Judging manual

[ldladyvt]

Morning folks!
  I am working on the class cheat sheets for the KF Judging manual and a Power Point presentation. Any ideas, pictures, information you might like me to use please send to me. (ldladyvt@hotmail.com) I am looking for shots of excellent, good, and fair parts.
  Thank you for your help and input!
Char Dayton

[Gordie]

Jack Mueller has been working on judging guidelines for each model of our Kaiser's and Frazer's for years.  I hope that you get in touch with him as he has pictures as well.  I have seen some of the guidelines and they will be of tremendous help to both the judges as well as the owners.  He covers every visible part of the car and lists what is authentic or not for each model.  The guidelines need to be implemented as soon as possible so that they can be fine tuned for judging.  As you know, judging of the cars has been a big problem for the club since the beginning.

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

All members should please note that Charlotte Dayton first learned about my set of rough drafts for Judging Standards since she took over the first time and sat on the information, as did Fred Walker before her.  Club President Mike Knittel has assured me in a September 2009 e-mail (I still have it) that he would contact Char promptly to have her contact me about refining the material for use.  As of the date and time of this posting, I have heard nothing from her. 

Please note also that I have been trying to get the National Officers and Directors of the KFOCI interested in applying these standards and making them available to judges and interested club members since approx. 1995 and have been shot down, with Carl Hering calling them a "waste of time and paper".  Now that we can put things on CD the paper issue is moot, and as a CD, production cost should come out to be less than $1.25 a copy plus shipping costs, further negating any reference to cost.

Lastly, if I do not hear from the proper parties on this and things are not rolling by 1/31/2010, I will accept the fact that the membership of this club has no interest in what is correct or acceptible for their cars, and will toss the material into recycling.

Jack Mueller
Club Historian

[AZ_HJ]

Jack,

Can you send me what you have assembled for the Henry J? I am doing a full body off restoration on a 1952 Henry J Vagabond Deluxe. I am working hard to put it togther as correct as possible. You might remember me as I have contacted from time to time. I hate to piece meal more info from you. I have spent a larghe amount of time and money to get my car correct. Any help I can get would be appreciated.



Thank you in advance.


Mark Steele
10034 N 107th Ave
Sun City, AZ 85351

623-412-7903  (Home)
AZSteele123@aol.com  (e-mail)

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

To Mark Steele and others interested in the material I put together...

The items I have worked up are in rough form only;  they need to be reviewed, discussed and tested against actual cars before being considered "good to go".  I am reluctant to release anything because some of the information may be changed or added to which could impact the results of restorations or upgrades.  If anyone is interested in getting a copy of a draft for their particular car as a "for reference only" and not accepted for judging purposes, please send me an e-mail at kaiserfrazerlibrary@yahoo.com.  You will get the material as scanned files, and the total file size could exceed 500kb.

Jack Mueller
Club Historian

[jerussel]

I'm extremely suprised the information Jack has amassed is not being sought after by the officers of our club.
 
ANY historical data, and most especially information that could be used by members and judges alike, to help set standards for judging or just an individuals goals in how far they want to take a given restoration, should be considered very valuable to the Kaiser-Frazer community as a whole and to the judges in particular.

Is there a reason for this evident lack of interest?  I cann't think of ANY reason why information should not be sought after and appreciated.

John Russell

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

I noticed John's comment and I can give an example of why the stuff was buried.....

What the material was first prepared, Fred Walker was not only Chief Judge, he ran a restoration shop specializing in K-F restoration work and was also perhaps the largest of the parts vendor/members in the KFOCI.  Fred told me that written standards were not required.  All one had to do was to buy all their parts from him or, better yet, have his shop do the needed restoration or upgrade work.  Fred made a point at National Convention judging times to note the cars on the judging field that came out of Auto-Pride and that regardless of how they looked or were set up, judges in the particular classes could use the Auto-Pride car as a benchmark.   A number of items sold by Fred were in fact wrong for the car they were put on to...ask Jerry Laurin about his very early 1947 Kaiser Special as just one example, or check with Adam Harder about his 1949 Kaiser, in particular his exhaust system.

How about that for a conflict of interest??

[jerussel]

Point taken...
But...
Fred is no longer gathering the info.  Jack (you), I believe, are?  And from what I have read you have been doing so for years.  I am assuming 2 things here:
1. You don't have a conflict of interest and
2. You have vetted the info you got from Fred and have corrected what needed correcting.

All I'm saying is - that the information is of value to those of us that are restoring these cars.  It should be made available, at least those portions that have been vetted for accuracy, to the club as a whole and to help establish standards for judging, so that (hopefully) cars being judged on the West Coast, say, are judged by the same standards as cars in theMid-West, the South or the East.  It only makes sense.
I DO note that you have offered to send data for individual models to those that ask (as I did), but it would be nice to have access to the full body of work, at least those sections that are complete.
Thanks for listening all...   ;-)
John

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

I need to correct a few things that may have been mis-understood.

First off, Fred Walker gave me NOTHING!  I never said that, in fact I tried to indicate that Fred had no interest in putting anything down on paper...it might come back to haunt him later on. 

Second, I am not in the restoration, auto mechanics or auto body business and hever have been other than a helper on occasion, working with someone else on a project.  I am also not in the parts business, although I may, on occasion sell small amounts of surplus or trade them for other things I want.  Because of legitimate and necessary provisions in the Constitution and By-Laws of the club, a person cannot be both Club Historian and Chief Judge at  the same time.  Also, it should be noted in the interests of full disclosure that between work schedules and travel costs, Barbara and I don't get to National Conventions that often these days, and I don't see that changing in the near future unless the meet is close to home (Cleveland OH area).

Third, I continue to gather materials to help fill gaps in my information files on things K-F, Willys and so on.  I have repeatedly shared this info with others at no cost other than (when required) photo copy and postage expenses.  I have also taken profolios of materials and binders of documents to meets I am able to attend.  Remember, this is stuff I paid for out of my own pocket and is mine, not the club's.  If I stop being Club Historian, the material stays with me so any replacement would have to come into the job with their own files, photos, etc.

[Orphanauto]

I would like to say, one thing you can do in getting closer to having a true original looking car, is look at factory original photos, This really helps when you look at engine bay photos, as they show where the decals should be, as well as the color for items, such as a oil filter case, the starter, generator, ect.. This shows what was black, what was engine green ect.. that should help alot for those items.

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

True and proper factory original photos are black & white so how do you tell colors off them?  Better idea is to use the color pictures (actual photos or drawn illustrations) in factory literature or the color pictures in the upcoming KFOCI HANDBOOK VERSION 4.0.

[Logan]

I am truly surprsied and disheartened that anyone in our club would think that having access to information is a waste of time.  The opposite, of course, is true.  You mentioned that Carl Hering shot the idea down, but is this not something that the club members can vote on?  I am a member and have a an interest in this being produced.  I would definitely buy a copy if someone produced it even if it were much more expensive than the $1.25 you estimate.  Lastly, many other clubs have gone to great lengths to provide exacting and detailed information on how to restore their cars.  One that comes immediately to mind is "Restoration Facts" for the 1941 Buick http://www.buickclub.org/old/1941.htm, which goes as far as to list what percentage of gloss black for each undercarriage part, etc., etc.  It certainly seems to me that there are enough people in this club who would want this to continue.  Jack, I hope you don't scrap your work.  I would hope that the club finds it of sufficient value to encourage (financially and otherwise) you to continue.  Information once lost can never be regained.

[Gordie]

Many factory photos and sales brochures are done months before the cars are finished and should not be relied on for accuracy as they are often of prototype cars and include features that are not on the final production cars.  Jack has not only used hundreds of factory photos but he has spent hours going thru parts books, literature, service bulletins, accessory bulletins and his huge private collection of dealer aids and all things Kaiser Frazer.  By meticulously going thru this material year by year he has determined when parts changes and improvements occurred and has documented all the changes in a booklet form for not only each year of car but each model as well.  The old regime is gone and it is time for us to get into the 21st century with our judging.  The information is there for the asking.  It just needs to be fined tuned and we can all help by making observations and suggestions about our own cars.  I don't care if it costs $1.25 or $25.00 to reproduce this material I would like one for each year and model of our cars just to learn more about them.  The material is badly needed by the club and as it is disseminated to the members it will be the final word for judging.  Most clubs have this material available to members and we can too.  Gordie Chamberlin  Former National President and Chief Judge of the Early Ford V-8 Club of America

[Kenn Evans II]

Jack I would like a copy of the info for my 3 Kaisers. We have a 49 Traveler 52 Manhattan and 52 deLuxe 4 dr my email is kennsnotavailable@yahoo.com and let me know where I can send a donation to further KF research and history.  Our 49 has 14k miles on it and has been in storage since 56. I can use info like this.

[Gordie]

Hello Char, as Chief Judge we have not heard from you regarding the available judging standards.  As you can see members want them and the Club sure does need them.  Is there any reason that we can not go ahead with their implementation?  Here is an opportunity to help make our restorations more authentic and not have to rely on memory by the judges in this important phase of club participation.  If we do not go forward on the judging standards we are flirting with losing all of these years of research and documentation on the different years and models of our cars.  What are your thoughts on this important issue?  Thanks,  Gordie Chamberlin