Ace-Garageguy

I use cheapo .020 shirt pins for a LOT of things, including kingpins in poseable steering setups. Plenty strong if Fido or the baybays don't play with your models...and cheap. NOBLNG's right about getting yourself a set of QUALITY wire number drills, and a decent pin vise to hold them. Get an inexpensive digital caliper too. It's always helpful to actually know what size wire you're using, and what size hole you're drilling (as the drills aren't always dead-on-the-money what they're marked). AND...when you stick the wire into your nice little hole, don't just put a blob of gloo on the end and shove it home. If you do that, gloo will squooze out around the base of your part and make a mess you'll have to clean up.

Frost on your nether regions can be avoided by wearing fur shorts.

"Show me the honey" said the bear to the bees in the woods.

Copper Kart (Kopper actually) was a custom truck from the time of the dinosaurs.

Years ago when "acrylic enamel" was a standard body-shop repair and refinish material, "hardener" was routinely added to topcoats to improve gloss and longevity and through-cure Though the professional automotive paints would dry just fine without it (and it was NOT considered a "2K" product) the stuff just worked better with hardener added...and didn't stink like enamel for months, either. I'd suspect that somebody doing the mixing at the paint supplier you guys are having problems with had an oopsie and left out a critical component. One-component enamels normally contain chemical "driers" that make the stuff dry (amazing, huh?), and mixing oopsies and other QC issues are becoming more common everywhere. PAINT DRIER OVERVIEW HERE (TLDR) https://www.goldstab.com/articles/types-of-driers-and-their-functions

Today is as good a day as any to do some crab-hammering, or just to get generally hammered.

Advice from the interdwerbs is very often not worth the electrons it takes to display it.

Ditto...and all my caches are clear on all my browsers and I've already upgraded to the o-so-much-mo-better "New Chrome". EDIT: And right now it's glitching like mad, dumping edits, etc. I'll be surprised if this posts.

The simple fact is that print media, and professional journalists in hobby fields, simply cannot compete with the somewhat unfortunate "democratization" of information distribution on the internet. Never mind that most of it's repetitive me-too-me-too drivel, and that a lot of those presenting themselves as experts just flat aren't. The lowest common denominator always seems to win out eventually in just about any human endeavor. I personally won't miss Model Railroader if it's gone forever though...much as I hate to say it. Last time I picked up a current issue, it was just a shadow of what it was in the glory days, like all the hard-core hot-rod mags that got de-contented and dumbed-down to the point of being useless to a serious participant in the field. The world is locked in a TLDR short-attention-span death spiral of intellectual laziness and incessant rebleating by the ignorant. And most of 'em don't know anything better ever existed...or care.

Very nice indeed.

The '55-'59 Chevy pickup frame is pretty flat too. Though this is an aftermarket setup with IFS, the configuration of the rails is stock. Here's one cheap https://www.ebay.com/itm/115941939321?

The '53-'56 Ford pickup chassis has almost no rear kickup, and these frames are readily available in reasonably priced kits. For reference, here's the OEM frame for your truck. https://www.dodgesweptline.org/tech_ref.htm

"Me me me me me me me me me me me me me..." is the sum total topic of conversation of some folks I know.

Well that sure bites a big one. Kalmbach started in 1934 with a very few pages stapled together into what would become Model Railroader Magazine, a major resource for that hobby for several generations that could read and liked and understood mechanical things.

Say da what wit da who?