmas list for the family. I need to purchase a few automobiles for my town. The era I’m in is 1920 to 1930, give or take a few years. Scale is HO. I’m thinking of a few Model T’s, Model A’s, a Mac chain drive truck, and a few horse drawn wagons. This is a small rural town in the middle of no where. The only company that I’ve seen that offers these items at a decent price is Jordan Minniatures. I’ve heard that the kits are rather diffecult. What I’m wondering is, how diffecult? Do they come in twenty pieces, or just a few? I’m looking for any opinions or advice on the subject. Thanks.
I’ve built a number of Jordan vehicle kits over the years - there are more than a few parts to each, but the end result is well worth the effort in my book. Fine cross-sections and reasonably straightforward to put together. Because of the small parts I recommend painting before assembly - makes for a neater model and I’d use the brush on style glues as well.
Charles
I’ve never built a car, but I’ve built a couple of their wagons. The pieces are really small. You cannot pick them up without tools. That is the main challenge. But the models come out really nice.
Corey,
The Jordan kits are styrene and come with some flash. You’ll need files and/or a sharp X-acto knife to remove it. They are looking nice kits.
I’ve really enjoyed the Sylvan resin kits. Unfortunately, their kits fit the mid 30s - 50s era of cars.
Tom
What brand/kind of glue do you use?
Chip, I think that crate is going to launch that horse ten feet in the air!
It’s a bad combination. Mrs. Ridge, wife of Randell “Rock” Ridge, the owner of the Rock Ridge Mine and most of the town of Rock Ridge, sent a couple of the boys in her new buckboard down to the freight station to pick up her new piano.
Billy, the station attendent, “had to see this” and pulled up a chair to watch.
plastic cement
Hello, I’ve made a few of them. Pats are very fragile, but work carefully and you should do fine. The liquid solvent type plastic cement workd fine. Good suggestion below to paint parts first.
I’ve made a dozen or so ranging from the station baggage cart to the trucks and horse carts. All excellent models, but not 1 night jobs - paint first as previously noted. For this time period, Athern now has excellent Ford model A’s in pick up, sedan, and coupe versions. Mini Metals also has 1936 Ford Fordors in sedan, taxi (sold out I hear) and police car models. Riko has superb 1934 Caddilac V16 Aerodynamic Coup, 1931 Lincoln Model K, and Horch 1935 851 Pullman (German but looks close enough to American). I have all of these & can’t decide which are the best![8D]
This is a photo-tutorial done by Bob Grech. It’s an excellent step-by-step guide to painting and assembling one Jordan vehicle.
http://www.trains.com/TRC/CS/forums/807093/ShowPost.aspx
I printed this up and went through it while building this one, which happens to be the same kit Bob used:
I think the biggest hurdle was getting over the fear of the tiny parts and the unfamiliarity with building kits of this type. Yes, I put stuff together with tweezers. Some of the parts are that tiny, but it was an interesting experiment. (I’ve got another one going now, by the way. The first step was some spray painting, and I haven’t gotten back to it yet.)
I probably spent 2-3 hours on this one, not counting the drying time for the paint before and during assembly. The next one won’t take as long. I “customized” mine by adding a driver, who needed some body parts removed to fit him into the cab. By the way, things like the gearshift and handbrake levers are so small that you can’t really even see them inside the cab. I put them in, but realized that no one would ever have known if I’d left them out.
No pics of it yet but I just got done with the Erie Model B Steam Shovel. It looks really nice, although if I build another there would be some fine tuning to the steps involved. I have also built thier Caliope Model T. Again nice kit, but very delicate. All of the above suggestions are very good, and should be taken to heart. The only thing that I would add is that you should gently wash the parts and let them air dry, and then prime them, before painting them.
I’ve got about 10 of those Jordan kits and about 3 of em built. The simple ones . I need to get busy on the others, and I’m looking forward to it. Mr. B thanks for the reminder on the Bbo Grech article.I also got some Rio Grande models to assemble,Oh, for another lifetime.
A big thank you to all that have answered. This is exactly what I was looking for. I wanted to get myself ready for whatever level of difficulty these kits presented. The tutorial by Mr. Grech will be invaluable. I will order a few kits and see what I can come up with. Thanks again.
To add to what has already been said:
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Optivisor or other magnifier
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Bright light
Guy