Darren,

About 9-10 years ago I bought an older Westerfield kit
with the brittle dark grey castings at a hobby shop
(Sattler's in Westmont, NJ). I had a VERY difficult
time assembling the kit and sent a letter to Al and
told him so (politely, of course).

Al called the next day and sent me a replacement kit
at no cost with all new castings. He told me at the
time that ALL the kits with the earlier resin were
ordered off the shelves and no hobby shop in the US
was authorized to sell them. So, it would be worth
your while to send him an e-mail and tell him about
your situation. He may not help you out since you
bought the car off Ebay, but it's worth a try. Al's a
terrific fellow and he may give you a break.

John Golden
O'Fallon, IL

Message: 15
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 21:42:18 -0800
From: Richard Hendrickson
<rhendrickson@...>
Subject: Re: older Westerfield kits

I recently purchased a Westerfield BX-Z kit off

E-Bay. Instead of the
usual

grey resin, this is cast in a very dark green/grey.

I'm assuming this
is the

older "brittle" resin I've heard of. Any special

precautions or tips
for

working with this kit? Or would I be better served

to set it aside
until I

have some more experience with the newer kits?

Thanks.

Darren Plants

Darren, the best thing would be to get a set of molded
parts in the
later
resin from Westerfield, who supplies them for earlier
kits at a
relatively
modest price. More experience might help, but the
early resin was very
brittle and hard to work with, and fighting with it is
pointless when
it's
so easy to replace it.

Richard H. Hendrickson
Ashland, Oregon 97520


=====
John Golden
O'Fallon, IL
http://www.pbase.com/golden1014

John is not quite right. We can't order the hobby shops to do anything. About 16 years ago we offered to replace every kit on every hobby shop shelf for free just to get rid of the old resin. We then sold those returned kits at $5.00 apiece locally with the understanding that there were no returns. We still get an occasional complaint from customers who purchased an old kit at a hobby shop but we explain that it's not our fault. We try to work with these modelers to make them whole at as little cost to them as possible - Al
He told me at the
time that ALL the kits with the earlier resin were
ordered off the shelves and no hobby shop in the US
was authorized to sell them.
John Golden
O'Fallon, IL