WHO REMEMBERS SPINWELDERS

[62rebel]

way WAY back in the day... there was a toy(?) called spinwelder and it was a large model car you put together by melting plastic rods (spin welding) to hold the parts together... the attraction was that it was like a demo derby car; and you could wreck it and rebuild it. i don't think it lasted more than a year on the store shelves, and at that time i wasn't into model cars that much, so i am really stretching back if i'm thinking it was a petty nascar charger that was the feature car?

i'm not confusing this with the old ssp demo derby cars, either, they were "pre-wrecked" and not "stock" cars. once you lost all the loose parts, they pretty much lost any interest anyway.

[Scale-Master]

I remember that. Mattel made it I think. Didn't take long for us to chuck up some sprue into the hand drill and make our own...

[62rebel]

i also remember the auto world "hot knife" ! it probably ruined ten times as many models as it helped. and severely burned those youngsters unlucky enough to convince their parents to buy them one! i remember reading a "how-to" that made a point of the fact that in order to make opening doors, etc, you had to have one model to cut the door openings INTO and another to cut the doors FROM since the hot knife melted down the edges of the cut edge. learning how to scribe away those door panels made SUCH a difference in how i built models. on a different note, i recall reading in a military model mag about builders who welded parts together with a needletip soldering iron. not metal models; mind you, but plain plastic kits!

[lordairgtar]

When Ertl first brought out their truck kits, the front tie rod was made so you had to "weld" it to the steerable wheels. It was called a "swage"

[Guest zebm1]

I made my own "hot knife" back in tha early 60s by using a wood-burning pen w/changeable tips and filing a thinner edge on tha brass knife. Sure made opening doors and wheel arches much easier. But now I wonder ifn breatheing in those fumes might have been an early "unknown" contributor to my current COPD condition.

[62rebel]

revell's instructions (as did most i think) mentioned swageing movable joints; in my hasty days of youth i usually swaged it SOLID so it was as good as glued anyway! i remember looking at the Ertl big truck kits and thinking they'd be cool since they had steering front wheels and were made to roll almost like promo models. i recently built the repop scout kit; it was a fun build and although simplified a la '80's monogram it was nicely molded. IIRC; ertl had several version of the scout available.